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  Wizwondk was now standing right in front of the fat man. But the man didn’t even see him. He kept on kicking the boy and shouting—he had totally lost his head.

  “You little bastard son of a bitch, go home and be revolting, go and die in your own house, just leave me alone, get it, this is a civilized place, tell him this is a civilized place, he can’t be allowed . . .”

  The fat man looked around. He was searching for someone to say he was right, but they were all terrified, they watched in silence, immobilized, not one could take his eyes off him. Only Wizwondk, with the scissors in his hand, still seemed to be alive.

  “Get away from there, Mr. Abner,” he said, in a loud voice.

  Mr. Abner, still shouting, thrust one foot in the boy’s face, right in all that slobber, and began to crush it, as if he were putting out an enormous cigarette, and at the same time he pulled up his pant leg, so it wouldn’t get dirty. Wizwondk took a step forward and stuck the scissors in his side. Once, and then again, without a word. The fat man turned, he was astonished, and to stay upright he had to take his foot off the boy’s face. He was swaying back and forth, and he wasn’t shouting any more, but he went up to Wizwondk and, grabbing him by the neck, squeezed with both hands, while the blood dripped down his jacket and his pants. Wizwondk raised the scissors again and plunged them into his neck, and then, when the fat man staggered, into his chest. The scissors broke. Blood gushed in rhythmic bursts from the fat man’s jugular and spurted all over the room. He fell to the floor, taking the magazine table with him. The boy was still there, you could hear the sound of his head beating the floor, incessant, like a clock gone crazy, no part of his body was still. Only his breath seemed to have stopped. Wizwondk let the handle of the scissors, which he was still holding, drop to the floor. The other piece was sticking out of Mr. Abner’s chest, and it was dripping with blood.

  DIESEL: Three minutes passed, and the bell rang. Mondini said, That’s enough. He took Larry’s headguard off and began to untie the gloves. Larry was panting. Mondini said to him I’ll drive you home, OK? It took a while, in the old sedan, to get to the exclusive neighborhood. They stopped in front of a house that was all lights and windows. Mondini turned off the engine and looked at Larry.

  “Three minutes and you didn’t throw a single punch.”

  “Three minutes and I didn’t take a punch, either,” Larry answered.

  Mondini fixed his eyes on the steering wheel. It was true. For the entire round, Larry had been moving his legs with impressive agility, dancing in all directions, as if he had wheels under his feet. The other fighter had thrown all the punches he knew, and hadn’t been able to hit him. He’d left the ring raging like a beast.

  “That’s not boxing, Larry.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “Really, I didn’t want to . . .”

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  Mondini glanced at the house. It looked like an advertisement for happiness.

  “Why the hell do you want to be a boxer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What the hell kind of answer is that?”

  “That’s what my father says. What the hell kind of answer is that? He’s a lawyer.”

  “I see.”

  “Nice house, isn’t it?”

  “I can see that from your face.”

  They sat there a while, in that silence of the wealthy. Larry toyed with the car’s ashtray. He opened and closed it. Mondini didn’t toy with anything, because he was thinking back to what he had seen in the ring: the biggest talent that had ever fallen into his hands. He was rich, the son of a lawyer, and hadn’t the slightest reason to box.

  “See you tomorrow,” said Larry, opening the door.

  Mondini shrugged his shoulders.

  “Fuck you, Larry.”

  “Fuck,” he answered happily, and went into the house.

  It remained their way of saying goodbye. Even during a fight, when they were in the corner, and the bell rang, Larry would get up, Mondini would take away the stool and they would unfailingly say to each other:

  “Fuck you, Larry.”

  “Fuck.”

  Larry went on, and he won. He won twelve in a row. Thirteen, with Sobilo.

  Wizwondk fell to his knees. A few feet away, the fat man was spurting blood all over the place, his eyes staring wide and his hands, every so often, groping in the air. Around him, the others woke from their spell. Some ran off. Two men went over to Wizwondk and picked him up, speaking to him. Someone grabbed the phone and called the police. Gould found himself pushed forward, a few steps from the two bodies jerking like fish at the bottom of a pail. He tried to turn back, but couldn’t. Suddenly there was a terrible smell. He turned and saw on one of the mirrors a black-and-white photograph, of a soccer team posing, all sweaty and smiling, around a big cup sitting on the ground. He pushed his way through the crowd until he was right in front of the picture. He leaned over the sink and tried to shut out everything around him. He started with the right wing: he was in T-SHIRT and shorts, but his socks had fallen down, he had a silly moustache, and his smile betrayed an intense sadness. The sweeper was the only one who wasn’t sweaty, and he was also the tallest: easy. He recognized the stopper in the contorted face and stocky build of the player at the edge of the picture and the center forward in the actor’s face of the one who was grasping a handle of the cup and staring into the camera. He began to have trouble when it came to the fullbacks. They all had the faces of fullbacks. He tried to study the legs, when they were visible. But there was such an uproar—people shoving, someone shouting—that he couldn’t concentrate. He gave up a moment before realizing that the one in the uniform, but sweaty, was the left back, who naturally had been thrown out of the game. He closed his eyes. And began to vomit.

  Wizwondk spent several years in prison. When they realized that he was harmless, they allowed him to have his guitar. He played every night, light cheerful numbers. In the other cells, the other prisoners listened to him.

  10

  Edge of the field, behind the goal at the right. They sat there, watching. Prof. Taltomar with the cigarette butt between his lips. Gould with a wool cap on his head, hands in his pockets.

  Minutes and minutes.

  Then Gould, not taking his eyes off the game, said:

  “Wild storm on the field. Twenty minutes into the second half. Pass from the left, the home team forward, obviously offside, stops it with his chest, the referee puts the whistle to his mouth, but the whistle, full of water, doesn’t work, the center forward kicks with his instep, the ref tries the whistle again but again it misfires, the ball goes into the upper corner of the net, the referee tries to whistle with his fingers but spits in his hand, the forward heads like one possessed for the corner flag, takes off his jersey, leans on the flag, performs some stupid Brazilian dance steps, and then is incinerated by a bolt of lightning that destroys the above-mentioned flag completely.”

  Prof. Taltomar took his time removing the cigarette from his lips and shaking off an imaginary ash.

  The situation was, objectively, complex.

  Finally he spat some crumbs of tobacco on the ground and murmured softly:

  “Goal disallowed because of illegal position. Center forward warned for taking off his jersey. When his ashes have been removed from the field, the bench can make the necessary substitution. Once the substitution is authorized by the referee’s whistle and a new corner flag is installed, play resumes with a free kick in the exact place where the offside occurred. No penalty for the home team. We haven’t yet reached the point where someone is responsible if the opposing center forward has extremely bad luck.”

  Silence.

  Then Gould said

  “Thank you, Professor.”

  And went off.

  “Take care, my boy,” murmured Prof. Taltomar without even turning to look at him.

  The game was tied at nothing-nothing.r />
  The referee didn’t run much but he knew what was what.

  It was bitterly cold.

  Children need certainties.

  11

  “Give me Miss Shell.”

  “All right.”

  Gould handed the receiver to Shatzy. His father was on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Shell?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Any relation to the oil company?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I agree.”

  “Your answer to question No. 31 was that you’re making a Western.”

  “Right.”

  “That the dream of your life is to make a Western.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s a good answer?”

  “I didn’t have any other.”

  “. . .”

  “. . .”

  “But what is it?, a film?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “This Western . . . what is it, a film, a book, a comic strip, what in the world is it?”

  “In what sense?”

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it? a film?”

  “What’s what?”

  “THE WESTERN, what is it?”

  “It’s a Western.”

  “. . .”

  “. . .”

  “A Western?”

  “A Western.”

  “. . .”

  “. . .”

  “Miss Shell?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Is everything all right there?”

  “Marvelous.”

  “Gould is special, you do understand that?”

  “I think so.”

  “I don’t want to have any sort of upset around him, am I clear?”

  “More or less.”

  “He should think about his studies, and everything else will follow.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “He’s a strong boy, he’ll manage.”

  “Probably.”

  “You know the story of the hand of Joaquín Murieta?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Joaquín Murieta. He was a bandit.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “The terror of Texas—for years he spread terror there. He was a fierce bandit, and he was very good at it: he laid out eleven sheriffs in three years, he had a price on his head that looked like a collection of zeroes.”

  “Really?”

  “Finally, they had to mobilize the army to capture him. It took a while, but they got him. And you know what they did then?”

  “No.”

  “They cut off one hand, the left hand, the hand he shot with. They packed it up and sent it on a trip around Texas. It made a tour of all the cities. The sheriff would receive the package, put the hand on display in the saloon, and then pack it up and send it on to the next city. It was like a warning, you see?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that people would understand who was stronger.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, you know the odd thing about the whole business?”

  “No.”

  “It’s that they sent around four hands belonging to Joaquín Murieta, to speed things up, the real one and three others cut off some other poor Mexicans, and one day they made a mistake in their calculations, and in a city called Martintown two hands arrived at the same time, two hands belonging to Joaquín Murieta, both left hands.”

  “Splendid.”

  “You know what people said?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s a good story, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, it’s a good story.”

  “I thought it might be useful, for your Western.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “The last time I was there, in the fridge there was a yellow plastic airplane and the telephone book.”

  “Now everything’s fine.”

  “I’m counting on you.”

  “Of course.”

  “The boy needs to drink milk, get the kind with vitamins.”

  “Yes.”

  “And calcium, he has to have calcium, he’s always been a bit low in calcium.”

  “Yes.”

  “Someday I’ll explain.”

  “What?”

  “Why I’m here and Gould is there. I imagine it doesn’t seem much of an idea, to you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t seem to you much of an idea.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Someday I’ll explain, you’ll see.”

  “All right.”

  “That was a problem before, with that mute girl. She was a fine girl, but it wasn’t very easy to explain things.”

  “I imagine.”

  “I feel more comfortable with you, Miss Shell.”

  “Good.”

  “You can speak.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s much more practical.”

  “I agree.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “Give me Gould?”

  “Yes.”

  Gould’s father telephoned every Friday, at 7:15 in the evening.

  12

  Beautiful was the whore of Closingtown, beautiful. Black-haired was the whore of Closingtown, black-haired. There were dozens of books in her room, on the second floor of the saloon, and she read them when she was waiting, stories with a beginning and an end, if you ask her she’ll tell you the stories. Young was the whore of Closingtown, young. Holding you between her legs she whispers: my love.

  Shatzy said that she cost the same as four beers.

  A thirst for her, in all the pants in town.

  Sticking to the facts: she had come there to be the school-teacher. The school had been converted to a storehouse, since Miss McGuy had left. So eventually she had arrived. She had put everything in order, and the children had begun to buy notebooks, pencils, and the rest. According to Shatzy, she was a very good teacher. She did easy things, and had books they could understand. Finally, even the older kids got to like it: they went when they could, the teacher was beautiful, and you ended up being able to read what was written under the faces of the outlaws, the ones hanging in the sheriff’s office. These were boys who were already men. She made the mistake of staying with one of them, alone, in the deserted school, one ordinary evening. She fondled him, and then she made love with all the will in the world. Afterwards, when it got to be known, the men would have let it go, but the women said that she was a whore, not a teacher.

  True, she said.

  She closed the school and went to work on the other side of the street, in a room above the bar. Slender were the hands of the whore of Closingtown, slender. Her name was Fanny.

  They all loved her, but only one loved her truly, and that was Pat Cobhan. He stayed below, drinking beer, and waited. When she was finished, she came down.

  Hello, Fanny.

  Hello.

  They walked up and down, from one end of the town to the other, holding each other tight, in the dark, and speaking of the wind that never stopped.

  Good night, Fanny.

  Good night.

  Pat Cobhan was seventeen. Green were the eyes of the whore of Closingtown, green.

  In order to understand their story—Shatzy said—you have to know how many shots a pistol had in those days.

  Six.

  She said it was a perfect number. Think about it. And sound that rhythm. Six shots, one two three four five six. Perfect. You hear the silence afterwards? Yes, that’s a silence. One two three four. Five six. Silence. It’s like a breath. Every six shots is a breath. You can breathe quickly or slowly, but every breath is perfect. One two three four five. Six. Now breathe silence.

  How many shots were t
here in a pistol?

  Six.

  Then she told you the story.

  Pat Cobhan laughs, downstairs, with foam from the beer in his beard and the smell of horses on his hands. There’s a violinist playing, and he has a trained dog. People throw him money, the dog retrieves it, and then, walking on his hind legs, goes back to his master and puts the money in his pocket. The violinist is blind. Pat Cobhan laughs.

  Fanny is working, upstairs, with the preacher’s son between her legs. My love. The preacher’s son is called Young. He’s kept his shirt on, and his black hair is soaked with sweat. Something like terror, in his eyes. Fanny says to him Fuck me, Young, but he grows rigid and slides away from her parted thighs—white lace-trimmed stockings that come just above the knee and then nothing else. He doesn’t know where to look. He takes her hand and presses it on his sex. Yes, Young, she says. She caresses it, you’re handsome, Young, she says. She licks the palm of his hand, looking him in the eyes, then caresses him again, barely touching him. Come on, says Young. Come on. She clasps his sex in the palm of her hand. He closes his eyes and thinks I must not think. Of anything. She looks at her own hand, and then the sweat on Young’s face, on his chest, and again at her hand sliding over his sex. I like your dick, Young, I want it, your dick. He is lying on his side, leaning on one arm. The arm trembles. Come, Young, she says. His eyes are closed. Come. He turns to lie on top of her, and pushes between her open thighs. That’s it, Young, that’s it, she says. He opens his eyes. Something like terror, in his eyes. He grimaces, and slides off. Wait, Young, she says, holding his head in her hands and kissing him. Wait, he says.