Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

We trudged back to Boulevard Mascara. Gino walked silently, stricken, his head down. I was devastated, but I couldn’t find the words to apologise for the wrong I had done him. When we got to his place, he asked me to leave him, which I did.

Sitting on the doorstep of our courtyard, I was waiting for the promised Black Maria. I imagined myself at the police station, subject to the wrath of the cops. I had hit a European, they weren’t going to treat me with kid gloves. I knew Arabs who had found themselves in jail on a hunch, sometimes simply to be made an example of. And the fellow I had knocked out couldn’t have been just anybody, judging by his big car and Bébert’s panic.

The sun was starting to go down, but there was still no sign of the police. Were they waiting for nightfall to surprise me in my bed? I was sick to my stomach. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, which were sticky with tension. I remembered all the horrible stories I’d been told about prisons and the inhuman treatment meted out to prisoners. I panicked every time I heard a screech of tyres …

Instead of the police, it was three Europeans who came to see me: a stocky old man with a paunch, a straw boater pulled down over his head, and two other men, one stocky and bald, the other tall and thin — I’d seen this one at the local cinema, where he worked as a pianist, accompanying silent films.

‘Are you Turambo?’ the old man asked me.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘You work at Bébert’s garage?’

‘Yes.’

He held out his hand, but I didn’t take it, afraid he would hit me with the other hand.

‘My name’s De Stefano. The fellow with glasses is Francis, and this is Salvo. I run a gym in Rue Wagram, just opposite the Porte du Ravin. Everyone’s talking about you, son. Filippi, who works with you, told me you knocked out Left-Hand with a single blow. I can’t get over it. Actually, nobody can get over it.’

‘Do you know who Left-Hand is?’ the bald man asked me.

‘No.’

‘He’s the only boxer in the Oran region to have stood up to Georges Carpentier. Three fights, and he never went down. You do know who Georges Carpentier is?’

‘No.’

‘He’s North African champion and world champion. He beat Battling Levinsky. Do you know who Battling Levinsky is?’

‘Stop,’ the pianist said. ‘You’re confusing him with your “Do you know who this man is?” and “Do you know who that man is?” He probably doesn’t even know who his own father is.’

The old man told his companions to keep quiet, then said to me, ‘Listen, son. What would you say to joining my gym?’

‘The police will be coming for me.’

‘They won’t. A boxer doesn’t lodge a complaint when he gets beaten outside the ring. It’s a matter of honour. Either he demands a return match or he throws in the towel. Left-Hand won’t be going to any police station to report you, I guarantee it. You have nothing to fear from that quarter … So, will you accept my offer? Who knows? You may be a champion and you don’t even know it. We’re one big happy family in Rue Wagram. We know how to make a top boxer, all we need is the boy. According to Filippi, you like to use your fists, and that’s already the mark of a champion.’

‘I don’t like fighting. I just defend myself.’

‘You don’t seem in a fit state to think clearly right now,’ the pianist said, wiping his dark glasses on his sweater. ‘We don’t want to force your hand. These things are too serious to be taken lightly. We’ll come back tomorrow and talk it over with a clear head. Is that all right with you?’

‘Or you could come and see us at the gym,’ the old man suggested. ‘Then you’ll be able to see for yourself what it’s all about. Allow me to insist on this, my boy. You really look like a champion. You’re well built and you look people straight in the eye. I’ve been in this business for twenty years and I’ve learnt to recognise a rare bird when I see one. We’ll wait for you tomorrow morning. If you don’t show up, we’ll come back here and find you. Will you promise to wait for us, just in case?’

‘I don’t know, Monsieur.’

The old man nodded. He pushed his hat back on the top of his head without taking his eyes off me. Again, he held out his hand, and this time I took it.

‘So, Turambo, can I count on you?’

‘I’m not that keen on fighting, Monsieur.’

‘We’re not talking about a street brawl, son. Boxing is a skill. It’ll open lots of doors for you. You can earn a heap of money and privileges, and everyone’s respect. Respect is important for someone from the gutter. In fact it’s one of the few opportunities an Arab gets to rise in the world and he shouldn’t miss it. I don’t know why, but something tells me you won’t miss your opportunity. Think about it tonight. Tomorrow we’ll talk.’

All three of them said goodbye and left.

They came back the next day, and the days after that. Sometimes together, sometimes separately. The old man promised me the earth. He told me his intuition had never let him down and that I was a real centaur. It was as if his future depended on my decision. He was so friendly I was afraid to disappoint him. I promised him I’d think about it. He told me that was the one thing I’d been doing for two weeks now, and that it all boiled down to one question: should I become a boxer or continue to roast in the sun?

Gino found the offer interesting. ‘All you ever do is fight,’ he remarked in a slightly reproachful tone. ‘Boxing is a job like any other. The guy you knocked out in the garage was nothing but a roughneck before he got in the ring. You saw the car he drove, the clothes he wore. If you learn quickly, you can climb the ladder and be rich and famous.’

Encouraged by Gino, I asked my uncle for advice. Mekki utterly disapproved of my wish to join the gym in Rue Wagram. ‘It’s a sin,’ he decreed. ‘You don’t dip your bread in other people’s blood. If you want to bless your food, water it with the sweat of your brow. Any profession that throws two people into a ring like animals isn’t a profession, it’s a perversion. I forbid you to raise your hand to your fellow man to earn a crust. We’re believers, and no faith condones violence.’

When De Stefano came back the next time, I informed him that the family council had made its decision and that I wouldn’t be a boxer. He was so upset, he didn’t know what to say. He took off his hat, wiped his head with a handkerchief and stared at the toes of his shoes for five or six minutes before withdrawing with a heavy heart.

Back to square one.

A wholesale merchant hired me for his ironmonger’s in Rue d’Arzew. From morning to evening, I pushed a cart laden with all kinds of tools which I had to deliver to the different shops in the neighbourhood. My employer, an old Maltese riddled with rheumatism, was kind, but his customers would always find something to blame me for and would yell at me for any fault in the merchandise as if I was the one who had made it. I was ill at ease in those well-to-do neighbourhoods where the rattle of trams and the shrill blare of car horns drowned out the murmur of simple things. I held out for a few months, but after a while I’d had enough.

I was no longer the hungry kid ready to take on any cheap task, and employers were suspicious of hardened labourers. The foremen on building sites would shake their heads at me from a distance. The warehouse owners would pretend to look elsewhere. I was firmly rejected everywhere. In the harbour, there were lots of people willing to work for peanuts. The fights that broke out among the men jostling for work quickly sorted the wheat from the chaff. When the gate closed behind the lucky ones, the rejects immediately looked for scapegoats to take it out on. Poverty had reduced the unemployed to a state lower than that of wolves, and woe betide the man who succumbed. On one occasion, I almost didn’t escape with my life either. A big brute had caught his hand between the two halves of the gate. The recruiter ordered him to move away. The brute couldn’t obey because of his trapped hand. The recruiter started beating him with his club until the poor fellow’s face was streaming with blood. I threw myself at the recruiter and his big arms descended on me like vultures. Nobody came to my rescue. Not even the brute himself, who, in order to be noticed by the recruiter and show him how loyal he was in spite of the attack, took the liberty of finishing off the job after the thugs had left. He kicked me in the back, yelling that nobody raised his hand to Monsieur Créon. He yelled louder and louder so that the recruiter could still hear him as he walked away. The brute didn’t get hired that day, but he was convinced he had scored a point. After he’d finished with me, he knelt down next to me and said, ‘I’m sorry. I have twelve mouths to feed and no other way out. I’d sell my soul to the devil for peanuts …’