III. Irène

1

Filippi asked me when I was planning to unlock my chastity belt; I told him I’d lost the key.

A year after being rejected by Aïda, I was practising abstinence and devoting myself to my training. I hadn’t gone up onto the cliff of the Cueva del Agua to watch the drunks squabbling; I hadn’t clung to the walls or cursed the saints; at last, I had grown up.

There is always life after failure; only death is final.

According to the Mozabite, love can’t be tamed, can’t be improvised, can’t be imposed; it takes two to build it equally. If it were up to just one, the other would be his potential ruin. When you chase it, you scare it and it runs away, and you never catch up with it.

Love is a matter of chance and luck. You turn a corner and there it is, an offering on your path. If it’s genuine, it gets better with time. And if it doesn’t last, it’s because you haven’t understood how to handle it.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t understood how to handle it. I hadn’t understood anything at all.

So I’d locked my heart away and listened to nothing but De Stefano’s instructions.

Nine fights, nine victories.

In the souks, the troubadours spiced up my story to dazzled audiences. The barbers of Medina Jedida adorned the front of their shops with my posters. Apparently, a famous cheikha sang about my victories at weddings.

One night, a carriage came for me in Rue du Général-Cérez. The coachman seemed straight out of an Eastern tale, with his red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, his smock shining with adornments and his tarboosh tilted over his ear. Some kind of pasha was with him, a man with a moustache like rams’ horns. They drove me to a large farm to the south of the city. In a courtyard garlanded with lanterns, a hundred guests were waiting for me. As soon as the carriage crossed the threshold of the property, tambourines, cymbals and darbukas launched into a frenzied cacophony. Black dancers bounced about in a trance. And She came towards me, ethereal, stately, regal, the legendary Caïda Halima, who was said to be as rich as ten dowagers and as powerful as the Queen of Sheba. ‘We’re proud of you, Turambo,’ said the woman who had subdued the Terras and was respected by prefects and powerful colonists. ‘This party’s for you. As well as celebrating your victories, it reminds us we’re not dead and buried.’

Aïda hadn’t led me astray: she had given me back to my people …

I was at my mother’s, enduring her neighbour’s screams. Since midday, the woman had been calling down curses on her brood of kids, who were making sleep impossible. The children would quieten for a moment then, blaming each other, resume their din. I’d had enough of putting the pillow over my face to muffle their cries. Wearily, I got dressed again and went out into the blazing heat of the city.

Gino was at home. He was waiting for Filippi, dressed like a young nabob in a shirt and tie, dark glasses on his handsome face, his forehead sporting a sophisticated fringe. Gino only ever wore made-to-measure suits from Storto and brand-name shoes. We hardly saw each other these days. Our nightly jaunts, the cafés-concerts, the cinema trips — all that was over. Gino had other priorities. In the street, the girls devoured him with their eyes. With his dashing looks and devastating smile, he just had to click his fingers to arouse passions. And yet nothing ever happened. Gino barely looked at them. Ever since the Duke had given him a little office on the second floor of his establishment, with a view of the plane tree, Gino had kept his tie on even on the hottest days and talked about nothing but business. Of course, he was fiercely defending my interests, but I missed him, and I didn’t know what to do with myself when he was busy elsewhere.

‘I suppose you have another urgent meeting to go to?’ I asked as he admired himself in the mirror.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t put it off.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘No idea. We may go to dinner afterwards. These are important people. We have to cultivate them.’

‘I see.’

‘Don’t make that face. It’s your career we’re working so hard for.’

‘Take it easy, Gino, or the day we finally make it I’ll be putting flowers on your grave.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because I’m fed up. You’re constantly shadowing the Duke, and I’m going round in circles.’

Gino adjusted his jacket collar and turned both ways to check the impeccable cut of his suit. ‘Turambo, my poor Turambo, millions of young men would like to be in your shoes, and you reduce the world to these little off-days of yours. Think about what you’ve become. You can’t go out on the street any more without a crowd mobbing you. You’re bored, are you? Some people don’t have that privilege. Take a look outside. People are working until they’re ready to drop just for a piece of bread. Think how much they’d give for a moment’s rest, instead of constantly wearing themselves out, slogging away in the hot sun, doing work even a beast of burden would refuse. Remember what you were just a few years ago and think of how far you’ve come. If you can’t be happy with that, it isn’t God’s fault.’

He took my chin between his thumb and index finger and looked me up and down.

‘You should sulk less and smile more, Turambo. Follow my example and do something about your image. There’s nothing worse than a jaded champion. Tidy yourself up and stop moaning.’

‘The Mozabite says: Only women are beautiful, men are just narcissists.’

Gino threw his head back and laughed. ‘That’s not so far from the truth … By the way, I almost forgot: the gym’s closed for work. The Duke’s planning to spend a fortune on a complete refurbishment. Now that we have a future North African champion, we can’t carry on working in a disused stable. The Duke has ordered a top-quality ring. We’re going to put in toilets, showers and a real office, repaint the walls, tile the floor, replace the windows. When you come back, you won’t believe your eyes.’

‘Come back from where?’

‘Didn’t De Stefano tell you?’

‘No.’

‘You’re going to Lourmel to prepare for your next match. To the house of a man named Alarcon Ventabren. Apparently, the best boxers often go there to get a change of scenery and do a bit of training. The Duke has spent lots of money so that you can benefit from the best facilities. You’re meeting Marcel Cargo in two months. And after that, with any luck, you’ll be able to make a claim on the title.’

Filippi didn’t look happy driving in the heat, sweating profusely in his chauffeur’s tunic. The summer was surpassing itself that late July of 1934. When we lowered the windows, the air burnt our faces; when we put them up, the car turned into an oven. In front of us, the road broke up into an endless chain of mirages. Not a bird ventured into the white-hot sky, not a leaf moved in the trees.

In the seat next to Filippi, Frédéric Pau sat brooding over old resentments. From time to time, he would make an exasperated gesture with his hand. Four of us watched him from the back seat: Gino, Salvo, De Stefano and me.

‘The Duke’s been giving him a hard time,’ Gino whispered in my ear.

On either side of the road, farms were bleached by the mother-of-pearl glare of the afternoon. The fields and orchards were deserted. Only a donkey with its forelegs tied was sliding down a steep path beneath its burden.

Frédéric at last stopped muttering to himself. He pointed to a fruit seller’s hut at the end of the road and asked Filippi to take the path just after it.

‘We can’t go to a person’s house empty-handed,’ I said.

We pulled up on the roadside next to the hut. The fruit seller was sleeping the sleep of the just, surrounded by piles of melons. He jumped up when he heard us slamming the doors, wound a moth-eaten turban round his head and apologised for having dozed off.

‘What’s your name?’ Frédéric asked.

‘Larbi, Monsieur.’

‘Another one!’ Frédéric cried, thinking of Madame Camélia’s servant. ‘Why do you all give yourselves the same name? Are you afraid you’ll be confused with the Turks or the Saracens?’

De Stefano didn’t greatly appreciate Frédéric’s rudeness. He gave me a meaningful look; I shrugged, immune to that kind of insult. The fruit seller was confused, unsure if the Frenchman was teasing him or scolding him. He cleared his throat and tugged at his collar. He was a short, emaciated man with a greyish-brown complexion, wearing a tattered sweater and mud-encrusted trousers. He had a Berber tattoo on the back of his hand and almost no teeth showed when he gave his embarrassed smile. We chose two huge watermelons, three melons and a basket of figs from Bousfer, got back in the car and climbed the path that wound between the arid hills. A few miles further on, we glimpsed a large stone house flanked by an outhouse and a stable. The car went through a gate, passed a trough and stopped at the foot of a tree. A pregnant woman ran to inform the master of the house of our arrival.

A plump man in his fifties came out in a wheelchair.

Frédéric took off his hat to greet him. ‘Pleased to see you again, Monsieur Ventabren. You know De Stefano …’

‘Of course, who doesn’t know De Stefano?’

‘The egghead next to him is Salvo, our second. At night, he turns into a ferret, and if you don’t have a padlock on your pantry, you won’t have a pantry left in the morning.’

Salvo attempted an ingratiating smile.

‘This handsome young man in shirt and tie is our accountant Gino. And last but not least, Turambo, a walking legend.’

‘And I’m Filippi!’ cried the Corsican, who was still in the car.

‘Well, gentlemen, you’ve arrived just in time for an aperitif,’ the man in the wheelchair said.

‘In this heat? Cold water would suffice.’

‘Fatma has made lemonade. Please come in.’

It felt good inside. We entered a drawing room furnished with a rustic table, a very old sideboard and a padded bench seat. On a badly proportioned mantelpiece, framed photographs showed a young boxer posing for posterity.

‘The good old days,’ our host sighed.

He invited us to sit down at the table. Fatma, the pregnant woman, served us glasses of lemonade and withdrew. Ventabren let us quench our thirst before announcing that his daughter would be there soon and that she would be in charge of showing us our ‘quarters’.

Frédéric noticed some paintings stacked in a corner. He stood up to examine them closely.

‘I paint in my spare time,’ Ventabren said, coming up behind Frédéric in his wheelchair.

‘You have talent,’ Frédéric admitted after glancing at the canvases.

‘One has to earn a living. My hands dream of brushes but my fists demand gloves. The defeated warrior who wants to eat his fill, even if he has the soul of an artist, chooses to be a brigand.’

‘You’re not a brigand, Monsieur Ventabren. You have a way of capturing the sea that absol—’

‘It isn’t the sea, it’s the sky,’ came a woman’s voice from behind us. ‘You’re holding the canvas upside down.’

A young woman was standing in the entrance hall. She was wearing a red scarf around her neck, a shirt with a low neckline, riding trousers that emphasised the curve of her hips and knee-length boots. In her hand she held a plaited riding crop.

‘If you’re interested in the painting, we can give you a good price,’ she went on.

‘It’s just …’ Frédéric stammered, taken aback, ‘… Monsieur Bollocq likes this kind of painting.’

‘It’s called a gouache.’

‘Of course, a gouache. I’m convinced Monsieur Bollocq will love it.’

‘I don’t suppose he’s very knowledgeable.’

‘But he has good taste, I assure you.’

‘In that case, it’s sold. His price will be ours.’

The young woman gave off a strong sense of authority that immediately intimidated us. She didn’t so much speak as machine-gun the words out of her mouth. Every time her remarks hit home, she would flick her thigh with her riding crop and raise her voice even more as if she were trying to drive Frédéric into a corner. His growing embarrassment inspired in her an arrogance that verged on aggressiveness. But my God, how beautiful she was, with a rebellious, almost wild beauty, with her black hair gathered in a ponytail and her piercing eyes.

At a loss, Frédéric didn’t know whether to put the painting down or hold in to it.

Ventabren came to his rescue. ‘Gentlemen, this charming young lady is my daughter Irène. She has no fear of lightning or sunstroke. At an hour when not even a lizard would venture outside, she rides all over the estate on her horse.’

‘My mare, Papa … I’ll change and then I’m all yours,’ she said to us as she went upstairs.

Alarcon Ventabren watched us out of the corner of his eye, flattered by our heavy silence. De Stefano leant over to me and asked me in a whisper if I remembered the girl galloping flat out over the hill on the morning of my very first fight at Aïn Témouchent. I didn’t reply, my eyes fixed on the place where the young woman had been standing a few moments earlier. In reality, I wasn’t seeing the hall, but that white dawn stretched like a screen across which a beautiful horsewoman had ridden to seize the day.

She joined us in the drawing room. She had freshened up, changed her shirt and replaced her boots with hemp-soled sandals. Although she was young, she seemed so mature that it was hard to estimate her age. In her hardened gaze, which kept everything it touched at a distance, you sensed an inflexible strength of character. She wasn’t the kind of woman to blush at flattery or overlook an inappropriate remark. I was impressed.

She led us to the outhouse, where there were tidy bunk beds for four people. The sheets were new and the pillows covered in embroidered percale. There was a table with an indigo tablecloth on it, four wooden chairs, a jug on an enamelled tray, a basket of fruit, and a rug on the floor. A crude painting of a boxing match occupied much of one of the walls; it was signed A. Ventabren. Two oil lamps hung from the ceiling beams, their glass clean and the wicks new.

After the ‘dormitory’, Irène showed us into a large adjoining room equipped with a punch bag, a punching ball, wall bars and other bodybuilding tools.

‘Where are the toilets?’ Salvo asked.

‘We say lavatories, Monsieur,’ the young woman shouted at him. ‘They’re outside, behind the carob tree. As for the bath, we don’t have running water, but we do have a well.’

Frédéric asked me if that was all right with me and I said it was.

Alarcon Ventabren insisted that we stay for dinner. Oran being only some twenty-five miles away, we accepted the invitation. While waiting for night to fall, he showed us around the property. Apart from mastic trees, nothing grew in that stony earth stripped bare by the winds from the sea. Ventabren told us that he had chosen to settle here for only one reason: he loved listening to the wind whistle past his window at night. Above all, he had a stunning view over the plain; from the top of his hill, he was ‘closer to God than men’. He told us he had never wanted to become a farmer. He didn’t care for it and certainly had no vocation. After his career as a boxer had ended, he had come here for a well-earned rest. In order to make ends meet, he had built a little gym where a few stars of the ring came to train. The purity of the air, the isolation of the farm and the surrounding calm, he insisted, ensured that a fighter could prepare mentally and physically in the best possible conditions.

The sun was going down. Gino, Filippi and Frédéric stood round the former champion at the foot of a tree; Salvo was tormenting a Barbary fig in search of a ripe fruit. Below the hill, Fatma was going back to her douar, astride a donkey, escorted by a little boy. As for Irène, she had left after showing us our quarters.

I sat on the edge of the well, savouring the shade the setting sun had brought to a countryside severely afflicted by the heatwave. A breeze came up from the coast, as light and gentle as a caress. From my makeshift observation post, I could see everything, capture everything, even the creaking of the stones imploring the evening to relieve them of their burns. Screwing up my eyes, I could make out the steeple of a church in the heart of a little town fading into the twilight. You could sense the sea just behind the mountains, mocking the heat now struggling for breath. I had the impression I was leaving the hullabaloo of the city and its pollution far behind and recovering my senses, now wiped clean of their detritus and totally calm.

Dinner was served in the main hall. As the maid had gone home, Irène took over. She came and went from the kitchen to the table, her arms laden with trays, carafes and baskets of fruit, paying no attention to our chatter. Her father told us about his various fights in Algeria, France and elsewhere, praising some of his opponents, cursing others. Carried away, he would almost rise in his chair, shadow-box and dodge imaginary attacks to show us that he was still skilful and flexible. He was a fascinating character: he would describe the fights as if we were watching them live, which was incredibly exciting. He was so amazingly vivacious, we wouldn’t have noticed if he’d got up and started walking. I found it hard to accept that such a strong man could ever resign himself to being trapped in a wheelchair.

‘I’ve been told you lost the use of your legs in the ring, Monsieur,’ I said.

Irène stiffened at the end of the table. For a fraction of a second, there was a kind of flicker in her impassive eyes. ‘My father doesn’t like to talk about that,’ she said, glaring at me and gathering up the soup tureen.

‘I don’t mind, sweetheart.’

‘But I do.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said to avoid any further upset.

‘Our guest is a boxer,’ Ventabren said in a placatory tone. ‘He has to know these things so as to watch out for them.’

Irène turned and stormed out.

‘I’m sorry, Monsieur Ventabren,’ I said, no longer knowing what to do with my spoon.

‘It’s all right. Irène is still upset about the whole thing. That’s how women are. As far as they’re concerned, no wound ever heals completely.’

He poured himself a drink.

‘It did happen in a ring,’ he went on. ‘In Minneapolis, on 17 April 1916. I was almost thirty-five and I wanted to retire in style. I was twice North African champion, French champion and ranked second in the whole world. A friend of mine, an influential English businessman, suggested I end on a high note with a gala match. I was booked to meet James Eastwalker, a black American, a former light heavyweight who’d become a wrestler. Not knowing the man, I thought I was being offered a chance for a last stand. It wasn’t like that at all. I was being put on display like a circus animal. I was so disappointed, I refused to get in the ring. Then someone said I was chickening out and my Algerian blood was roused. It was a real bloodbath. The black man punched like a blacksmith. And me like Vulcan. It was obvious that one of us would not make it out of there. But I lost my temper and, in a match between two madmen, losing your temper is unforgivable. I tell you that because you have to get it into your head. When you lose your temper, you don’t think. You hit out and you lose sight of the basics. I don’t know how I left my sides unprotected. An anvil came down on my pelvis, compressing my stomach. I fell to one knee just as the bell rang, but the black man pretended not to have heard, and his other fist, the stronger one, smashed into my chin while I was trying to recover my senses and get my breath back. I went over the ropes and fell on the corner of the judges’ table. I heard my back crack and I blacked out.’

‘What happened then?’

‘In boxing, son, it’s when you think you’ve made it that everything goes wrong. I’d gone to America in triumph and I came back home in a wheelchair.’

After dinner, Frédéric and Gino got in the car and begged Filippi to drive them back to Oran. De Stefano, Salvo and I continued talking to Ventabren late into the night, sitting on the porch round a lantern bombarded by insects. It felt good. An invigorating coolness bathed the countryside. From time to time, you could hear the howl of a jackal, immediately answered by stray dogs in the darkness.

Ventabren talked a lot. It was as if he was sweeping away the cobwebs from a century of silence. He could talk for hours on end without letting anyone else get a word in edgeways. He was aware of it, but how to stop? Confined to his chair, he spent most of his time gazing out at the plain and confronting his memories. His nearest neighbour was miles away, below the hills, too busy taking care of his vines to pay him a visit.

De Stefano was getting bored. However many times he took out his pocket watch to indicate to our host that it was getting late, it was impossible to stop the flow of words. It was Salvo who put an end to Ventabren’s chatter. He told our host that if we wanted to get up at dawn and take full advantage of the time for training, we should go to bed now. Even then, Ventabren felt he had to tell us one last anecdote before letting us go.

We lit the two oil lamps in the outhouse. De Stefano undressed in front of us; he took off his pants without any embarrassment and lay down on the sheets. He was hairy from head to foot, with clumps of thick hair on his shoulders and a horrible curly fleece on his chest. Salvo thought his backside was like an orang-utan’s and advised him to ‘give his left posterior a trim’ if he didn’t want a colony of creepy-crawlies to invade it. ‘I’d happily offer you my right posterior so that you can show me the extent of your expertise,’ De Stefano retorted. We laughed a lot before turning out the lights.

Through the skylight next to my bunk, I could see the upstairs window of the main house. The light was on and it cast Irène’s silhouette on the red curtain as she undressed. She too went to bed in the nude. When she switched off the light, the night was at last able to reclaim the whole of the countryside.

2

The Duke had chosen the right place for me to recharge my batteries. What a joy it was to wake up in the morning far from the din of the souks and the fish markets! No dumping carts, no motor horns, no iron shutters being raised with a terrifying racket. The calm of the countryside was so perfect that the dream continued long after I got out of bed. I washed my face in the trough, breathed in the smells of the uncultivated fields and the orchards that reached us from the bottom of the plain, put my hands on my hips and let my gaze become one with the landscape. Emerging out of nowhere, the braying of a donkey gave me back the authenticity of the world, while the sight of a shrew running wildly in the dry grass aroused in me a sublime sense of simplicity. It was magical. I saw myself as a child standing on a large rock, wondering what there was behind the horizon. I wanted to stay there for all eternity, my peasant streak awakening in me.

We had been at the farm for a week. At dawn, De Stefano, Salvo and I would set off to conquer the ridges, not to return until lunchtime, sweating, tongues hanging out, but happy. Once we had eaten, we resumed training. After working on the punch bag and practising my feints and dodges, I’d give myself over to Salvo’s restorative massage. In the evening, we joined Ventabren under a tree and drifted through more of his inexhaustible supply of stories. Apart from the spluttering van of the milkman, who appeared every day at nine, we might have been cut off from civilisation.

Whenever the milkman showed up, he shattered the peace of the countryside. He was a man in his early fifties who didn’t look anyone in the face, but was useful for passing on the juicy gossip he had picked up in the surrounding villages. I didn’t pay much attention to his indiscretions. I’d go so far as to say I didn’t like him. He was a strange, shady character, furtive and lecherous, with crafty eyes, and he was also a pervert — I had surprised him with his nose pressed to the window, spying on Fatma in the kitchen and masturbating. He really disgusted me. Seeing him jumping into his van and leaving the farm was, for me, a moment of deliverance, like the sudden disappearance of a splitting headache.

De Stefano, Salvo and I enjoyed ourselves a lot. One morning, we set off to see the sea. We hoisted bags filled with food and drink on our shoulders and climbed the mountain. It took us four hours to reach the dome of a saint’s tomb at the summit. There, we halted and gazed at the sea until we felt as if we were drowning in it.

Irène seldom had lunch with us. I had the impression she didn’t feel comfortable at the farm. Her relationship with her father left a lot to be desired. They hardly spoke to each other. Whenever Alarcon Ventabren started to talk about his life as a champion, Irène would ostentatiously slip away. Something wasn’t right between father and daughter. They lived together as if bound by a moral contract — he clinging to his bygone exploits, she glued to her saddle — but showed no real affection for each other.

Salvo asked if Ventabren was a widower or divorced, but Ventabren preferred to talk about his father. ‘I don’t miss him,’ he told me one evening between two glasses of Phénix anisette. ‘My old man was always either hanging around the seedy parts of town or in prison. When he was young, fascinated by easy money and the shenanigans that go with it, his ambition was to become a gang boss, except that he really wasn’t cut out for it. He hoped to pimp a herd of prostitutes, surround himself with a gang of crooks with scarred faces and live on his income until a rival unseated him. Having fleeced a few lonely old biddies and extorted money from one or two small shopkeepers, he could already see himself swaggering down the boulevards, a beret pulled down low, his fingers covered in huge rings. He’d get into fights at the drop of a hat, in the hope of creating a legend for himself, and never stopped getting his face smashed in by lowlifes on every street corner. The fact was, nobody took him seriously. They all knew he was a loudmouth, full of hot air, and they knew he’d never amount to anything. Coming out of a long stay in prison, my father dreamt of settling down, except that he wasn’t cut out for starting a family either. He lived like an animal, with no presence of mind and no sense of responsibility. He married my mother for her jewellery. Having stripped her of her last centime and gnawed her to the bone, he kept her for practical purposes — at least, that way, he could use our house as a hideout when he had thugs after him. He never took me in his arms. People in the street might ruffle my hair, but not him. Just once, when he’d come home to choose a piece of furniture to sell off, he found me sitting in the doorway of our house and called me by the wrong name. That was the day I realised how much of a stranger he was to me. Then overnight, he vanished into thin air. Some say he stowed away on a liner leaving for the Americas, others that he’d got himself killed in Marseilles. In the 1880s, a man’s life could just go up in smoke and leave no trace. No point searching for him. There were more urgent things to deal with, and not enough time.’

I couldn’t help thinking about my own father every time Ventabren dug up the ghost of his. I saw the Jewish cemetery again, that ragged man closing the gate as if closing the door on a chapter of my life, and a sense of grief again took root in me.

Irène loathed her father’s stories. She’d stay as far away from us as possible in order not to hear a word. Ventabren couldn’t tell a story without turning a party into a wake. He was perfectly well aware of it, but couldn’t help it.

We had dinner later and later to allow our host to make the most of our presence. He was pleased to have us with him, and doubly so when he realised how receptive we were. At the age of fifty-five, Ventabren’s eyes were turned to the past; ahead of him, there was nothing but a terrible blank.

Every night, when we switched off the light in the outhouse to sleep, I would look through my skylight at the lighted window on the first floor of the main house and wait to see Irène’s silhouette. When it appeared on the curtain, I’d watch, unable to take my eyes off it, until the darkness stole it from me; and if it didn’t appear, the shadows would creep over even my most private thoughts and I would get no sleep.

My first face-to-face encounter with Irène was a disaster. I was sitting on the edge of the well. Irène appeared with a rubber bucket, attached it to the pulley rope and flung it into the hole. I took hold of the rope to help her raise the bucket back up. Instead of thanking me, she told me to mind my own business.

‘I was only trying to help, Madame.’

‘I have a servant for that!’ she retorted, grabbing the rope from me.

The next day, as I was finishing my morning cross-country run, our paths crossed again. There was a spring in the hollow of a talweg a few miles from the farm. I liked to dip my feet in it after a last sprint. The water was as cold as if it had come from a block of ice. That morning, Irène had got there ahead of me. She was squatting on a mound of earth, watching her mare drink. I turned back so as not to have to say anything to her. She rode after me and caught up with me on the hillside.

‘Nobody owns that spring,’ she said. ‘You can use it.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘I don’t know what was the matter with me yesterday.’

‘It’s not important.’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘It’s all forgotten.’

‘Really?’

‘…’

She dismounted and walked beside me. Her perfume wafted around her. She had tied her shirt around her waist, uncovering her flat belly. Her luxuriant breasts jiggled at each step, barely contained by the shirt.

‘I don’t like people doing things for me that I can do myself,’ she said. ‘It annoys me. I have the feeling they confuse me with my father, don’t you see?’

‘No.’

‘You’re right. It was stupid. I see you’re still angry.’

‘With good reason.’

‘I was horrible, but it’s not in my nature.’

I nodded.

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three, Madame.’

‘Madame? Do I look like a constipated old tart?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I’m only six years older than you.’

‘You don’t look it, Madame.’

‘Stop calling me Madame. It doesn’t make me feel any younger.’

I wished she would go away.

She stooped to pick a twig up from the ground and her shirt gaped open even more, freeing a firm white breast. She replaced it as if nothing had happened.

‘In the evening, from my room, I can hear my father pestering you with his stories and I feel sorry for you. You should stop him; he could go on all night.’

‘It doesn’t bother us.’

‘How touching! I suppose he’s letting you know what awaits you when you retire. All boxers end up as mad as him.’

‘Why mad?’

‘You have to be mad to choose getting knocks on your head and blood on your face as a career, don’t you?’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘What do you believe in? Glory? There’s only one kind: a settled family life. That’s all that matters. You can be in heaven, talking to the angels, but if, when you go home, you go back to hell, you’ve really missed the point. My father had everything you need to be happy, a loving wife, a healthy daughter. He never saw them. The only things he cared about were the ringing of the bell and the cheers of the crowd. He died the day he hung up his gloves. Even now, he hasn’t come back to life.’

‘That’s how it goes,’ I said, short on arguments.

‘I don’t agree. No career lasts. One day, you’ll come up against someone stronger than you. Your fans will yell at you to get up, but you won’t hear them. Because everything will be vague and blurred around you. They’ll insult you and curse you, and then they’ll cheer on another gladiator with fresher blood than yours. It’s always been like that in the arena. The spectators have memories as short as their arms. Nobody will dream of helping you back on your feet. In boxing, the gods must have short lives for the passion to be recycled.’

‘It’s the risk we take.’

She got back on her mare. ‘No risk is worth it, champion.’

‘There’s no life without risk.’

‘I agree. But there are those who are subjected to it against their will and those who provoke it and even demand it as a kind of blessing.’

‘Everyone has their own way of seeing things.’

‘Men don’t see things, they fantasise about them.’

‘What about women?’

‘Women don’t think like men. We think the right way; you just think about yourselves. We can immediately home in on what’s essential while you spread yourselves too thinly. Happiness for us is in the harmony of our surroundings. For you, happiness is in conquest and excess. You distrust what’s obvious like the plague and look elsewhere for what’s within your reach. That’s why you end up losing sight of what was yours from the start.’

She pulled on the bridle, made an about-turn and rode off across the plain.

When Filippi came to fetch us, Irène wasn’t there to say goodbye to us. She had left at dawn on her mare, giving our stay an unfinished feeling. Something in that young woman was calling out to me, but I refused to listen. I needed to keep a cool head, not let myself get drawn into any more adventures where the heart has no grip on reason. All the same, getting in the back seat of the car, I couldn’t help turning in all directions in the hope of seeing her come galloping back to the house.

The little square along Rue Wagram was fluttering with pennants. Garlands of paper lanterns and paper stars intertwined in the air. The road had been swept and the paving stones and tree trunks at the crossroads had been whitewashed. The shopkeepers stood in their doorways, arms folded over their chests; kids waited impatiently at the foot of the fences, feverish and unruly; journalists were scribbling in their notepads; all eyes were on the gym with its freshly painted front. The masons and craftsmen had surpassed themselves: the window panes gleamed; the wooden door looked brand new; inside, photographs and framed posters of some of the gods of world boxing adorned the now white walls. Turkish-style toilets had been installed, with taps and showers, and instead of the cubicle there was a real office complete with metal filing cabinet, shelves and cane chairs. As for the ring, it was a magnificent piece of work lit by a spotlight.

De Stefano was smiling from ear to ear. His dream was taking shape. He had been waiting for this moment for years. Stamping nervously, he walked up and down the room, his hands clasped behind his back.

Shaved and scented, his hair washed and oiled, Tobias must have turned his attic upside down to unearth the faded but newly ironed suit he wore with pride.

‘Did you have that undertaker’s costume made by a stonecutter?’ Salvo teased him.

‘No, by your fat sow of a sister.’

‘You should have put on a pair of shorts. How else are they going to admire your fabulous wooden leg?’

‘You know why you’re still alive, Salvo?’ Tobias said, annoyed. ‘Because ridicule has never killed anyone.’

‘No, I mean it. A wooden leg is quite a draw.’

‘Let me tell you something, egghead. I don’t believe in God for a second, but when I see the mug he gave you, I almost feel like singing his praises.’

‘They’re coming!’ someone yelled from the street.

Immediately, the kids left their fence and came and formed two lines outside the door of the gym. Six cars drew up at the crossroads. The Duke, the mayor and a delegation of dignitaries got out with great pomp and gladly posed for the frenzy of photographers. ‘Oran has a fine history,’ the mayor declared to the journalists. ‘Now it is up to us to give her heroes. Soon, due to everyone’s hard work, this establishment will produce great champions.’ The journalists trooped into the gym behind the dignitaries, while the police pushed back the children. Flashbulbs exploded. A film camera was turning.

The delegation inspected the various parts of the gym and congratulated Monsieur Bollocq on the remarkable work he had carried out.

‘Who are these strapping fellows on the posters, Michel?’ the prefect asked.

The Duke, who couldn’t answer, turned to Frédéric, who was at the back. He elbowed his way through the swarm of journalists and reverently indicated the pictures on the walls.

‘These are the greatest boxers in the world, Monsieur. That one’s our national hero, Georges Carpentier, middleweight champion of the world.’

‘It’s an old photograph,’ the mayor said in a learned tone, indicating to Frédéric that it was to him, the elected head of the city, that explanations were due.

‘No, Monsieur, it’s quite recent.’

‘I thought he was older.’

Frédéric realised that the mayor didn’t know much about boxing and that his intervention was a pure formality. ‘Battling Levinsky, an American our Georges knocked out in the fourth round in Jersey City on 12 October 1920,’ he went on. ‘To his right, Tommy Loughran, another American. This one’s Mike McTigue, he’s Irish. Maxie Rosenbloom, American, he’s the current world champion; Jack Delaney, Canadian; Battling Siki, French …’

De Stefano had been expecting to be invited to the ceremony, but neither he nor I nor anyone from our team were shown any consideration. The dignitaries blithely ignored us.

‘If you’d put on shorts, these venerable gentlemen would have been curious enough to ask you if your wooden leg blossomed in the spring,’ Salvo whispered to Tobias. ‘You could have told them about your bravery in the trenches, and in less than a week a medal would have arrived in the post. And we wouldn’t be here gathering dust in the shadows.’

‘We don’t count,’ De Stefano grumbled.

‘It’s because of Tobias’s suit,’ Salvo said. ‘It stinks of bad luck and these gentlemen are afraid it’ll contaminate their fine clothes.’

‘That’s enough,’ De Stefano said. ‘You’re bad jokes are staring to piss us off.’

His speech over, Frédéric was relegated once again to the background, and the Duke invited his guests to continue their visit.

Aggrieved, I went out in the street. The kids had gone back to their corner. Francis, who’d been giving us the cold shoulder since the biased article in Le Petit Oranais, was standing in a carriage entrance, puffing on a cigarette and distractedly stroking a cat with the tip of his shoe. Further back, Gino was leaning on the door of the Duke’s personal car. He hadn’t even taken the trouble to come and say hello to us. Elegant in his neatly fitting three-piece suit, his smile radiant and his face half hidden by dark glasses, he was flirting with Louise, the Duke’s daughter, who was wriggling with pleasure in the back seat. I felt my chest tighten and I quickly turned into an adjoining alley and hurried back to Medina Jedida.

My mother was relaxing in the courtyard. Her Kabyle neighbour, who’d been keeping her company, slipped away when she heard me open the outside door. She walked through the beams of light that filtered through the gaps in the trelliswork like an optical effect. We had been living together for years, but not once had I managed to glimpse her face. She was a discreet, self-effacing woman; all we knew of her were the hoarse cries she aimed at her little devils all day long.

Wearily, my mother sat up. She had aged. Her tattooed face was like a chewed-up old parchment. Of course, with the money I was earning she was eating and dressing properly but, cut off from her sister Rokaya, she lived mechanically, disorientated in this city with its overwhelming noise and bustle. She missed her native village and the people she had once known. My gifts gave her less and less pleasure. My chosen profession worried her. Whenever I got back from a fight, my face bearing the marks of my opponents’ punches, she would go to her room and pray. As far as she was concerned, I was merely a madman who got into fights all the time, and she dreaded the day when the police would throw me into prison. However much I tried to explain to her that it was a sport, all she could see in my new vocation was violence and distress.

I kissed her on the head. She put her arm round my neck. ‘He’s back,’ she said in a toneless voice.

There was a gleam in her eyes that was impossible to decipher, but I didn’t need to ask her who she meant. I headed for the main room, and there he was, sitting cross-legged on a mat, wrapped in a frayed cape, his head bowed, his shoulders hunched, barely visible beneath its shroud of misery. I stood in the doorway, waiting for him to look up. He didn’t move. It was as if he had died while meditating. His hands rested in his lap like two dead crustaceans. His trousers were torn at the knees and clumsily patched on the sides. He smelt of cold sweat and the dust of remote roads, and in the way he held himself bent over his silence there was a kind of surrender that was pathetic in its despair.

Trembling, more moved than I ever thought I could be, I crouched in front of him and reached out my hand to his. At the contact, a shudder went through me. He remained quite still, not moving a muscle.

‘Father,’ I said, almost inaudibly.

He sniffed.

With the tip of my finger, I lifted his head. His broken face was bathed in tears. I took him in my arms and clasped the bundle of bones he had become. We both wept, stifling our sobs as if the whole world might hear us.

3

When something keeps turning round and round in your head, the streets do the same. I wasn’t walking, I was going round in circles. I’d intended to go to the café on the corner of Boulevard Mascara and Rue de Tlemcen, but found myself at the bottom of Boulevard National. I’d passed the café without even noticing. My steps led me to the seafront. Again, leaning on the guardrail, I wondered what I was doing there. The harbour hid the sea from me, and the buildings behind me blocked my retreat. I climbed back up to Place d’Armes, only to stop at the foot of a monument and realise that I’d come the wrong way. I wasn’t in the street: I was in my head. It was as if a mischievous dream were playing with my sense of direction. At first, I thought it was my father’s return that had sent my head spinning, but I was wrong. My father was merely a vase abandoned in a corner, a shadow in the gloom. He didn’t speak, preferred to eat alone, locked inside his shell. In comparison with him, the sideboard cut a finer figure.

A cooper stopped me outside a warehouse. ‘The people in my village have clubbed together to buy a wireless so we can listen to your fights.’

His voice made my head hurt.

It was Sunday. With families having left for the beach, Oran was drained of life. The avenues were almost empty. Only a few shops were open and there weren’t many people in the cafés. I had the feeling I was lost in an imaginary city stretching on all sides of me through an endless succession of elusive reflections, distorting mirrors, concealed doors and patches of quicksand. I heard voices, met people, shook hands in a kind of fog. I was drifting, not knowing what to do with myself.

I hadn’t planned anything for that day. So I was surprised to end up outside the hut of Larbi the fruit seller. My shoes weren’t suited to the uneven path that led to the Ventabren farm, but that wasn’t a sufficient pretext to turn back. If I was here, twenty-five miles from home, on a whim, there must have been a reason.

By the time I reached the farm, my feet were inflamed. Alerted by Fatma, Alarcon Ventabren was waiting for me under the tree in the courtyard, in his wheelchair. He was pleased to see me. He told me that since our departure the silence of the countryside had been like lead. Even the air, he added, smelt of stale ashes.

‘It’s very kind of you to come back and keep me company,’ he said in Arabic. ‘I’m really touched.’

‘I need your advice,’ I lied.

‘Well, you’ve come to the right place, my friend. A drink before we eat?’

‘I’m a Muslim, Monsieur.’

‘Do you think God is watching us at this hour? At his age, he must be fast asleep in this heat.’

‘You mustn’t talk like that, Monsieur Ventabren. It makes me uncomfortable.’

‘How can you possibly sit through my cock-and-bull stories if I don’t get you drunk beforehand?’

‘I’ll appreciate them more if I stay sober.’

He laughed. ‘Show me your fist, son. Someone told me it’s carved out of bronze.’ He took my wrist, turned it over and over, weighed it up. ‘Fine piece of workmanship,’ he admitted. ‘Try not to stick it just anywhere.’

‘I’ll try, Monsieur.’

After the meal, Fatma served us mint tea. A slight breeze ruffled the foliage above our heads. I helped Ventabren to sit up in his chair, straightening the cushion that protected him from the hard back.

‘Your next match is soon, isn’t it?’

‘The end of next month, Monsieur.’

‘I hear that Cargo fellow’s a tough customer.’

‘I don’t know him.’

‘That’s a bad mistake. You have to know the man you’re going to meet. What do your staff do? Twiddle their thumbs? In my day, we sent spies to gather as much information as possible on the opponent. I knew everything about mine: how he boxed, his technique, his strong points, his failings, his latest fights, which hand he wiped his arse with, the kind of brush he used on his hair. And even then there was always something missing. You don’t climb into a ring blindly.’

He fell silent.

Irène had just come out of the house in her riding gear, her eyes more beautiful than the stars in the sky. She leant one shoulder against the pillar of the porch, arms folded over her chest. I immediately understood the reason that had led me to the farm: I needed to see her, to feel her close to me.

‘Don’t you have any more stories to tell each other?’ she berated us.

With that, she headed for the stable. A few minutes later, she galloped away on her mare towards the plain. I was no longer prepared to listen to anyone.

With Irène gone, the farm had lost its soul.

When the heat eased off, I took my leave of Ventabren, walked back to the road and waited for the bus.

*

The next day, I demanded that Frédéric Pau send me back to the farm to get ready for my fight with Marcel Cargo. The Duke didn’t see any reason why not. De Stefano apologised: he wouldn’t be available before the end of the week because of a family problem. Only Salvo went with me. We found ourselves back in the outhouse, waking up at dawn, running up the vertiginous paths, climbing big rocks and staying up late round lanterns bombarded by insects, much to Ventabren’s delight; every night, I would watch the window opposite my skylight.

Irène sometimes joined us at mealtimes. She often smiled at me, but I mistrusted her mood swings. The woman was like a rifle. She fired at point-blank range and hit home with every shot. Whenever she joined us, Ventabren would abandon his epic stories. As for Salvo, he would swallow his sarcastic remarks and keep his eyes on his plate. Put in his place on two occasions, he knew he was helpless against Irène, who didn’t really like him. He had tried to outsmart her and had ended up realising that this was no fun. Irène had the insolent self-confidence of challenges won in advance. As no ulterior motive ever escaped her, she would intercept ours before they were even conceived. Nevertheless, we enjoyed her company. She brought a kind of freshness to our meals.

After my morning runs, while Salvo was walking back to the farm, I would go and cool down at the spring. In truth, I was hoping to meet Irène. The first few days, she didn’t go there to water her mare, then, just as I was starting to despair, she appeared like a blessed ray of sunlight.

She dismounted, slapped her mare’s rump and crouched on a stone. ‘I’m exhausted.’

‘You should spare your animal.’

‘She’s my mobile garden.’ She stood up, approached her mare and caressed its coat. ‘When I was little, I wanted to be a champion rider.’

‘Didn’t your father approve?’

‘No, Jean-Louis came along. He was handsome, intelligent and funny. I was a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old. I fell into his arms like a ripe fruit. We married without waiting. I was happy, and I thought it was going to be like that all my life.’

‘What happened?’

‘What usually happens in marriages that are too quiet. Jean-Louis started coming home later and later. He was from the city; the calm of the countryside made him nervous. One evening, he put his hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eye and told me he was sorry. And he walked out of my life.’

‘He was wrong. I’d never leave such a pretty girl.’

‘That’s what he said at the start.’ Her smile returned. ‘Do you like horses, Monsieur Turambo?’

‘We had a donkey once.’

‘It’s not the same. Horses are noble and they’re therapeutic. When I’m fed up, I jump in the saddle and gallop to the mountains. I feel so light that no anxiety can weigh me down. I love to feel the wind in my face. I love it when it rushes under my shirt and takes me by the waist like a lover … Sometimes I even have an orgasm that way.’

The crudity of her words took me aback.

She burst out laughing. ‘You’re blushing.’

‘I’m not used to hearing women talk like that.’

‘That only shows you don’t spend enough time with them.’

She pulled on the bridle of her mare and started on her way. I walked beside her, embarrassed. She kept throwing me sly glances and chuckling.

‘There’s nothing shameful about an orgasm, Monsieur Turambo. It’s a moment of grace that restores us to our cardinal senses.’

Her theory only embarrassed me even more.

‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

‘Our traditions don’t allow it.’

‘So it’s either marriage or sin?’

‘That’s about it.’

‘Are you engaged to be married, then?’

‘Not yet. I have to think of my career.’

‘How do you plan to hold out until you marry?’

I felt my ears burning.

She burst out laughing again. With acrobatic agility, she got back in the saddle. ‘Is Turambo your real name?’

‘It’s my nickname.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know. It’s the name of my village.’

‘I see. What’s your real name?’

‘I prefer the name of my village. At least that way I know where I come from.’

‘Because you don’t know who your parents are?’

‘It’s not that. It’s my choice.’

‘Well, Monsieur Turambo, you may look like a brute, but you have the soul of a cherub. And though you may always lack daring, please keep your soul. I’ll leave you to your exercises and go back to my ovens. You can’t cook with secrets.’

She spurred her mare, then stopped after a few paces.

‘There’s a dance in Lourmel tomorrow night. How would you like to be my partner?’

‘I can’t dance.’

‘We’ll watch the others.’

‘All right.’

She raised her hand in a salute and rode off in the direction of the farm.

I watched her until she disappeared behind the hillocks. As she galloped away, I dreamt of being the wind under her shirt. My heart was beating so loudly, I decided not to continue with my exercises. Irène had the power to elevate the basest instincts to the level of great exploits, and then to silence them just by raising a finger to her mouth.

I felt an obsession growing in me, one that would never leave me.

I had been on tenterhooks, waiting for evening to come. I sat in the drawing room, eyes turned to the staircase that led to the first floor. Irène was taking her time. I had heard her having a shower, but she was still getting ready. When at last she appeared at the top of the stairs, I thought she was like something out of a dream, in her white dress with its tight bodice and her hair down to her shoulders. She reminded me of those American actresses who burst through the screen, relegating the sets and their co-stars to the background.

We cut across the fields to get to Lourmel. In the distance, villages dotted the plain like tiny will-o’-the-wisps. It was a fine night. The full moon wanted the sky for itself, reducing the stars to tiny glimmers. Along with the sound of rodents scurrying through the undergrowth, the air smelt of coral, seaweed engorged with salt and the foam of the reef. It was as if, pining for the earth that belonged to man, the sea had disguised itself as a breeze and had come to ruffle the orchards, move up and down the inlets and tease the church steeples.

A jackal followed us as far as the asphalted road before turning back, empty-handed and disconcerted.

Irène strode on calmly in her summer dress and canvas sandals. I had become used to seeing her in shirt and trousers, looking like a tomboy; discovering her as a radiant young girl was a delight. Her perfume filled the countryside with fragrance. A thousand times, my hand brushed against hers without catching hold of it. I was afraid she would react angrily and put me in my place. Irène was as unpredictable as lightning, capable of going from hot to cold in a fraction of a second. She was unusually sensitive, and the same words could make her laugh out loud or fly into a temper. There was a mystery about her I couldn’t fathom. Distant with her father, horrible to Salvo, she aroused an unease in me that faded whenever she rewarded me with a smile. I think she was trying to prove to me that she wasn’t the same with everybody. Ever since our altercation at the well, Irène had treated me with respect. At the same time, her rebellious temperament hadn’t lessened in any way. She wasn’t asking for my forgiveness; she enjoyed my company, nothing more. She felt at peace with herself. And I had the feeling I was privileged.

The pretty square in Lourmel glowed with a thousand lights. A festive throng danced amid tables whose white cloths were covered with food and bottles of wine. Couples old and young whirled to the sound of an inspired band. On a stage garlanded with pennants, a singer in a dark-red suit acted like a god come down from Olympus. Pomaded, seductive, glittering, he flung his stentorian voice at the sky, his gestures theatrical, his chest all-conquering, his eyes coming to rest on the ladies sitting in the front rows. He knew he had seduced them, they were already crazy for him; in order to finish them off he lowered his eyebrows over his gleaming eyes. Bewitched and floating, they swayed gently on their chairs, pressing handkerchiefs to chests heaving with emotion.

Irène found us a free bench overlooking the festive esplanade. Children in short trousers frolicked beneath the trees. Young lovers took refuge behind the low wall of the park; some were asleep on the grass. Adolescents were being initiated into the trials of their first flirtations, away from prying eyes. Here and there, a few kisses were exchanged in the darkness, as furtive as the frisson they provoked. It was nice to see, and nice to sense. My native douar was a long way away, slowly dying in a parallel world.

Irène went off to fetch me some pop and returned with a large plate. ‘I brought you some barbecued meat and some lemonade. Are you sure you don’t want any wine? It’s the best in the region.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘Well, well,’ said a man, approaching us. ‘Our George Sand has come down off her high horse to walk among the hoi polloi.’

Irène put the plate down next to me.

The man was in his thirties, handsome, poised, well-dressed. He wasn’t especially tall, but he had a proud bearing. He took a big drag on his cigarette and flicked it away. The glowing end burst into a multitude of sparks as it hit the ground.

‘Good evening, André,’ Irène said in a neutral voice.

‘So you still remember my name?’

‘How’s your wife?’

The man pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘She’s down there, dancing like a madwoman.’

‘You should join her. Someone might steal her from you.’

‘He’d be doing me a favour.’ He clicked his fingers at an Arab waiter who was circulating among the partygoers with a tray, grabbed two glasses of champagne and offered one to Irène. ‘I’m pleased to see you again, my dear.’

‘I thought you’d been transferred to Algiers.’

‘Have you been spying on me?’

‘I heard Jérôme the milkman tell my father.’

‘No, they’re keeping me in Aïn Témouchent until further notice. Tell me about yourself. What have you been up to?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, it seems to suit you. You’re prettier than ever. What do you do all day long, so far from civilisation?’

‘I have no complaints.’

‘But I feel sorry for you. You should be having fun, not turning your back on the world … I’ve bought a little boat. There are wonderful creeks and unspoilt beaches to the west of Rachgoun. They can only be reached from the sea. I can show them to you if you like.’

‘I’m sure your wife would appreciate them more than I would.’

‘I’m talking about you.’

‘I’m not available.’

The man swallowed a gulp of champagne and smacked his lips as he searched for more persuasive arguments. Suddenly, he pretended to notice my presence. He took Irène by the elbow and led her away from the bench a little. ‘Did you win your pet in a shooting gallery?’

He spoke about me so rudely that if I’d been in his way he would probably have walked straight over me. As far as he was concerned, I didn’t count; I was merely a speck in his eye, which would vanish if he blinked.

‘Please, André. I’ve only just arrived. Don’t force me to go home.’

‘You still haven’t told me where you won your guard dog.’

‘I warn you, he bites.’

‘In that case,’ he said, turning her to face him, ‘you should put a muzzle on him.’

With a peremptory gesture, Irène asked me to keep out of what she considered a strictly personal matter.

Amused, André sneered. ‘Still as wild and unconventional as ever.’

‘André, I don’t like what you’re doing.’

‘Why, do you think what you’re doing is right? You come here with a dirty Arab and you think nobody’s going to mind. You like showing off, don’t you? Whenever you emerge from your cave, everybody has to know about it. But be careful, people have venomous tongues around here. There’ll be a lot of gossip.’

‘I don’t give a damn.’

‘I thought as much. Provocation is second nature to you. Only this time, you’ve gone too far. You can’t come to a dance with an Arab. Arabs aren’t allowed here. They can’t tell a light bulb from a magic spell … Look at him. He’s only just got down from his tree.’

‘Please, André.’

‘Tell me, what has he got that I haven’t?’

‘He’s polite.’

‘I don’t suppose that’s the only thing.’

‘There are others.’

‘How is he in bed?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘From what I’ve heard, their women don’t have orgasms. Not surprising, when you think their men ejaculate before they even get hard.’

‘I must go, André. I left my gas mask at home and there’s a really nasty smell coming from you tonight.’

André again seized Irène by the arm and drew her to him. She pushed him away. As he returned to the attack, I grabbed his wrist in mid-air and forced him to move back. He glanced around; much to his relief, nobody was taking any notice of us. To save face, he shrieked, ‘Never put your dirty ape hand on me, you little shit, or I swear by all that’s holy I’ll thrash you in this very square until you’re just blood and pus … I’m a police officer. You don’t want to stick around here, trust me. If you’re still here in ten minutes, you’ll spend the rest of the night at the station.’

For Irène and me, the party was over.

We set off back to the farm.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Irène as we passed the last orchards in the village.

‘It’s not your fault. I thought André had calmed down, but he’s got worse.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Someone I used to know. Someone who thinks he can get away with anything.’

‘He called you George. Isn’t that a man’s name?’

She burst out laughing and wagged her finger at me. ‘I see through you, Monsieur Turambo. But it’s not what you think.’

When we got to the farm, she walked with me to the outhouse. Salvo’s snores could be heard through the walls, making the window panes shake. They sounded like a faulty engine. Even the crickets seemed intimidated by his nasal thundering, which would have kept the boldest of predators at bay.

‘Are you going to be able to sleep with that din, champion?’

‘I’ll manage.’

‘Sorry about the dance,’ she said. ‘I’d have liked to teach you a few steps.’

‘Another time, I hope.’

‘People are stupid.’

‘Not all of them.’

‘You think we should have stayed?’

‘That wouldn’t have been a good idea.’

‘You’re right. That idiot would have come back. I didn’t want him to get you into any trouble.’

‘I’d have left of my own accord. The police really scare me.’

She nodded. Just as I was about to open the door of the outhouse, she put her arms round my neck and pressed her lips to my mouth. Before I had time to realise what was happening, she was gone.

She didn’t put the light on in her room.

Nor did she join us for breakfast the following morning.

I thought she had gone to seize the day, as was her habit, but her mare was in its stable.

I didn’t dare ask Ventabren where his daughter had gone. That day, I ran in a void. I didn’t see the paths or the rocks. I didn’t even feel my legs, let alone my efforts. My stride had no rhythm. The bushes fled before me. I was a wandering obsession …

Salvo, Ventabren and I had lunch in a cathedral-like silence. The table seemed to have tripled in size. The tasteless food stuck in my throat.

The only thing that kept me on earth was the gentle touch of that kiss on my lips.

Irène …

Her absence turned the farm into a gloomy enclosure where I was running around in circles. The walls were nothing but heaps of stones, the landscape an accident, the countryside a shipwreck waiting to happen.

I waited for evening. Evening came, but not Irène. The sun had gone down, but I was still up. There was no light in the window opposite.

Early the following morning, Salvo told me he was going back to Oran. He’d got out of bed on the wrong side. He didn’t know what he was doing in this godforsaken hole. ‘You don’t listen to me, you don’t take my advice, you don’t follow my programme. In the circumstances, I don’t see what use I am.’

He stuffed his clothes in a bag and began walking towards the asphalted road.

I didn’t try to stop him.

I set off to do some feverish sprints as far as the mountain. As if I was fleeing my own shadow.

I was getting my breath back in a clearing when I heard neighing behind the thicket. It was Irène. She tied her mare to a bush and sat down next to me. Her shirt was steaming in the sun, her forehead was red and her eyes glistened with a sort of wild intoxication. She picked up a branch, twisted it, then started breaking it into little pieces. Her breathing drowned out the rustling of the foliage. I waited for her to speak but she said nothing.

‘Is it because of what happened at the dance?’ I asked, to break the silence.

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I thought you were giving me the cold shoulder because of the incident with the policeman.’

‘If only that was all.’

‘Where did you go yesterday?’

‘I stayed in my room.’

‘All day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Didn’t you put the light on?’

‘No.’

‘Were you sick?’

‘In a way.’ At last she turned to me and looked me straight in the eye. ‘I spent the whole day and night thinking.’

‘Thinking about what?’

‘About that moment. I kept asking myself if it was a good idea or if I should hold back. A really difficult exercise, weighing the pros and cons. In the end, I told myself nothing ventured nothing gained.’

She grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me to her. Her mouth devoured mine. And it was in that clearing, where the chirping of the cicadas had conspired to silence the uproar in my chest, that Irène gave herself to me, between a bush and a praying tree, right there amid the profusion of gold coins scattered by the sun on the ground like a generous prince. No ecstasy could have equalled the thrill that went through me when our bodies became one.

4

Filippi had received strict orders. If you have to tie him up, tie him up and bring him to me before midday. Filippi didn’t want any problems with the Duke. Pale and stammering, he begged me to get my things together and follow him. It was as if his fate depended on the mission that had been entrusted to him. I looked at Irène; she stood by the well, hands on hips, smiling. Out of pity for Filippi, she nodded to me to pack my bags.

‘Thank you, Madame,’ Filippi stammered. ‘You’re really helping me out.’

‘I won’t be so lenient next time,’ she warned him.

As soon as I took my seat in the car, Filippi set off at top speed, doubtless afraid I might change my mind. I turned to wave at Irène, but she was already walking back to the stable.

Gino stopped me at the entrance to the Bollocq offices. While waiting for us to be seen by the Duke, he showed me his office on the second floor with a view of the courtyard.

‘You haven’t wasted any time,’ I said.

‘Best to strike while the iron is hot.’

‘What do you actually do?’

‘A bit of everything. I negotiate contracts, explore deals, check the accounts … The Duke is training me. He has plans for me.’

He was looking better, more handsome, as he got older. He just had to flash one of his smiles and he’d be forgiven any rudeness. His hair, now light chestnut, was starting to darken at the temples, adding a hint of manliness to his charm that was in marked contrast to his angelic air. I understood why nobody could resist him, why the girls sighed over him and the Duke was so generous. I think I was jealous of him. Gino didn’t need to make much effort. He could have had the moon on a silver platter if he’d asked for it.

He motioned me to a chair and poured me a glass of lemonade.

‘How’s it going with Louise?’ I asked.

He frowned. ‘Who told you about that?’

‘I saw you flirting with her.’

‘Nothing definite for the moment,’ he said, annoyed by my indiscretion.

He flopped into the chair behind his desk, every inch the young nabob. He couldn’t yet put his feet up on the desk, as was appropriate for those who climb the social ladder on a flying carpet, but he took his ease with a certain detachment. His suit was impeccable, and he wore gold cufflinks and a chain bracelet on his wrist.

‘Does the Duke know what you’re up to?’

‘What’s your problem?’

‘You know the Berber proverb: the hen lays an egg and the cockerel gets a pain in the arse.’

‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘No, I don’t suppose I need to.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did the Duke talk to you about the plane tree?’

‘What plane tree?’

‘The one down in the courtyard.’

‘Why should he talk to me about the plane tree?’

‘Forget it,’ I said, aware that I was distracted. ‘So, how’s the fight with Cargo coming along?’

Gino stared at me for a moment or two, bewildered by the mystery of the plane tree, then, making himself even more comfortable in his padded armchair, said, ‘It’s coming along fine. If you win, the North African champion won’t be able to wriggle out of it. He’ll be forced to meet you. We’re going to work twice as hard,’ he said with sudden enthusiasm. ‘That title belongs to us. The Duke wants it at any cost. For the city, and for all of us. You can’t imagine the trouble he’s going to for you, the money he’s spending to make you king of the world.’

‘No joy is complete if it isn’t shared.’

Gino gave a start, increasingly intrigued by my insinuations. ‘I don’t follow you, Turambo. What are you getting at?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You seem bitter.’

‘I felt good at the farm.’

‘It was the Duke who decided to bring you back.’

‘Don’t you think I should have a say in the matter? I’m the one who’s doing the work, aren’t I?’

‘Yes, but I’m the one who’s spending the money,’ the Duke growled, coming into Gino’s office.

He was in his shirtsleeves, with big patches of sweat under his armpits, and he was frowning. Gino stood to attention. The Duke motioned him to sit down again.

‘Do you think I don’t know?’ he yelled at me, waving his cigar under my nose. ‘I sent you to the farm to work, not to fall for that prick-teaser. You have no excuse.’

Gino started wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

‘You’re behaving like a spoilt child, Turambo,’ the Duke went on, ‘and I’m not used to indulging spoilt children. When are you going to get it into your head that you have obligations? Do you know where Marcel Cargo is right now? In Marseilles. In a camp cut off from the world. Preparing for his fight with you. Even the press can’t get to him. He’s working like a dog day and night. No booze, no girls, no films.’

He threw his cigar out of the window and came back to me, his mouth quivering with rage.

‘As of today, as of now, as of this moment, I don’t want to hear any more about your escapades. You’re going to get back to work, and every evening I want to see a carafe filled to the brim with your sweat. Marcel Cargo also wants the title. For your information, Olivier, the manager of the French champion, has said he wouldn’t like to see his boy fight Cargo. That shows you the level he’s at. I haven’t slept since I heard that.’

The Duke had settled on a drastic programme. For the next ten days, I didn’t have a minute to myself. It was one training session after another, at a frantic pace. In the morning, I would run on the beach. In the afternoon, I trained constantly at the gym. At night, Gino and Frédéric watched over my sleep, double-locking me in my room. I needed their permission to go to the toilet. Once I was in bed, the lights were switched off as if we were in a barracks. But in the dark, there was nothing to stop me thinking about Irène.

One Sunday, I claimed a family emergency and took a bus to Lourmel. I’d had enough of waiting. Fatma had gone home to give birth and there was nobody to take care of Ventabren. So I was hoping to find Irène at the farm, and there she was.

She asked me to stay for lunch. Afterwards, we retired to the outhouse and made love.

The next day, after training, I refused to follow Gino and Frédéric to Boulevard Mascara. Gino protested, tried to reason with me, but I wouldn’t give in. I needed them to back off. Without Irène, the night was a deadly abyss. Filippi agreed to drop me outside Larbi the fruit seller’s hut, provided he didn’t go back without me. Nor would he drive all the way to the farm. He didn’t want to be seen there, because he might be fired. I accepted his offer.

The following nights, with or without Filippi, I saw Irène. Much to Gino’s dismay. But by six in the morning, I was back in Oran, right as rain. I would train intensively to make up for having ‘deserted my post’ the previous night.

‘If the Duke hears about our little outings,’ Filippi grumbled, ‘he’ll hang us on his coat rack.’

I didn’t care.

My nights with Irène were worth the risk.

Gino told me he was going on ahead to Bône with Frédéric and De Stefano. The Duke needed a team on the spot to supervise the preparations for the fight with Marcel Cargo. I went with them to the station to make sure it wasn’t a diversion. Once the train had left, I took a taxi to join Irène. We kept Ventabren company for much of the evening, then put him to bed. There was a fair in Saint-Eugène. Irène agreed to go with me.

The fair was in full swing. Families in their Sunday best bustled around the stands, some fishing for bottles, others shooting at cardboard targets. Loud old men, their sleeves rolled up to reveal withered biceps, attempted the high striker, much to the joy of the children. Mysterious fortune tellers looked for prey in the crowds. A garishly made-up clown juggled, surrounded by a flock of laughing kids. Everyone made merry, but I only had eyes for Irène, who looked wonderful in her guipure skirt. In that crowd, she was like the Pole Star in the Milky Way. She was wearing a pretty blouse decorated with fleur-de-lys, open at the neck; her black hair, hanging loose over her shoulders, emphasised her fine features. Young men turned to look at her as she passed, wolf whistles following in her wake. Irène burst out laughing, rather flattered. A squad of tipsy Zouaves started gravitating around us. I said a few words in Arabic and immediately we were left alone. I fired at rabbits for Irène without hitting a single one. Probably because of my over-excitement. I was so happy, and so proud when she put her arm round my waist. I’ll never forget that night. The lanterns and the stars in the sky all shone for us. I was rediscovering a lost world, feelings that were far from original, of course, but they were very intense. With Irène beside me, I was having the time of my life. She marvelled at everything, cheered the entertainers, happily lost at games, laughed when I too failed. It was magical. We had a snack at a stall, standing amid the throng, biting into our burning-hot sandwiches; we rode wooden horses on a merry-go-round packed with children. I don’t think I’d ever laughed so much in my life. I was laughing for nothing, laughing without reason, laughing because Irène was laughing. On the dodgems, where the vehicles mercilessly crashed into each other, parents were encouraging their kids to hit harder. Irène was game for a ride. There were no women on the track, but I didn’t care. Not for anything in the world could I have refused her her fun. There was a long queue in front of the ticket office. We waited our turn, jostled by soldiers who were the worse for drink and attempted to grope the women. A hand tried to touch Irène’s skirt; I showed my fist and the lout beat a retreat. We got in the cars and set off to attack the other drivers. The collisions lifted us out of our seats and we laughed uproariously. Irène was enjoying herself like a schoolgirl. The lights flooded her face with contrasting colours. She was happy; just watching her, I felt more content than I had ever thought I would be.

Intoxicated with ourselves, we left Saint-Eugène towards midnight, our heads buzzing with excitement, breathless but delighted.

It was late and there were no buses for Lourmel, and no taxis either.

‘I’ll have to learn to drive,’ I said. ‘That way, when I buy a car, we won’t have to keep checking the time.’

To tell the truth, I hadn’t looked for a taxi. I was hoping to force Irène to spend the night with me on Boulevard Mascara. Much to my delight, she didn’t see anything wrong with that.

‘Is this your place?’ she asked when she saw the flat.

‘It’s my friend Gino’s. He’s gone to Bône.’

‘I see,’ she said, giving me a knowing wink. ‘Could you run me a bath?’

‘Right away. I’ll heat the water.’

When she had finished washing, I brought her a big beach towel. She was standing in the bath, naked, hair plastered to her face. My hand shook as I wiped her back.

‘You have a mark on your buttock,’ I said.

‘It’s a birthmark.’

‘It looks like a red fruit.’

‘It’s a strawberry.’

She got out of the bath, took the towel from me, dropped it on the floor, took me by the hand, laid me down on the bed and covered me with her body.

Day was breaking; we hadn’t slept a wink. We wanted to savour every moment, we wanted the night to belong to us. We were monarchs in a room that was too small to contain our lovemaking; we no longer had to be quick about it, to make love on the sly. It was the first time in my life I had loved without constraint or anxiety, without a maid coming and knocking at the door or a client waiting impatiently in the corridor.

I would have liked the day to forget us, the minutes to reinvent themselves so that time could take its time. But time can’t be tamed. Day was breaking, and we had to leave a little of our dream for the future.

‘I leave for Bône on Tuesday,’ I said with regret.

‘What for?’

‘For my match with Marcel Cargo.’

‘Oh …’

‘It’s a very important match.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, a boxing match or a cockfight, it’s all the same.’

‘It’s my job.’

‘There are others.’ She moved her finger over my lips, gently, tenderly. ‘What’s your real name?’

‘Amayas.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘Leopard, I think, or something like that.’

‘Amayas … I like it. It sounds like a girl’s name. It’s certainly better than Turambo.’

‘Maybe, but there’s nothing behind it. Whereas Turambo tells my life story.’

‘Will you tell me your life story one day?’

‘As often as you like.’

She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at me, smiling, then again snuggled up to me. ‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then say it … Say you love me.’

‘Do you doubt it?’

‘I want to hear you say it. It matters to a woman, much more than a cockfight.’

‘I’m crazy about you.’

‘Say I love you …’

‘We don’t say that kind of thing in our tribes.’

‘Love isn’t a thing.’

‘I’ve never heard anyone say it at home.’

‘You aren’t at home, you’re with me. Go on, I’m listening …’

She closed her eyes and listened carefully. Little beads of sweat were glistening on her silky skin. Her smell filled my head with tiny sparks. I wanted to take her again and never let her go.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘Irène …’

‘Yes?’ she said, encouragingly.

‘Please …’

‘No, you’re going to say it or I won’t believe you, ever again.’

I turned towards the wall. She took my chin and turned my head so that I was facing her, although my eyes were closed. ‘This is where it happens, young man.’

I took a deep breath. ‘I …’

‘I …?’

‘I love you,’ I said at last.

‘You see? It’s so simple …’

She opened her eyes and I drowned in them. We made love until midday.

One hour before the fight with Marcel Cargo, an electricity blackout plunged the audience into an indescribable panic. There was talk of sabotage and a possible postponement of the match. The police brought in reinforcements in order to prevent intruders from getting into the hall and spectators from getting out. Nervousness spread through the changing rooms, which were lit by pocket torches. As the team of technicians were taking a long time to restore the current, lorries were dispatched to the scene and trained their headlights on the windows of the building to calm those people who were afraid of the dark. Frédéric kept going out for news and coming back empty-handed. The atmosphere was turning nightmarish. I tried to keep calm, but De Stefano’s anxiety was contagious. He couldn’t keep still, venting his anger now on the organisers, now on Salvo. Mouss came and paid us a visit in the changing room. ‘It’s only a power cut,’ he said. ‘Apparently, it’s common in Bône. Everything will soon be back to normal. In my opinion, it’s a diversion intended to distract the opponent. The people of Bône are famous for their loyalty to their own. They’re capable of all kinds of funny business to make life hard for champions from elsewhere.’ He gave me a few pieces of advice, insisted I keep a cool head and apologised that he had to go because he didn’t want to lose his seat.

A great cry of relief shook the hall when the lights came back on. From the changing rooms, we could hear people calling to each other, chairs being shifted; the return to normality relaxed us and De Stefano was at last able to sit on a bench and pray.

There was a huge crowd in the hall, which was shrouded in cigarette smoke. We had to elbow our way through to the ring. When Marcel Cargo appeared, the audience went wild. He was a tall, well-built fellow, so white-skinned he looked as if he was coated in flour, his hair close-cropped, his eyes inscrutable. He was quite a good-looking man in spite of his broken nose and thick mouth. He was a few pounds lighter than me, but he had a hard body and long arms. He threw himself at me before the bell had stopped ringing. It was obvious he’d prepared well. Quick, agile, he dodged my blows only to retaliate immediately with tremendous precision. He moved easily, his impressive reach keeping me at a distance, and evaded my traps with an elegance that delighted the audience. For the first three rounds, Marcel Cargo led on points. I found it hard to place my hook. Cargo was like an eel. Whenever I tried to get him in a corner, he would push me away and, with an acrobatic move, get back to the middle of the ring, his legs elusive, his right forceful. In the fourth round, he cut open my eyebrow. The referee checked the seriousness of my wound and declared me fit to continue the fight. My affected eye swelled: I could only half see, but my faculties were intact. I was just waiting for the moment to activate my left hook. Cargo was wonderfully supple and had great technique, but I knew I could get to him. In the fifth round, he made his fatal mistake. He knocked me to the ground for the second time. The referee started the count. I pretended to be dazed. Marcel took the bait. He put all his strength into a final attack, hoping to finish me off. In his frenzy, he let his guard down and my left struck him hard. He turned full circle, arms hanging loose, head tilted over towards his shoulder. I didn’t need to deliver the knockout blow; he was done for before he hit the floor. A deathly silence fell over the hall. The crowd froze in their seats, as stunned as my opponent. The only sound came from the manager, yelling at his protégé to get up. Cargo didn’t move. He lay on his back, unconscious, his gum shield askew. The referee finished the count and asked the seconds up into the ring. They couldn’t wake Cargo. There were more and more people on the platform. The referee sensed that things might get out of hand, climbed discreetly over the ropes and vanished into the crowd. Suddenly, the manager rushed at me, screaming, ‘I want to see what he’s got in his glove … I want to see what he’s got in his glove … Nobody’s ever knocked Marcel out like that … It’s not possible … That filthy Arab has something in his glove.’ Salvo repelled an assailant, received a headbutt, hit back, and the fight started. In a few minutes, the brawl spread through the hall, setting Christians against Muslims in a frenzy of flying chairs and fierce blows, accompanied by a cacophony of insults and threats. The police rushed into the hall and quickly evacuated the dignitaries and officials before rushing at the troublemakers and the Araberbers. It was a mad, insane spectacle. Screams and whistles rang out over the sound of chairs being smashed. The lights were switched off and everyone rushed to the emergency exits in total confusion.

We left Bône that same night, for fear we might be attacked in the hotel. The eight of us piled into the dilapidated van of an Arab grocer who, moved by our plight, agreed to get us out of town. He drove us to a station in the middle of nowhere, some forty miles away. We took the first train to Algiers, then from Algiers the first connection for Oran, where a delegation was waiting for us with flowers and pennants. My victory over Marcel Cargo had spread like wildfire throughout the city. L’Écho d’Oran devoted three whole pages to it. Even Le Petit Oranais got in on the act, for once praising the achievements of a ‘son of the city’.

The Duke gave a magnificent reception at the Bastrana Casino. The guests were hand picked. High-ranking officials, uniformed top brass, influential businessmen and local politicians mingled in a diffuse murmur. The Bollocqs received congratulations and declarations of allegiance at the entrance to the casino. All the guests were determined to greet them. The Duke played along, with the solemnity of a monarch. He loved being the centre of attention. I wasn’t the hero; he was. I hated the way he displayed me like a trophy before dismissing me a minute later so he could show off some more. What did I actually mean to him? A racket, a conjuring trick, a mere puppet? In truth, sandwiched between his shadow and mine, nobody was especially interested in me.

The Bastrana was bustling. A band played popular tunes. Gino was busy flirting with Louise, satisfying her every whim. De Stefano had disappeared. I didn’t know what to do with myself or whom to talk to. I felt cramped in my overly stiff suit, hemmed in by partygoers, their wine-soaked breath going right through me. From time to time, a stranger would introduce me to another stranger, who would chuckle a vague ‘So this is the champion’ before abandoning me to court one of the many movers and shakers there, because this kind of get-together was above all an opportunity to establish lucrative contacts and keep one’s address book up to date.

I didn’t like social occasions. They bored me! Always the same fake camaraderie, the same forced laughter, the same subtly poisonous words. In the midst of these prestigious people, surrounded by warbling ladies and distinguished gentlemen, I was nothing but a fighting cock arousing more curiosity than admiration. Many merely congratulated me from a distance in order not to have to shake my hand. I had the feeling I’d got off at the wrong floor, that I was in exile. This wasn’t my world. I hated this pack of social climbers, substitute snobs and timeservers. Such people made me uncomfortable. They were only interested in gain: gaining ground, gaining money, coming out on top. Careerists, industrialists, men of independent means or retired buccaneers, they were all from the same mould, thought only of making a profit and getting ahead, devoid all the while of the slightest generosity, like handsome faces without a shadow of a smile. In their view, if you had money, you were worth money. If you were broke, you were of no interest. This was a long way from Medina Jedida, Eckmühl, the Derb, Saint-Eugène, Lamur or Sidi Lahouari, where good humour defied hardship. We had our show-offs, our tough guys, our big shots, but our kind had heart and at times even restraint. For those of us in the poor neighbourhoods, putting on airs was merely a good-natured bit of fun, whereas for the elite in the centre of town it was second nature. I was conscious that the world was made that way, that there were well-off families and poor families, and that there must be a rhyme and reason for this. But with these individuals in their white collars stepping on my feet without apologising because I was so invisible to them, I didn’t think I could ever get anywhere; as far as they were concerned, I was simply a goose that laid golden eggs but would go straight in the cooking pot when I stopped laying.

I went out to get some air.

There is nothing worse than an idol nobody is interested in.

Outside, an endless queue of cars waited on the avenue. The chauffeurs chatted here and there in small groups, puffing at their cigarettes; some dozed behind their wheels.

I asked Filippi to drive me to Boulevard Mascara.

‘I’m waiting for Gino,’ he said.

‘He’s enjoying himself. He’ll be in there for a while.’

‘I’m sorry. Those are my instructions.’

I took the tram to Place d’Armes and got back to Rue du Général-Cérez on foot. I was furious.

Alarcon Ventabren wasn’t unaware of my feelings for his daughter. I was at the farm practically every day and sometimes spent the night there. Irène seemed happy with me. We loved to stroll in the woods and go shopping together. In Lourmel, people were getting used to seeing us side by side. At first, unkind comments marred our shopping expeditions, then, because Irène would give as good as she got, we were left alone.

I was learning to drive in order to buy a car. I wanted to take Irène far away, where nothing could spoil our romance. A moment with her filled me with happiness. Whenever the time came for me to get back to Oran, I grew bad-tempered.

I felt like giving it all up.

At the gym, I had become so thin-skinned that the slightest criticism seemed huge to me. I couldn’t bear anyone’s remarks. Gino had given up trying to lecture me. He did as he pleased when it came to Louise. If he had the right to play the seducer, why not me? De Stefano tried not to upset me, but his sentimentality got on my nerves too.

Only at the farm did I regain a little calmness.

One Sunday, on a deserted beach, as Irène let the waves lap against her legs, her dress pulled up over her knees, I started drawing geometric shapes on the sand with a piece of wood.

‘What are you writing?’ she called, her hair flowing in the midday breeze.

‘I’m drawing.’

‘What are you drawing?’

‘Your face, your eyes, your mouth, your shoulders, your chest, your hips, your legs …’

‘Can I see?’

‘No. You might distract me.’

She emerged from the water, amused and curious, and bent to look at my childish scribble. ‘Is that what I look like?’

‘It’s just a sketch.’

‘I didn’t know my legs were so thin, my head’s as round as a pumpkin, and my hips, my God, how horrible! … How can you be in love with a fright like me?’

‘The heart doesn’t ask questions. It ploughs straight on, and that’s it.’ I took her in my arms. ‘I’m only happy when I’m with you.’

She abandoned herself to my embrace and tenderly moved her fingers over my cheek. ‘I love you, Amayas.’

A bolder wave than the others came up and licked at our ankles. As the water receded, it erased my drawing as if by magic.

Irène kissed me on the mouth.

‘I want to share my life with you,’ I said.

She gave a start. With all my might, I prayed she wouldn’t burst out laughing. She didn’t. She looked at me in silence, her lips brushing mine; she trembled against me. ‘Do you mean it?’

‘Very much so.’

She broke free and walked over to a rock. We sat down side by side. Between our feet, little greenish crabs were playing hide and seek, almost imperceptible in the eddying of the foam. The horizon was veiled in sea spray. The squawking of the seagulls bounced off the reef, as sharp as razor cuts.

‘You’ve caught me off guard, Amayas.’

‘We’ve been together for months. When I think about the future, I can’t imagine it without you.’

Her eyes ran to question the sea, then returned to put me to the test. ‘I’m older than you.’

‘I don’t care about your age.’

‘But I do.’

‘I love you, that’s all that matters. I want to marry you.’

The lapping of the backwash sounded a hundred times louder.

‘This kind of decision can’t be taken lightly,’ she said.

‘I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. There isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind: it’s you I want.’

She put her hand on my mouth to stop me. ‘Be quiet and let’s listen to the sound of the sea.’

‘It won’t teach us anything we don’t already know.’

‘And what do we know, Amayas?

‘What we want with all our heart.’

‘What do you know about my heart?’

Her voice was soft and measured. My heart was pounding. I dreaded rejection, dreaded the thought that she would snub me like Aïda. Irène was thinking. She looked sad. I took her hands, and she didn’t remove them.

‘I’d like to start a family,’ she said. ‘But not at any price.’

‘Name your price.’

She looked me up and down, a dubious gleam in her eyes. ‘I’m a country girl, Amayas. I love simple things. To have a simple husband, a simple life, no clamour, no commotion.’

‘Don’t you think I can give you that?’

‘No, I don’t. A wife can’t share her husband with the crowd.’

I tried to object, but she placed her hand on my mouth again and kissed me.

‘Let’s not complicate things,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s enjoy the present and let the future look after itself.’

I wasn’t disappointed. Irène hadn’t said no.

A young carter took us as far as the road. Sitting in the back, our hands gripping the edge of the cart and our feet hanging out, we watched the sea launch its regiments of foam onto the beach. Irène was silent. Whenever she saw me looking at her, her shoulders contracted.

We waited for the bus in silence, sitting under a tree.

In the evening after dinner, we helped Ventabren into bed and then went for a walk around the estate to clear our heads. In our part of the world, autumn is a spoilsport. Once summer is over, the cicadas fall silent and faces turn grey. We are a people of the sun; the slightest imperfection in our sky unsettles us. When the weather is fine, our thoughts are bright and any small thing excites us. But all it takes is for a cloud to blot out our sun and our soul darkens. Irène was procrastinating because of the cold, I was sure of it. We sat down on the edge of the well to gaze at the countryside. On the plain, shrouded in mystery, the lights of the village shimmered like dying fireflies. Irène had her shawl pulled tight around her, and her hands lay in her lap. She hadn’t said a word since the beach. I suffered her silence like a wound. Had I been clumsy? Had I upset her? She didn’t seem to be angry with me, but I couldn’t understand the sadness on her face.

‘No,’ she said, sensing I was about to take her hand, ‘leave me alone.’

‘Did I hurt you?’

‘You upset me.’

‘I’ll be a good husband.’

‘You can’t be. I’m the daughter of a boxer. I know what a boxer’s family life is like. It’s no laughing matter.’

‘I know some who —’

‘Please,’ she cut in, ‘you don’t know anything about it.’

‘I’m not going to be a boxer all my life.’

‘Maybe, but I’ll be too old for you by the time you hang up your gloves. And you’ll be too damaged to make up for lost time.’

Droplets of rain started falling here and there. The wind rose a notch, cold, almost icy. A large cloud moved in front of the moon, swallowing it as it passed.

‘I don’t like depending on something I can’t control,’ she sighed. ‘I want to stay mistress of my marriage, do you understand? I don’t want to have to worry myself sick because my husband is gambling with our life in a boxing ring … I love this hill. One day, I’ll plant vines here and watch them grow. The sea salt will give me good grapes, which I’ll gather with my own hands. I’ll have a few cows too. That way, my mornings won’t be disturbed by the disgusting spluttering of the milkman’s van. With a bit of luck, I’ll raise three or four horses. I’ll spend my days watching them graze and rear in the open air. That’s my dream, Amayas. As simple as that.’

She stood up and walked back to the house. She went up to her room but didn’t switch the light on. She hadn’t invited me to join her. She didn’t come to the outhouse as she had on previous nights. I waited for her, then, unable to bear the sense of abandonment that had taken hold of my refuge, I decided to leave the farm. There was no bus for Oran at that hour, but I needed air.

I slept in the hut of Larbi the fruit seller.

5

My mother was beside herself. She hated people dropping in unexpectedly. She liked to make sure that her guests had the best possible reception; in other words, in a house that was clean and tidy. It was after midday when I surprised her at lunch, the low table littered with scraps of food. The look she gave me was full of reproach. Especially as I wasn’t alone: Irène was with me. My mother looked her up and down, her gaze lingering on her short skirt, her red-painted mouth, her bare neck. She ordered us to stay in the courtyard until she had finished clearing up. Irène was laughing to herself, amused by this surly woman who hadn’t even taken the trouble to say hello.

The neighbour’s children giggled in their corner, watching us, their impish little heads arranged one on top of the other in the doorway.

I had told my mother about Irène, but she wasn’t expecting to see her in her own home. In our traditions, it wasn’t done. Taken by surprise, my mother had to resign herself to the situation. She began by closing the door of the room where my father was rotting away and admitted us to the living room.

Irène handed her a little package. ‘Chocolate for you, Madame.’

We sat down on mats. Irène found it hard to pull her skirt down over her knees. I offered her a cushion, which she hurriedly put against her legs. My mother served us mint tea. As we sipped it, she weighed up my companion, examining her thoroughly, ostentatiously, evaluating her age, her strength, her curves, her freshness, the way she held herself, increasing Irène’s embarrassment and making her put down her glass for fear of her tea going down the wrong way.

‘Does she speak Arabic?’ my mother asked me in Kabyle.

‘Yes.’

‘Is she a Muslim?’

‘She’s a believer.’

‘I think she’s too old for you.’

‘And I think she’s very pretty.’

‘Yes, she’s pretty. But she doesn’t look easy to handle, not the kind to let herself be ruled with an iron fist.’

‘Maybe that’s why I chose her.’

‘I get the feeling she’s knows a thing or two about men.’

‘She’s been married before.’

‘I suspected as much. She’s too beautiful to have been spared that.’

Irène was smiling as she listened to us. She knew we were talking about her and guessed the sense of our words. ‘You have a beautiful house, Madame,’ she said in Arabic.

My mother made a maraboutic sign to ward off the evil eye. She said nothing more and even allowed herself to withdraw in order to leave us alone. Mekki arrived with a shopping bag, which he put down on the ground when he discovered us in the living room. The look he gave Irène was unambiguous. He went straight back out into the street, horrified by the ‘outrageous dress of that painted foreigner’.

‘You don’t bring a half-naked woman to the house,’ he yelled at me later. ‘I bet she drinks and smokes. Women who dare to look men in the eyes are not desirable. What are you hoping for by going with her? To be the same as her people? They’ll reject you. To impress the people of your community? They already feel sorry for you.’ He turned to my mother. ‘Why don’t you say something, Taos? He’s your son.’

‘Since when do women have an opinion?’

‘He’s planning to marry an unbeliever. One who’s been rejected, what’s more. A wreck her own people are tired of. What does she have that our virgins don’t? Make-up? Her offensive dress? Her shamelessness? It’s all too obvious that she’s older than him.’

‘I’m older than my husband.’

‘Am I to understand that you approve of your son?’

‘He can do what he likes. It’s his life.’

Mekki smashed his fist against the wall. ‘We’ll be the laughing stock of the neighbours.’

‘Have we ever been anything else?’ my mother retorted.

‘I’m still the head of this family and your husband’s return doesn’t change that. I shan’t approve a union the saints would never bless. Your son’s being corrupted. He’s spent so much time with unbelievers, he’s starting to be like them. If he’s making money, why not benefit a girl from his own people?’

I let him curse and went out to join Gino on Boulevard Mascara.

The Duke advanced me part of the money to buy a Fiat 508 Balilla sports car. I was in seventh heaven. In Medina Jedida, the urchins ran after me, shrieking as if at a carnival. They threw their chechias into the air and almost got run over. My mother refused categorically to get in and let me take her for a ride. She didn’t trust me, unable to resign herself to the idea that her son might own a car and drive it without crashing into a wall.

I loved driving along the avenue, my elbow resting on the windowsill, the wind on my face. I savoured the intoxication of a freedom I had never imagined. Irène and I went everywhere, even going as far afield as Nemours. Tlemcen was ours, as were the still-rudimentary resort at Hammam-Bouhadjar, the beaches of Cap-Blanc and picnics in the woods. Occasionally, we took Ventabren with us. We’d sit him at the foot of a tree and bustle around a campfire. Our grilled meat made us smell of smoke for the whole day. In the evening, we’d go to the cinema. I had a particular liking for swashbuckling adventures, but Irène hated violence and couldn’t bear stories that ended sadly; she preferred romantic films with happy endings, where the two lovers embraced and the audience cheered.

I was living through the happiest days of my life.

Five months before the big match for the North African title — Pascal Bonnot, the reigning champion, twice postponed our match for dubious reasons — the Duke summoned me to his office. Gino, Frédéric and De Stefano were there, as were two tough-looking men I’d never seen before who could easily have been gangsters. The Duke told me his plan. As far as he and his advisers were concerned, a stay in Marseilles was essential, on the one hand to prepare in secret, and on the other hand to benefit from the help of the best trainers in France.

I accepted.

The same day, I announced to Irène that I was going across the Mediterranean for eight weeks’ training. We were in the stable. Irène was grooming her mare. She didn’t react, just continued brushing her animal as if she hadn’t heard me. Light rain was falling on the hill.

‘I’d like you to come with me to Marseilles.’

She gasped scornfully. ‘You want me to go with you to France?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about my father?’

‘We’ll take him with us.’

She put away her brush and threw a blanket over the mare. Her gestures were brusque. ‘My father will never want to leave here. This land is his flesh. Nothing in the world suits his soul better than these hills. What landscape could make him forget this magnificent view over the orange groves and vineyards stretching as far as Misserghin, and the scrub where the wolves howl at the moon every night?’

She pushed me aside slightly because I was standing in the light.

‘Neither my father nor I will ever agree to let this land out of our sight. To us, it’s the gods’ most perfect creation.’

‘We’ll come back here afterwards.’

‘After what? We’ll never agree to leave here, I tell you. Not for a day, not for a minute. Even when we sleep, it’s the only thing we see in our dreams.’

I followed her out into the courtyard. She was walking fast as if trying to shake me off.

‘This is my career, Irène.’

‘I never said it wasn’t. And I’m not stopping you from going wherever you like. We aren’t married yet. In fact, I don’t think we ever will be. I hate boxing.’

‘It’s a profession like any other. It’s my profession.’

She stopped abruptly and turned round to face me, her lips quivering with anger. ‘What kind of profession is it where you just have to go down twice in succession for the descent into hell to start? I know about it, you know, and I’m not thrilled about it. Pipo from Algiers, Fernandez, Sidibba the Moroccan — they all trained here. They slept in the same outhouse you’re sleeping in now, they ran on the same tracks. They all thought they were invincible. Girls fell into their arms and the crowds worshipped them. They had their photographs in the papers and their posters on the walls. They dreamt of money and adventure, and Pipo was even planning to build himself a palace on the heights of Kouba. And one night, in a hall full to bursting, with the spotlights on him, bang! He was down! Shock horror. The invincible Pipo is down! And everything collapses around him. The last I heard, he has more alcohol than blood in his veins and can’t even find his own way home.’

‘I’m not Pipo.’

‘It doesn’t matter, you’ll meet the same fate. It’s inevitable. One day, you’ll meet someone who’s stronger than you and you’ll find yourself on the floor. Your fans will turn away from you because their hearts only beat for new blood. You’ll try to make a comeback, fighting with nonentities. You’ll be displayed in a dilapidated ring like a fairground strong man. When you don’t have any power left in you, you’ll drown your sorrows in seedy bars and come home to ruin my nights. And if I don’t like it, you’ll beat me to prove to yourself that you’re not the lowest of the low.’

‘I’ll never raise my hand to you.’

‘That’s what men say when they aren’t dead drunk. My father always had a flower for my mother when he came home in the evening. He was attentive and affectionate, and he treated my mother with a lot of respect. She was the cherry on his cake … Like you, he climbed the ladder without slipping, sure that he’d reach the top and stay there. Like you, he won fight after fight at the beginning of his career. Everything went well for him. By the age of twenty-seven, he was champion of France and nearly became world champion. Then he met his tamer. Deprived of his title, he started doubting — and changing. Whenever he won, he reverted to being the father I knew. Whenever he lost, he turned into a monster I was just beginning to discover. When he came home, no more flowers for my mother, just complaints and excuses to cause scenes. From my bed, I’d hear him swearing like a trooper. In the morning, my mother would stay shut up in her room so that I wouldn’t see the marks on her face. In the evening, when she sensed that my father was about to return, she’d tremble like a goat waiting for a hyena’s approach. To overcome her fears, she started drinking. Sometimes, she’d climb out through the window and run off into the night. My father would have to look for her at the neighbours’ or else in the fields. He’d bring her home, promising never again to raise his hand to her, to stop drinking, to stop choosing the wrong enemy. The respite would last a few days, a week, then, without warning, the scenes would start again.’

Her face was right up against mine, contorted with sorrow; tears flooded her lashes.

‘My mother went through hell,’ she continued, hammering out her words. ‘She was as beautiful as an angel, but by the age of thirty-five she’d grown old. Her face reflected nothing but her ordeal. Until the night she ran away and didn’t come back. She left for good and we never heard from her again … That’s right, Amayas! My mother left because she was tired of being a punch bag for a boxer who’d fallen from favour … And since then, I’ve never stopped hating boxing. It isn’t a profession; it’s a vice! Deposed gods aren’t forgiven. Cheers are closer to jeers than disappointment is to madness. I have no desire to share my life with someone who’s damaged in body and spirit. I don’t see myself growing old scraping a washed-up drunkard off the ground. That’s not for me, Amayas. Fame in the ring is like a yo-yo, and I don’t like its highs and lows. I’m a stupid, innocent dreamer. My happiness is in the harmony of things. I want to live with a man who’ll look at my fields the same way I do and have the same contempt for wealth and show. That’s my price for believing you love me. And then I’ll love you too, with all my heart and strength.’

*

The Duke started tearing his hair out when he heard that I didn’t want to go to Marseilles to train. According to Frédéric, he’d been positively apoplectic. His shouts rang out through the entire building. Some members of his staff had deserted their desks, while others had barricaded themselves behind their files. It didn’t impress me. I refused to go to Marseilles. Gino called me all the names under the sun. ‘When are you going to stop behaving like an idiot?’ he cried, nervously loosening his tie. ‘I’ve had enough of cleaning up after you.’ His attempts to win me over failed. The Duke didn’t beat about the bush. He just threatened to fire Gino if he couldn’t make me see reason.

Francis declared it was a waste of time to reason with someone as stupid as me. ‘The police say that nationalist agitators are active in the mosques, hammams and cafés. Turambo must have risen to the bait. He’s easily influenced. A charlatan in a turban must have filled his head with stupid ideas.’

‘I’m not interested in politics,’ I cried.

‘Then it’s a relative or a jealous neighbour who’s driven you crazy. Arabs battle for advantages. As soon as one of them manages to keep his head above water, the others try to cut it off.’

‘What are you trying to insinuate, Francis?’

‘I’m trying to save you from a fall. You mustn’t listen to your people. They’re envious. They resent you because you’re less and less like them, because you’re a success. They’re jealous. They’re not looking out for you, they want you to fail. They want you to fade away, to become a shadow of yourself so that everyone can go back to the darkness. That’s why you people lag behind other nations. Always fighting each other, blowing each other apart, destroying each other with slander and betrayal.’

‘My family have nothing to do with my decision.’

‘Damn it, do you realise the grave you’re digging for yourself?’

‘Provided it’s not for you.’

Francis spat on the floor. ‘I always thought Arabs were blinkered. Now I know why you’re their champion.’

I took a step in his direction.

He took out a flick knife. ‘Lay your dirty barbarian mitts on me and I won’t leave you a finger to wipe your arse with.’

His eyes burnt with a murderous flame. The most surprising thing was that neither De Stefano, nor Frédéric, nor Gino condemned Francis’s attitude. We were in the manager’s office. In the embarrassed expressions around me, I saw a faint aversion. Their tight jaws, their drawn features, their stiffness showed revulsion for me. I had strangers around me. These men I’d held dear, these good friends who were as important to me as my family, these fine men with whom I’d shared my joys and sorrows, were rejecting me simply because for once I didn’t agree with their plans. I realised at that moment that I was nothing but a modern-day gladiator, a boxing-gala slave only there to entertain the gallery, that my kingdom was limited to an arena outside which I didn’t count at all. Even Gino was acting in his own interests; he was more concerned about his privileges than my wounds. And I was wounded to the core. Wounded and disgusted.

Sick at heart, my eyes went from Gino to Frédéric, from De Stefano to the flick knife.

‘You bunch of vultures,’ I cried. ‘What I want deep down doesn’t come into your calculations. It doesn’t interest you. All you care about is the trade-off: blows for me, money for you.’

‘Turambo,’ Gino moaned.

‘Don’t say a word,’ I said. ‘I think everything’s been said.’

Francis was just putting away his knife. My right catapulted him against the wall. Surprised, he slid to the floor, his hands over his face. Seeing his bloodstained fingers, he whined, ‘Shit! He broke my nose.’

‘What did you expect from a barbarian?’ I said.

The window pane broke clean across when I slammed the door behind me.

A few days later, I overheard Jérôme the milkman asking Alarcon Ventabren if the men who had come to see him were criminals. They were chatting behind the stable, facing the sun, Ventabren in his wheelchair and the milkman on his van. When he left, I wanted to know more about that strange visit.

Ventabren shrugged. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really bad,’ he said. ‘Your friends are desperate. They told me you’re refusing to go to Marseilles to train and asked me to reason with you.’

‘And?’

‘I think a period of training in France is important for you.’

‘Did they threaten you?’

‘Why would they threaten me? I’ve been punished enough … You know something, my boy? When you choose a path, however difficult it is, you should see it through to the end. Otherwise, you’ll never know what it has in store for you. You’re a champion. You represent a lot of challenges, and a lot of hopes are riding on you. Mood swings have no place in this kind of adventure. You do what you’re told, that’s all. Irène’s a fine woman, but women don’t know when to stop interfering in men’s business. They’re possessive and they exaggerate their role in life. They reduce the basics to the little things that suit them. Men are conquerors by nature. They need space, room to move about in that’s as big as their hunger for success. Wars are men’s obsession. Power, revolutions, expeditions, inventions, ideologies, religions, anything that moves, reforms and destroys in order to rebuild is part of the vocation of men. If it was only up to women, we’d still be chewing on mammoths’ bones in the back of a cave. Because a woman is a fragile creature without real ambition. For her, the world stops with her little family and she measures time in relation to the age of her children. If you want my advice, son, go to Marseilles. Don’t leave the table when the banquet is made up of honours and titles. For a man, life without glory is nothing but a slow death.’

I found his ideas questionable, but I respected his age and experience too much to ask him what he had done to his wife and what he was doing in a wheelchair, turning his back on the rest of the world. I felt too sorry for him in his decrepit state to tell him that no field of honour can equal a woman’s bed, that no glory can make up for a lost love.

Gino was depressed. According to a neighbour, he’d been shut away at home for four days, with the door and shutters closed. His face lined, his hair dishevelled, he sat bent over the kitchen table, his head in his hands, an empty bottle of brandy next to an overturned glass. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him drunk before. His braces dangled on either side of the chair and his vest was an embarrassment.

He looked up at me with a hangdog expression.

‘Were you with the guys who went to bother Ventabren?’

He made a vague movement with his wrist. ‘Piss off.’

‘You haven’t answered my question, Gino. Were you with them?’

‘No.’

‘What did they want?’

‘Why don’t you ask them?’

‘Who were they?’

Gino swept the table with the back of his hand. The bottle and the glass fell to the floor and smashed. ‘Wasn’t that performance of yours enough for you? Now you have to come and piss me off in my own home.’

‘Who were they?’

‘The two guys from Marseilles. You don’t want to rub them up the wrong way, I warn you. When they invest a penny, they see to it that it makes them a fortune. They’re counting on you and they’re very bad losers.’

‘Are you trying to scare me, Gino?’

‘What’s the point when you can’t see the danger?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because you don’t listen.’ He pushed back his chair and got unsteadily to his feet, his mouth twisted with rage. ‘You’re pigheaded, Turambo. Because of you, our team is suspended and our efforts may end in failure. You struggled to get to the well, but once you got there, you spat in it. It’s true, you don’t see any further than the tip of your nose, but not seeing a mountain crumble, not hearing it crashing down on you, isn’t shortsightedness, it isn’t blindness, it’s worse than irresponsibility and stupidity put together. I don’t understand you and I’m afraid you don’t understand yourself. Anyone else in your place would be thanking heaven day and night. You were just a down-and-out doing crummy jobs and getting his arse kicked left, right and centre.’

‘You think I’ve gone up in the world, Gino? I’m still the same wretch I was. The only difference is that now I get my arse kicked by expensive shoes.’

‘Who put that nonsense in your bird brain? That whore who can’t find shoes to fit her and is trampling all over you?’

‘Watch your language, Gino.’

He braced himself against the wall and launched himself at me. ‘Go on, hit me. You’ve just floored me. Carry on. Knock me out. You’d be doing me a favour. I haven’t slept a wink for three nights. Knock me senseless. That way, for a few hours I’ll forget the mess you’re got me into. Because of your stubbornness, I’ve lost my job, lost my bearings, lost my prospects.’

6

I left for Marseilles.

My training period was revised downwards because of my reluctance and reduced to three weeks; for me, it might as well have been months. I didn’t tell Irène. I didn’t have the guts. One morning, I threw my things in two duffle bags and jumped into a car with the two men from Marseilles, who were waiting for me at the corner of Rue du Général-Cérez. The Duke and his men were at the quay, getting impatient. They were relieved to see me and promised me I wouldn’t regret it. The crossing was rough. I’d never been on a boat before. I was violently seasick. It took me several days and many infusions to get over it.

The only thing I remember about Marseilles is a remote camp, massive trials, days as strict as a prison regime, relentless sparring partners and cold nights howling with mistral. That was enough to develop my aggressiveness. I was treated like an animal that’s starved in order to prepare it for a most gruesome slaughter. I thought more about Pascal Bonnot than Irène; I was only waiting for the moment I’d meet him in the ring and reduce him to a pulp. I hated my new trainers, their rough manners, their arrogance; they were obtuse, sinister, conceited people; they didn’t speak, they yelled, convinced that anyone from the colonies was a savage picked straight from a baobab tree. From the start, I sensed that things were going to work out badly. I hated being sprayed with spittle when I was yelled at. I came to blows with a stunted, swollen-headed assistant who kept making racist remarks about Arabs. Later, I realised that these provocations and hostilities were a tactic. They were driving me mad with hatred with the clear aim of making my next opponent, Pascal Bonnot, a walkover.

I returned to Oran transformed, thin-skinned, sensitive. My interactions with my former friends in Rue Wagram were limited to good morning and good night. Nothing was the way it had been before. Apart from Tobias, all the others got me down. The laughter that had once echoed round the gym had given way to cold formality. De Stefano was unhappy. Whenever he started a conversation with me, I quickly climbed into the ring. My attitude saddened him, but he realised that it was what I wanted. I’d become embittered, unpleasant, taciturn, even arrogant. Even Irène had noticed that I almost never smiled now, that I lost my temper over nothing, that I enjoyed nights on the town and cinema trips less and less. She still didn’t know where I had been during those three horrible weeks and didn’t ask me. I might have changed, but I was back, and that was all that mattered to her. In truth, I was asking myself a lot of questions. At night, I would wake up with my head in a vice and go out into the courtyard to get a bit of fresh air. Irène would join me, wrapped in a sheet, and walk beside me in silence. I didn’t know what to say to her.

Nestled in hills garlanded with gardens and palaces, Algiers was bathed in bright sunshine that March morning in 1935. I was discovering the city for the first time in my life. It was beautiful, its seafront lined with luxurious apartment buildings that seemed to smile at the Mediterranean. In Oran, we thought people from Algiers were very affected. We didn’t like them. When they came to us, they put on airs that marked them out, proud of their sharp accent, convinced they belonged to a superior class. They had a highly developed sense of repartee which often led to arguments in our streets, since all that the people of Oran had to counter the coolness of their rivals’ words was their skill with their fists. But in Medina Jedida and the Araberber quarters, you couldn’t separate Algiers from politics. There was talk of ulemas, Muslim associations, in other words, groups of our fellow citizens who lived in Algiers in neighbourhoods identical to ours, but who refused to be like dumb cattle: they created ideological movements that spoke of a glorious past and claimed rights about which I understood very little. And when Muslims came from Algiers to Oran, unlike the Christians, we treated them with respect. Discussions continued long into the night, and in the morning, in our cafés, everyone talked in low voices and kept a discreet eye on the street. Informants were at work, the police increased their numbers, and the crowds in the souks were infiltrated. To be honest, I wasn’t interested in this occasional unrest in our cities. For me, it was a mystery as impenetrable as the ways of the Lord. The acclaim I received made me deaf even to the call of the muezzin.

Leaning out of the window of the railway carriage, I gazed at the light-filled city, its white buildings, its cars racing along the boulevards, its hordes of pedestrians who seemed to multiply at terrifying speed. Frédéric was standing next to me, telling me about the sites, the neighbourhoods, the holy places of the capital: the Jardin d’Essai, one of the most fantastic places in the world, Notre-Dame-d’Afrique overlooking the bay, the Casbah huddled around its centuries-old courtyards, Bab el-Oued where little people saw things in a big way, Square Port-Saïd overrun with pick-up artists and poets, closely flanked by the Military Club and the municipal theatre.

‘It’s a city of legend,’ Frédéric said. ‘No passing stranger leaves it without taking something away in his suitcase. When you pass through Algiers, you go through a mirror. You arrive with one soul and leave with an entirely new, sublime one. Algiers changes a person with a click of her fingers. It was in Algiers that the Goncourt brothers, who thought they were destined for a life creating art on canvas, finally turned their backs on painting to devote themselves body and soul to literature. It was in Algiers, at an ordinary barber’s shop in the Casbah, on 28 April 1882, that Karl Marx, who was famous for his beard, had it shaved off in order to be able to recognise himself in the mirror …’

‘You might as well talk to him about Cervantes’ five years in captivity and Guy de Maupassant’s sexual exploits while you’re about it,’ Francis muttered, making sure he stayed as far as possible from my fists. ‘He probably doesn’t even know the name of the President of France.’

‘Leave him alone,’ De Stefano grunted.

A swarm of journalists greeted us when we got off the train, immediately drawing a crowd on the platform. A handful of policemen tried in vain to contain it. Flashbulbs went off on all sides. Frédéric agreed to answer a few questions. The photographers jostled one another to get a picture of me. They yelled at me to turn and look at the camera, to pose in front of the train carriage. I didn’t listen to them.

‘How many rounds do you think you’ll last, Turambo?’ cried a puny fellow hiding behind his notebook.

‘Is it true you made a will before coming to Algiers?’

‘What’s in your gloves this time, Monsieur Turambo?’

‘His fists, nothing but his fists,’ De Stefano said irritably.

‘That’s not what they say in Bône.’

‘The people there are bad losers. My boxer’s gloves were checked by experts. We even gave them as a gift to the mayor.’

The aggressiveness of the journalists and their insinuations were exasperating. We hurried out of the station and got in the cars waiting for us on the other side of the street. The Duke had booked us rooms in the Hôtel Saint-Georges. There too, photographers and journalists lay in wait for us, including some British ones speaking French nasally and some Americans flanked by interpreters. A bellboy showed me to my room, made sure I had everything I needed and lingered in the entrance as if looking for something. I dismissed him; he left reluctantly, a disappointed pout replacing the smile that had stretched from ear to ear two minutes earlier. We had lunch in the hotel restaurant. In the afternoon, a group of Araberbers came to reception and asked to meet me. It was a small committee sent by a Muslim movement to invite me to the football match between Mouloudia of Algiers and the Christian team of Ruisseau. Frédéric firmly declined the invitation, claiming that my fight was the next day, that the streets weren’t safe, and that I needed calm and rest. I curtly told him to mind his own business. Since I’d come back from Marseilles, there’d been no love lost between my staff and me. I didn’t listen to anyone and made it clear I wasn’t going to be bossed about. Fearing that things might turn nasty, Frédéric reluctantly agreed, but asked Tobias to go with me. In the packed stadium, Muslim dignitaries came and congratulated me on my career and assured me of their blessing. Mouloudia beat the opposing team roundly by six goals to one. The committee offered me a guided tour of the Casbah. Tobias categorically refused; I don’t know if it was because of his wooden leg or because he had been given strict instructions.

A few minutes before dinner, the hotel reception informed me that someone wanted to talk to me. I changed and went down to the foyer, where a man dressed like an effendi — a three-piece suit and a fez pulled down over his temples — was waiting on a sofa. He stood up and shook my hand. He was tall, with a massive nose in a chiselled face. His piercing eyes betrayed a concealed authority, a rock-solid determination.

‘My name is Ferhat Abbas.’ He paused, then, realising his name meant nothing to me, went on, ‘I’m an activist for our people’s cause … I assume you’ve heard of the Association of Muslim Students?’

‘The Association of what?’

The man swallowed, surprised by my ignorance. ‘You don’t know the Association of Muslim Students?’

‘No.’

‘What planet have you been living on, my brother?’

‘I never went to school, sir.’

‘This has nothing to do with school, but with our nation. It’s sometimes necessary to listen to what is being whispered in dark corners and behind bars … I’m a pharmacist by profession, but I write articles in the press and organise political debates and clandestine congresses. I’ve come from Sétif specially to meet you, and I’m obliged to leave for the Aurès tonight, as soon as we’ve finished here.’

‘You’re not staying for the match?’

‘I’d rather not.’

He unfolded a newspaper on the table and tapped a picture of an athlete running on the track of a packed stadium.

‘His name’s Ahmed Bouguerra el-Ouafi. Have you heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘He’s our Olympic champion, our first and only gold medallist. He won by a long way at the Amsterdam Games in 1928, but many of our countrymen don’t know him because he isn’t talked about in the papers or on the radio. We’re going to remedy that injustice and make sure we boast of his merits everywhere in our cities and even in our remote douars. Sport is an extraordinary political argument. No nation can hold its head up high without idols. We need our champions. They’re as indispensable as air and water. That’s why I’ve come to see you, my dear brother. Tomorrow, you have to win. Tomorrow, we want to have our North African champion to prove to the world that we exist …’

He abruptly picked up his newspaper and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Two suspicious-looking individuals had just entered the foyer and were walking towards the reception desk.

‘I have to go,’ the activist whispered. ‘Don’t forget, my brother, your fight is ours; we’re already claiming your victory. Tomorrow, all the Muslims in our country will be glued to their radios. Don’t disappoint us.’

He walked behind a row of columns, dabbing himself with a handkerchief in order to hide his face, and quickly escaped through a service door.

A forest of spectral heads were jabbering in the huge hall. The city elite had turned out for the match. There was not a free seat or a clear aisle to be seen. It was boiling hot in spite of the subdued light streaking the corners with thin shadows. People were fanning themselves with whatever they could find.

Surrounded by a delegation of dignitaries from Oran, the Duke was lounging in one of the front boxes. Local celebrities and politicians were fidgeting with impatience near the ring. There were women too, stylish, haughty-looking women. I couldn’t remember ever having seen women at a boxing match in Oran or anywhere else — was it because they had this head start that people from Algiers assumed the right to look down on us?

I watched the hundreds of people shifting in their seats, like vultures hovering before the feeding frenzy. In the midst of this human chaos, I felt as lonely as a sacrificial lamb. A bottomless fear made my stomach churn. It wasn’t because of Pascal Bonnot or the thousands of Muslims I imagined glued to their radios. My anxiety had nothing to do with what was at stake that evening: it was made up of nagging questions I couldn’t make sense of. I would have liked time to stop because it was already exhausting me; I would have liked the match to have taken place the day before, or the week before, or else the year before. The sense of anticipation made it hard to focus. My arms had gone numb. My temples felt as if they were being squeezed by pincers, causing shooting pain at the back of my head. I was sweating profusely and the fight hadn’t started yet.

A spotlight swept over the terraces and came to rest on a tall, strapping man in a three-piece suit straight from the tailor, with a long red scarf around his neck. It was Georges Carpentier in the flesh, a victorious centurion back from the war, acclaimed by the people and praised by the gods. The world champion raised his arms to thank the audience, the spotlight surrounding him with a halo …

It was a fight to the death. Pascal Bonnot hadn’t come to defend his title but to dissuade contenders from fighting for it. North African champion three years in succession, he knocked out his opponents one after the other with the clear aim never to see them back in the ring again. It wasn’t by chance that he was nicknamed ‘the tank’. Pascal Bonnot didn’t box, he demolished. He didn’t have Marcel Cargo’s technique or elegance, but he was as formidable as a thunderbolt and as efficient as a howitzer. Most of the legends who had crossed his path had gone into decline. Pipo, Sidibba the Moroccan, Bernard-Bernard, all kings of the ring who had enthused the crowds and set starlets’ hearts a-flutter, had endured a fight with Bonnot like a blow of fate. The sun would never again rise for them. Bonnot’s blows were simply intended to remove obstacles from his path. His reputation laid low his rivals before his punches did. His fights never went past the fifth round, which suggested he might have stamina problems. That was the one likely chink in his armour, hence the intensive training I had been put through in Marseilles. My trainers were banking on my ability to wear out my opponent, while Bonnot counted on brute force to wipe out his opponents in the opening rounds. He put all his strength into that, without holding anything back. My one chance might lie in taking advantage of his carelessness. Put doubt in his mind, De Stefano kept telling me. If you hold out past the sixth round, he’ll lose his nerve and start to have doubts. Every time you hit him, you’ll unsettle him …

Bonnot pounced on me like a bird of prey. He hit hard. A real blacksmith. His intentions were clear. He aimed at my shoulders to soften my guard. If he kept up the pace, he was sure to get me by the third round. His tactics were clear. I got away quickly, moved around him, dodged his traps. The audience whistled, blaming me for avoiding confrontation. Bonnot charged repeatedly. He was about the same height as me. His powerful torso was in marked contrast to his thin legs. I found his figure grotesque. He hit me twice on the head, not very effectively. In the fourth round, my left hook sent him onto the ropes. It was at that exact moment that his expression darkened. I was no longer just a common punch bag as far as he was concerned. I let him come, huddling in a corner, well protected by my gloves. Bonnot unleashed his fury on me, galvanised by the deafening clamour in the hall. As soon as his panting became feverish, I pushed him away, made him run, then I went back into a corner and invited him to use up his energy. The fight turned into a bloodbath from the seventh round on. Bonnot was starting to tire, doubt settling in his mind. He increased his attacks and his blunders. His growing irritation replaced his previous concentration, botched his feints. It was time for me to set the pace. For the first time, he retreated. My uppercut knocked him twice to the floor. In the hall, the yelling died down. People were starting to fear the impossible. Bonnot recovered quickly, and then he sent me to the floor. His right plunged me into a soundless world. Dazed, I vaguely saw the referee starting to count me out. When he moved away, Bonnot was on me again. His blows echoed through me like underground explosions. Creaking beneath me, the floor felt like the trapdoor of a gallows. I went back to my corner, swaying, too shaken to get what De Stefano was droning on about. Salvo hurt me as he tended to me. My right eye was blurred, there was blood on my cheek, the gum shield in my mouth was torturing me. The Duke approached the ring and yelled something at me. Gino was holding his head in both hands. I couldn’t have looked very good.

No sooner was he released back into the ring than Bonnot pursued me with his blows, determined to finish me off. I was on one knee, literally overwhelmed. The referee began the count again. I had the feeling he was counting too quickly. I got up, clinging to the ropes. The hall was swaying around me. My calves were wobbling. I felt groggy. Bonnot pushed me. My body felt like an old building shaken by an earthquake; I was collapsing on all sides. The round ended. The water-soaked sponge that Salvo wiped my face with felt like a blowtorch. The slightest grimace was like an electric shock. Bonnot was watching me intensely, as if his stool was too hot to sit on, impatient to get on with the fight. His arms were shaking with rage. Throughout the ninth round, he went after me without catching me. I kept my distance in order to recover my senses, convinced that a blow to my head would mean the end. My tactic provoked jeers from the hall. I don’t know why Bonnot turned to the referee. Perhaps to complain, annoyed by my refusal to fight. He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off me. Drawing on everything I’d got left, I threw a left hook. Bonnot’s neck cracked beneath my glove. He whirled round and fell back on the ropes, which threw him onto me; I immediately gave him a series of lefts and rights, and he staggered and fell on his backside, stunned. Trying to get up again, he lost his balance, sprawled on his back, and writhed feebly like an insect caught in glue. He was saved by the bell.

‘He’s done for,’ De Stefano yelled at me, his voice so feverish as to be unrecognisable. ‘He’s completely dazed. Finish him off now.’ The Duke was gloating in his seat. This time, Gino’s hands were clasped together in prayer. The audience held its breath. Bonnot wasn’t in good shape. An hour earlier, a king had climbed into the ring as if it were a throne. A few rounds later, the monarch had been reduced to a wild-eyed torture victim on a scaffold. I could see the distress in his desperate gaze and I almost felt remorse. The tenth round was horrible. Bloodstained, his eyebrows cut and his eyes swollen, and still the thunderbolts rained down on him. Now he was the one who was huddled in a corner, waiting for the storm to pass. He collapsed after a series of lefts and rights, winded. The referee started the count. Bonnot shook his head, determined to hold out as long as he could. I worked on his sides, methodically. His body arched beneath my uppercuts, lifted, twisted with suffering. Just when I thought he was about to give up, his right made me reel. The floor creaked beneath my weight. We were both at the end of our tether, he clinging to his reputation, me to my chance of taking it from him. The audience realised that one of the two of us was going to die. The shadow of death hovered over the ring, but neither manager wanted to throw in the towel, certain that victory was within reach, but all down to a roll of the dice. Things were obviously going to end badly, but we all felt a kind of euphoria as the life was sucked out of us, hypnotised by the constant and rapid shifts in the situation. Bonnot refused to yield one inch of his kingdom and I refused to give up. We were nothing now but the expression of our intense stubbornness. I no longer felt the blows. I kept falling and getting back on my feet, tossed about from one moment of dizziness to another, driven by the single thought that I was in mortal danger. It was as if I didn’t want to miss out on my own death. Snapshots of my life flashed through my mind at dizzying speed. I was certain I had come to the last stretch, a point of no return beyond which there would be only nothingness. Bonnot must have been living through the same ordeal and seeing things in the same way as me: he was swaying in his fog, collapsing, getting up again, powerless to retaliate, a pitiful puppet lurching about at the end of his strings. Exhausted, but with a bravery verging on the ridiculous. With each blow, his neck looked as though it was turning three hundred and sixty degrees. I felt his ribs crack beneath my gloves. Don’t get up, I begged him, horrified by his suicidal tenacity. He was refusing to abdicate, got up grimacing with pain, disorientated, drained of all energy. In a final burst of pride, he swung his right and his wrist smashed against the wooden ring post. His wounded arm hung suddenly at his side, vulnerable and useless. It was a tragic, unbearable moment. The reigning champion was finished, delivered, feet and fists tied, to the knockout blow. I was expecting him to call it quits, but no, Bonnot threatened to eat his manager alive if he threw in the towel. He went back to his stool, swaying, holding his wounded wrist up to his stomach to show that his arm was functioning normally.

The twelfth round offered up a deeply disturbing spectacle. People were uncomfortable, held spellbound by the pathetic bravery of this champion who was risking his all, counting only on his one good arm to save face. He knew he was beaten, but he wasn’t giving up. It was pure madness. As I watched him charge head down and punch indiscriminately, unbalanced by his own clumsiness, driven mad by the blood that blinded him, wandering in the middle of the ring like a desperate spectre, the pertinence of Irène’s words came home to me. Bonnot was showing me my own image, the fate this life had in store for me. One day, refusing to relinquish my title, I’d behave in the same way; I’d give up my health, my life, everything that mattered to me for a hypothetical flash of pride as dizzying as a leap into the void. I would fall into a pernicious delirium, firmly convinced that death would be less painful than defeat, and I would let myself be taken apart piece by piece rather than acknowledge my opponent’s clear superiority. We weren’t idols, we were incapable of reason; fighting animals intoxicated by the cheers; two strange, exhausted characters cutting each other to shreds; two madmen drunk with fatigue and pain whose moans were drowned out by the uproar of the hundreds of spectators horrified, and at the same time fascinated, by the unbearable violence that defined us …

When Bonnot at last collapsed and didn’t get up again, there was general relief.

The nightmare was over.

In no time at all, the ring had been taken by storm. De Stefano and Salvo showed me off like a trophy. Gino was weeping with joy. Even Francis was dancing. The Duke climbed on his seat to make sure everyone could see him, arms open wide to receive manna from heaven.

Dazed, on the verge of passing out, I gave myself up to the jubilation of my fans, my eyes fixed on Bonnot, who they were trying in vain to revive.

7

The consequences of my fight with Bonnot became clear as soon as I got back to Oran. I started vomiting blood and was plagued by headaches, which would wear off only to return with greater intensity, as fierce as a toothache. At times, the ground fell away beneath my feet, pins and needles riddled my thighs and my arms, and my breathing became irregular.

I was taken to a clinic run by a doctor who was a friend of the Bollocqs. The X-rays weren’t alarming: I had two cracked ribs, that was all. For three days, I was given all kinds of medication, but the pains didn’t go away. My sight was sometimes blurred and whatever I ate I’d immediately throw up. The mirror showed me a poor devil with a dented face, cut eyebrows, swollen lips and cheeks covered in bruises. When my bandages were removed, skin came off with them.

Gino would come to see me from time to time. I almost hated him for his intact beauty. He looked invulnerable in his smart suit.

The news from Algiers wasn’t good. Bonnot still hadn’t woken up. They feared for his life. Even the most optimistic couldn’t see him getting back in the ring.

I felt bad for him. He had fought like a lion and earned my respect.

The mayor held a huge reception to celebrate my victory. I didn’t go. I didn’t want to display my wounds to satisfy people’s curiosity.

Irène asked me where I’d been. I told her I had waited for my face to start looking more the way it had before so that she could recognise me. Her father wasn’t well. Confined to bed in his untidy room, his skin sallow, the sheets stained with sweat, he summoned up the strength to hug me to him.

‘Jérôme the milkman told me,’ he said. ‘Quite a match, it seems. The whole village followed it on the radio, biting their nails. I’m proud of you.’

Irène went away, leaving us alone, no doubt exasperated by her father’s words.

‘Sit down next to me,’ he said. ‘I want to smell your warrior smell. Do you realise? You’re the new North African champion. I’d give anything to be in your shoes. I suppose you haven’t quite grasped your achievement yet. It’s fantastic … What about Bonnot? They say he’s hovering between life and death.’

‘Who isn’t, Monsieur Ventabren? Who isn’t?’

I went out into the courtyard. Irène was bent over the edge of the well, staring down at the bottom as if looking into a deadly mirror.

‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ she said. ‘You’ve killed a man you didn’t even know. Do you ever think of his family, his children if he’s married?’

I didn’t feel up to challenging her.

Filippi found me lying at the foot of a tree. Irène had left on her mare, abandoning me to my thoughts. Since I’d left the clinic, the same questions had been nagging at me relentlessly. I had to make a choice and I wasn’t feeling my best.

‘We’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ Filippi cried, pulling up level with me.

‘I’ve been looking for myself too, and I can’t seem to get hold of me.’

‘The Duke wants to see you.’

‘Not today. I need to be on my own.’

He left disappointed.

Next day at the gym, I surprised everyone by announcing my decision. If a bomb had gone off in Rue Wagram, it wouldn’t have caused such a shock. De Stefano almost choked. Francis, Tobias and Salvo all looked at each other, thoroughly shaken. Frédéric, who was just coming out of the office, almost fell over backwards. As for Gino, the blood completely drained from his face.

‘What’s this all about?’ Francis cried.

‘It isn’t about you. I’m making a fresh start. I’m through with boxing.’

A crushing stupefied silence fell over the room. Nobody had expected me to give up. Wasn’t I the centre of the world now? Wasn’t my name on everyone’s lips? For a long while, they just stood there, stunned.

‘Have we done something wrong?’ Frédéric said at last, in a toneless voice.

‘No.’

‘Then why are you punishing us?’

‘It’s not about punishment, it’s my life.’

‘You’re the new North African champion, Turambo. Do you realise how happy your people are? You’re the one topic of conversation in the streets, the cafés, the houses, the factories, the prisons. You have no right to stop when things are going so well. Your life isn’t just your own any more, it’s an epic tale that belongs to everybody.’

‘Don’t try to sidetrack me, Frédéric. I’m not listening to you.’

Gino leant against the wall. Bent double, he gave a terrible groan and threw up.

The others were still speechless.

Frédéric dabbed at his temples with a handkerchief. He was as white as his shirt collar. ‘Let’s not rush things,’ he stammered. ‘You’ve worked hard in the last few months. You’ll feel better after you’ve taken a break. You certainly deserve it. It’s only natural, the pressure you’ve been under has taken a toll on your nerves.’

‘Why don’t you tell the Duke?’ Francis thundered, foaming at the mouth. ‘Why have you come to piss us off with your mood swings? It’s Monsieur Bollocq who coughs up the money for you, not us. Go and tell him to his face, if you have the balls for it.’

‘Shut up!’ De Stefano shouted, on the verge of jumping on him.

‘It’s for him to shut up,’ Francis protested. ‘Does he think he can get away with this? Monsieur here believes he’s already made it. He thinks he can cold-shoulder us, that he can just waltz in and out as he likes. He isn’t alone in the world. There are people around him, people who depend on him. He can’t just allow himself to bow out as he sees fit. What are we to him? Skittles to be knocked down? We have families, we have kids to feed. This bastard is suffocating us. It’s blackmail. He wants to bring us down, force us to kiss his dirty feet. He’s always been like this, ungrateful and narrow-minded. I swear he’s doing it deliberately.’

‘Get out of here before I tear your eyes out!’ De Stefano threatened him. ‘Go on, clear off!’

Francis straightened his jacket and stormed outside, stopping only at the door to say, ‘I knew from the start you were nothing but an out-and-out bastard. I knew you’d bite the hand that fed you one of these days. Everybody knows that if you hold out your hand to Arabs, they pull you down. The other problem is that when they get to the well, they don’t drink, they piss in it. That’s why they poison everything they touch and bring bad luck to anyone who goes near them.’

He spat in my direction and walked out.

Frédéric thought it was too soon to tell the Duke of my decision. He was playing for time. Two days later, he invited us to his villa near Choupot. The meal was served in the garden, in the shade of a scruffy palm tree. The whole team was there, except Francis. De Stefano looked as if he was at a funeral. Salvo and Tobias, who had stopped bickering, were like two orphans. Gino had lost weight overnight. Nervous, he went to the toilet every fifteen minutes.

When the maid came to clear the table, we realised that none of us had touched the food.

Frédéric lit cigarette after cigarette, his hand shaking. ‘We all need to have had a childhood,’ he said at last. ‘It gives us stability. That didn’t happen with you, Turambo. Hunger and poverty took yours away. It’s left a gap in your life. And the first woman you met has filled it. What you think is love is nothing but a return to childhood, and children don’t love with reason, they love out of instinct.’

‘Who said anything about a woman?’

‘It’s obvious.’

‘Have you been spying on me?’

‘We look out for you.’

‘You’re backing the wrong horse, my boy,’ De Stefano said. ‘You won’t win at that game. You have to push that mirage away if you don’t want to lose control. You have a career to build, rings to conquer. Only blows are capable of waking you up to reality. The day you raise your arms above your head to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd, the whole world will throw itself at your feet, and then you’ll be able to choose the woman you want without owing anything to anyone.’

‘Is it you talking to me like this, De Stefano?’

‘Yes, it’s me, it’s really me talking to you like this. How would you live without your gloves? Doing little jobs that bring in nothing, just like before?’

‘I’ve made enough money to start again from scratch.’

‘You can never make enough money for your old age, Turambo.’

‘I’ll get by. I’ll go back to the land. I’m a peasant.’

De Stefano shook his head sadly. ‘I have a wife and kids. In the evening when I go home, I find them waiting for me. The first thing they look at is what I have in my hands. If I bring something to eat, they relax and take it off me before I’ve even closed the door. If my hands are empty, I become invisible to them. I don’t want you to have to endure the same thing, Turambo. Love is made up of dreams and generosity; it can’t survive when you’re broke. You’re a champion. Your destiny lies in your fists. Make yourself a pile of money and then you can do whatever you like with your life. For the moment, you’re still scrambling about at the bottom of the ladder. Don’t waste your energy anywhere but in the ring.’

I didn’t want to hear any more. I wasn’t equipped to defend my decision. I knew I was vulnerable because I was dealing with emotions. The doubt was always there. I wondered if I wasn’t going off course, but at the same time hardened myself against anything that could disturb me further. As far as I was concerned, Irène was worth all the risks I’d be called upon to take. I couldn’t wait to see her again, to draw confidence from her way of seeing things.

*

I didn’t go with Gino to Boulevard Mascara. His sorrow would only have weakened my resolve and I wasn’t going to force myself to accompany him.

At the farm, Ventabren’s condition was getting worse. But Irène was there and her proximity protected me from my moments of doubt.

One Sunday, as I was just walking into a park to try and clear my head, Mouss grabbed me by the wrist. It clearly wasn’t a chance encounter. Maybe he’d followed me all the way from Rue du Général-Cérez.

‘Will you promise to keep your fists in your pockets if I tell you something in confidence?’ he asked.

‘Why do you want me to keep my fists in my pockets?’

‘Because I’m a heavyweight and I wouldn’t want to take you apart like an old carcass.’

‘Don’t you think I’m a match for you?’

‘No chance.’

‘In that case, let’s stop this right now.’

He stood in my way. ‘It’s for your own good, Turambo, I promise you.’

‘Have you been asked to lecture me?’

‘So what if I have?’

He may have been trying to act tough, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was genuine. ‘Why are you all so worried about me?’

‘We’re a family, little brother. Times are hard and we have to stick together.’

‘All right. Say what you have to say and let’s have done with it. I need to get some fresh air.’

‘Let’s go in the park. They say it’s more romantic.’

Mouss was patronising me, his voice throaty and drawling as if he was trying to put me to sleep. I suppose his phenomenal strength made people look tiny to him. The journalists hated him for his arrogance, but he didn’t give a damn. As long as he punched right, he didn’t care about anything else. But he was generally credited with being honest, he wasn’t the kind to flirt with trouble or fix matches — which was common enough in that world. I think he admired me, and even respected me. He didn’t come and congratulate me after fights, but he’d watch me from a distance, stand to one side so that I could see him give me a secret sign, then stride off into the crowd. I admit I didn’t like him much. He often made a fuss about nothing to draw attention to himself. His narcissism irritated me. We both came from the same terrible beginnings, from the lowest of the low, but we weren’t climbing the ladder for the same reasons. In the ring, Mouss was a bulldozer. He hit to kill. His gloves were fashioned out of flesh. He didn’t fight to make his career or fortune, he fought to prove to himself that he hadn’t died with his family, to get his revenge for the blows he had received without being allowed to return them. He had lost his family very young. His father, a slave, had been whipped to death by an overseer and his mother had thrown herself off a cliff … For Mouss, when the bell rang, it brought back to life the dead and the absent and awoke old demons. He saw his opponent simply as an antidote: by making mincemeat of him, he was able to cure himself.

It wasn’t the same for me.

As far as I was concerned, boxing was neither a cure nor a redemption, it was just a way of making a living.

We walked to a little paved courtyard lined with wrought-iron benches and opted for the shade of a weeping willow leaning over a fountain. Mouss stretched his neck to the right and left, pushed back his tartan cap, placed his big bear-like mitts on my shoulders and looked me full in the eyes.

‘De Stefano wants what’s best for you,’ he said. ‘He’s a man who knows what he’s talking about. If I hadn’t listened to him when I was starting out, I wouldn’t be wearing these smart clothes and I wouldn’t be sleeping in a bed …’

Swaying slightly, he sniffed loudly and looked to the right and left like some pick-up artist.

‘I could have taken a wife and settled down,’ he went on. ‘That’s not enough for me, little brother. Before, I was just another Negro good for nothing except unloading carts. By boxing I’ve become somebody. Who even notices the colour of my skin? My gloves are my visiting card now, and they can open any door. I weigh a hundred and twenty kilos, but I feel as light as a feather. I can have all the women I want, and all the privileges, and nobody asks questions. You know why? For one reason, and one reason only: I’m alive, and I take full advantage of it … You mustn’t get things mixed up, boy. Making love is one thing. Love itself is another matter entirely; it limits you. You don’t reduce the world to a woman, however wonderful she is … Why be content with a queen when you can have a harem? That’s just being stupid. You can’t put a rope round your neck without condemning yourself to the leash or the gallows.’

‘Is that what you have to tell me in confidence?’

‘I’m coming to that. I’m a heavyweight after all, I move slowly … Personally, I agree with De Stefano. He’s not just a sage, De Stefano, he’s a saint. When he tells you to throw in the towel, you throw in the towel and don’t try to understand.’

‘Please get to the point, my head’s going to explode.’

Mouss took his hands off my shoulders and folded his arms over his chest. An enigmatic smile hovered on his lips. ‘Irène isn’t the right girl for you. She’s playing with your innocence.’

‘Oh, really? And where do you know Irène from? Did your ancestors have a word with her while you were in a trance?’ I was deliberately trying to wound him.

He ignored my provocation. He merely strutted about on the spot then said, ‘Does she still have that strawberry-shaped mark on her right buttock?’

My fist flew of its own accord.

He swayed, but didn’t fall. ‘You promised to keep your fists in your pockets, Turambo,’ he grunted, casually rubbing his jaw. ‘It isn’t right not to keep your word … Sorry you’re taking it like this. I wasn’t trying to offend you or manipulate you. I thought you had a right to know and I had a duty to tell you the truth. As far as I’m concerned, I did what I had to do. You do what you want now. It’s not my problem any more.’

He lifted one finger to his temple in farewell, pulled his cap down over his eyes and strode back to the bustle of the streets.

It was dark by the time I got to the farm. Drizzle was falling on the mist-shrouded countryside. Big clouds jostled in the low sky while a cold that was unusual for the time of year was sharpening its claws. A small, dirt-encrusted car stood outside the house, its door wide open. The Ventabrens had a visitor. A young doctor dressed in black was examining Alarcon Ventabren, who lay on his bed looking pale, sweating profusely, laid low by fever, rings under his eyes, his mouth cracked and dry. Irène stood in a corner of the room, wringing her hands, overcome with anxiety.

The doctor put his gear in his bag. He looked ill at ease. ‘I’ve given him a sedative,’ he said. ‘That should bring his temperature down. It isn’t a chill and it isn’t indigestion, and I can’t explain the vomiting. It may be a virus, maybe not. If his condition doesn’t improve, drive him to hospital.’

Irène walked the doctor to his car. I stayed by Alarcon’s bedside, upset and useless, my mind full of Mouss’s revelations. During the drive from Oran to the farm, his voice had reverberated in my head until it felt as if it would explode. I couldn’t see the road winding in front of me or the mist on my windscreen. Torn between sorrow and the fear of confronting Irène, I twice almost missed a bend and nearly ended up in a ditch.

What was I doing here?

I was unhappy, buried beneath a mountain of despair, disgusted with everything.

Irène returned, looking ghostly. Was it her father or the darkness in my eyes that bothered her? She sat down on a stool near the bed, dipped a handkerchief in a pan of water beside her and began moistening her father’s face. It was as if she had guessed what was making me gloomy and sad, as if someone had told her what had happened between Mouss and me.

Alarcon muttered something in his sleep. Irène listened carefully but couldn’t grasp the meaning. I didn’t react, stuck in a glass mould that forbade me the slightest movement. Blood pounded in my temples at regular intervals, like a leaking tap.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him,’ she said at last. ‘He came down with it suddenly.’

I didn’t know why the effect of hearing her voice took away half my fears.

She stood up and walked past me, her mind elsewhere. I followed her into the kitchen, where the dishes from lunch were waiting to be cleaned. Some of the food hadn’t even been touched, suggesting that things had deteriorated without warning.

‘He really scared me,’ she admitted. ‘I thought he was going to die. I ran to the village to fetch the doctor.’

She grabbed a plate and emptied the food into a cardboard box.

‘If you’d come earlier, I wouldn’t be in this state. I was lost, I didn’t know where to turn. I was in a panic …’

‘Mouss mentioned the mark you have on your lower back.’

I had said it. I would have given anything to take back my words, to swallow them. Now wasn’t the time, I thought, scolding myself. Too late! The burden that had been weighing me down had come out into the open, taking away all my anger and anxiety. I felt as drained as a possessed person from whom the devil has been driven out, liberated but in danger, like a bird that has left its cage and is exposed to the perils of an unknown world.

Irène froze. She stood over the sink for a few moments, speechless, the plate in her hands. Her shoulders slumped suddenly, then her neck. She let the plate drop into the water, took several deep breaths, then slowly turned, her face scarlet, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘What are you trying to say?’ she asked in a hollow voice.

‘Is it true that he knows?’

The colour returned to her face and her eyes darkened. ‘He wasn’t blind, if my memory serves me well.’

‘He says —’

‘Shut up,’ she interrupted me. She wiped her hands on her apron and leant back against the sink. When at last she had her breathing under control, she folded her arms over her chest and looked me up and down with a disdain I had never seen in her before. ‘How long have we been together, Amayas?’

‘Almost a year.’

‘Do you think I was born that day?’

‘I don’t follow you.’

She leant more heavily against the sink, increasingly in control of her anger. ‘I wasn’t a virgin when you had me in the bushes, don’t forget. That didn’t seem to bother you. Worse, you decided to love me all the same. You even thought about starting a family with me.’

‘Yes, but —’

‘But what?’ she shouted. ‘There are no buts. Have I ever tried to find out about your past?’

Her lips were quivering and her eyes held me, motionless, like the double barrel of a shotgun. She was waiting for a word from me to continue. I didn’t know what to say to reproach her.

‘In life,’ she said in a curiously calm tone, ‘you don’t just wipe everything out and start over again. It’s more complicated than that. I’d had a few affairs before you. I’m only flesh and blood. I have a heart beating in here, and a body that demands its share of excitement. But not once did I cheat on my husband before the divorce. And not once have I looked at another man since you took me in your arms … You have to take all these things into consideration.’

She came and stood in front of me, so close that her breath burnt my face.

‘We aren’t from the same class, young man. Or the same race. Or the same culture. And the world is bigger than your tribe. In your world, a woman is her husband’s property. He makes her believe that he’s her destiny, her salvation, her absolute master, that she’s merely a rib torn from his skeleton, and she believes him. In my world, women aren’t an extension of men, and virginity isn’t necessarily a guarantee of good behaviour. We marry when we love each other; what happened before doesn’t matter. In my world, a man doesn’t renounce his wife, he divorces her, and they each go their own way. Our women have a right to live their own lives. There’s no shame in that. As long as we don’t harm anyone, we don’t have to justify ourselves. And for us, a crime of honour is simply a crime; the law doesn’t find extenuating circumstances for it, let alone give it legitimacy. If you seriously thought I was going to wait patiently for you, locked up in my room, doomed perhaps never to meet my Prince Charming, then you’re even more stupid than your people.’

With that, she tore off her apron, threw it in my face and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

I jumped at the noise of the door. A jolt went right through me, as if I’d had a solid right to the jaw. The kitchen seemed as cold and dark as a cellar. I collapsed onto a chair and held my face in both hands, convinced that I had just committed the worst blunder of my life.

Alarcon Ventabren’s cries roused me from the thoughts that plagued me. I ran to him, half blind in the dim light of the oil lamp. Irène was trying to stop her father’s arm waving about in the grip of an attack. The poor man was choking, the corners of his mouth streaming with whitish drool. The upper part of his body was convulsing jerkily. I pushed Irène aside, put my arms round the patient, pulled him out of bed and hoisted him onto my back. His saliva dripped on the back of my neck. Irène ran to open the back door of my car, helped me put her father inside and got in next to me. I started the engine and set off before I’d even switched on the headlights.

We were alone in a grim corridor where faded paint was peeling from the walls, Irène crouching beneath a window, her hands clasped around her mouth, eyes fixed on the tiled floor, and me walking up and down from one end to the other. From time to time, a nurse would emerge from a room or a cupboard and disappear before we had time to catch up with her. The terrified cries of patients reached us intermittently, then silence would fall again on the hospital, as disturbing as a bad omen.

I found it hard to look at Irène. I hated myself for not having respected her emotion, for not having waited for the right moment to lance the boil. I felt bad for her and for me. Yet, seeing her huddled over her sorrow, there in the middle of that corridor lashed by draughts, on a night so black it seemed resistant to prayers and miracles, I was certain that my love for her was unchanged, that the misunderstanding between us had merely strengthened my feelings for her. I loved her, there was no doubt about it, I loved her with all my heart — rightly or wrongly didn’t matter! My heart beat only for her and no tomorrow, no horizon would have glow or meaning without Irène. What did thunder matter when the storm was simply passing; what did an insult matter if a kiss could heal wounded lips? For me, life was starting again, with greater intensity now that a new page had been turned. Irène was the chapter I had chosen for myself in order to be me and only me, an ordinary person whom love would glorify more than any success in the ring. I didn’t need any signs from my hands, I didn’t need anything; it was Irène I wanted more than anything else in the world.

At last, after two hours, a doctor appeared. ‘I’m Dr Jacquemin.’

‘How is he?’ Irène asked urgently.

‘For the moment, he’s asleep. Go home, there’s no point waiting here.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘It’s too soon to give a diagnosis. In my opinion, it may have been a major attack of anxiety. That sometimes happens to those who are paralysed, but it looks more serious than it is. Rest assured he’s in good hands. I’m taking personal charge of him. Come back tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell you more.’

He gave us an encouraging smile and apologised that he had to leave us.

The drive back to the farm was extremely uncomfortable. Irène had chosen to sit in the back seat, a sign that she was still angry with me. I found it hard to drive, looking both at the road and into the rear-view mirror. Irène was stubbornly turned to the window, staring out into the darkness. Her profile stood out in the gloom, sulking but beautiful, her features finely chiselled, bare but regal. She was even more gorgeous now that her anger had dissolved into thoughtfulness.

When we reached the farm, she got out of the car without even looking at me. I grabbed her by the wrist just as she was getting ready to go up to her room.

‘Please,’ she moaned, ‘I want to sleep.’

I drew her to me; she resisted and tried to pull away; I forced her to turn towards me and she pushed me away without success, twisted, bit my hand; I wouldn’t let go, crushed her to me; she let out little cries of rage, tried to scratch my face, drummed her fists on my chest for a long time, continued to struggle, silently but intensely, then, exhausted, abandoned herself to her sobs. I lifted her chin. Her tear-streaked face glistened as much as her eyes. I kissed her on the mouth. She turned her head away. I kissed her again, forcing her; her teeth closed on my lips; I felt the blood seeping onto my tongue. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around my neck and started kissing me with almost savage passion. Freed of our sorrows, we gave ourselves up body and soul to the joys of our reunion. We were together again, made for each other, restored to each other. We lay down on the floor and made love as never before.

Towards midday, we lunched briefly in the kitchen, reconciled. The looks we exchanged didn’t need an interpreter. Words would have been absurd, even out of place should they have misrepresented what our silence excelled in expressing. There are moments of grace when saying nothing allows you to accede fully to the quintessence of the senses. The heart then entrusts the eyes with its deepest secrets. With the truth laid bare, there is nothing to be said, or else everything will disappear. We were serene because we knew that our relationship would finally know happier days.

Irène wanted to go with me to the hospital. I told her I had urgent matters to settle in town and promised that I would be back to pick her up later.

8

The Duke opened his arms wide. He was in shirtsleeves behind his desk, his hairy shoulders sloping above his chest. Seeing me open the door, he leapt up and almost ran to hug me. I didn’t respond to his embrace. He moved back to look at me and his ardour cooled immediately.

‘What’s the matter? You look strange.’

‘Haven’t you been told?’

‘About what?’

‘About my decision.’

‘What decision?’

I came straight out with it. ‘I’m giving up boxing.’

He froze for a moment, astounded, then threw his head back and laughed heartily. ‘Oh, you really had me there … You joker, you really had me going for a minute.’

‘I’m serious, Monsieur Bollocq.’

The coolness of my tone completely extinguished his enthusiasm. His face became so tense that the lines on his forehead looked as if they were about to crack. ‘What’s this all about? Have the blows to your head driven you crazy or what?’

‘Maybe.’

With a movement of his hand, the Duke swept away the files heaped up on his desk, kicked a chair, then took his head in his hands to calm himself down. He stayed like that for several seconds, with his back to me, trying to get his thoughts in order. When he turned back, there was nothing human about his flushed face. He was shaking all over, his nostrils were dilated, and his eyes were popping out of their sockets. He started by putting his finger on my chest, then took it away and looked around, his breathing uncontrolled.

‘I’m dreaming,’ he grunted. ‘It isn’t possible.’

Suddenly, he grabbed me by the throat, but he was too short to hold on. He went back behind his desk and gazed out at the plane tree in the courtyard.

‘Ginooo!’ he screamed.

An alarmed secretary appeared. He sent her to fetch Gino from the second floor. Gino came running. I heard him come up the stairs four steps at a time. He was surprised to see me there, but the Duke didn’t give him time to recover his composure.

‘Can you explain to me what’s got into your friend here?’

Gino swallowed.

‘Did you know about his decision?’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

‘Since when?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I thought I could reason with him.’

‘Apparently, you haven’t been very convincing.’

‘To be honest, we haven’t had the opportunity to talk about it with a clear head.’

‘It’s your head that’s on the line, boy,’ the Duke roared, charging at Gino. ‘If this stupid fake brother of yours doesn’t apologise to me right now, I don’t rate your chances of survival.’

‘It’s an unfortunate misunderstanding, Monsieur. It’ll all be sorted out, I promise.’

But I was resolute. ‘I’ve made up my mind,’ I said. ‘Neither Gino nor anyone will get me to change it.’

The Duke again rushed at me, his speech agitated. ‘I don’t think you realise the risk you’re taking, you little fool. I’m not a boxer and I don’t follow any rules when I cross swords with an opponent. Do you follow me? I don’t know if you have a brain or motor oil in that head of yours, but if I were you, I’d be careful, very careful.’ Registering that his threat didn’t scare me, he assumed a less abrupt tone. ‘Do you mind telling me what hasn’t worked out between us? We’ve been with you every step of the way. So why this about-turn? If it’s a question of money, let’s put our cards on the table. Everything’s negotiable, champ.’

‘I’m really sorry, Monsieur Bollocq. It isn’t a question of money and I have no gripes with anybody. You’re been terrific, all of you. I haven’t disappointed you. We’re quits.’

‘Not so fast, knucklehead. I’m trying to launch your career internationally and you bring it back to me like a dog bringing back the stick his master threw for him.’

‘I’m not a dog.’

‘That remains to be seen … What can’t be denied is that I’m the master here. All you have, you owe to me. I’ve spent a fortune getting an uneducated Arab street kid without a future onto the top podiums. I told you a long time ago, you’re nothing but an investment, a business proposition that’s cost me a lot of money, massive negotiations, and partnerships with people who made me queasy. For your sake, I’ve been forced to grease palms, bribe journalists, forgive people who’ve betrayed me and make my peace with nobodies. And now you come here, bold as brass, to tell me you’re pulling out, and you think you’re within your rights?’

He turned to Gino.

‘Take this native of yours and get out of here. When you come back to see me, I want you both to apologise, on your knees and in tears. Otherwise, I’ll come looking for you and I’ll make you rue the day your paths crossed … Now clear off!’

Gino took me straight to his office. He was in a total panic.

‘What’s got into you, damn it? What quagmire are you dragging all of us into? The Duke won’t let you go like that. We’re both in danger. For heaven’s sake, let’s go back and apologise.’

‘I don’t owe him anything any more.’

‘Don’t be so sure; you owe him more than you can imagine. You were nothing but an alley cat and he made you a tiger. Without him, you’d still be drinking from ditches. I know better than you do how to recognise who’s wrong and who deserves respect … Your problem is, your brain would fit on the head of a pin. You don’t know what’s good for you and what to avoid like the plague. You want some golden advice? Give up the woman. She’s leading you astray. If you meant anything to her, she wouldn’t stand in your way, she’d encourage you to keep going, to win title after title, to reach for the stars. I’m begging you, in the name of our fraternal friendship, our little dreams when we were poor kids, what we’ve been through and what we’ve built up from nothing with our own hands, I’m beseeching you, I’ll kiss your hands and feet, come back to me, come back to us, and get rid of that tramp who’s trying to push you back into the gutter you’ve only just made it out of.’

‘Do you realise what you’re asking of me, Gino? I care about that woman. Not a minute goes by that I don’t think about her, and you’re asking me to forget her. Gino, my dear Gino, can’t you see that I’m happy for the first time in my life? I love Irène, don’t you understand? I love her. My days only have a meaning because Irène makes each one new for me.’

He slapped me. ‘You’re selfish. Stupid and pig-headed and selfish. After all I’ve gone through for you, you’re casting me aside.’

‘Don’t ever raise your hand to me, Gino. I mean it.’

‘Then do what I ask. You’re walking all over me as if I was a doormat. How dare you throw away what we’ve built for you?’

‘I’m really sorry. This hurts me, it really does. I have a lot of affection for De Stefano, Tobias and Salvo. And you’re still a brother to me. But I’m tired of taking punches. I need to get down off my cloud, to walk among people, to live a normal life.’

‘You promised my mother on her deathbed. You swore never to let a serpent come between us.’

‘Irène isn’t a serpent, Gino.’

‘She is, Turambo, only you don’t see it. You’re hypnotised by her like a field mouse.’

‘You’ll get over it, Gino. Your friendship means a lot to me. Let’s not throw it away.’

‘You’re the one who’s throwing it away. You don’t have any consideration for me, or any pity. I’m this close to having a heart attack and you don’t give a damn. If that’s your idea of friendship, you can keep it. I’d never have landed you in the shit. You don’t know how disappointed I am in you. You’re behaving like a hypocrite and a coward. You disgust me. A bastard, that’s what you are, a filthy, ungrateful bastard.’

His words hurt me.

Gino had fire in his eyes and venom in his mouth. His nostrils trembled with resentment, his lips cursed me. He was choking like an asthmatic, his breath hot with the magma rising in him, terrifying in its bile, his features distorted.

‘Be careful,’ he breathed, wagging his finger in my face. ‘You aren’t the one in charge, Turambo. Don’t bury us too soon. I’ve given too much of myself for you and I won’t let you ruin my future.’

‘You see? Your future. If you care so much about yours, why do you want me to give up mine?’

‘One doesn’t rule out the other. Boxing isn’t incompatible with marriage. Marry that slut of yours if you really want to, but for God’s sake don’t sacrifice us for the sake of her lovely eyes.’

‘It isn’t just that, Gino. I’m fed up with licking my wounds while you lick your fingers counting your money.’

‘You’re making money too.’

‘And losing my self-respect. I don’t want to make a spectacle of myself any more.’

‘I beg you, Turambo, try to think for two seconds!’

‘That’s all I’ve been doing for months. I’ve made my decision and it’s not negotiable.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely.’

He shook his head, defeated, then recovered and looked up at me with blood-red eyes, his cheeks twitching. His mouth twisted to one side. ‘I warn you,’ he roared, ‘I won’t let you get away with this.’

A transformation was taking place before my very eyes. A mask was being ripped off a wonderful time of innocence and disinterested complicity, to reveal a new face, repulsive and obscene. Gino was giving birth, painfully, to a character whose dark side I had barely suspected. You would have sworn it emerged from the wall behind him, or from a tomb, stony-faced, eyes full of dust, veiled in shadow, no, worse, embodied in shadow. Gino had the tragic look of someone who has a knife to his throat and who’d be ready to turn it on his best friend to save his own skin. I no longer recognised him. He might well have been thinking the same thing about me, except that I wasn’t asking anything of him, whereas the sacrifice he was expecting of me was tearing us apart. We were no longer on the same side.

‘Are you threatening me, Gino?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Well, I don’t give a fuck about your threats. The Duke can fire you, lynch you, preserve you in formaldehyde, I don’t care.’

‘You’re a laughing stock, boy. Wake up. Your muse is nothing but a slut who sleeps with the first man who comes along. She’ll kick you out of her bed as soon as she tires of you. Didn’t Mouss tell you?’

‘So it was you who sent him to see me?’

‘Damn right it was. I thought you had self-respect and a sense of honour like the men of your community. I realise now you’re just a fool taken in by a prick-teaser. She’d swap you for a wad of banknotes without even bothering to count them. I’m going to prove to you that that bitch on heat can be bought like any other whore.’

‘Stay away from her, Gino.’

‘What are you afraid of? That I’m right?’

I pushed him away and ran down the stairs.

He ran after me, yelling, ‘I won’t let you sabotage my plans, Turambo, you hear? Turambo! Turambo!’

After driving around the boulevards, I went to a Moorish café near Sidi Blel. The alley was too narrow to drive down. I left my car outside a little park and walked the rest of the way to the café. A few turbaned customers were chatting over their tea. A blind singer was playing the lute on a makeshift stage. I ordered cinnamon coffee and Tunisian doughnuts. I had the feeling I was being born into a new world, leaving far behind what motivated the others more than me. The moorings that had chained me to mad promises and contracts would no longer prevent me from going out into the open air. I had always dreaded confronting the Duke; his social standing, his natural authority, his seismic rages had intimidated me. I never imagined I could stand up to him, let alone inform him openly of my decision. Yet, leaving his office, I had no longer felt a leaden weight on my shoulders; his threats hadn’t worked with me. I was free of that fear inherent in my condition as a ‘native’ forged in the test of strength and irrational guilt. I think I whistled in the street, or maybe I laughed that nervous laugh relieving us of a terror which, in the end, turns out to be as common as it’s unfounded. It was a strange feeling, so light it seemed I was floating. I remembered Sid Roho’s grandfather, who had, according to my childhood friend, lived like a lord even in poverty. Dispossessed of his lands, he had retired to the mountains in order not to be beholden to anyone and spent his life sleeping, daydreaming, poaching and raising a family. Apparently, he’d said, ‘There’s only one choice that matters: doing what we most care about. Everything else is denial.’

I had made my choice. Podium or scaffold, I didn’t really care, I was beyond any doubts. Paradoxically, my serenity took the form of a great tiredness: I felt an enormous need to lie down somewhere, anywhere, and sleep. I drank one coffee after another and stuffed myself with doughnuts without even realising.

When I asked for the bill, the owner told me that someone had settled it for me, but wouldn’t tell me who. In our world, in spite of poverty, that kind of thoughtfulness was common; the main thing was not to insist on learning your benefactor’s identity.

I went out into the street, thanking the people sat at tables outside at random. My heartbeat had slowed down. I felt fine.

Some old men were playing dominoes in a doorway. I stopped to exchange pleasantries with them. In the square, a gang of urchins were having fun on the bonnet of my car; when they saw me, they scattered, screaming, then came back and ran after me. The more agile of them ran level with my door, their mouths wide open, laughing triumphantly. I waved goodbye to them and accelerated.

Evening was knocking on the doors of the city. My mother was chatting with her Kabyle neighbour in the courtyard, an oil lamp placed on the edge of the well. In order not to disturb them, I went straight into our flat. My father was talking to himself in his room, his hands shaking. I kissed his forehead and sat down on a cushion facing him. He looked at me, tilting his neck to the side, a vague smile on his face. For some weeks now, he had been talking to himself, giving the impression he had entered a world of shadows and echoes.

My mother shook me. I woke with a start. I had dozed off. Remembering Alarcon Ventabren, I jumped in my car and sped to the hospital. Dr Jacquemin received me very courteously. He admitted he had recognised me the day before, but given the circumstances, hadn’t dared tell me how much he admired me as a boxer. He took me to Alarcon’s room. Alarcon was looking well. The doctor explained to me that there was nothing seriously wrong, that his dizzy spell had been brought on by a fleeting anxiety attack, the kind sometimes caused by paralysis and the physical and mental discomfort that came with it.

‘You can take him home now, but just to be on the safe side it might be advisable for him to stay here another night. After a good sleep, he’ll be able to go home singing.’

‘I’d prefer to wait until tomorrow morning,’ Alarcon agreed. ‘I don’t like travelling at night, especially not in the rain.’

The doctor went away.

Alarcon pointed with his chin to a plate on the bedside table. ‘The food here is disgusting. Would it be too much trouble for you to bring me a bowl of soup from the stand on the corner?’

‘They must have shut up shop by now.’

‘You can’t imagine how much I’d like a nice spicy chorba, with vermicelli and a pinch of cumin, a nice hot scented chorba.’

I went back to my mother’s. She was fast asleep, but when I told her it was for a sick man, she got up and herself made the chorba that Alarcon gulped down later, chuckling with delight.

‘I should go and tell Irène,’ I said. ‘She must be worried.’

‘We can both surprise her tomorrow. Stay with me. I’m so glad to be alive. I really thought I’d had it. And besides, I could do with the company.’

I sat down on a metal chair near the bed and got ready to listen, certain this was going to last all night. Alarcon was still talking when I dozed off.

At about ten in the morning, Alarcon was carried to my car on a stretcher. He chose to sit in the front seat, to get a good view. He told me he hadn’t set foot in Oran for ages. But the city looked grim beneath the rain-laden gusts of wind. The pavements were empty, the shop fronts gloomy and the signs above the shady dives creaked in a sinister and maddening way.

In bad weather, Oran is like a botched spell.

I bought fresh bread from a bakery, lamb chops and a string of merguez from a kosher butcher, some provisions too, and we set off for Lourmel. The trees writhed at the side of the road and a stream of mist rolled down from the mountain over the elegant village of Misserghin. Alarcon gazed out at the hills and the orchards, a dreamy smile on his face. In the sky, the dismal clouds that had pressed down on Oran were starting to disperse. In places, the daylight showed through the gaps. The further we got from the coast, the less the mist flowed across the road. It was still drizzling, but the wind was abating in the orange groves and vineyards. Alarcon started humming a military tune, beating time on the dashboard with his fist. I listened to him, lost in thought. I couldn’t wait to tell Irène that I’d broken with the Duke once and for all.

The hut of Larbi the fruit seller shook in the breeze, the curtains blown back. On the path leading to the farm, amid the potholes, there were recent tyre tracks. My car skidded in the ruts.

The presence of two vans in the Ventabrens’ courtyard puzzled me. When they saw us, a handful of men armed with sticks and poles regrouped near the house, surrounded by three uniformed policemen. In my suddenly dry throat, my Adam’s apple leapt in panic.

One of the policemen waved his kepi, signalling me to come towards him. He was a stunted little man with a toothbrush moustache, a pointed nose and large, protruding ears. He seemed exhausted.

‘Thank God you’re alive, Monsieur Ventabren,’ he cried, recognising my passenger. ‘My men and some volunteers have been combing the area for hours looking for you. We thought someone had abducted you and thrown your body in the scrub.’

Alarcon couldn’t grasp what the policeman was babbling about, but the presence of strangers on his land was a bad omen.

‘How could I get to the scrub in a wheelchair? What’s going on? Why are you in my house?’

‘Something’s happened, Monsieur Ventabren. Something terrible …’

I jumped out of the car, ran to the house and stopped dead in the hall. The table in the drawing room had been moved, the chairs overturned, some broken, and a painting had fallen to the floor. I called out for Irène; in the bathroom, around the full tub, pools of soapy water were turning black on the tiled floor. There were signs of a violent struggle, but no blood. Irène! Irène! My cries echoed inside me, louder than hammer blows. In the kitchen, a metal jug lay in a pool of spilt milk. I went upstairs, then came back down again; Irène didn’t reply, didn’t show herself.

A policeman grabbed me by the arm. ‘She isn’t here. Her body’s been taken to the village.’

What was he talking about?

‘She’s been murdered. Jérôme the milkman found her dead in the drawing room this morning.’

A sudden deafness struck me with full force. I could see the policeman’s lips moving, but no sound reached me. My head started spinning and I couldn’t breathe. I leant against the wall in order not to collapse, but my legs gave way under the shock. I fell on my backside, in a daze, repeating to myself: I’m going to wake up, I’m going to wake up …

A policeman took my place at the wheel of the car. I was incapable of starting the engine, incapable of driving. My legs had stopped working properly.

In the village, the police took us to a clinic where Irène’s body lay. I was unaware of sounds or movements; everything appeared blurred, confused, surreal.

The sergeant wouldn’t let me go in with Alarcon to see his daughter’s body, but ordered me to stay in the car and told a subordinate to keep an eye on me.

A crowd had gathered outside the clinic. It was moving in slow motion, silent, wild-eyed. Supported by policemen, Alarcon let himself be dragged towards his grief. When he came out again, he was pale and broken, but was trying to appear dignified.

He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the farm.

The sergeant took us to the station and ordered me to sit on a bench in a narrow room, watched closely by four officers, while he went with Alarcon into an office, leaving the door open. Their voices reached me intermittently.

‘It can’t be him,’ Alarcon sighed. ‘He spent the night by my bedside in the hospital. The doctor and the nurses can confirm it.’

‘Are you sure, Monsieur Ventabren?’

‘I tell you it isn’t him.’

‘Jérôme the milkman saw a black car leaving the farm just as he was arriving this morning for his delivery. It was exactly nine o’clock. Jérôme is categorical: your daughter’s body was still warm when he touched it …’

A black car!

This revelation sobered me abruptly. There was an explosion in my head. He did it! … As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t a shadow of doubt. I knew immediately who had taken from me the person I cared most about in the world.

I heaved with nausea, but nothing came out. I felt like I was breaking into a thousand pieces.

I drove Alarcon home. A terrible stiffness had come over me and my gestures were like those of an automaton. I couldn’t think. I was wandering in a fog, guided only by my instinct. Alarcon was holding up. He was breathing through his mouth, eyes fixed, his face inscrutable. But as soon as he was settled in his wheelchair in the house, all the composure he had shown so far, all the almost martial dignity he had displayed in the village crumbled and he burst into sobs, bent double over his lower limbs.

Night fell. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, the shadows had the shape of misfortune. Outside, the rain started again, heavier than ever. I could hear the wind howling in the folds of the hill. I was cold, locked in a trance-like state. I don’t think I yet realised the destruction that was about to overwhelm the rest of my days. A sepulchral voice went round and round in my head: He did it! He did it!

We were too devastated to think of eating. I helped Alarcon to get into bed and watched over him until he fell asleep. In the kitchen, I found a hunting knife and put it in my pocket. The mirror on the wall reflected back a spectral effigy. I looked like nothing on earth. An automaton driven by a supernatural force, I got in my car and sped back to Oran.

Boulevard Mascara was deserted and the haberdasher’s was closed. The light was on in Gino’s window. I climbed the stairs four steps at a time … ‘Gino!’ It wasn’t a cry, it was no longer anything but a scream, a geyser of hatred and rage that shook the walls. Gino wasn’t in his room. His bed was unmade, but warm. The gramophone I had given him was on; a record was going round and round on the turntable with a monotonous scraping that bored into my brain. On a low table, an ashtray overflowed with stubbed-out cigarette ends next to a half-eaten plateful of cooked meat and a dirty glass. A bottle of wine had smashed on the ground, sending broken glass in all directions. A strong smell of alcohol pervaded the room. On a chair by the bed hung a pair of trousers and a shirt. An overcoat lay on the eiderdown, along with a pair of shoes. With a bitter gesture, I swept away the gramophone, which broke on the floor; the horn bounced off the wall, turned over and lay still. Gino couldn’t be far away. He must be hiding somewhere. I looked for him in the toilet, on the terrace, in the other rooms; he must have gone to buy something to get drunk on, hoping to drown his bad conscience. That likelihood stoked my hatred. My whole body shook. I sat down on a step in the middle of the dark staircase and waited, fire in my belly, the knife in my fist.

The thunder belched like a hydra in a trance, pouring torrential rain on the city. The howling of the wind filled the night with an apocalyptic fury. Struggling with the rage that was eating me up, I refused to think of anything, to ask myself what I was doing there. I was merely an extension of the knife gripped in my hand.

And Gino arrived. Dead drunk. A litre bottle under his arm. His pyjamas soaked through. His slippers saturated with rainwater. The lightning cast his wretched shadow on the walls. I didn’t give him time to say a word. I didn’t want to hear anything, forgive anything. If he’d thrown himself at my feet, begged me in tears, sworn it was an accident, that it wasn’t his fault, that the Duke had made him do it; if he had reminded me of our finest memories, the vow made to his mother, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Gino gave a start when the knife sank into his side. I felt his hot blood on my wrist. His breath, reeking of wine, almost made me feel drunk.

He clutched at the collar of my coat, made a gurgling sound and sagged slightly.

Another flash of lightning illuminated us.

‘It’s me, Gino,’ he said, recognising me in the dark.

‘Maybe,’ I retorted, ‘but not the one I knew.’

His grip weakened. He slid slowly down my body and lay at my feet. I stepped over him and went out into the street. The rain fell on me like a spell.

I went to Saint-Eugène to wait for the Duke. I was hoping he’d come back from a party or an evening meeting. His villa lay in wait behind its gardens, all its lights off. A servant in a hood was keeping guard near the gate, with a big dog at the end of a leash. Hours passed. Numb with cold in my car, I kept watch on the surrounding area. Not a single night owl appeared, not a single car. The torrents of water, reinforced by the gusts of wind, blurred my view.

I went back to the farm. In the beating rain. Dazzled by the lightning.

Alarcon was asleep.

Shivering with cold, I wrapped myself in a blanket and lay down on the padded bench seat in the drawing room without taking my shoes off.

A rattling sound woke me. Dawn had come. A woman was bustling in the kitchen. She told me she was the wife of a neighbour, who had sent her to Alarcon’s house to see if she could help in any way. She was making us something to eat. At about one, her husband and other locals came to console the grieving father. Alarcon didn’t have the strength to see them. He preferred to stay in bed and deal with his grief alone. The neighbours were poorly dressed peasants with rough hands, rugged swarthy faces and rumpled clothes, simple people who looked at their land in the same way they looked at their wives and felt nothing but contempt for wealth and show. They didn’t know much about boxing or about what went on in the city. They asked me who I was and I replied, ‘Irène’s fiancé.’

Late in the afternoon, a police car pulled up. An officer told us that the sergeant wanted to see Monsieur Ventabren and that it was urgent. ‘It seems there’s been a development.’ He didn’t say any more, ignorant himself of what it was about.

At the station in Lourmel, the sergeant led Alarcon and me to a cell with bars. An unkempt man was there, squashed behind a refectory table, his face flabby, his shoulders hunched. It was Jérôme the milkman, wearing a mud-stained coat with worn elbows. He was sobbing and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, his wrists handcuffed, his face as shrivelled as an over-ripe quince.

‘The inconsistencies in his testimony set us thinking,’ the sergeant said. ‘He kept contradicting himself and going back on his previous statements. Then he cracked.’

A terrible silence filled the police station.

Alarcon and I were transfixed with amazement. He was the first to break the silence. Getting his breath back from somewhere deep inside him, he asked in a shaky voice, ‘Why did you do it, Jérôme?’

‘It wasn’t me, Monsieur Ventabren,’ the milkman said, kneeling in front of him imploringly. ‘It was the devil. He possessed me. There was nobody in the house. I went in to deliver the milk. I put the jug on the table in the kitchen as usual. I was about to leave when I saw Irène washing herself. I didn’t do it on purpose. The bathroom door was ajar, I swear it; it wasn’t me who opened it. I said, Jérôme go home, what you’re doing isn’t right. But it wasn’t me. I would have gone home, as you can imagine, Alarcon. You know me. I’m no angel, but I have a sense of modesty, I have principles. In my head, I said to myself, What’s happening to you, Jérôme? Have you gone mad or what? Go away, don’t look, get out of here fast, except that the devil doesn’t listen to that kind of thing; he doesn’t ask himself questions, not the devil.’

‘You raped her, then strangled her,’ the sergeant cried.

‘It was the devil, not me. Why else would I have given myself up as soon as I came to my senses?’

‘You didn’t give yourself up, you confessed. There’s a difference, you piece of shit.’

I don’t know if it was my cry or the thunder that shook the station from top to bottom, if I threw myself on Jérôme or if I only imagined myself tearing him to pieces with my bare hands. I don’t know if the policemen tore me off him, hitting me with their truncheons, or if I hurt myself falling. I only remember the blackness that followed. Nothing in front of me, nothing behind, nothing to right or left. The sky, the whole sky had fallen on my head with its billions of stars, its millions of prayers and its armies of demons. I cursed myself as no damned soul has ever been cursed. I had killed Gino for nothing, and killed the whole world with him. I could no longer hear myself breathe. My breath was denying me. I had aged several millennia. I was a mummy deprived of its rotten bandages, I was Cain emerged from the ashes of hell, his murder more stupid than the destiny of men. What have you done? cried a voice going round and round inside me. How are you going to live now? On what? Who for? Your sleep will be made of black holes, your days of funeral pyres. You can pray until your voice gives out, recite the incantations of all the magicians on earth, deck yourself with talismans or disappear in a wreath of incense; you can read the holy verses all day long, put thorns on your head and walk on water, you won’t change the fate awaiting you one iota.

I can’t remember if I took my leave of Ventabren or if the cops threw me out. It seemed to me I had gone through time in a single stride, my own cries following me like a hostile crowd. I drove, drove without knowing where I was heading. I stopped under a tree to weep. Not a sob emerged. Not a hiccup. Evening was coming; I saw nothing but my own night, that cold milky darkness taking root in my being like a slow death. I don’t know how I ended up at Camélia’s. I drank like a fish, I who had never lifted a glass of wine to my lips. Aïda was embarrassed. She was expecting someone. While waiting, she plunged me in a bathtub and rubbed my body as if trying to erase me. Wrapped in a towel, I sat down in the armchair and continued drinking. Shadowy figures moved in slow motion around me. I heard voices without understanding them. Camélia was asking Aïda to get rid of me. My mind was elsewhere; it was still at the station at Lourmel, leaning over Jérôme as he wept. I should have finished that lecher off, thrown myself on him and not let go until I’d crushed him. I was angry with myself for listening to his confession without reacting, even though he had thrown my life into an abyss. Aïda went to fetch more wine. An ocean wouldn’t have been enough to extinguish the inferno engulfing me. The more I drank, the lighter I felt; I swam above a sea of vapours and dizziness, my heart in an eagle’s talon, my eyes like spinning tops. My teeth chattered as I sat in my towel, unable to make a move without knocking something over. Aïda ignored me. Sitting on a wing chair at her dressing table, she was making herself beautiful for the evening. I saw her back as a rampart excluding me from the world of the living. ‘You have to go home now,’ she said when the time came. ‘My client’s waiting in the parlour.’ ‘He can go to hell!’ I heard myself grunt. ‘My money’s as good as his.’ She protested. I threatened to blow up the whole place. Camélia didn’t want a rumpus or a scandal in her establishment. She offered me a room. I refused to leave my armchair. Aïda had to see her client in another room. I waited for her to come back. The walls started swaying around me. I dozed off, or maybe I’d fainted. When I woke up, dawn was filtering through the blinds. Aïda wasn’t in her bed. I got up and went out to call her in the corridor. ‘Aïda! Aïda!’ My cries were meant as explosions. I was choking with anger, a storm of drunkenness. Obtaining no reply, I started hammering at the doors, from one end of the corridor to the other, then kicking them down. Prostitutes ran out into the corridor, terrified, some completely naked; clients appeared here and there, also woken up and furious. One of them tried to stop me. Others lent him a hand. I hit out violently to push them away, continuing to call Aïda. Arms seized me round the waist, fingers caught me round the throat, fists rained down on me. I hit out in a tornado of curses, wild, stark raving mad … Something smashed on my skull. I just had time to see Aïda go down with me as I fell, the handle of a jug in her hand.

Coming to, I realised that I was tied up at the foot of the stairs, with blood on my body and one black eye. The prostitutes and their clients formed a circle around me in stony silence. Uniformed police officers surrounded me, truncheons at the ready. A motionless body was being laid on a stretcher. In the scuffle, I had killed a man.

I didn’t remember a thing.

I didn’t know my victim. Had I hit him in the wrong place, thrown him down the stairs by accident? Had he slipped on a step during the fight? What did it matter? The unknown man lay there, glassy-eyed, a streak of blood on his chin.

When a misfortune happens, there’s no way out.

It was written somewhere that it had to finish this way.

Wedged between two policemen in the back seat of the car, I felt myself slipping into a parallel world from which there was no turning back. The handcuffs chafed my wrists. The rancid smell of the two policemen choked me — or maybe it was my own smell. What did it matter? I had killed a man, and that had sobered me up.

‘Do you know who you killed? A national hero, one of the most decorated officers in the Great War. It’s the guillotine for you, boy …’

My body shook.

‘Go on, laugh,’ one of the policemen said, elbowing me in the side. ‘We’ll see how long you laugh when your head rolls into the basket.’

I wasn’t laughing: I was sobbing.

It was fully daylight now, dazzling white. A limpid sky rolled out the carpet for the rising sun. Early risers hurried along the streets, dazed with sleep. A shopkeeper raised the iron shutter of his shop with a din that shatterd the morning silence. He adjusted his smock before hanging his pole on a hook. A traffic policeman whistled at a carter whose horse was refusing to move out of the way. A group of nuns crossed the road quickly. For all of them, it would be a day like any other. For me, nothing would ever be the same again. Life was going on, supreme in its banality. Mine was escaping from me in a puff of smoke. I thought of my mother. What was she doing right now? I imagined her sitting on a mat, watching my father sink into madness. My father! Would he ever see off his ghosts? Would the noise of machine guns and bombs die down at last and allow him to listen to the furtive course of time passing? In front of me, the flabby, wrinkled neck of the driver reminded me of a broken accordion. It was as if the weight of his thoughts was pressing on his neck. The police car drove past a market, past the Douniazed cinema, which was showing a comedy film. A vendor of torraicos was lining up his cones on his makeshift stall. Soon, urchins would start prowling around his little cart, looking for an opportunity to rob him. The driver hooted his horn to clear a path through the pedestrians; a pointless gesture because the way was already clear. Through the windscreen, I could see the prison waiting for me, implacable; I could smell the stench of the damp gloom where cries would have no echoes, where remorse would be nothing more than a cellmate or a pet, my Siamese twin.

I thought of Edmond Bourg, the author of The Miracle Man, the savage way he had killed his wife and her lover, the blade that had jammed on the day of his execution, the revered priest the murderer had become … Would I too be entitled to a miracle? I would so much like to wake up to a future washed clean of my sins. I probably wouldn’t be a priest or an imam, but I would never again raise my hand to my fellow man. I would pay a lot of attention to my friends and I wouldn’t respond to the provocations of my enemies. I would live without anger, generous, holding on to what was essential, and I would be able to find peace everywhere I went. Of Irène, I would have a tender memory, of Gino a fervent repentance; I promised to submit to test after test without complaint if such was the price for deserving to survive with the people who were dear to me, the people I wasn’t able to keep.

Almighty God, You who are said to be merciful, make the blade jam. I wouldn’t like to die as brainless as I’ve lived.

The car drove around Place d’Armes, and I bade farewell to everything that had mattered to me. The two lions guarding the entrance to the town hall struck me as bigger than usual; stiff in their bronze costumes, they looked down on their world. And they were right. Only creatures of flesh and blood end up rotting in the sun.

Even today, plugged into machines in my hospital room, as the erosion of the years slows my pulse, I watch the dusk steal the last light of day and I remember. All I can do is remember. I have the feeling that we never die completely until we have consumed all our memories, that death is the ultimate forgetting.

I’m already confusing names and faces. But other snapshots remain, as sharp as scratches.

Each man retains within him an indelible imprint of a sin that has marked him more than any other. He needs it. It is his way of balancing his being, of putting a little water in his Grail, without which he would take himself for a deity and no praise would satisfy his arrogance. Animals too remember their first prey. It is through it that they realise their instinct for survival. But unlike animals, it is through their first misdeed that men grasp their own insignificance. To raise themselves up a notch, they will look for excuses or attenuating circumstances and persist in trying to prove that they were right.

That’s how men are; God may have created them in His image, but didn’t specify which one.

On my bedside table lies the book by Edmond Bourg.

I found it in a flea market, among old things and knick-knacks no longer in use. Since then, it has become a sort of prayer book. It revealed many shadowy areas to me, illuminated them with a holy light, but didn’t succeed in making me keep the vows I made on that white morning as the police car took me to prison. I didn’t become an imam or a just man. I continued living without really being useful to others. Rather like my father when he came back from the war. Maybe The Miracle Man wasn’t written for me. Out of some morbid need or other, I had looked for a message in it, a sign, a way. After much dissecting of the sentences and brooding between the lines, I ended up seeing it simply as the story of a man who was a murderer, then a priest, a man I never managed to grasp fully. In Diar Rahma, where old men rejected by their offspring or consigned to the scrapheap waited for the end of their downward spiral, reading helped me to swallow my medicines and my tasteless soup without complaint. With time, prophecies become tiresome and you no longer have a desire for anything so troublesome. Oh, time — that lazy fugitive who runs after us like a stray dog which, just when you think you’ve tamed it, abandons us, depriving us of our bearings. Forgiveness, remorse and sin barely matter compared with a tooth falling out, and faith becomes as uncertain as a trembling hand. Sin is not merely a wrong, it is the proof that evil is inside us, that it’s organic, as necessary as anxiety or fever, since our worries are born out of what we lack, and our joys can only be evaluated in relation to our sorrows.

I closed the book, but didn’t get rid of it. I waited to disappear in my turn, like Sid Roho and all those I had lost touch with.

Then two miracles happened.

First the letter from Gino I received in prison a few weeks before my trial. Recognising his handwriting on the envelope, I felt faint. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t delirious. For some nights after that, I couldn’t sleep a wink, haunted by ghosts … Gino hadn’t written to me from the afterlife. He had survived the stabbing. I clasped the letter to me as if it were a talisman. Of course, I didn’t open it. I was illiterate and I had no desire for anyone else to read it for me. Later, much later, I learnt to read in prison. Once I could make out the meaning of the sentences without stumbling too much over the words, I took the letter out again and, although it was short, took ages to get through it: Gino forgave me; he apologised for having objected to Irène and held himself responsible for the mess that had ensued. He came to visit me several times in prison. I didn’t dare go to see him in the visiting room. I was afraid of disappointing him, fearful that I would have no response to his smile but a repentant expression, and no answer to his words but a helpless silence. But his letter never left me. I wrapped it in a piece of plastic and sewed it into the lining of my convict’s jacket. Today, it is tucked in the middle of my bedside book, The Miracle Man.

Then, on the day of my execution, my heart gave out, and they couldn’t revive me. The imam apparently said that they couldn’t execute a dead man. The warden didn’t know whether or not to cut the head off a condemned man who was in a coma … I came to in the military hospital, after weeks of blackness. My heart attack had caused considerable damage. For months, I was nothing but a vegetable. I had lost the use of my lower limbs and my left arm, that left arm whose hook had moved mountains; half my face no longer worked; I was incontinent — a noise, a cry, and my belly evacuated everything, wherever I was. I spent more than a year in hospital, in a wheelchair. In a state of shock. Locked into my lethargy. I was fed with a spoon, washed down with a hose, and was sometimes put in a straitjacket and isolated because of my anxiety attacks. At night, when the nurse lowered the sash window, I would raise my good hand to my neck and scream until they came and sedated me. I only vaguely remember those ‘parallel’ months, but from them I still keep a strange smell that clings to my nostrils like an animal breath; at moments, nightmarish images go through my mind and I catch myself shaking from head to foot. A photograph of the time shows me in my decrepit state: I look like a broken puppet on a pallet, saliva drooling from my mouth, my features melted, my eyes askew, an idiotic expression on my face. They tried experimental treatments on me, potions concocted by mad scientists; I would emerge from one delirium only to plunge back into another. A doctor declared me insane, unfit to be executed. That may have been what saved me — according to some sources, the Duke may have had something to do with it …

I wasn’t pardoned. I was sentenced to hard labour for life. No sooner was I back on my feet than I was sent back to prison. The guards were convinced I was faking it. They would set traps to catch me, harass me constantly, get other convicts to make my life impossible. Whenever one of my attacks came on, they would put me in solitary.

The months, the years finally returned me to the inexorable march of fate. I had again become a full-time convict. A filthy animal in a zoo of horrors. I found myself sparing the cockroaches after being accustomed to squashing them beneath my shoe; they had one advantage I didn’t have: they could go where they wanted without asking permission. The rats struck me as less repulsive than the smiles of the military police. Whenever a bird came and landed in the courtyard, I envied it with all my might, and I was jealous of the grain of sand that joined the storm and went travelling around while I remained stuck in my cage, rotting like carrion. At night, whenever some poor bastard howled in his sleep, you pitied him because he would be even less happy when he woke up. In that grim exile, the days wore mourning; no light reached us. In prison, you had no more respect for yourself than you had pity for the condemned man being dragged to the scaffold.

I extorted money from queers, beat up loudmouths, pledged allegiance to gang bosses and gave up my rations to those who were stronger than me.

There was no place for God in prison. Every reprieve had to be negotiated on the scales of survival. A misplaced look, a superfluous word, a moan louder than the others, and you were automatically buried, without distinction of colour or religion. You had to keep alert; the slightest careless mistake was paid for. I learnt to scheme, to betray, to stab in the back, not to look away when a cellmate was being raped and to look elsewhere when he was being bled dry. I wasn’t proud of myself and it didn’t matter. I told myself my turn would come, so there was no point in feeling sorry for the first served. I sometimes slept standing up to make the bastards think I was waiting for them, and when they came to rouse me with the tip of their boots, I played dead.

Prison was like a recurring nightmare. The hell of the sky trembled before the hell of men, and horned devils licked the boots of the guards, because nowhere on earth, neither on the battlefields nor in the arenas, did life and death know such contempt as the one in which they merged within the walls of a prison.

I was released in 1962, at a time when the jails were full to bursting with political prisoners. I was fifty-two years old.

When I came out of prison, I didn’t recognise my towns or my villages; no faces looked familiar. Alarcon Ventabren had given up the ghost, his farm had fallen into disrepair, and the path that led to it had disappeared beneath the wild grass. All that remained of the Duke was a rambling fable that young gangsters spiced up to make themselves seem important. Oran was nothing like any of my memories. Rue du Général-Cérez had forgotten me. The old men shielded their eyes with their hands and looked me up and down. ‘It’s me, Turambo,’ I would say to them, shadow-boxing. They would step out of my way, wondering if I was in my right mind.

Strangers were living in my parents’ house. They informed me that after my father died, my mother had followed Mekki, who had chosen to settle near Ghardaïa where his in-laws lived. My search led me to a rudimentary graveyard. On a grave, a name half erased by sandstorms: Khammar Taos, died 13 April 1949. Judging by the state of the grave and the ugly, scrawny bush that had grown over it, nobody had visited the place in a long time.

I looked for my uncle but couldn’t find any trace of him.

It was as if the earth had swallowed him up.

Back to Oran. On Boulevard Mascara, the haberdasher’s was now a shop selling television sets and radios. Above the door was a sign saying Radiola. Upstairs, an Arab family were living in the Ramouns’ flat. Gino had left the country without leaving a forwarding address. During my imprisonment, he had married Louise, the Duke’s daughter, and run a large company making domestic appliances before a bomb attack reduced it to rubble. I never heard from him again. I myself had no fixed abode where I could be contacted. I wandered where the seasons took me, like a lost, faded, stunned spectre, incapable of situating myself in relation to people and things. There was fury in the gloom, and the burning sun couldn’t supplant the inferno of my country at war. Worn down to nothing, I hated myself for being no more than my misfortunes. The world that welcomed me was totally alien to me.

The history of a nation coming to painful birth was being written, putting mine aside. A history in which the miracles had nothing to do with me.

I had left my life behind me in prison; I was reborn to something I couldn’t care less about, too old to start again from scratch. With no bearings or convictions, I wasn’t capable of beginning all over again. I no longer had the strength. I had survived only to learn, to my cost, that a ruined life cannot be put right.

I didn’t find love again either. Did I look for it? I’m not sure. It wasn’t a man who had left prison after a quarter of a century of self-denial, it was a ghost; my heart only beat to give rhythm to its fears. At first, back in the world of the living, I would be reminded of Irène’s perfume by the smell of the woods. I would embrace a tree trunk and stand there in silence. In the world of the living, the dead are only entitled to prayers and silence. I didn’t dare dream of another woman after Irène. Nor did any woman want to stay with a wild-eyed convict who smelt of tragedy from miles away. My face told a story of expiation; my words reassured nobody; there was nothing in my gaze but the blackness of the dungeons and I could no longer smile without giving the impression that I wanted to bite … Yes, my brother, you who give no credit to anything but redemption, who question the facts and curse genius, who jeer at the virtuous and praise imposters, you who disfigure beauty so that horror might exult, who reduce your happiness to a vulgar need to cause harm and who spit on the light so that the world may return to darkness, yes, you, my twin in the shadows, do you know why we no longer embody anything but our old demons? It is because the angels have died of our wounds.

I looked for work in order not to die of starvation; I was a ragman, a nightwatchman, a caretaker of vacant property, an exorcist without a flock and without magic. I stole fruit from the markets and chickens from remote farms; I begged for charity and the leftovers of revellers, escaping the snares of the days as best I could. My fists, which had once deposed champions, were no longer much use for anything; I had cut off three fingers to make my jailers feel sorry for me — in prison, people thought of all kinds of nonsense that might give them back their freedom. What freedom? I had clamoured for mine, but, once released, I didn’t know what to do with it. I roamed from town to douar, sleeping under bridges. Strangely, I missed my cell; my fellow convicts seemed dearer to me than my lost family. The country had changed. My era was long gone.

I was arrested on military sites and subjected to brutal interrogations, was interned in a refuge for vagrants, then went back to being a tramp. A ragged drunk, I reeled through dubious neighbourhoods, yelling at the top of my voice, dribble on my chin and my eyes rolled upwards, and I fled blindly from boys who stoned me like a mangy old dog.

I learnt to live without the people I loved, roaming from waste grounds to town squares for decades, and when my legs could no longer carry me, when my eyes started confusing shapes and colours, when the slightest cold turned my eyes to winter, I gave up my bundle and the open road and, surrounded by my absent ones, let myself be tossed from one nursing home to another like a piece of flotsam blown about by contrary winds. In time, my absent ones left, one after the other. All that remained were a few vague memories to stave off my loneliness.

In my hospital room, night is getting ready to put my memory to sleep. It’s dark and the nurse forgets to switch on the light; I can’t get out of bed to put it on because of the tubes that hold me captive. In the next bed, a patient who’s nothing but skin and bone fiddles with his tape player. It’s a ritual with him. At the same hour, every day since his admission, he listens to the singing of Lounis Aït Menguellet, whose repertoire he knows by heart. The warm voice of the Kabyle singer takes me far back into the past to a time when Gino and I used to go to cafés-concerts in working-class areas.

I never went back to the streets of my youth; I never again approached a stadium; I didn’t see myself in any celebration and no victory made my soul quiver. Sometimes, passing a poster, I would stand there dreamily without knowing why, as if I could place the face, then I would go on my way, which never led to the same place; for me, the world was populated by strangers.

I was looking at a mirror and couldn’t see myself in it.

If we look closely at our lives, we realise that we are not the heroes of our own stories. However much we feel sorry for ourselves or enjoy a fame based on fleeting talent, there will always be someone better or worse off than us. Oh, if only we could put everything into perspective — affectation, honour, sensitivity, faith and self-denial, falsehood as well as truth — we would doubtless find satisfaction even in frugality and realise very soon to what extent humility preserves us from insanity; there is no worse madness than thinking the world revolves around us. Every failure proves to us that we don’t amount to much, but who wants to admit that? We take our dreams for challenges when they are nothing but chimeras, otherwise how to explain that in death as in birth we are poor and naked? According to logic, all that counts is what remains, but we are all destined to die one day, and what trace of us will survive in the dust of ages? The image we give of ourselves doesn’t make us genuine artists but genuine fakers. We think we know where we are going, what we want, what’s good for us and what isn’t, and we do what we can to ensure that what doesn’t work out isn’t our fault. Our feeble excuses become irrefutable arguments for hiding our faces, and we elevate our hypothetical certainties to absolute truths in order to carry on speculating, even though we’ve got it all wrong. Isn’t that the way we walk over our own bodies to coexist with what is beyond us? In the long run, what have we pursued our whole life through unsuccessfully, but ourselves?

But it’s over now.

My story ends in this dark room saved from hell only by the voice of Aït Menguellet. No friend by my bed, no woman at my side — maybe it’s better like this. This way, I can be sure of leaving nothing behind me.

At the age of ninety-three, what can we expect of the storm or its subsiding? I expect nothing, no redemption, no remission, no news, no reunions. I’ve drunk the cup to the dregs, suffered insults to the point of agony; I consider that I’ve been paid all that was owed to me. My breathing has grown weak, my veins no longer bleed, my pains no longer hurt …

Let no one talk of miracles; what’s a miracle in a hospital room with no light? I’ve drawn a line under my joys and made peace with my sorrows: I’m good and ready. When memory weighs on the present, replacing the daylight being born at our window every morning, it must mean that the clock has decided that our time has come. We learn then to close our eyes on the few reflexes we still have and be alone with ourselves; in other words, with someone who becomes elusive to us as we accustom ourselves to his silences, then to his distances, until the big sleep takes us away from the chaos of all things.

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