Ever since then only the middle number had got bigger and bigger.
26, 27, 28 … Germany, Italy, France … 29, 30, 31 … Copenhagen, Brussels, Madrid. He’d lost his last fight in Amsterdam, but just like in the fights before that he’d known he was going to lose. His opponent had once been the Dutch champion, one fight away from the European championship, but then he’d been badly knocked out and needed a few easy victories to get his confidence back. ‘If you let him have a bit of a go at you,’ the ex-champion’s people had said to him before the fight, ‘if you show him his punches really hurt … there’ll be a bit extra in it for you. Show him he’s really good, if you get what I mean …’ And he’d got it.
Now he was in Germany and everything had been arranged, as usual.
He pressed the beer glass to his swollen cheekbone, catching sight of his face in the mirror behind the bar. Although it was pretty dark and a whole load of bottles blocked his view, he could see the welts and bruises. Sometimes white boxers envied him his dark skin; their faces were black and blue and green when they’d taken a beating. His top lip arched slightly towards his nose, where his opponent’s lead fist had hit him over and over again. He drained his glass and pushed it across the bar. ‘Noch eins?’ asked the woman behind the bar, and he saw her looking at his beaten-up face, and he gave a quiet laugh. A black Dutchman from Rotterdam with a mashed-up face in some bar in a town in the east of Germany. ‘Ja,’ he said, ‘noch eins.’
He spoke a bit of German from his couple of fights in Germany. He’d had a contact man in Berlin, he used to get him a fight now and then, but he hardly got in touch now. The former Eastern Bloc had taken over the market. Tomato cans from the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia were cheaper than him and pushed the prices down; they were usually brought in two for the price of one. He was on his own. A discontinued model, he thought, an old timer but still in pretty good condition. He laughed, reached into his pocket and felt the notes he’d rolled up, and then he looked in the mirror behind the bar again. A couple more fights, one or two thousand, a couple more welts and bruises, and then he’d take all his savings and put them into the boxing club. He’d be in charge of training, a bit of sparring now and then, getting the lads ready for the fights. He looked in the mirror; his wife, his child, the boxing club; he saw himself standing in the ring, the big focus mitts on his hands, a lad ducking and diving in front of him, and whenever he called out ‘left’ or ‘right’ or ‘left — right — left,’ the boy punched the mitts with a whistle of expelled air.
‘You had a good fight tonight.’ He saw a man behind him in the mirror. He turned around. There was another guy standing behind the man, but only the first one was talking. ‘Verstehst du, good fight, very good!’
He nodded. ‘Ja,’ he said, ‘danke.’ The men grinned. They were pretty tall and at least two categories above him in weight, and the one talking to him had almost no nose left; probably down to the light as well though. ‘Very good, Holland fighter, very good!’ The men were still grinning, and he leaned his back against the bar and put one hand down next to his beer glass.
‘You gave him a good seeing to,’ said the man with the broken nose, switching to German. ‘Raik’s in hospital now, needs a check-up to make sure his head’s all right. Verstehst du, Holland fighter?’
He did understand; not every word, but he’d understood. ‘Sorry, say “good luck” to Raik. Guter Boxer, guter Kämpfer, very good.’
‘Ja,’ said the other man, the one who hadn’t said anything yet. He didn’t seem to speak English; the conversation stayed in German. ‘Raik’s a good boxer, he could make it to European Champion, Raik’s champion material. We all believed in him, Holland fighter.’
The Holland fighter tried to smile and pointed at his burst top lip. ‘Good left hook.’
‘You lads want a drink?’ The barmaid was standing behind him; he felt her voice against the back of his neck. ‘No,’ said the man with the broken nose, and the other one shook his head. ‘I’ll have another one,’ said the Holland fighter, holding onto his empty glass when she wanted to take it away until she put a full glass down in front of him. ‘Thanks.’
‘You drinking to your victory, are you?’ They’d come closer to him now, the man with the broken nose leaning on the bar beside him.
‘Win, lose, doesn’t matter. Next fight, I lose. Today, I win. Lucky today, Raik is a good man but I win.’ He spoke very slowly to remember the right words in German, then he raised his glass. ‘To Raik, to boxing!’ He drank. He watched the two men as he drank.
‘You’re drinking to Raik, Holland fighter?’ The taciturn one was talking now; broken nose took a couple of loud breaths. ‘To our Raik, who you messed up?’
He put down his glass. Kaputt gemacht. He knew that word. Kaputt. How often had he lain kaput on the floor of the ring, how often had fast young talents beaten him across the ring, and he’d tried not to go down, had looked for a gap, had tried to counter their attacks, had hoped for that one punch to end the whole match. This time he’d found the gap and his punch had landed. Raik fell over, tipped over backwards as straight as a die, and his skull slammed against the wood. The referee didn’t need to count — Raik was out, out cold, and he’d seen his legs twitching as if he still wanted to take that one step back so the right hook didn’t reach him. He hadn’t hit a good right for so long, he’d put his whole body into that punch, he’d felt it hit home right up to his shoulder. He’d gone backwards into his corner, wiping the blood from his lip with his glove, he’d seen the referee spreading both arms wide above Raik, and then he’d thought over and over, not quite believing it: I’ve won, I’ve won, I’m still here!
But no one had cheered, no one took his arms and raised them up, the sign of the victor. I’ve won, he thought, but the hall was quiet; the local boxer, the local hero had lost, 14 — 0 — 0 was kaput now, and even his corner men, provided by the organisers in return for a dock in his pay, silently avoided his eyes. Raik was carried out of the ring, ambulance men waiting down below with a stretcher.
‘Right hand,’ he said, clenching his fist, ‘good right hand, Raik not careful.’ He’d got up from the bar stool, pushing his left leg forward slightly. Now he was standing so that the bar stool was between him and the broken nose, with the other man diagonally opposite.
‘What did he say about our Raik?’ The taciturn one turned to his friend for help.
‘That he didn’t take care,’ said the broken nose. ‘He said Raik didn’t take care. Right, Holland fighter?’
The Dutchman nodded and pointed to his nose. ‘You often in England? English boxers very hard, very good. English boxers good to nose, not careful, huh?’ He looked at the broken nose and tried to smile. He’d fought in England twice, he’d been to Italy, had stood in the ring in Barcelona, had taken the ferry to Copenhagen to box there. And soon he’d come in on a boxing club, and the banknotes he felt against his leg through his trouser pocket would be another step in that direction.