The man with the broken nose pounded his fist against the bar stool, so hard that it tipped over. His mouth was open and the Dutchman saw that he was missing a few teeth. And the Dutchman saw that the punch at the barstool had been pretty powerful, but not all that fast. He’d seen the twitch in his shoulder before the punch came. He stayed standing quite calmly, one fist held loosely at hip level. He knew he couldn’t evade every punch, one man in front of him, one man beside him, but he could take a few blows, he had a good chin.
‘No fighting, lads,’ said the barmaid behind them. ‘No fighting, please.’
‘Fight? Just because something gets knocked over, doesn’t mean there’s a fight.’ The man with the broken nose bent down and picked up the bar stool, not letting the Dutchman out of his sight, and slowly stood it up again at the bar. ‘Or are you looking for a fight?’
‘No,’ he said, lowering his fist.
‘There you go.’ The other man put a hand on his shoulder, and he instantly had his left hand on the man’s arm and pushed it away. The man with the broken nose laughed. ‘You’re fast, Holland fighter, you’ve got fast hands. You black boxers are usually pretty fast. Hey, bring him another beer on me, and a shot of something too, he could do with one.’
The man with the broken nose turned to the barmaid, then he sat down on the bar stool, making him a head taller than the Dutchman, still standing there perfectly calmly with his left foot forwards.
‘Money,’ the man with the broken nose said now, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together right in front of the Dutchman’s face, and then he started humming; it was meant to sound like that seventies song, ‘Money, Money, Money …’ The barmaid put a new beer and a schnapps down next to his half-full glass. He didn’t turn to her; all he could see was her hands. Pale blue fingernails.
‘Our Raik,’ said the other man, ‘he’s in hospital now, won’t be fighting for a long time, maybe never again. You’re a clever lad, Holland fighter … You are a clever lad, aren’t you?’
He didn’t answer. He knew now it was going to be a hard night and he took a deep breath in and out again. In and out again. He felt his legs trembling; he’d fought eight long rounds.
‘Raik’d be happy if you thought a little about him.’ The Dutchman looked at the guy with the broken nose, who was rubbing his thumb and forefinger together again. ‘You made good money tonight, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the hard way, with my face.’
‘Now you listen to me,’ said broken nose, ‘you, my Dutch friend, have put Raik on ice for a good long while. Who knows if he’ll ever … Raik’s got a wife and a little kid, they’d be really grateful for a little present.’
‘No,’ said the Dutchman. He picked up the schnapps glass, held it in his outstretched hand, tipped it and poured the liquid slowly on the floor at the man’s feet. He felt the roll of money in his pocket, he thought of Rotterdam, his wife and the child they were going to have, thought of the boxing club he was going to come in on.
He slammed the schnapps glass down on the bar, grabbed the beer glass with his left hand and said, ‘No.’
He was standing in the little room, right by the window; the curtains were closed. Behind him, he heard his wife in the bathroom; the door was open and he heard her using her make-up and cosmetics stuff, a clinking of small bottles, glass and plastic, running water.
She started humming to herself now and he closed his eyes for a moment. Then he moved the curtain aside slightly. There was a car outside the house. The window on the driver’s side was wound down, an arm dangling out. ‘Are they still there?’ asked his wife, but it couldn’t be his wife, she was speaking German, and the voice sounded nothing like hers either. ‘Yes,’ he said, pulling the curtain closed again.
‘You can wait here till they’ve gone. But no cops — I don’t want any trouble, verstehst du?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No cops.’ He went over to the table and sat down. He wasn’t in Rotterdam, only his wife was there, alone in their little flat.
He drank a swig of the whisky the barmaid had poured him.
‘I’ve got a room upstairs,’ she’d said to him down in the bar. ‘My shift’s over in a minute. You can come up and wait until those bastards have gone.’
He drank the whisky, feeling himself getting gradually drunk. His neck hurt, his arms and shoulders ached, and he could feel the swelling beneath his right eye pressing against his eyeball. He was tired; he didn’t want to fight any more. He drank another swig, saw the glass trembling, the ice cubes clinking quietly, and he put his other hand on his trouser pocket. Why hadn’t the bastards tried to see to him in the bar? But they’d left when he’d shown them he was ready to use the heavy beer glass in his left hand. ‘We’ll be seeing you,’ they’d said. Now he was sitting with her and waiting. He put the whisky glass down; he was so tired, his head drooped onto his chest; she was standing behind him. She said something but he couldn’t concentrate properly any more, all he could understand was ‘wait’ and ‘time’ and ‘bastards’. He was dizzy, he meant to hold onto the table but he knocked the whisky glass over, it was almost empty and it rolled across the table and then fell to the floor without breaking. ‘Sorry,’ he said, holding onto the table with one hand and turning round to her. She smiled. ‘No problem,’ she said. She squatted down and picked up the glass.
She held it in one hand, squatting down in front of him and looking up at him. She had short blonde hair, and now he saw she was freshly made up. Bright red lips, and he turned around and went to the window. As he went to pull the curtains aside she held onto his arm. He looked at her, and she said, ‘I’ve never … never had a …’ she thought for a moment. ‘Black, I’ve never …’ she thought again, ‘never touched such dark skin,’ and then she laughed. She was still holding onto his arm. ‘Soft,’ she said. He looked at the curtains and then at her hand. He was tired, so tired. He’d cheated on his wife once, before a fight in Madrid, with a little black-haired Spanish woman; he’d spent the whole night in a hotel with her. The next night in the ring, he’d taken one punch after another, left, right, hooks, jabs, and he felt like he couldn’t keep his cover up whenever his opponent went for him, a little black-haired Spanish man. Left, right, hooks, jabs. The audience had booed and whistled; he was known for giving all he had, for defending himself with everything he had, for countering, pummelling his opponent’s body, for testing them, his opponents, getting everything out of them, giving them a challenge they could learn from, but that night he’d let the other man beat his head in. His wife had cried when he’d come home, his face swollen and smashed, a cut on his cheekbone. She’d stroked his face and he’d told her quietly about the boxing club he could come in on, if he put a bit of money into it. A few more fights, just a few more fights.
‘Come over here,’ she said. ‘Lie down, have a rest. You can stay all night if you like.’ He nodded, and she took him by the arm and led him to the sofa against the wall by the table. It was a pretty large sofa with a couple of cushions on it, and it looked huge in the small room. He lay down and then she was sitting next to him. Her hands were on his chest, he closed his eyes, felt her unbuttoning his jacket and taking it off. He meant to say something, wanted to say no, but she said, ‘Shhhh,’ as if she were calming a young child. He wanted to get up and leave, no matter if they were waiting for him outside, but he stayed lying there, he’d fought eight long rounds. He’d have a rest, get some sleep and maybe let her stroke him to sleep, that was all. He wasn’t going to cheat on his wife again, not ever. She laid her chest on his and said, ‘You can stay all night.’ And that calmed him somehow, her breathing very even, and he thought about a lot of things and gradually fell asleep.