Yok (9 page)

Fox Antonio Ortega reached the plank and took off.
He traveled through the air, and even from their spot under the oak they could
see that the jump was a long one. Very long.

“If he were only twice as good as the others in any
event,” Dad explained, “I could make an exception. Then I would have set him to
the side. But he is much better than that.”

Bergdorff watched Fox get up in the long-jump pit
and brush off the sand. The rector was obviously moved by what he saw.

“I see,” he said. “Do as you wish. But make sure
that Leonard Louse is one of the ten.”

And with these words he left the gym teacher to his
class.

Fox Antonio Ortega knew the jump was good, but also
that he had jumped better. For that reason he didn't turn around to see where he
had landed. No one else bothered either.

When he started school it had been different. Then
his classmates were fascinated by what he could do. They begged and pleaded to
see him hit a ball over the school roof; they kept time when he ran around the
block and dragged him over to the ignorant cubs at Noah Whale Elementary to let
him challenge them. Fox Antonio Ortega was their trophy.

But the grade school pupils became middle school
pupils, and their interest flagged. When his classmates returned after summer
vacation to the fourth grade, they were in search of new sensations. After the
severe disappointment Fox experienced during the first few weeks, a deep
satisfaction followed. In reality he was happier when he didn't have to be at
the center, and he gladly assumed his more anonymous role in the social
structure of the school class. Which did not mean, however, that his physical
achievements were less astounding.

Now Fox Antonio Ortega walked back along the run-up
and placed himself last in line to attempt another jump. The cubs who stood
waiting were too little to notice how their classmate moved; how he walked, with
his long, springy steps, his back straight and arms pleasingly swinging along
his body. They did not see how the fox's sharp red fur glistened in the sun, as
if it were gilded, and they did not see that his ears proudly stood up from his
head, as if the wind were filling a pair of sails. For the coming years, and
until Antonio Ortega finished high school, he continued to surprise Harry S.
Bulldog, and remained a phenomenon.

T
he
day Dad introduced me to Nick Rhinoceros, Charlie put up the posters in the
reception area. He papered the whole wall toward the dressing rooms, and even
put a few up outside the entry. The district boxing championship in Sors was
only held every three years, for financial reasons, which made the competition
even more prestigious. All the clubs in the district shared in hosting, and
Fresco's logo was on the poster, too. That made us proud.

I had boxed a couple of matches “for real,” but
lost both, and Dad and I had jointly decided not to compete again for the time
being, not until I was ready. When I saw the poster for the district
championship and noticed the date, I realized it had to be then or never. There
were fourteen months until the competition, and by then I would turn eighteen.
All excuses that I wasn't fully developed so far were based on my being too
young. After my eighteenth birthday it was no longer an argument.

“Nick, this is my son, Gary,” Dad introduced
me.

“Gary. Nice to meet you. I think I can help you,”
said Rhinoceros.

“That would be fantaththtic,” I answered.

“Fantaththtic?” Rhinoceros wondered.

“He lisps a little,” said Dad. “After a while you
won't notice it.”

“We're here to boxth, after all,” I said.

“Boxth?” Rhinoceros wondered.

Nick Rhinoceros had been city welterweight champion
in Mollisan Town. Dad had worked with Rhinoceros, and now the successful
champion decided to repay the help.

Nick Rhinoceros was as stylistically pure as a
boxer as he was miserable as an instructor. It took a few months for both of us
to accept this. But when the rhinoceros finally stopped talking, and instead of
listening I could concentrate on seeing what he did, how he moved, positioned
himself, and hit, the training sessions went much better. Nick had a lot to
teach, and he taught it to me in the ring.

Dad was fired up. He stood alongside, taking notes.
Every movement, feint, and hit was noted, and then we went through the notes
together in the evening. To say I regained my former self-confidence is not
true, but our sessions went so well that I once again found delight in
training.

I was done with school—no one I knew continued
studying past high school. So Dad and I went to Fresco in the mornings. Charlie
was at the reception desk with a greeting so disinterested you knew you had come
home. Changing in the worn-out dressing room, locking the locker even though it
wasn't necessary because everyone knew everyone at the club, and stepping out
into the big workout room where the light flooded in through the broad windows
in the day and where all kinds of animals and weight classes were training at
the same time, in different corners and at different stations, conveyed a sense
of security that is impossible to explain to anyone who has not experienced it
himself. Slowly I again became one in the crowd, even if I was the only one
training with a real champion. At first Nick had to sign autographs and tell
stories from his glory days, but as the months passed, everyone got used to him
and incorporated him into the community.

The reality that Dad primarily was training me for
the district championship was not something we talked about, it was understood.
When Nick showed up there was more than a year before the first match, and it
would have been ridiculous to start talking tactics or speculate about opponents
so soon. But time passed quickly, and however relaxed Dad tried to appear, I saw
the expectations growing in his gestures and comments. In tempo with his
restrained excitement, the pressure on me increased. I will not pretend that his
enthusiasm was not contagious. I still carried the insight about my own
mediocrity, but I was training with a master and I had a father who had always
been able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and Dad said I was getting good.
That did not leave me unaffected.

O
ne
evening when only a month or so remained until the match drawing and I had done
a late training session, I remained sitting in the drying cabinet in the
dressing room long after the cabinet had turned off. I sat in the darkness
absorbed in my own thoughts. It was warm and pleasant and I don't think I was
brooding about anything in particular when I was startled by a pair of familiar
voices. It was Dad and Nick Rhinoceros who had entered the dressing room; they
were talking loudly and I was just about to stand up and get out when something
held me back. It was the sort of thing you can speculate about for a long time
afterward, but presumably it was just their raised voices that made me
hesitate.

“Frankly speaking, Harry, I don't give a damn,” I
heard Rhinoceros say through the closed drying cabinet door.

He sounded grumpy. He was no sunbeam normally; his
tone was most often curt and neutral, but now he sounded irritated.

“You know you can trust me,” Dad answered.

“I don't trust anyone,” said Rhinoceros.

“I haven't been late a single time.”

Rhinoceros did not comment on this, which is why I
assumed that he agreed but didn't bother to acknowledge the point. I could hear
how he sat down heavily on a wooden bench along the wall, and I assumed that Dad
placed himself in front of him and started untying his gloves.

“I've had a little problem with the bank,” said
Dad.

Rhinoceros did not answer. I froze inside the
drying cabinet. Not a single time during my growing up had I heard Dad talk
about a bank. There had always been money at home, because Dad always had a
steady job and no major expenses.

“I mortgaged the apartment, did I tell you that?”
Dad continued. “And I sold Mama's rings. It was harder to get rid of the
painting. I thought it was worth lots. But what do I know about art?”

Rhinoceros grunted. I knew exactly what painting
Dad was talking about. It was a painting he'd inherited from Grandfather, which
had hung over his bed all these years. I was seldom in Dad's bedroom, and so I
had assumed it was still hanging there. It was our most valuable possession, Dad
always said.

“Listen,” said Rhinoceros when with a moan he
pulled off his right glove. “I don't give a damn what you're up to. I'm not your
mother. You give me the cash tomorrow, and I'll come back and train with the cub
next week. No cash, no sparring. At least not with me.”

“You'll get the money. That's not what I meant.
It's just that . . . it's been a little tough . . .”

I remained sitting in the drying cabinet until I
was certain they both had left Fresco, and I almost scared the life out of
Charlie when I passed him at the desk; by then it was late in the evening, and
he had been certain the gym was empty.

To say that I was shocked is an understatement. I
was beside myself. I ought to have realized that Nick Rhinoceros was getting
paid to train me, and in that case I blamed my own inexperience. But that Dad
had pawned everything he owned was completely contrary to his whole character
and all he stood for. I could only sense the moral sacrifice that was behind
this. Even worse was that he had kept it secret. It gave me no peace, even if it
took a week or two before I added this insight to the growing performance
anxiety I felt prior to the district championship.

I
was
seeded against Conny Rooster in the first match. I didn't see the lists myself;
it was Charlie who phoned and told me because he had posted them. I remember I
was standing at home in the hall, staring at the wall.

It was over.

Until that moment I had tried to cheer myself up. I
told myself that my combinations were instinctive at this point, and you
couldn't complain about my footwork. What I lacked in weight and
distinctiveness, maybe I could offset with my relative quickness? Winning one or
two matches was not impossible. That's how I had been thinking, and the least I
owed Dad after his sacrifices was a positive attitude. But Conny Rooster? I
could have pretended but I wasn't an idiot. My championship ended even before it
began.

I hung up and went back to my room and lay down on
the bed. That was where Dad found me later that afternoon. He instantly
understood why I was lying there. He sat on the edge of the bed and placed his
paw on my back.

“You got a tough draw, Gary,” he said. “But it
happens to everyone sometime.”

“It'th over now.”

“It's not at all.”

“Roothter ith too good for me. He made it to the
top five in the last championthhip. And he'th better now.”

“No match is decided in advance,” said Dad.

“Yeth,” I said. “This one.”

There were three weeks left, and even if the draw
meant that I could give up on this championship, I continued training. I went
out and ran every morning as the fog drew in over the city, and was at Fresco
before the Morning Rain. I worked with the punching bag and the sandbag in the
morning and sparred with Rhinoceros a few hours after lunch. I ended with
strength training before I went home and made dinner with Dad.

“It'th not going to work,” I said. “I'll be happy
if I'm thtill thtanding after the third round.”

“What counts is trying,” Dad answered.

“Bullthit,” I said. “What counth is winning.”

“Not if you ask me,” he answered.

I chopped a cucumber in silence. A vacuum was
growing in my chest, and I still did not understand it, but with each day it got
worse and worse. When I ran, I would stumble for no reason, and when I did
strength training, my heart started racing. Never before had I had problems with
my heart.

The following day, as I was sparring with
Rhinoceros, I got so dizzy I was forced to sit down in the ring. Dad interrupted
and took me to the dressing room, where he sat me on a bench and got me to hold
my head between my knees.

“Competition nerves,” he said. “I know how it
feels. I was the same way. There's no danger. It's only a matter of not
pressuring yourself. You're working too hard. Your body can't take it. Take the
rest of the day and do something else. Don't think about boxing.”

“But what if I can't do better, Dad?”

“Of course you can,” he answered. “You and I both
know that.”

“I'll never be able to handle Roothter.”

“You won't know that until you've tried.”

That made me angry. I was suddenly tired of his
clichés, of his tired excuses. He knew just as well as I did that it was
pointless. I would never be the boxer he had dreamed of. And whose dream was it
anyway? I got up. I was eighteen, and for the first time in my life I felt
rebellion awakening.

“But I have tried, Dad! Thince I was twelve!”

“It's too much right now, Gary. I understand
that.”

But he did not understand at all. Why didn't he say
the way it was? I screamed at him. I demanded that he look me in the eyes and
admit that I had failed. I wanted to hear him say that all the expectations he'd
had came to naught. But he didn't say anything.

I left him in the dressing room, and ran from
Fresco. It was an eighteen-year-deep dam that broke, and it would prove to be
hard to repair. Dad came home with food in the evening and thought we would
prepare it together. But even then I realized that wrath was easier to give in
to than forgiveness. I was still furious, and I let him know it. I ran in and
out of the kitchen and screamed and shouted.