Читать книгу The Ball. Volume#1. “Kuluangwa” - Michael Ouzikov - Страница 17

21° 20» 70» N

86° 80» 81» W

Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

December 15, 1971

The thin black hen, clucking energetically, went into the half-open door of the hut in full confidence that the mystery of the sacred act of laying an egg will now happen. The hot sun rose, announcing a new day – it was time for the birth of a new life. But in a corner of the hut, in the hen’s sacred straw bed located, lay something big and strange. Something that was completely covered by a frayed colorful blanket was breathing softly and snorting. The hen did not tolerate these unexpected circumstances and unceremoniously jumped on top of the sleeping assailant. Diego felt a strange movement on his belly and gave a startled jump. The hysterical screams of the fleeing bird brought his mind back into the young day. He wasn’t scared at all and quickly remembered the previous evening, sweetly stretching out like a kitten after the long sleep. He got up and went out of the hut. His hands were resting on his belt. Diego looked carefully at the native village which was drenched by the sunlight of the early day.

The old, dry man with an ashen face was sitting in front of the bonfire at the edge of the glade, as if waiting for Diego since last night. He looked like he was dozing, his disheveled head bowed down to his chest. Diego stretching once again, smiling at the discordant twitter of birds. In obeyance to his rumbling stomach, Diego headed towards the weak smoke that curled over a strange, shapeless clay oven.

Without saying anything, a short and wide old woman who was cooking at the stove gave Diego a clay bowl and filled it yellow corn and few small pieces of fried chicken using a big wooden spoon. She gave the boy a smaller spoon and motioned with her hand towards a small table with a pair of improvised stools near the humble dwelling. Gobbling up the breakfast, which was delicious despite its simplicity, Diego looked up and discovered that a dozen curious black eyes were watching him with great interest from the bushes behind him. He was surprised, but still finished his breakfast, brushed off his knees from falling motes and left the shade of the trees to go to the «town» square.

Soon as he came out of the grove, Diego stopped short. About three dozen villagers looked straight at him. They all had dark skin, the color of cocoa powder. All of them were very thin, and many of the adults were lacking teeth. Their legs were crooked or swollen. The children hid behind their parents, some gnawing on corncobs, and looking suspiciously at this strange boy. The bare breasts of the unclothed women sagged down to their bellies. The men’s colored loincloths hung dejectedly, barely covered looked what looked like dried pea pods. Some mothers held their infants wrapped in towels, but not one of them cried. There were as many dogs as people in the village – they were also skinny and bow-legged, but none of them barked. The only sounds in the crowd were dry coughs here and there and nothing else.

Directly in front of the crowd, in the same position as last night, an old skinny man with a scar on his face was sitting, still as a rock. The silence began to bother Diego, so he put his hand on his chest and bowed awkwardly. The old man raised his hand and a few teenagers from the crowd came forward, still holding gnawed cobs in their hands. One of them suddenly struck Diego in the chest with this cob. Diego froze still with both his arms up in the air.

How long he was in that position, Diego himself didn’t know. He only woke up when someone gently touched his shoulder. Two brazen boys approached Diego from the side and started sputtering something in their language. Diego smiled stupidly – he didn’t want God-knows-who to knock him out in this God-knows-where village. One of the natives suddenly poked Diego in the chest, right in the «Granada School – Buenos Aires» inscription on his t-shirt. «Argentina?» he asked. Diego just nodded, being somewhere far away in his mind. «Foot-ball?» continued his stranger-friend. Diego nodded again, knowing that the magic word «football» may perhaps be the only straw that can convert hostility into friendship. Another local gave a toothless smile, gave Diego a friendly push to the shoulder, took out a small round object from behind his back, and threw it at Diego’s feet. A crowd of boys approvingly shouted, waved, and clapped their hands. All over sudden, a group of children, no older than nine or ten years, jumped out from nearby bushes and surrounded Diego.

The game somehow began itself. After the kids poured into the field, shouting, and jostling their arms, they quickly divided into two teams without much thinking required. They pushed Diego into one of them. Immediately, goalposts were put in place in the form of two coconuts, shaped not too differently from that strange, black ball. Diego committed himself to the game from the first touch of the ball. If only his classmates could see him now! He was so tired of their constant ridicule, whether of his plumpness or his bowed legs or his slowness or his inability to do different tricks with the ball. None of them knew how much effort he gave and how much time he spent trying to improve! He spent hours in his room, trying to master the technique – but nothing worked. That’s why he was usually placed as a secondary defender at best, but more often – put on the bench. But where did all his clumsiness go today? He felt nimble, almost rubberlike, as if he could do whatever he wanted with the ball! And the ball seemed to stick to his feet. Full of happiness, Diego was flying across the field with invisible wings.

It was in this condition – fully absorbed by the game and happily shouting something to his new teammates in some strange language he was picking up on the spot – that Diego was found by his father, who reached the village by following a barely visible road. Beside him sat the amusing native man who found Diego yesterday in the woods. Last night, when the boy fell asleep, the man got to the construction workers and immediately found the search party headed by Diego Sr. Through a local interpreter, the man reassured the anxious father that his son is in perfect health. However, he also said it would be better to pick the boy up tomorrow because it is dangerous to move through the bush at night, and there would be no point. Although his father was eager to go retrieve his son right away, his colleagues calmed him down, and the native man said that he would stay overnight in the construction workers’ village. And now, Diego Sr. joined the spectators gathered around the field. Nobody paid any attention to him, and in order not to interrupt the magical flow of what was happening on the field, Diego Sr. started to watch the game with great interest.

The play on the field brought mixed success to both teams. Surprisingly, the native boys played very well, strongly owning this black ball, as if they’ve been kicking it from the moment they began to walk. What they lacked in skill, they made up for with their endless enthusiasm and passion which were more than enough to cover the technical flaws. Diego, by contrast, stood out on the field with his technical tricks, which he memorized from his school trainings. And that’s what was amazing about this day – with this little black ball, everyone was playing so damn well. In whatever complex combination Diego could take this little black ball, the two of them immediately merged, becoming one mechanism, and Diego always managed to do with the ball exactly what he wanted. For example, not only did he manage to shoot a nice goal between the legs of the nearly naked goalkeeper, he also made some exceptional passes, one of which also resulted in a goal. And now, with the score 5:5, Diego tried to get a comfortable position in the opponent’s penalty area. His team earned a corner kick, and now both teams stamped before the goalkeeper, pushing shoulders and elbows, hoping to score the winning goal. Or prevent it. By some pre-destined fate, they were playing for that sixth goal.

The kick! The ball slowly tore the space between multiple bodies, arms, and legs, seemingly freezing over Diego’s head. But instead of jumping and trying to change the direction of the ball with his head, the boy took off vertically, swinging in the air with his whole body, and at the top, continuing to twist, he hit the ball hard towards the net. The goalkeeper didn’t even move while the ball flew right through its target, hit the ground, rolled over and stopped in the lifted white dust. The ball stopped its movement beyond the gate, just at the feet of the ancient and scarred old man. Diego, as a result of falling, deeply cut his left hand against a dry-stemmed bush that grew from the cracked earth. He also cut his eyebrow from the pebbles on the ground. The boy stood up, brushed his dusty shorts and T-shirt, leaving bloody stripes on his chest.

He was already surrounded by the boys from his team, who were shouting, laughing, and clapping Diego’s shoulders and back. But Diego suddenly stopped, seeing how from the edge of the field that horrible old man was slowly moving in his direction. «You came, you came at last!» Diego heard the deep voice coming at him, although it was crying out in some incomprehensible language. «Let soro ta kama vok! Ton guha!»