Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

I needed a task to assuage my hunger.

After running all over town, I’d end up at De Stefano’s gym, exhausted and angry. I would train hard to rise above my fate, impatient to get into the ring. De Stefano deliberately kept me on the ground. The honour of stepping into the ring had to be deserved. For two months, I limited myself to physical exercises, jogging, controlling my breathing, the basics of boxing. I had to learn the different positions of my arms and fists, coordinate my reflexes and my thoughts, feint and punch in the air, smash the punch bag. De Stefano paid me more attention than the others. I could see an excitement in his eyes that he found hard to conceal. Although in his opinion, I still had some way to go to develop the right aggressiveness, he acknowledged that I was making progress, that my moves and flexibility had something, that my attacks and retreats were elegant.

I had a champion’s instincts, he would say.

Rodrigo sometimes came back, playing the victim, brandishing an ‘enemy’ newspaper, inventing deadly conspiracies. He wasn’t just eccentric, he was insane. Some people at the gym didn’t rule out the possibility that one of these days the poor devil would end up killing someone or setting fire to a newspaper office. Tobias was convinced this case of split personality would end badly. Sometimes, in sheer exasperation, he would take it upon himself to throw the Portuguese kid out. Rodrigo would continue his performance in the street, rousing the kids and the dogs, in the hope of seeing De Stefano come out to calm him down, except that De Stefano no longer needed to encourage anyone now that he believed the good old days were back.

When at last, after months of waiting, I was allowed to get in the ring and face a sparring partner, it was as if all at once I was reborn, discovering a secret faith buried in my unconscious. I was on a pedestal, noisily demanding laurel wreaths a thousand times bigger than my head. I knew immediately, as my opponent tried in vain to dodge my punches, that I was made for boxing. People were already talking about my left hook and I hadn’t even had my first fight.

My first fight was on the third Sunday of February in 1932.

I remember there wasn’t a wisp of cloud in the sky.

We took the bus for Aïn Témouchent very early in the morning: De Stefano, Francis the pianist, who handled the gym’s paperwork, Salvo the second, Tobias and me. De Stefano hadn’t given permission for Gino to come with us.

I was nervous. I was shivering a little, probably because of the four days of hammam I’d imposed on myself to make weight. On the seat in front of me, a veiled old woman was trying to calm two unruly chickens in a basket. A few peasants in turbans were also on the bus, silent and morose. Some Roumis sat at the front, one of them smoking a pipe that made the atmosphere, which already smelt of petrol fumes, stink even more.

I opened the window to let in some air and watched the landscape drift past.

The countryside was green, glittering with dew in the rising sun like millions of sparks. On either side, the orange groves of Misserghin looked like Christmas trees.

De Stefano was leafing through a magazine. He was trying to appear confident, but I sensed how tense he was, clinging to his magazine, stooped, his face inscrutable. His silence spoke for him. For two years he’d been waiting to finally see one of his protégés in a ring that mattered. He was only a believer when he was forced to be, and I’d seen him cross himself before he got on the bus.

We were a few miles from Lourmel when I saw her …

A beauty, on horseback, her hair blowing in the wind; she was galloping flat out on the ridge of a hill, as if she had emerged from the blazing dawn to seize the day. As if drawn in Indian ink, her slender silhouette stood out clearly against the pale-blue horizon, like a magic pattern on a screen.

‘That’s Irène,’ De Stefano whispered in my ear. ‘She’s the daughter of Alarcon Ventabren, a former champion who’s now confined to a wheelchair. They have a farm behind the grove over there. Some really good boxers sometimes go there to recharge their batteries before big fights … Beautiful, isn’t she?’

‘She’s too far away to get a proper idea.’

‘Oh, I assure you she’s dynamite, is Irène. As pretty and wild as a freshwater pearl.’

The horsewoman climbed a hillock and disappeared behind a line of cypresses.

It was as if all at once the countryside had lost its beauty spot.

Long after she had gone, her image stayed in my head, giving rise to a strange feeling. I knew nothing about her, apart from a name whispered by De Stefano over the rumble of the bus. Was she young, blonde or brunette, tall or short, married or single? Why had she taken over the countryside, replacing the daylight and everything else? Why did that fleeting apparition refuse to go away? If I’d crossed her path, if I’d had her face directly in front of me, I would have attributed the quiver that went through me to a kind of love at first sight and thus found an explanation for the dizziness that followed. But she was only a remote, elusive figure speeding to some unknown destination.

Later, I would understand why an unknown horsewoman had, for no apparent reason, raised so many questions for me.

But that day, on the morning of that third Sunday in February 1932, I was a long way from guessing that I had just met my destiny.

The ring had been set up in the middle of a cleared stretch of waste ground at the entrance to the town. The scaffolding left a lot to be desired, but the organisers had transformed the place into a party zone. Hundreds of pennants and tricolour flags flapped on ropes and around poles erected for the occasion. From the bus, you could see workmen hurrying to put up the last garlands before the match, which was due to start at one in the afternoon. A little welcoming committee greeted us as we got off the bus. We were quickly shown to an isolated policeman’s hut, not far from the stadium. De Stefano wasn’t happy. He had been promised a hotel, photographers and journalists, as well as a good meal before the match, and now it looked almost as if they were hiding us. A large man in a severe suit tried to explain to us that the mayor’s instructions were clear and he was merely carrying them out. De Stefano refused to be fobbed off and threatened to return to Oran immediately. Someone ran off to fetch one of the organisers. He appeared, a broad smile on his face, took De Stefano aside, put his arm round his shoulders and spoke into his ear. De Stefano demonstrated his anger, stamping on the ground to underline his threats, then, when the man slipped an envelope into his pocket, he lowered his voice and his gestures grew less brusque.

‘More funny business,’ sighed Francis the pianist, who hadn’t missed a thing.

De Stefano came back to us, pretending to be indignant. He ordered us to go into the hut and get ready, then went back to the organiser.

The hut smelt like a putrid coffin. There was a thin metal wardrobe in a corner, a school desk with a fitted bench and a corroded inkwell on the rim, two stools and a ramshackle camp bed. The paneless window looked out onto a path that led to a bare hillock where an old dog was looking in all directions, its tongue hanging out. For a historic day, it was depressing.

‘You’d better get changed,’ Salvo said. ‘And please try to knock the bastard out in the first round. I don’t want to be gathering dust here.’

Salvo had also been expecting a warm welcome. As a native of Oran, he couldn’t stand being treated this way by provincials.

Tobias wasn’t exactly delighted either. Something was bothering him. He hadn’t liked the way De Stefano had become less forceful because of an envelope he hadn’t even opened.