The next thing I remember is that Buba went back into the bathroom and when he came out he was carrying a glass and his straight-edge razor. We’re not cutting ourselves with that, said Herrera. The razor is good, said Buba. Not with your razor, said Herrera. Why not? said Buba. Because we don’t fucking feel like it, said Herrera. Am I right? He was looking at me. Yes, I said: I’ll cut myself with my own razor. I remember that when I got up to go to the bathroom, my legs were shaking. I couldn’t find my little razor, I’d probably left it at the apartment, so I grabbed the one provided by the hotel. When I came back in, Herrera was still gone and Buba seemed to be asleep, sitting at the head of his bed, though when I closed the door behind me, he raised his head and looked at me, without saying a word. We said nothing until someone knocked at the door. I went to open it. It was Herrera. The two of us sat down on my bed, Buba sat opposite on his and held the glass between the two beds. Then, with a rapid movement, he lifted one of the fingers on the hand that was holding the glass and made a clean cut in it. Now you, he said to Herrera, who performed the task with a little tiepin, the only sharp thing he’d been able to find. Then it was my turn. When we tried to go to the bathroom to wash our hands, Buba beat us to it. Let me in, Buba, I shouted through the door. All we got by way of reply was the music that Herrera had described a few minutes earlier, somewhat hastily (or that’s what I was thinking at least), as world music.
I stayed up late that night. I spent a while in Buzatti’s room, then I went to the hotel bar, but there weren’t any players left there. I ordered a whiskey and drank it at a table with a good, clear view of the city lights. After a while I sensed that someone was sitting down beside me. I started. It was the trainer, who couldn’t sleep either. He asked me what I was doing awake at that hour of the night. I told him I was nervous. But you’re not even playing tomorrow, Acevedo, he said. That makes it worse, I said. The trainer looked out at the city, nodding, and rubbed his hands. What are you drinking? he asked. The same as you, I said. Well, he said, it’s good for the nerves. Then he started talking about his son and his family, who lived in England, but mostly about his son, and finally we both got up and put our empty glasses on the bar. When I got back to the room, Buba was sleeping quietly in his bed. Normally I wouldn’t have switched on the light, but this time I did. Buba didn’t even move. I went to the bathroom: all clean and tidy. I put on my pajamas and got into bed and switched off the light. I listened to Buba’s regular breathing for a few minutes. I can’t remember how long it took me to fall asleep.
The next day we won three-nil. Herrera scored the first goal. That was his first for the season. Buba scored the other two. The journalists made some cautious remarks about a substantial change in our game and highlighted Buba’s excellent performance. I watched the match. I know what really happened. Actually, Buba didn’t play well. Herrera did, and Delève and Buzatti. The backbone of the team. Actually, for quite a lot of the match, it was like Buba was somewhere else. But he scored two goals and that was enough.
Maybe I should say something about his goals. The first (which was the second goal of the match) came after a corner kick from Palau. In the confusion, Buba swung his leg, connected, and scored. The second one was strange: the other team had already accepted defeat, we were in the 85th minute, all the players were tired, ours especially I think, they were clearly playing it safe, and then someone passed the ball to Buba, expecting him to pass it back, I guess, or just slow the game down, but Buba went running down the sideline, fast, moving much faster than he had all match, and when he got to about four meters from the penalty area, and everyone was expecting him to send it back to the center, he took a shot that surprised the two defenders in front of him and the goalkeeper, a shot with a spin on it like I’d never seen before, the sort of diabolical shot the Brazilians seem to have a monopoly on, which snuck into the top right-hand corner of the goal mouth and sent the crowd wild.
That night, after celebrating the victory, I talked with him. I asked him about the magic, the spell, the blood in the glass. Buba looked at me and went all serious. Bring your ear closer, he said. We were in a disco and we could barely hear one another. He whispered some words that I couldn’t understand at first. By that stage I was probably drunk. Then he took his mouth away from my ear and smiled at me. What he had said was: You soon will score better goals. OK, great, I said.
From then on everything went great. We won the next match four-two, even though we were playing away. Herrera scored a goal with a header, Delève put away a penalty kick, and Buba scored the other two, which were completely weird, or that’s how they seemed to me, with my inside knowledge; before the trip (I didn’t go), I’d taken part in the ceremony of the cut fingers and the glass and the blood.
Three weeks later they summoned me and I made my reappearance in the second half, in the 75th minute. We were playing the top-ranked team on their home ground and we won one-nil. I scored the goal in the 88th minute. I took the pass from Buba or that’s what everyone thought, but I have my doubts. All I know is that Buba took off down the right-hand side of the field, and I started running down the left-hand side. There were four defenders, one chasing Buba, two in the middle, and one about three yards away from me. I still can’t explain what happened next. The defenders in the middle seemed to freeze on the spot. I kept running with the right wingback on my heels. Buba came up to the penalty area with the left wingback close behind him too. Then he dummied and centered. I went into the penalty area with no hope of receiving the pass, but what with the center backs in a daze or dizzy all of a sudden and the weird swing of the ball, the fact is I found myself miraculously in possession inside the area, with their goalkeeper coming forward and the right wingback coming up behind my left shoulder, not knowing whether to foul me or not, so I just took a shot and scored and we won.
I had a safe place on the team for the following Sunday. And from then on I began to score more goals than I’d ever scored in my life. Herrera was on a roll as well. Everyone loved Buba. And they loved Herrera and me too. From one day to the next we became the kings of the city. It was all working out for us. The club began an unstoppable climb. We were winning matches and hearts.
And our blood ritual was repeated without fail before every match. In fact, after the first time, Herrera and I bought ourselves straight-edge razors like Buba’s; every time we played away, the first thing we put in our bags was the straight-edge, and when we played at home, we got together the night before at our apartment (they’d stopped keeping us together in a hotel) and performed the ceremony: Buba collected his blood and ours in a glass and then shut himself in the bathroom, and while we heard the music coming out of there, Herrera would talk about books he’d read or plays he’d seen and I just listened and agreed with everything he said, until Buba reappeared and we looked at him as if to ask if everything was all right, and Buba would smile at us and go to the kitchen to fetch a sponge and a bucket before returning to the bathroom, where he’d spend at least fifteen minutes cleaning and tidying up, and when we went into the bathroom, everything was exactly the same as before. Sometimes, when I went to a disco with Herrera and Buba stayed home (because he didn’t like discos much) Herrera and I would get talking and he’d ask me what I thought Buba did with our blood in the bathroom, because you couldn’t tell — when Buba was finished there wasn’t a trace of blood anywhere, the glass we used was sparkling, the floor was spotless, it was like the cleaning lady had just left — and I said to Herrera I didn’t know, I had no idea what Buba did when he shut himself in there, and Herrera looked at me and said: If I was living with him I’d be scared, and I looked at Herrera thinking: Are you serious? but Herrera said, I’m just kidding, Buba’s our friend; it’s thanks to him I’m on the team and the club is going to win the championship; it’s thanks to him we’re tasting sweet success, and that was the truth.