She throws a right and feels the world champion’s nose breaking. Alina knows her name but she doesn’t say it, doesn’t think it … she throws another right, she sees the crack in the middle of the mirror, the floor’s going to sway, she thinks, I’m going to make it sway, and you’re going to fall. Alina moves her torso loosely from her hips.
‘Hey kid, you’re doing that right.’ She opens her eyes and turns around. An old man in a sweat suit is standing behind her, white hair and pretty fat. She feels herself blushing and folds her arms in front of her chest. ‘But we only dance in the ring here, kid.’ He smiles and beckons her over. ‘You here with your brother, are you?’ She takes a couple of steps in his direction and nods. ‘But if you want to come along you’ve got to join in, kid.’ She shakes her head and wants to go back to their room on the ship. She hears all the noise of the gulls and the ships when she opens the window. ‘Can’t just stand by the mirror and watch,’ the old man says, clenching his fist in front of his chest. ‘You’re a good mover, no need to be scared … no need. Come on, let me show you a couple of things.’ He waves a hand over at the punching bags, men standing by them and hitting them, some of them dancing with their feet and moving their torsos. ‘But my shoes …’ She points at her feet. She’s wearing suede boots, almost up to her knees, her brother gave her them, he and some of the other boys from the ship went to the warehouses one night, and when he came back he said: ‘You’re getting a treat tomorrow, little sister.’
Their father told him off, ‘Where did those shoes come from, they’re much too expensive,’ but her brother gave him a shiny black leather jacket and said, ‘That’s for you, father, we bought them cheap from the Arabs.’ Their father turned away and looked out to sea over the rail; he doesn’t much like Arabs, but he likes the shiny black leather jacket and wears it every day.
‘My shoes,’ she says, but the old man shrugs.
‘Take your jacket off, roll your sleeves up and come with me.’ He turns around and walks over to the punching bags. She stays where she is for a moment, looks in the mirror, tries to smile and sticks out her chest, then she follows him.
‘Little sister,’ calls her brother from somewhere in the hall, ‘Alinchen, you want to box? You’re much too small still, and your shoes …’
She looks at her feet and takes a left and then a right straight behind it, right on the nose, and she pulls up her guard. ‘Damn,’ shouts the old man, ‘watch out, go back.’ And she goes back, goes back to the ropes and touches her glove briefly to her nose, not broken, she thinks and waits and draws her opponent over to her on the ropes and hits out. The right hook she took was good, she only notices that now, she’s slightly dizzy, the floor seems to be swaying, but she hits out, left, left, left, two straights, a hook, head, body, head, ‘Right,’ shouts the old man, ‘show her your right,’ and then the girl’s sitting on the floor of the ring in front of her and looking up at her, eyes wide. The referee pushes her away and she goes into the neutral corner and looks at her shoes as she walks; she has a tiny stone with a hole in it on the lace of her left shoe, her father gave it to her. ‘From back home,’ he said, ‘from the mountains, it’ll bring you luck.’ She looks at the audience, the hall is pretty empty still, a long way to go before the main fight, she can make out a couple of friends of her brother’s fairly far back, boys from the asylum seekers’ ship, she raises her fist, they jump up and wave at her and call out: ‘Alina, Alina,’ and she hears the referee counting. ‘… three, four, five …’ Stay down, girl, she thinks, the floor sways, stay down.
‘So, kid, you OK?’ She turns around, the old man’s behind her, she didn’t hear him coming in. ‘Want to be alone a bit? You’re starting soon.’
‘No,’ she says, ‘yes,’ and sees the old man putting his hand on the back of her neck in the mirror, then she feels it and she’s perfectly calm. ‘This is your night,’ says the old man, ‘this is gonna be your night,’ and she sees herself nodding.
‘Time for you to warm up,’ says the old man, and he takes her arms and pulls her boxing gloves on carefully, ‘time for us to warm up.’
He takes her right hand, in its red glove now, and lifts it. ‘Remember …’ he says. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I’ll only show her it when she’s open.’ She punches her fists together, and he nods and pulls the two big black punch mitts over his hands. ‘Hit her over her left hand, just punch across it when she’s open.’ He takes a couple of steps back to the middle of the little room, holding both hands up with the mitts on them. ‘Left,’ he shouts in a hoarse voice, ‘keep her away from you, don’t let the bitch near you!’ She punches a left jab, jacking her left leg slightly, breathing out, ‘uh, uh, uh,’ punching her left hand over and over against her old trainer’s big black mitts, him moving now in the middle of the room as if he were a young boxer, ‘Hook,’ the young boxer shouts and dances from left to right, and she slams left hooks into his mitt, and when his right hand smacks out at her face she just blocks it and counters with her left fist, it’s her left over and over, until the old man calls ‘And now your right, show her your hard right,’ and she punches her right hand into his right mitt, right across his left hand just in that moment twitching towards her face, she twists her body into the punch, puts her weight behind it and screams.
She screams, Alina screams, and her brother screams too, ‘Alinchen, come to me, quick,’ she wants to push the front door closed again but one of the men has his foot in the door. The floor sways, even though they’re not on the ship any more, even though there are no gulls and no machines and cranes making all their noise outside in the harbour, even though no lights of passing ships shine in though the window any more and no passing ships take the daylight away, the floor sways, and she holds onto the door frame as the men just walk into the flat. ‘You’ve got to go,’ one of the men says, ‘you’ve got to go back.’ A couple of the men are wearing uniforms, and Alina knows what that means: back. There was an old Kurd on the ship, one storey above them, and he used to say, ‘If they come to take me back I’ll go to the captain.’
‘There is no captain here,’ she said and laughed, but he said he was fast, he said he’d worked on a boat before and he’d cast off, ‘And if the helmsman doesn’t play along I’ll beat him to a pulp.’
‘I’ll beat you to a pulp!’ screams Alina. ‘Left,’ calls the old man, ‘head, body, head! And when she’s open …’ She sees her brother sitting behind her on the sofa and hugging their father, their father looking tiny and disappearing into the cushions, her brother’s head on his chest. She pulls her fists up in front of her face, pushing her left leg a little forward and locking her knee as she slams her left fist into the first man’s chest. Two or three times she throws a straight left, and the man stops still and looks at her in amazement. ‘Right,’ calls the old man, ‘show her your beautiful right!’ she twists her body into the punch, puts her weight behind it and screams.
They walk along the long narrow corridor. The old man is next to her, his arm around her shoulders. She hears the music she asked for in the hall, a song from the mountains; her father is sitting right at the front somewhere, waiting. She looks at the floor and sees the tiny stone with the hole in it on her shoe. Her brother’s walking next to her. She punches her gloves together and says, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ She’s pulled the hood of her robe down low over her face. She sees the end of the corridor ahead. She takes a couple more steps and stops a moment. She sees the hall, she sees all the people, she can hear them. The roar of the sea.