Yasmina Khadra - The Angels Die

All eyes turned to me.

I raised my glass of lemonade to my lips. The jibes, the filthy names, the vulgar insults: I’d hear them again and again every time I climbed into a ring. They were part of the atmosphere. There is no fight without abuse. At first, the jeers and the racist remarks hurt me. With time, I learnt to handle them. The Mozabite, my uncle’s partner, would say to me, ‘Fame can be measured by the hatred it arouses in its detractors. Where you are praised to the skies, others trip you up; such is the balance of things. If you want to see things through to the end, don’t linger over the droppings you crush beneath your feet, because there will always be some on the path of the brave.’

‘Are you going to let this go?’ Francis said.

‘It’s the only way to move on to serious things, don’t you think?’ I said, meeting his indignant gaze.

Francis slammed the paper down on the table and walked away, giving us the finger and telling us to go to hell. We watched him until he had disappeared round the corner. Calm returned to our table, without the open camaraderie that had prevailed a few minutes earlier. Hands grasped glasses and tankards; only Salvo had the courage to go further. De Stefano heaved a big sigh and sank into his chair, visibly annoyed by Francis’s intrusion. Gino picked up the paper, opened it at the offending page and read the article to the end in an unsettling silence. To dispel the unease that was starting to affect all of us, Tobias hailed the waiter, but then didn’t know what to order.

For my part, I had found Francis’s anger excessive, even unlikely. He himself had no qualms about kicking the backsides of Arab boys who tried to sell us snacks. Seeing him defend my honour so ferociously made me sceptical. It really wasn’t like him. I had often caught him complaining that I behaved ‘like an unpredictable, narrow-minded country bumpkin’. Whenever I disagreed with him about something, he’d raise his eyes to heaven as a sign of irritation, as if I wasn’t entitled to express an opinion. He had never really taken me to his heart. Even though he did his best to hide it, I knew he hated me for preferring Gino to him. According to him, I had pulled the rug out from under him … This business of the newspaper article was only a way of driving me to do something wrong, with, as a bonus, a long stay in prison that would put a definite end to my career as a boxer. Francis was quite capable of going that far; he was cunning and resentful.

A one-armed beggar approached our table. He was wearing a tattered cape over his naked, grimy torso, a rag that must once have resembled a pair of trousers, and torn canvas shoes.

‘Clear off!’ Salvo cried. ‘You’re going to attract every fly in the place.’

The beggar took no notice of him. He was examining me with a smile, his chin between his thumb and index finger. He was young but skeletal, his face withered and furrowed. His arm had been severed at the elbow, displaying a horrible bare stump.

‘Aren’t you the boxer in the posters?’ he asked me.

‘I might be.’

His face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

‘I knew a Turambo once, years ago,’ the beggar went on, still smiling. ‘In Graba, near Sidi Bel Abbès.’

A succession of faces flashed through my mind — the Daho brothers, the kids in the souk, the neighbours’ children — but I couldn’t place this man. And yet I was certain he was familiar to me.

‘Sit down,’ I said.

‘Out of the question!’ thundered a waiter standing in the doorway of the brasserie. ‘How will I disinfect the chair afterwards?’

The beggar was already beating a retreat. He crossed the road and hastened towards the Derb, limping slightly. He quickened his pace when he heard me running after him.

‘Stop, I just want to talk to you!’

He hurried on straight ahead. I caught up with him behind the theatre.

‘I’m from Graba,’ I said. ‘Do we know each other?’

‘I didn’t want to upset you. It wasn’t right, what I did. You were with your friends and I turned up like that and made you feel ashamed. I apologise, really, I apologise —’

‘Never mind that. Who are you? I’m sure we know each other.’

‘We weren’t together for long,’ the beggar said, impatient to go on his way. ‘And besides, it’s all in the past. You’ve become someone; I have no right to bother you. When I saw your picture on the poster with your name above it, I recognised you immediately. And then I saw you at that table and I just had to approach you. I couldn’t help myself. Now I know I was wrong. I realised it when your friends were embarrassed by me.’

‘Not me, I assure you. But tell me who you are, damn it!’

He looked at his stump, weighed up the pros and cons then looked up at me and said in a thin voice, ‘I’m Pedro the gypsy. We used to hunt for jerboas. And you often came with me to the camp.’

‘My God! Pedro. Of course, Pedro … What happened to your arm?’

‘You remember I always dreamt of joining a circus.’

‘Oh, yes! You could juggle, throw knives, wrap your legs round your neck …’

‘Well, I did join a circus in the end. I wanted to be a trapeze artist. The owner had seen my work but didn’t want to take any risks. I was too young. To keep me on, he hired me as a stable boy. I’d feed the animals. One morning, I got careless outside one of the cages, and a lion took my hand in his mouth. It’s a miracle he didn’t pull me in through the bars … The owner kept me on until my arm healed, then started to find excuses, and finally threw me out.’

‘My God!’

‘I’m hungry,’ he admitted, turning towards a soup vendor.

I bought him a bowl. He crouched on the pavement and started eating very quickly. I bought him a second bowl, which he knocked back in a flash.

‘Do you want another one?’

‘Yes,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I haven’t eaten a thing for days.’

I waited until he’d finished his fourth helping. He stuffed the food into his mouth without taking the trouble to chew. His chin was dripping with sauce and his fingers left black marks on the rim of the bowl. It was as if he was trying to fill himself up to prepare for fasts to come. Pedro was nothing but a walking scarecrow. He had lost his teeth and some of his hair; his eyes wore a veil as faded as his face. From his wheezing, I guessed that he was sick, and from his sallow complexion that he might be dying.

‘Would you buy me some shoes?’ he said suddenly. ‘I don’t have any skin left on the soles of my feet.’

‘Anything you like. I don’t have enough money on me now, but I’ll wait for you tomorrow in Rue Wagram and we’ll go shopping. Do you know where Rue Wagram is?’

‘No. I don’t know anyone here.’

‘You see that alleyway crossing the Derb? At the end of it, there’s a little square. On your right, there’s a workshop. The gym where I train is opposite. Just ask the doorman and I’ll be there for you. I’ll buy you shoes and clothes and take you to have a bath. I’m going to take care of you, I promise.’

‘I wouldn’t like to take advantage.’

‘Will you come?’

‘Yes …’

‘Do you give me your word?’

‘Yes, my word as a gypsy … Do you remember when my father used to play the violin? It was good, wasn’t it? We’d sit around the fire and listen. We didn’t notice the time passing … What was your friend’s name?’

‘No idea.’

‘Is he still with you?’

‘No.’

‘He was weird, that boy …’

‘And how’s your father?’

Pedro passed his good hand over his face. His gestures were jerky, his voice shaky. When he spoke, his eyes darted in all directions as if trying to escape his thoughts.