Keeper (10 page)

What I had not thought of was the possibility that the kick would go wrong. I had not thought of that at all. Perhaps because he was nervous, he scuffed the shot. His foot scraped the ground at the same moment that it struck the ball, and the ball did not go where I was going. Instead, it wobbled toward the center of the goal and the spot where I had been standing a split second earlier.

The scuff slowed the ball just a little bit, and that gave me the tiniest chance. I screwed my body around and threw my left hand into the ball’s path, and my clawing fingers somehow got to it and tipped it over the bar. That hanging moment seemed to last forever, and then time sped up and I crashed to the ground on my back and shoulders. The impact slammed the breath out of me, and it felt as if I had broken every bone in my body. The world went brilliantly red and then completely dark for some moments. Then I felt myself being dragged to my feet, and I was among my players, held up, kissed, shouted at, baffled. I got free of them and clutched the goalpost, fighting to get my breathing back and bring the pain to an end. Hanging on to that post, I lifted my head and saw — or imagined — a silver-black figure like a photo negative standing behind the goal, watching me. Then it disappeared, and I straightened up and turned around and found Hellman looking closely at my face.

‘You are okay, yah?’ he said. ‘You want to go on?’

I nodded, managed to say, ‘I’m okay.’

Hellman said, ‘It’s a corner. Are you ready for it?’

I nodded again. Hellman ran backward, briskly, and whistled for the kick.

My defenders and the Loggers were pulling at each other, trying to find the space to block or shoot. The ball came in from the corner, too high for me and too far from me to take even if I had been feeling good. I was trying hard to concentrate on the movement of the ball, but the edges of my eyes were fuzzy. The corner didn’t reach anyone in the Loggers’ attack, and one of my defenders headed the ball out toward the midfield. It landed beautifully for one of the opposing players, who leaned forward and took it down with his chest. He took it past two of the Camp players, and when he was twenty yards out, he struck a perfect half-volley at my goal. It came fast, and it had a spin on it. I stopped it by pure animal instinct. I was still too groggy from the fall to follow the flight of the ball, but I fell to my left, arms and legs spread. The ball hit the inside of my left arm, which took the pace out of the shot. The ball landed close to where I fell, and I rolled onto it and covered it with my body. I had an overwhelming desire to sleep right there, in the dust, with my arms around the ball and feet stabbing at my head.

Hellman’s whistle forced me to my feet. I bounced the ball twice, trying to win myself enough time and strength to kick it forward. But I couldn’t. So I threw it out to a free player on the right wing. It was a good enough throw. My player took it well and went past a couple of halfhearted challenges almost to the Loggers’ goal line. He made a good cross, and the same player who had scored for us in the first half met the ball sweetly with his head and put it past their goalie, who was expecting him to miss it and had his weight on the wrong foot.

Five minutes later, Hellman blew the final whistle. We had won, two goals to nothing. My players surrounded me, ruffling my hair and giving high-fives and the rest of it. One or two of the Loggers shook my hand, which surprised me. Their penalty taker, the strong black player, was one of them.

‘You had a game, man,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry about the penalty,’ I said stupidly.

He grinned. ‘I thought you were beat. What you did was impossible, man. And I screwed up the kick. You know that?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You were going top right. I went for it too early.’

‘You did okay,’ he said.

I nodded, not knowing what to say. I was not used to praise. He grinned again and turned to walk away. Then he stopped and turned around.

‘And I never saw you before,’ he said. ‘Where’d you come from?’

‘Out of the trees,’ I said. I was still a bit woozy.

I went over to where my father was. His friends were talking to him about me, and he was shuffling his feet and looking embarrassed. He was in a difficult position. He wanted to be proud of me, but I had helped beat his team. He was smiling and shaking his head at the same time. In the end he said, ‘Your knees are a mess. We’ll have to get them cleaned up when we get home. Your mother will have a fit.’

We walked back up to the trucks. As we were passing the metal sheds, Hellman, still looking sharp in his referee’s uniform, came to the door of his office.

‘Hey, kid!’

We stopped, my father and I, and faced him. Father looked anxious because Hellman was frowning.

Hellman said, ‘You’re pretty good for a big, heavy kid. Where’d you learn to keep goal like that? You are one of them superstars who play in the plaza back in town, yah? What do they call you?’

‘They call me Cigüeña, boss,’ I said.

Hellman looked at me, hard and suspicious. ‘Stork? Why the hell they call you that?’

I shrugged, not knowing what to say. Or because it was a long story.

‘Okay,’ said Hellman. ‘But I want to see you play next Saturday, yah?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

My father hit me in the ribs with his elbow.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said.”

“T
HE NEXT DAY
, Sunday, after church and the big meal, I waited until my family settled into the siesta and then I went into the forest.

I stepped into the clearing and looked left to where I expected to see the Keeper. He was not there.

I looked right and there he was, six yards in front of the goalmouth. As if waiting for a penalty. With his hands on his hips, just as I had stood in yesterday’s game. He looked so
arrogant,
so ridiculously sure of himself. Just as I had. The ball was on the penalty spot.

I realized that he was mocking me. Many times, the Keeper had made me confront my own failings — my clumsiness, my lack of faith. This was the first time he had made me feel shame. The feeling bored into me like the fat tip of Estevan’s drill. It was still twisting into me when it was followed by something worse. The Keeper had made me what I was, and there were no limits to my gratitude. But I had never imagined that he might
follow
me. I hadn’t wanted to leave him, but the possibility that I
couldn’t,
that he might haunt me forever, everywhere, was terrifying. Hateful.

I walked over and faced him. ‘You were watching, weren’t you?’ I had to force the words out. ‘You were there at the camp when I kept goal.’

His mouth moved beneath the deep-shadowed eyes. The words followed. ‘Of course.’

It was so matter-of-fact, the way he said it. As if he was confirming some trivial fact that I should already have known. My fear and my rage were, clearly, of no interest to him. He turned his back on me and walked into the goalmouth. Then he faced me again, crouching.

‘What now?’ I said at last. I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.

The Keeper pointed to the ball. ‘Be the penalty taker.’

‘You know I can’t beat you,’ I said.

The Keeper stood up straight. ‘I know no such thing.’

‘I have never beaten you. You have always known what I am thinking.’

‘Then think something I cannot imagine,’ the Keeper said. ‘Hide your thought from me.’

It was a ridiculous, impossible, stupid challenge. I hated him. I took four paces back from the spot, a small voice in my brain saying,
I hate you.
My strike on the ball:
I hate you!

I drove the shot to my right and low. The Keeper’s body seemed to want to go in two directions at once; his upper body went to the right but hesitated. His hips and legs and feet seemed to be thinking differently and threw his balance to the left. He staggered, recovered, and was on his way to meet the ball with his left hand when it flew past him and into the net, but he was lost, and too late. He ended up on one knee, his left hand on the ground. I had beaten him.

He didn’t look at me. He took the ball from the net, rolled it in his hands, bounced it twice, and then held it.

‘A good penalty,’ he said. ‘You hid your thought well. I could not read it at all.’

I looked down at the grass as if I had seen something really interesting there.

‘Enough for today, I think,’ he said. ‘Your family will want you home. It is getting dark.’

I looked at the sky. The sun was still well above the shoulders of the trees.”

“On Monday morning we traveled to work under a blue sky. A long cloud of red dust followed the pickup. At the camp my father patted me on the back and then left me. I walked over to the steel sheds. Estevan was already at the bench, squinting at a work sheet clipped to a board. He looked up when my shadow fell on him. And then he did a strange thing. He bowed, making a fancy sweep of his arm like a servant in a comedy.

‘Good morning, El Gato,’ he said. ‘I hope you are well, Gato.’

I looked at him. I thought he was being sarcastic in some mysterious way. I thought that perhaps I had done something wrong, something I did not know about. Puzzled, I remained silent.

Estevan straightened up and looked at me with great concern. ‘El Gato?’ he said. ‘Has some other cat got your tongue, Gato? Is there something wrong?’

‘I am fine, Señor Estevan,’ I said at last. ‘What is this “El Gato” thing?’

Estevan opened his eyes wide, two brown-and-white targets. ‘You don’t know? This is what everyone is calling you now, after the game on Saturday. I thought I had just a boy learning tool shop. Now I hear I have a great goalie working with me. El Gato, the Cat. The people here are saying, “Estevan, look after this boy. Keep his hands away from the drills, the blades. Make sure he does not get hurt like the others. He is like the cat, the
gato
!” Also,’ said Estevan, ‘I was at the game. You were quite good.’

Throughout the morning and the whole day, men who came to our bench or just passed it made a big thing of calling me ‘Gato.’ And that is where the name came from. Not from the papers, Paul, or from players, but from that hellish place. And since then I have had no other name.

My second week at the camp passed much as the first one had. I worked at the bench with Estevan, except when the two of us were wrestling with the greasy hydraulic guts of one of the giant, yellow machines. And the end of each day was the same also: the jolting ride back to the town, arriving as the last of the plaza players were giving up the square to the darkness; wolfing down the meal; falling asleep exhausted in my hot, small bedroom.

On Saturday, after we had lined up for our pay, Estevan presented me with something in a plastic shopping bag. I was standing with my father.

‘Come on, then, son, open it.’

‘What is this, Señor Estevan?’ I asked.

Estevan shrugged, glinting his gold tooth at me. ‘Take a look.’

Something soft, black, folded. I spread it out, and it was a new sweatshirt. On the back was a big white 1. On the front, Estevan had used some kind of white paint to draw a crude little picture of a leaping jaguar. My very first uniform. I did not know what to say. My father and Estevan were grinning at me like two monkeys. Then I became aware of another person standing behind me. I turned; Hellman was there, already dressed in his perfect referee’s stripes.

‘Just because you have been given the number 1, this does not mean you have earned it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, put it on. We have a game to play.’ ”

“When we got to the red dirt field, there were already many men waiting to watch the game. I was confused and embarrassed when some of them applauded me as I walked to the goal in front of the Camp team’s supporters.

I was trembling. Not because of the crowd and what they were expecting of me. I was trembling on account of the spectator I could not see, and what he thought of me wearing the number 1 shirt. I walked around the back of the goal pretending to check the net. Was there, by one of the supports, a tall space where the air was colder and somehow denser? Perhaps. Or maybe what caused the shiver to run through me was remembering our last meeting in the forest — the fear and hatred that had overcome me and had brought the Keeper to his knees. That moment had changed everything. We had moved on to a different level, the Keeper and I. I did not know how, exactly. It was something that I could only feel, like a cold discomfort in my stomach. I wasn’t even sure whether he was there at the goal with me as my friend or my enemy. All I could do, the only thing I could possibly do, was play well. And go back into the forest the next day.

I stood in the goalmouth while Hellman blew on his whistle and the teams got into some kind of shape.

Our team was not the same eleven players who had played in the last game, but our goalscorer was there. Jao the Butcher was not mended enough to be part of the Loggers’ team. His place had been taken by an older man, a very tall man. The Loggers had decided that maybe I could be beaten in the air.

And that is how they tried to defeat me. A great many high crosses, some of them good, came in at me. Most of them were floated across by a short, bristle-headed player. He was right-footed but played out on their left wing, which puzzled me at first. Then I realized why he was there. He was good at fighting his way to the goal line and putting in his cross with the outside of his right foot, so that the ball curved away from me as it came over. When this happened, I had only two choices. I could try to force my way through the bodies in front of me and take the ball in the air. Or I could wait on my line for whatever kind of shot found its way through the mob of players. I didn’t like either option, and I still don’t. You have little control over what happens. Once, I had to punch the ball clear of the tall man’s head with my left hand, which is the worst and most desperate save a keeper like me can make. But I managed to stop every shot that was on target, including one that deflected off the thigh of one of my defenders, so that I had to switch my weight and direction at the last moment to shove it around the post. I also had to slide onto a terrible back-pass, which was picked up by the good black player whose penalty I had stopped in the last game. But by halftime, the Loggers had the smell of defeat coming off them. They had started to think that they would not get the ball past me.