The Boxer (22 page)

He resolved not to go home before he found a reliable solution to protect Mark. His first thought was to take him out of the school and send him to a different one, but all things considered that wasn’t a solution. What had happened could reoccur anywhere. The idea of going with him everywhere he went was completely unrealistic. Mark had to learn to defend himself from this kind of attack; that was it, only effective self-defense would make him independent.
I had to arm him
.

Aron remembered the resolution he had made and eventually forgotten months before — of being a role model for Mark. A role model for all situations in life — but, aside from a couple of pathetic attempts, he hadn’t done much. That would change now. Aron recognized the chance to turn his past good intentions into deeds and at the same time help Mark in a situation of need. How had he reacted to fights as a schoolboy? Specific images did not come to mind; there had certainly been fights now and then. Aron had forgotten them, but being able to remember them was irrelevant. What was clear was that, at the time, he definitely had not been the hero he wanted Mark to become thanks to tales from an invented past.

H
e sat by the bed and said, “Did I ever tell you that I was a boxer a long time ago? No? Strange,” Aron said, “I was sure you knew. Well then, listen: it all began when I was as old as you are now, perhaps a couple of months older. I got along with everyone at school, but on our street lived this one guy who made our lives miserable. He was the one who always decided what game we would play, and he decided who could join in and who couldn’t, and if somebody didn’t want to do as he said, then he gave them a punch or two; he was the strongest kid in our crowd. And one of us had to be his servant. He would simply say: “Today, you!” and point at someone who would be his servant all day. His name, by the way, was Werner. You can imagine how much we wanted to get rid of him, but no one could do anything, he was so incredibly strong. The only thing you could do, if you wanted to go outside to play, would be first to look out the window to see if he was on the street and, if he was, you would stay in your room and get bored. That was almost just as bad. He hit me more than once, and if my mother asked me why I was crying I lied to her, because I was afraid that if I told her who it was I’d get more of the same from him the next day.”

Mark winced with compassion; he was a
talented
listener. The fact that almost all the stories he had ever heard tended to have a happy ending did not spoil the suspense. He waited impatiently for the climax, the inevitable change in favor of the good guys; yet Aron felt he hadn’t done a thorough enough job on Werner, whose meanness, he found, could easily bear a few more brushstrokes.

“One day he threw a rock through a window, a huge shop window, and ran away. Because I happened to be standing nearby, I ran away too. Only I had been recognized, not him. When I got home the shop owner was already sitting with my father and telling him that I had thrown the rock through his window. Just imagine: I was so afraid of Werner that I simply couldn’t tell on him and took the blame myself. I got the punishment that he deserved, and when later on I told him the whole story, so that he would praise me for my silence, do you know what he did? He laughed at me and said, ‘Well, you were stupid enough to get caught.’“

“Did it go on like that forever?” Mark asked, at the end of his patience now.

“No, not forever,” Aron said. “It lasted only as long as I kept waiting and hoping for a miracle, hoping that the torture would end of its own accord. Listen to what happened next. Once I read in the paper about a boxing match; rather, I read about how a famous boxer, whose name I can’t remember any longer, was preparing for a world championship. How he practiced for weeks, how he ran alone through the woods, lifted weights, punched a bag full of sand for hours — all this only so that he could win this one match. It impressed me so much that I decided to become a boxer too and train for my match against Werner. I went to my father and asked him to enroll me in a boxing school. At first he refused, because it cost money; he said I should play soccer instead. But how could soccer help against Werner? I didn’t give up and begged for so long that I finally was allowed to learn how to box.”

A list of the difficulties of training followed, a description of what it took to learn a craft, because boxing, Aron claims, is nothing more than a craft and therefore, up to a certain level, talent has nothing to do with it. In fact, he says, he’d been interested in boxing as a young man, if only as a spectator — now and then he had watched boxing matches. The atmosphere in the hall where the matches were held had been a welcome change in his overly monotonous life.

It wasn’t hard for Aron to spice up his career with technical terms. Mark lay there amazed and heard upper-cut, left hook clinch, straight right, sidestep. Aron didn’t forget to mention, among the many details, what
inspired
him in his eagerness to train, what gave him new strength when the next complicated trick was on the syllabus: the thought of Werner, the hope of overpowering that monster. But, he explained, Mark mustn’t think that the whole thing had been nothing but hardship. To learn how to box, aside from the immense effort, was to learn a versatile game, a game that is hard to explain, one should simply try it out.

“Then the time finally came. I had never let anyone in on what I was doing. I behaved the same way I always had so that Werner wouldn’t notice. I didn’t want to start a fight, I had simply decided that I wouldn’t put up with his shenanigans anymore. But in all honesty I was sort of waiting for an opportunity. And it came soon enough. Again he pointed at me and ordered — Today, you! You remember, that’s how he chose a slave. So I said, ‘Get yourself someone who’s more stupid than I am. I don’t want to be your slave, not today or any other day.’“

“And what did he do?”

“He looked at me as if he hadn’t heard me properly. The others were also really shocked. One little guy whispered in my ear, ‘Are you crazy? He’ll make mincemeat out of you.’ Werner walked toward me slowly and rolled up his sleeves. So I said to him, ‘Why are you rolling up your sleeves? It’s not that warm today’ That’s when he finally raised his arm. I was waiting for the right moment, just as I had practiced a thousand times, and bang, I gave him a good punch on the nose.”

At this point Mark could no longer hide his feelings.

He clapped with delight and turned a somersault in bed; then he sat still again. The story had to go a little further; he really wanted to hear the happy ending. How Werner was flustered, how young Arno didn’t even take advantage of his astonishment — didn’t need to — when Werner attacked for the second time. A little step to one side and he hit the air — the famous sidestep. Blind with rage, Werner stormed after him and ran into a hail of punches. The horror of the others was soon transformed into cries of joy when they realized that rebellion led not to complete catastrophe, only to catastrophe for Werner. He didn’t even see the hook and the straight punch coming, they flew at him that fast. When his nose was bleeding and his head buzzing because of all the uppercuts, he finally understood that his coarse hands were useless against a real boxer, only his legs could save him. So he started to run as if the very devil was after him, and from then on peace reigned in the street; the monster didn’t show his face again.

Mark would have liked to have heard another couple of stories like that. He asked, “Did you box later?”

Once in a while, Aron said. His trainer had advised him to keep training, refine his skills, in time he too might become a champion, but he wasn’t interested in championships. His purpose had been fulfilled, and no one could take from him what he had learned while he was training. He had felt prepared for any attack by loudmouths and tormentors, that was enough. A boxer, he said, isn’t a man who boxes all the time, he’s someone who knows how to box. Unfortunately, however, boxers often box just because they are boxers;
thafs the whole problem
.

Aron succeeded far more easily than he had expected. It was one small step from Mark’s enthusiasm to his desire for heroic acts of his own. Children are predictable, Aron says, especially one’s own. That evening Mark asked if there were any boxing schools in the city. Aron looked skeptical and said, maybe there were some, but he wasn’t sure, he would have to find out. He was convinced that to keep Mark’s desire alive an immediate acceptance would be less effective than an indication that it might not be all that easy; naturally there were difficulties he hoped to overcome, only not right away.

Every evening after that, as soon as Aron got home, Mark asked him first thing: “Did you find one?” And Aron said he had looked, but to no avail; he would keep on looking. There was a dangerous moment, he says thoughtfully, when expectation could turn into resignation; one had to be careful. “Guess what,” he finally told Mark a week later. “I found a place, we’ll go tomorrow.”

The next afternoon they went to a boxing union. Aron had trouble getting permission to leave the headquarters hours before closing time. Fascinated, Mark watched the children train. A friendly man walked up to them, waved at Aron, looked Mark up and down, and asked, “Do you know how to box?”

Mark shook his head, so the man said, “Of course, I can tell by your black eye. But we’ll take care of that.”

From that day on Mark went to the gym twice a week — first with Aron, then by himself — and did his best to learn the new craft. After each lesson he showed off his progress at home. Aron stresses that it had nothing to do with his own ambition; it didn’t fill him with pride in any way that his son could box better every day — it only reassured him.

T
here’s a letter from America,” Irma said.

It was leaning against a vase on the table; the name of the sender meant nothing to Aron, he recognized only the word
Baltimore
. Mark waited for the stamps and Irma for sensational news. They thought it was taking him too long to open the envelope.

“Leave me alone.”

The contents were in English; only a name caught his eye in the incomprehensible text: Samuel London. And, a few lines later, a sum: 50,000. Aron came to a conclusion that, should it prove to be accurate, would be excellent news. He dedicated almost an hour to London, his first father-in-law. He had only a vague memory of London’s daughter Linda, Aron’s first wife, but he saw London distinctly, the textile factory behind him. To Irma, Aron said, “If I’m not mistaken, we’ve inherited a lot of money.”

On the other hand
, the same letter meant that old London must have died. Aron felt no pain, only a sense of regret that didn’t overwhelm him. So much pain lay between London and that day, he says, that he could easily get over such a loss, especially if it was connected to a handsome profit.

Aron took the letter to the headquarters. He wasn’t the only interpreter there; there was an English one too. Aron took him aside and showed him the letter. Five minutes later his suspicion was confirmed: London was definitely dead and had left him fifty thousand dollars. The legacy had not been challenged by the other heirs and was therefore readily available. The notary who had written the letter wanted to know where he should transfer the money. The English interpreter said, “You’re a rich man now.”

Not so rich after all
, Aron opened a bank account.

W
here?”

“In a bank in West Berlin. Where else?”

H
e sent the account number to Baltimore via telegram; the money arrived one long month later. Except for a
few thousand
right at the beginning, he says, he didn’t touch it for years, only much later, when Mark and Irma began to have expensive tastes. And, he had to confess, he did too. For example, Irma and Mark wanted to travel, but until that moment the money had remained untouched; it paid interest and had a reassuring effect. Aron didn’t want their lives to change because of a sudden external event, and in a way that would make the neighbors jealous. He had his way. Mark didn’t know anything about the inheritance; only Irma was informed, and Aron soon regretted this. She suddenly discovered shortcomings that could be avoided, in her opinion, by using the money, but
that was exactly
what Aron didn’t want. They argued; Irma used statements like “You only live once” or “You can’t take it with you” until Aron threatened he had better things to do than argue endlessly with her. After that she no longer mentioned the money, maybe even found her peace, out of necessity or otherwise. Aron says,
So much about London
.

T
hen his first heart attack. He was diagnosed as having angina pectoris, severe chest pains. Aron describes having trouble breathing and the unpleasant feeling
when you think of nothing but what little life you have left
. He describes the fear, even if the doctor says that in theory one can live to be a hundred with that kind of damage — but without drinking.

What does survival mean? Till then, daily walks weren’t undertaken for a reason, and therefore they used to be a pleasure. Now they simply had the effect of reminding him, with every step, of being deathly ill, a ridiculous attempt to
walk away from the end
.

No excitement. But how, Aron asks, does one not get excited? No excitement implies that in the past he had done his best to get excited as often as possible. Besides, the intention not to get excited is the most exciting of all; one swallows hard and keeps all one’s anger pent up so that no one notices. There’s an enormous difference between inner calm and forced self-control, and as far as he is concerned, he says, self-control is a thousand times more exciting than letting go.

Or the recommendation that he get more sleep than before. Until then he went to bed only when he was in a state of complete exhaustion, in a state that guaranteed falling asleep immediately or virtually. This meant an average of four to five hours sleep a night. The doctor demanded eight, which meant that Aron had to go to bed hours earlier than usual, and those hours were unbearable, not to mention his having to forgo pleasure with Irma. To help him sleep, he took sleeping pills or a slug of cognac, which certainly wasn’t part of the doctor’s plan, but the doctor’s orders were right for the textbook model, who only looked like Aron physically.