The Atlas полностью

Red shot a leg up to get Blue in the stomach. Blue did not flinch. Both kept their gloves above their faces. Red got an arm around Blue's neck, punched him behind, hissing tsss! and threw Blue down. Arising less than easily, Blue gripped Red in an expressionless embrace which somehow involved the side of a foot against a knee. This was life, was life's bitter sweat in the hourlong moments between intermissions when silver strings of water drip down the boxer's hair, the centurylong moments when knee meets knee and thigh meets stomach, when the heel finally scores the solar plexus. A leg shot up. Blue's wrist went under Red's knee and threw him. The crowd cried: Eh! Eh! Eh! — because that was rare; from few of these moments could anything be squeezed but continued clinging and struggling. Blue and Red were embracing at the neck, working their knees around each other's legs and buttocks. A glove in the side, but it was always an embrace. They locked knees around each other. More than anything else I'd ever seen, it was like some new and terrible way of making love.

At the end of that round Blue's arms drooped down around the ropes like wilting stems. He gazed wide-eyed as they washed him, flicked him with a wet towel, lifted his legs. He bowed to the garland. The grayclad judges sat with folded arms, almost unblinking.

In the fifth round Red got in a knee to Blue's kidney. They were head to head, dancing in their pain, holding on while mosquitoes bit silently. Blue thrust out his chin and raised his shoulder, flailing, and the young lady in red brought soft drinks to the spectators at ringside and a white cat came out from between everyone's legs. Red whirled him against the ropes and the referee separated them. Then they danced, but not so lightly. Ankles flashed high like swords. A foot struck a shoulder.

The boxer in the red corner wins the prize, said the announcer.

They took the garlands away. The winner shot both hands above his head, then bowed. The loser walked away.

The stadium was full now of people whose light-colored garments hung in the darkness like moths. A cop stood ready in helmet and jackboots. A fresh Red and Blue entered the ring, threw off their robes, bowed to their garlands; and I saw that the bodies and souls had never mattered; it was only Red against Blue forever, no matter who won; and one kicked but the other caught a knee in his armpit and pulled him down. When they'd come into the ring they were wearing circlets around their heads with stiff rods in back like the handles of frying pans; there was a long tassel that made each look feminine, especially with all the flowers of their garlands; and when they stretched and swayed and flexed, they were like dancing girls. But perfect dancing lasts only for the first round. Soon enough, arms upraised, mouth gaping, Blue leaned weakly on his helpers' shoulders. A dripping towel on his head while they pulled his arms and legs and chafed them, a caress, a shake — nothing could reach him. They boxed at him, trying to show him something, but, panting, he stared straight ahead. After each round, he spat out his mouthguard. They opened his pants and pulled something out. Now they were trying to massage energy back into his muscles. Lifting him, they sucked water from his ears.

Sometimes Blue was on the ropes. I didn't want to see much more. The trainer lifted Blue's slender legs above his head. He'd bowed to the garland at the beginning of each round, but that hadn't saved him from a knee to the balls four times. The man's face scarcely seemed to change, but he burst into sweat and swayed back almost proudly. At the end of the round his trainer looked in his pants, rubbed him down, slapping his hand to make him listen; his head flopped toward the trainer and he nodded. When they raised his legs above his head, he grimaced with pain.

They fell together; the crowd went ooooh! open-mouthed. They flailed at one another with spread fingers and the crowd cheered uh-oh! uh-oh! The fighters' wrists were above their heads as if they desperately strove to be birds.

From behind the middle zone's fence a man yelled advice, trying to teach Blue, his hero, how to punch. But Red threw Blue back down again and kneed him in the groin.