Davor Šuker took a long pass from Asanović and scored.
They never saw it coming. It was in the forty-sixth minute, fresh from the locker rooms.
The country seemed to be hanging by a thread.
Davor Šuker was the guy with the sharp, bony face, jutting chin, hooded eyes. He looked like a mercenary, a brute from the maquis, a starving partisan. He looked like a bastard, his lipless mouth stretched around a cry of joy. He looked unpleasantly pale in his white jersey strewn with red squares as he ran, arms outthrust.
Davor Šuker. The very name brought up bad memories of the German air force, of speed against which you were helpless. In front of their TVs, millions sat stunned. Anthony set his beer on the counter and grabbed his head in both hands, like a lot of other people. The gesture was a dramatic one. You just didn’t have that many opportunities for hope.
He had driven to his cousin’s place around five o’clock, carrying the boxed wine. The cousin had just had a house built in a new development near the tennis courts. Things had changed fast for him. He’d met Nath about a year earlier, landed an open-ended contract with Kleinhoffer, the heating specialist, and gotten a bank loan while he was at it. He’d put on a little weight, too. He and Nath were happy.
Anthony was treated to the owner’s tour, which he got each time he came, to see how the work was progressing. The house was in good shape, standing in the middle of a small patch of ground that would soon be a lawn. Four walls, a roof, white tile floors downstairs, a laminate floor in the bedrooms upstairs. Everything was new. Electrical wires still stuck out of walls that left white dust on your hands when you touched them. For the time being, they still needed a ladder to get upstairs. This was hard for Nath, so they were sleeping on a bed in the living room. The pitch pine furniture looked ridiculously inadequate in this six-room house. The cousin had been thinking big. All that remained was to win the World Cup. And pay back the bank.
A pretty brunette with a hint of gold in her eyes, Nath was on the city police force. She was planning to go back to school or take a civil service exam. They would see about that later, when their kid was in school. In the meantime the house was eating up all their time, money, and energy. The cousin was feeling proud, but he was exhausted, and as worried as any homeowner.
“I just can’t take it anymore. I spend my time redoing everything. The shutters weren’t the right size. There’s not a goddamned door in the house that closes properly. Those guys really are useless.”
After the tour, the three of them settled on the patio, or what stood in for a patio, namely a square of gravel with plastic lawn furniture. Nath had her legs stretched out, feet propped on her man’s knees. She was drinking water while the boys popped cans of beer. Anthony was having a little trouble getting used to his cousin’s new attitude, his worried, supervising, settled side. On the other hand, he was very fond of Nath. She was funny, a wit with a straight face. The two of them teamed up to make fun of the cousin. Anthony had found himself a family, in a way. He came often during the summer. They asked if he would consider being the kid’s godfather. He said yes.
The conversation mainly revolved around soccer. Nath absolutely refused to believe in the “black-white-brown” business—so called because Les Bleus had black, white, and Arab players. It struck her as a passing fad, a bit of comic opium. As a cop, she’d seen it all, and practiced a protective, good-natured cynicism. The cousin didn’t share her opinion.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “If we win, it’ll leave something behind.”
“What will it leave?”
“Knowing that we can get along.”
“What are you talking about?” she scoffed. “You yell about the Turkish mason and the Arab workers. You’re always complaining about the racket that the Portuguese next door make.”
“Those guys, they’re mental cases. They’ve been listening to ‘I Will Survive’ nonstop since the start of the Cup. Honestly, it drives you out of your gourd.”
“Yeah, so what is it that you say? ‘The Portagees are a pain in the ass.’ ”
“That’s not racism.”
“So what is it?”
“Simple observation.”
Anthony laughed. From time to time, you could hear firecrackers and cars honking in the distance. A rocket shot up from a house nearby. Kids raced around in ATVs yelling, “Les Bleus!” You sensed the same eagerness in every house in the development. After a while, the cousin put some pork ribs and sausages on the barbecue. People were eating outside. Television sets were on. Everything was calm and feverish. The two cousins poured themselves big glasses of rosé with lots of ice cubes, which made a nice tinkling sound in the evening. Nath was slowly beginning to fade. She was in her third month, and she felt weary. The boys cleared the dishes quickly and left them in the sink, before going into the living room. It was about to begin. The whole country held its breath. The national anthems. It started.
The first half didn’t go too badly, even though Les Bleus played cautiously, without much energy. After a while, the Croats started getting really threatening. They had nothing to lose, they were young, uninhibited, and tough, and they had in mind the great game they’d played against Germany. The situation generated remarks from the cousins like, “What the hell are they doing, for chrissakes? Where’s Guivarc’h, at a bar?” Karembeu was injured and was replaced by Thierry Henry. The boys watched the French center being slowly picked apart, as the Croats stirred and stretched it like dough. Unbelievable blunders occurred at midfield. Anthony wasn’t even able to drink. He was biting his nails while his cousin stood up, sat down, stood up again. Nath dozed off around the fortieth minute. She was done for.
At halftime the cousin suggested that they go watch the rest of the game at a bar.
“She’s out for twelve hours now,” he said. “I’ll put her to bed. Just wait for me outside. I’ll be right there.”
“Step on it. We don’t want to miss the start of the second half.”
“Okay, no sweat.”
Sitting on the hood of his Clio, Anthony smoked a cigarette as the evening gathered. The houses around him shared a family resemblance, each with its little plot of land, red roof, new facade, spindly bushes, and car parked out front. New streets named for trees meandered among them. A comfortable calm reigned over this little world. A thousand details revealed the care the inhabitants put into comfort, intimacy, and respect for their property. A man stood watering his lawn with a hose, his shirt open, looking happy. From time to time you heard a burst of laughter in the distance, or the scraping of a chaise longue being dragged in for the night. Swallows streaked by overhead. The sky was vast and round, like a woman’s belly. Just then, the cousin came out.
“Okay, let’s hit it.”
“Did Nath say anything?”
“She didn’t even wake up.”
They got in the car and raced for the nearest bistro. There wasn’t a free parking space in the whole town. The long, deserted streets were jammed with cars. Every bar and terrasse overflowed with fans. You would’ve been hard-pressed to find a Croat anywhere. On the other hand, you saw some pretty unusual-looking people, with shaved heads and unbelievable outfits. The surrounding countryside had emptied itself into downtown. It was worse than during the sales. The cousin wound up leaving his car double parked. He was too drunk to parallel park, anyway. He and Anthony went looking for a bar that still had some room. Every place was full. They were running out of time. The halftime advertising break was ending. Finding themselves near the blast furnace, they sprinted into L’Usine and made their way to the bar. Anthony spotted Rudi. Manu was there, too. The boys had just enough time to order a beer.
Then Davor Šuker scored.
Everything fell silent, a whole country seized, disappointed.
“Motherfucker!” yelled Rudi.
At that very moment, a guy with kinky hair entered and sidled up to the bar. He ordered a beer, then turned around to see if he knew anyone there. He recognized Anthony. Anthony recognized him, too. Hacine shifted his attention to the big TV screen mounted on the wall. It was the forty-seventh minute of the game, and Lilian Thuram, who never scored, worked his way up the pitch and scored. At that, the bar exploded. A single shout rose from every mouth. A table was knocked over. Beer spilled on the ground. The spectators started jumping in place, yelling and hugging each other. Hacine raised two fists to the sky. He felt someone shaking him. It was Anthony, who was out of his mind, amnesiac, terribly French, as happy as a child.
The match continued in a completely frenzied atmosphere. Beer flowed like water, people smoked like chimneys, yelling and calling to each other from table to table. Anthony himself started drinking as much as he could. He and the cousin were buying each other rounds, and treating Rudi. He looked more haggard than ever, and screamed Cock-a-doodle-do! at Les Bleus’ every action. Hacine was drinking hard, too. He had good reason to.
At the seventieth minute Thuram slotted in a second goal, and it was all over. People suddenly found themselves melded, wholly yielding to their destiny as a horde, completely free of outliers and aberrations. That which chose to stay outside was incomprehensible. Everything caught inside tolled to the same bell. The entire country was encountering itself in a total fantasy. It was a moment of sexual, serious unity. Nothing had ever existed before, neither history, nor the dead, nor debts, erased as if by enchantment. France was linked together, immensely fraternal.
At one point, unable to hold it anymore, Anthony had to take a piss. There was a line in front of the men’s room. He decided to go outside.
“I’m stepping out for five minutes,” he warned his cousin.
The racket was so deafening, he had to mime his message with five fingers. His cousin pursed his lips, not understanding. Anthony would miss the end of the game, but it was either that or piss himself.
“I’ll be back.”
Outside, the evening air helped him gather his wits a little. The street was calm. Shouts and waves of joy periodically erupted from the café. These were gusts of warmth in the twilight, bursts of steam from a pressure cooker. Anthony picked a spot off to the side and began to urinate against the fence around the Metalor mill. The formidable presence of the blast furnace weighed on him. He looked up and cursed its thousands of tons, while tracing arabesques on the bricks.
When Anthony entered the bar again, his cousin grabbed him and said:
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I don’ wanna wait for everybody to get going. It’s gonna to be the traffic jam of the century.”
“Aren’t you gonna celebrate this?”
“No, I’d rather go home.”
Anthony understood, of course. Nath and the baby, it was normal.
“We’ll celebrate this the day of the final,” he said.
“That’s right. C’mon…”
They hugged, pounding each other on the back. It was a special moment. They almost could’ve said that they loved each other. But they weren’t like that.
“Go on,” said Anthony.
“Yeah, bye. See you soon. And don’t do nothin’ stupid.”
With his head, he gestured toward Hacine, who was sitting with an elbow on the bar, watching the television like everyone else.
“Nah, tonight’s no time for us to get into a fight,” said Anthony.
The cousin ran off, and Anthony went back to the bar and ordered a beer. France won. France was in the final.