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Young thing on the downtown scene
Rolling around at night
Got things that have yet to be seen
The entire first floor of the restaurant - three and a half rooms, at a glance, plus the outdoor balcony that runs all around the building and the garden - bursts with the colors of Serbia. A triumph of white, red and blue which, like a hideous trick fate, closely resembles the colors of the host country, except that the choruses of joy, rising from all over the place above the din of music, do not speak the soft language of Napoleon or Voltaire.
Carlos has no idea first of all how Novak managed to find such a big place; second, how he got permission to turn it into something halfway between a disco and a fashion show. Everywhere he looks around he only sees extraordinarily well-dressed people, again mostly in different shades of the three colors of the Serbian flag, even though some brazen golden and shy green can be spotted here and there - like shooting stars, lit up for a second by the dim lights before sinking back into anonymity - in addition to the eternal black that, as is known, never goes out of fashion.
Carlos doesn’t know anything about fashion, honestly, and all those colors just make him dizzy. For the umpteenth time he wonders if he would have better not come.
Actually, when Nole texted him to invite him to the party, a few hours ago, his first thought was to decline - but what believable excuse could he have ever come up with? The truth - “Sorry, Nole, I don’t really feel like playing the second-in-command at your personal show” - would have been a bit “socially unacceptable”, to use the words of Juan Carlos.
“And you are a polite kid, aren’t you,” his coach added, looking meaningfully at Carlos while the boy rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
In the end, what really prompted Carlos to accept was Juan Carlos’ promise. “I’m going with you, Charlie. Novak invited me too. In memory of the old days, or so he says…”
Since Carlos knows that everything is easier to bear with Juan Carlos by his side - be it a Grand Slam final or a big hassle like that - he resolved to go, despite the many ifs and buts that were running through his head.
“I’ll be there,” he typed back on his phone. “Any dress code required?” A smiling emoticon at the end of the sentence.
Novak’s answer was not long in coming.“None. Just don’t mix red with yellow. Enough with Spain.” No emoticons.
… Enough with Spain.
Well, if anyone hadn’t already guessed it, patriotism is a serious thing for Novak Djokovic.
Deeply serious.
So Carlos went. And if we now see him standing at the edge of the dance floor, a glass full of something definitely too alcoholic for him in one hand, the other sunk in the pocket of his blue suit - far too sober for general taste, but at least blue is a color he really likes - we know that it was his choice even if only to some extent.
What he definitely didn’t expect when he came was to find himself surrounded by a roaring swarm of faceless bodies, caught in a vortex of loud music merging with the occasional explosions of some fireworks, and still have no one - no one - to talk to.
Juan Carlos, who was supposed to share the taxi with him, has not shown up yet. Carlos called him a dozen times before eventually leaving the hotel on his own. The hell with him, he thought on his way to the party, I’m not twelve anymore. I’ll be fine, I don’t need him.
However, he must admit that it’s not going very well so far. There is no familiar face in sight - no one he knows well enough to walk to and exchange a few words with - and people just seem to ignore him.
Yet, since he’s there, he must do something. And if he can’t get some fun, at least he could try to relax his nerves, he tells himself - just enough so as not to get back home later, depressed about completely wasting a good night in the glitz of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, if not in the world. Carlos has not seen them all, of course, so he can’t make comparisons - but if everyone tells him so, there’s no reason not to believe them.
While he’s absorbed in his thoughts, a waiter approaches him, balancing masterfully a drink tray on his fingertips. The music is so loud that Carlos can’t hear a word he says, but the man nods towards the glasses quite eloquently and Carlos grabs the first drink at his reach, getting rid of his own empty glass, and thanks him with a toothy smile. The waiter gives him a half smile, a half bow in return and disappears, twirling on his heels.
"Hey!" Someone suddenly screams in his ear, and turning to the side Carlos meets the gaze of a woman much older than him, who’s peering at him with interest. "Vous êtes l'enfant prodige espagnol, n'est-ce pas?”
Carlos only knows fifteen words in French, nothing that allows him to go further than a brief schoolbook conversation. Hence, that’s an attempt doomed to fail from the start.
"Ehm..." he says, taking time. "¿Qué?"
The woman adds something else that is equally incomprehensible. Carlos is distracted by the rather flashy dress she’s wearing, bottle green with large silver-edged lozenges on it - every time it catches the neon lights it burns with a phosphorescent glow that hurts his eyes.
The woman repeats the question - in English, this time.
"Yes, it’s me," Carlos yells back, a bit relieved. He’s glad not so much that someone recognized him, but that he finally found someone to talk to for a while. "Nice dress,” he adds.
“Merci," the woman says, opening up into a huge smile. Carlos notices that her upper incisors are stained with the purple lipstick she’s on. Still smiling, she nods her head to him and, just like the waiter before, she disappears without adding anything else, without giving him time to hold her back.
Carlos is alone again. He’s feeling quite nervous now. The skin under his clothes tingles with impatience. He is really too young and full of life to be content to be a wallflower, or just an extra among many at a party like that. Despite the impression that everyone around him, even if they’re not Serbian, speaks Serbian or some other language unknown to him, despite the fact that everyone is indisputably better dressed than him - detached and elegant and refined as living models of Art Deco - and although, in truth, he would just want a tiny corner where to slip and hide for a while, yet he still needs to snap out of it, and quickly. Because, if he stays only a minute longer like this, gasping with embarrassment, feeling like a perfect idiot, he will kill himself.
Hey, you’re a champion, remember? he thinks, trying to muster up the courage. You won a medal - okay, a silver medal, but a medal all the same. Go and tear it up, came on.
But his feet don’t seem to agree, because they remain nailed to the spot. A sort of shyness is holding him back. Without taking his eyes off the dance floor, Carlos brings the glass to his mouth and absent-mindedly empties it in one gulp, hoping that the alcohol - whatever it is - could help him shake the unease off. As he suspected, it’s real champagne - and of excellent quality, to boot.
Hell, yeah… Vive la France.
It’s while he’s there, slowly processing his own feelings, that something Jannik told him once suddenly comes to his mind.
The worst thing of all is to feel like a fool when you’re sober - and alone.
That’s definitely the case, and Carlos is experiencing it on his own skin.
But thinking about Jan is not a smart move. In fact, it only makes Carlos’ heart sink into his stomach because it reminds him of how much he misses his friend. They would’ve had a great time together at the Olympic Village, had Jannik been there. For Carlos, living the Olympics experience without his friend’s company was dreadful. It felt a bit like walking around and turning around every five minutes to enthusiastically point out any nonsense, only to go quiet with disappointment when he wouldn’t find him by his side.
Carlos is not used to being alone. He has hardly ever been alone for more than a few hours in a row in his life. There was always someone with him - his parents and brothers, to start with, and then Juan Carlos, and all his staff, and his fellow Spaniards, Jaume and Pedro and, of course, Rafa.
But none of them are around at the moment. Juan Carlos is nowhere to be found, Pedro and Jaume have not been invited. As for Rafa, Carlos knows that he returned to Mallorca the same day of the final, without waiting for the outcome. Someone maliciously said that Rafa did not exactly tear out what was left of his hair for missing the party in honor of his greatest rival. After all, the recent coldness in their relationship, as seen during what was probably their last match on that illustrious court, didn’t escape anyone’s attention.
Carlos understands Rafa’s reasons, of course, yet having someone older and wiser by his side could only do him good right now. Someone who knows how things go, someone who has already been there, someone who puts a hand on his shoulder and says: Come on, things get better over time. It does not all end here. This is just the beginning. Vamos.
But there is no one with him, and for the first time Carlos has no choice but to face things alone. And it’s not quite like playing any match - you’re out there playing on your own too, but that’s a feeling he’s used to, at least. This one is slightly different, and not in a pleasant way.
As he numbly notices the first, slight hint of bitterness taking over him - the aftertaste of loneliness that only true greatness inevitably brings along, - as he lazily ponders whether to jump on the dance floor and pretend to be having a great time in an ocean of faces that mean nothing to him as he means nothing to them or to stay safe in his comfort zone at the edge of the party, that’s when a familiar face shows up in the room. All the lights suddenly focus on him, and everything else simply fades away.
Novak sets foot in the hall as if he were an actor entering the stage, the lights following him step by step, cutting out his lean figure as he emerges from the shadows. The Serb’s smile is white and glowing, and so is the tailcoat jacket that he is wearing. For a moment Carlos is so dazzled that he can’t really see anything else. He realizes that he is holding his mouth open - more than usual - a few seconds late, and hastily closes it, swallowing hard, his throat abnormally dry.
The young Spaniard is not the only one to be in awe. Everyone in the room looks delighted - even more: captivated. Novak gives off a kind of magnetic aura and as much as Carlos tries to escape his charm - lowering his gaze, peeking around at the guests, at his glass now empty again, - he can’t help himself: he glances up again, puzzled, his eyes inevitably drawn to the guest star of the evening who has now stopped in the middle of the room, collecting the hugs and cheers from the people closer to him.
The welcoming roar from the crowd when their hero enters the place almost drowns out the din of the music. Carlos doesn’t know what kind of music it is - it’s nothing like he’s heard before, nothing more different from his country’s familiar reggaeton - and all this adds up to the feeling of alienation that his heart has been pumping through his veins with every beat all night long.
Carlos can’t tell if it’s a trick of his own imagination, but he thinks he can spot something golden shining on Novak’s double-breasted suit. Not the most exact definition of sobriety, perhaps - but, after all, who can blame him? The Serb has earned every right to show that medal off as much as he pleases. Peeping at him from his slightly set back position, shrouded in the dim light, excellent to observe without being seen, Carlos has to admit, a little bitterly, that the medal fits just right around Novak’s neck.
It could have been his - it should have been his. He was younger, he was the physically stronger one, and yet - yet it was not enough. Something else was needed, something that Carlos just hadn’t in himself.
Even at a distance, he sees Novak’s eyes sparkle - with joy, with pride, with satisfaction, with all that love from the crowd that he has been chasing for a lifetime. They were hardly ever so unanimously on Novak’s side as in the final. A chorus of “Nole, Nole" was rarely heard rising in unison from the stands, as compact as a concrete wall, to set the pace of the game.
Perhaps that, more than the victory itself, is what brought the Serb to tears, trembling in every fiber of his body: people’s love. That’s maybe the only thing that could turn him one with the clay beneath his feet, still crossed by the ball marks and the grooves left by heroic sliding on it, one with the cross that nobody has ever seen him take off his neck, and one with the flag in which he wrapped himself right after the end.
Carlos believes there are different ways to have faith, but watching Novak kiss his cross makes him want to believe in something bigger too.
"You don’t get to see someone win so much every day, do you?” says someone at his side - and Carlos thinks it may be another ghost appearance on this strange evening, elusive and temporary as the ones that came before.
He turns around. This time it’s a man - one with a vaguely familiar face, chubby cheeks and a few hair. Carlos thinks he’s seen him in Novak’s box some time, but he has no idea who he is. He wonders how he did not notice the man standing very close to him until he opened his mouth.
"I’ve known Novak for a while," the man continues, his mouth practically glued to Carlos' ear to make himself heard in the noise, "and I have never seen him cry like that. Never. I saw him break rackets, scream, swear, fight with everyone, but crying… never.”
Carlos says nothing, he just nods. At the same tame he thinks back to his own tears - how childish and helpless they must have looked, compared to Novak’s huge cry of release and revenge. Carlos couldn’t help it, anyway; the disappointment was too much to bear for him. It still is, even if he tries not to think about it (hard to be done, when the very one who stole the top of the podium from him is practically doing cartwheels under his nose).
“I know how you feel, anyway. Finishing second is a curse,” the stranger continues, as if reading Carlos’ mind. His eyes are fixed on where Novak stands, and he speaks a perfect English with a heavy Serbian accent. “The second is just too good to go unnoticed, yet still not good enough to reach the dream and collect the honors. It’s terrible.”
“Yeah, it is,” says Carlos. “Second is the most uncomfortable place to be.”
That’s what Rafa told him once, between practice sessions. Carlos was listening to him as eagerly and attentively as he listens to whatever comes from Rafa’s lips, that’s why he remembers almost everything Rafa says to him. And nobody knows that better than Rafa himself, actually - he, who was second in the ranking for longer than anyone else, who was the second par excellence, every time he failed to be the number one.
The words of this man, now, seem to get closer to the heart of the matter - to what Carlos has been desperately trying to avoid facing since he lost the gold. He’s not ready. Just as he was not ready when he had that conversation with Rafa back then, and even though Rafa was perfectly aware that Carlos could not understand - years would pass before he could - he told him anyway, hoping that one day the boy would be old and wise enough to remember the words and make good use of them.
But this is not that day, obviously.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” the man says, noticing the sudden frown on Carlos’ face. “Why are you standing here, hiding in the darkness like a rat, by the way? You should be out there, dancing and having the time of your life, kid. You’re young, you got your whole life ahead of you. Shine on!”
The man grins and pats him on the back. Maybe he genuinely wants to cheer him up, but Carlos is nonetheless petrified with embarrassment.
“I-I think I’ll get another one of these before trying the dance floor,” he says, nodding towards his glass with a shy smile. “Thank you. For your words.”
“You’re welcome. Best wishes for the future, young champ.”
The man winks at him and walks away, leaving Carlos even more desperate than before. The little chat didn’t help - it only made him more aware of the overwhelming feeling of failure that’s been chasing him for days. He doesn’t feel like dancing.
As he watches the faces blur into each other under the flashing lights, again he thinks he could really use someone like Rafa, or Juan Carlos, by his side right now - someone who would show him how to cope with something as big as that: seeing your challenger bask in glory in front of your eyes knowing that you, on the other hand, despite having given everything, you have failed your goal.
It’s useless for the media to keep rambling about how good he was - the jewel in the crown of Spanish sport - and how he has nevertheless covered his flag with glory: this is not what Carlos wanted, this was not the epilogue he was wishing for himself and his country. And nothing can console him for that.
His gaze skims over the dance floor and across the hall. Then it stops abruptly, and his heart skips a beat in his chest. Novak is still there, standing on the opposite side of the room. He’s talking to a small group of adoring people, laughing and loosely swinging with the music beat. And he’s looking right into Carlos’ eyes.
Even at a distance, even in the dim light, he can’t be mistaken. Carlos’ stomach twists - because Novak’s eyes are defiantly brimming with all that he has taken away from him, and that bloody hurts.
It’s a kind of pain that perhaps no one, neither Juan Carlos nor Rafa, could relieve. Maybe only Jan could help him, despite his being about the same age as Carlos and, accordingly, not knowing much more than him - especially this: how to stay afloat when the waves threaten to pull you down.
Anyway, if Jannik were here now, he would readily put his arm around Carlos and soothe him with his calm and firm voice, listening to him as the Spaniard goes through all the aspects of the matter that troubles him so much until he lets it all out and can breathe easy again. He would surely help him see things more dispassionately, with that lucid rationality of him that is so impressive for such a young champion - because Jannik knows how to be cold and clinical, while Carlos is made of earth and blood that boils too easily, like all Spaniards, and the heart commands the brain.
It’s not the heart that failed him - Carlos is sure of that. He put all his heart into the match - down to the last fiber, up to the end. But maybe he should have put more mind to it. It’s the mindset, they say, that makes the difference between those who are true champions and those who are not. And Carlos definitely lost his mind at a certain point - it went off somewhere else, just when he needed it most.
When he sees Novak getting dangerously close to the corner where he’s standing - Carlos is now absolutely sure that Novak saw him in that bedlam and he’s coming specially for him, - he hastily turns his back to the dance floor and cuts his way through the crowd, heading towards the open door on the balcony.
When he is outside, in the open air - extraordinarily hot for the late hour, even in Paris in the middle of summer - the only thing that he feels like doing is crying. He thought he had enough of tears. He thought he had already poured them all during the interview with Corretja at the end of the match, as well as in the locker room and on his way home, and finally in his mother’s arms.
Instead, it turns out that our body is an inexhaustible source of tears. Carlos' vaguely taste of alcohol - he will never drink champagne again, he promises himself.
Carlos leans against the balustrade, looking in the distance at buildings and streets that seem to be floodlit in the bright Parisian night. The Eiffel Tower raises its iron head from afar - the very one he had tattooed on his ankle after winning the last Roland Garros - and it seems impossible now to believe that the same place that gave him so much joy also inflicted on him the greatest pain of his young life.
Carlos keeps wandering with his gaze. It is almost restful for the eye to sink into something that is not red or white or blue - and that does not exult with angry joy and glow with boundless pride to prove it to the world. He wonders what he himself would have done if he had won. Would he have been less happy, less proud than Novak?
The fact is that Novak’s happiness cannot be compared to any other. And this is because there is something more to it, something that has deep and hidden roots sprouted in him years and years ago and which have been growing over time, constantly and secretly nourished, and now have burst from the ground like a hail of stones - bullets fired at full speed, at eye level, without caring who and what they might hit.
Novak’s satisfaction smacks of revenge. And in the moment of his long-awaited, hungry revenge, Novak is indifferent to the outside world, unconcerned about everything and everyone else - he is alone, at the centre of his personal universe that has rushed to his feet to pay him homage. He won everything. There are no more rivals now: the shadow of the Federers and Nadals gradually melts away and vanishes - leaving no trace of itself in the blinding glow of his definitive and complete victory.
Too bad that, in the trail of debris left downstream by the roaring tide, there is also Carlos - just twenty-one years old and a soft heart that has not yet learned how to put its own pieces back together and start over without thinking of dying.
The first tears finally appear in Carlos’ eyes. And even if he quickly lowers his head and wipes them away with the cuff of his jacket, others keep coming up. Nobody’s paying attention to him, but he still feels like a burning mark on his face. He’s proud, Carlos, and hates to be seen crying. He only cried in front of Juan Carlos, a few times - sometimes it was his coach himself who pushed him to do it, especially after a defeat, knowing how liberating it can be to exorcize the pain with tears.
But Juan Carlos is not there now. So Carlos has to get his shit together and has to do it by his own. Even though nobody taught him how to lose.
You'll learn in time. By feeling it on your own skin again and again, says Juan Carlos’ voice in his mind. It’s not something you can really teach. It has to happen again and again before it gets its way into you. Until you understand how to react, and what you can do to get by, to survive - and hopefully win, in the end.
Carlos stays still, even when a shadow slips at his side, leaning against the balustrade next to him. He can’t believe it’s been so long since the Olympics began - it all started and ended so quickly for him. Until the day before, he was playing doubles alongside his idol, and every point was a hosanna and a blessing; the next day, he was standing alone on his side of the net, opposed to a legend with twenty years of experience and talent, who simply crushed him.
Life has never been cruel to Carlos so far - but perhaps that bitter aftertaste he feels against the roof of his mouth is neither alcohol nor the reflux of his upset stomach, it’s a signal. It happens to everyone, they say, sooner or later. Carlos tries to pay attention to what people around him say - he listens, nods his head, asks questions. This is not the last time in his life that he fails. That’s the way it is: it will happen again, and he cannot avoid it.
Novak himself failed over and over again before winning everything. But now that thought does not console him. Carlos has always been curious about the Serb - even before his own level of play rose to the point where he could start playing against him. And that curiosity, he must admit, has never waned. He is especially curious to know how young Novak took the first hard blows in his early career - and how he managed to build the stainless iron mask of his character.
Just a character, precisely. A loathsome one, sometimes. But not a loathsome man, not at all. Juan Carlos, again. Although it is often hard to draw the line between the two. You should ask Rafa, anyway.
Oh, sure. Ask Rafa - that’s what everyone keeps telling him, shrugging their shoulders when he inquires about Novak. Who better than Rafa has the answers to his questions?
Carlos did, actually, one day - they were already in Paris, and they had just finished one of their practice sessions of doubles. Rafa, a towel around his neck, was putting his rackets back into his bag, giving his back to Carlos.
"Can I ask you something?" Carlos asked, a little hesitantly. "What is Novak really like when no one’s watching?"
Rafa’s expression, when he looked up at him, was indecipherable. It was one of the few times that Carlos saw Rafa struggle for an answer.
"Novak can be many things at once, he only shows you what he wants you to see,” he said eventually, and it was a rather unusually cryptical answer for Rafa. Not one of his short and clear replies, almost as elementary as those of a child in their simplicity, but for this reason unequivocal. "But what he is when he’s alone and there’s no one around, only he can know. Nobody has ever seen that, I think.”
Rafa bent over the bag again, while Carlos thoughtfully twisted the handle of his racket between his hands.
"Not even you, who have known him for so long…?” He trailed off.
There was some tension, this time, in Rafa's back muscles as he shrugged in response, without turning around. "Playing against someone doesn't necessarily mean knowing them."
"Ok, but you must have learned one thing or two about him over twenty years of career, right?”
At that point Rafa turned around, staring into Carlos’ eyes. "Why are you asking me about Novak, Carlos? If you want to know anything about him, ask him yourself, no?"
With that, Carlos understood that the conversation was over. He was left with a strange feeling, though - as if he should have understood something that was there, obvious to every one but him.
Carlos, of course, has never asked Novak in person. He is not the shyest guy in the world, nonetheless he has a reverential fear for the sacred monsters of the sport. He still has some troubles addressing Rafa, sometimes, despite the fact that Rafa is the most easy-going person that can exist, and that they speak the same language and come from the same place where they have breathed the same air and that forged them in the same blood. Playing doubles together brought the two of them closer, actually; it has weakened - but not completely torn down - the wall that Carlos felt between Rafa and himself, and which is made up of the respect and admiration he has had for him since he first took a racket in his hand at the age of four, saying he would become just like him.
So, if he still has problems with Rafa, let alone with Novak. Carlos would never dare approach him and ask something so personal. Not because he believes Novak wouldn't answer him - on the contrary, it's the answer that scares him the most (and the look that would come with that).
Everyone tells him “ask Rafa”, and yet, in a way, Rafa is the least suitable person to ask about Novak, for obvious reasons. And he’s also the most suitable person - for exactly the same reasons.
Carlos feels that the air around Rafa and Nole vibrates mysteriously when the two of them are close, but he can't quite figure out what it is. It's not just the weight of the past and the power of their rivalry, or the fact that they have been fighting each other without sparing blows on both sides. It is not only their being two almost completely opposite characters. It is not having struggled for the same goals, for every single point and place in the ranking, over the same years, against ever-changing opponents who all gradually slipped down the rankings, swallowed up by the quicksand of unforgiving time.
Carlos is young and still innocent, but he feels that there is something more that clouds the relationship between Novak and Rafa, even if he can’t get it in its deepest and truest essence.
Ask Rafa, they say. But it leads nowhere, because Rafa glosses over all the questions about Novak - and it's strange, it's not like him, who is generally as direct and open as a book written in block letters, and has nothing to hide - or at least the personal ones. The only ones to which he answers, and gladly too, are those on Novak's game. Indeed, when Carlos asks, Rafa is very happy to help him to draw up strategies that aim to hit the Serbian's weak points, those he knows from having worked on them for years, with more or less alternating fortunes.
But it's not enough for Carlos to know how to beat Novak in the match - if that's even possible, as the last one amply demonstrated. Carlos is tendentially curious for the things he likes, and among these there is tennis - but there is also Novak Djokovic. Novak attracts and terrifies him almost as intensely. A dark magnetism seems to emanate from him - different, completely different, from the warm, familiar and confident attraction he feels towards Rafa. With Rafa he knows he is safe, he is at home - with Novak a dark cave of which he cannot see the bottom opens up in front of his feet. One is like a paternal nest, the other a leap into the void.
Carlos needs someone to show him the way. And Rafa is not there now. And not even Juan Carlos - who is, after his father, the person he would run to ask for help in cases like that. Carlos would like to call Jannik, but he doesn't know what time it is, there in Montreal. Maybe it's afternoon, maybe he's practicing, or maybe he's sleeping... And in both cases he would not answer. Carlos hates to disturb Jannik, and he hates even more that Jan finds his unanswered calls on his phone and thinks Carlos needed him and he wasn't there in his time of need.
But the need falls on him sooner than expected, this time - inevitable, all the same.
"I've been looking for my silver medal all evening. I finally found you."
Christ. He didn't realize that the one who has been standing right next to him, for a good quarter of an hour by now, is Novak himself. Carlos just has time to furtively wipe away the last tears that still linger on his eyelashes, before turning around and meeting Novak’s gaze.
Ferocious is the first adjective that comes to mind.
"Do I bother you?" Novak says, scrutinizing him carefully.
Ferocious - but persuasive.
"No," Carlos says, swallowing. "I went out because it was too hot inside."
Novak's deep gaze seems to know very well that he is lying - the suspicious twinkle between Carlos’ eyelids must not have escaped him - but magnanimously decides to overlook. He rests one elbow on the balustrade and turns to Carlos, smiling with his head tilted to the side.
"Nice party," Carlos says, just to say something.
"You don't look like you're having much fun," Novak replies, without changing his smile or expression.
"I'm a little tired," Carlos shrugs. "You know, the match, the uncomfortable beds... I can't wait to get home to get a good night's sleep."
"I really don't know how you can bear to stay in the Village," Novak says, shaking his head. "You can find much better without even straying too far from there. This place, for example." He makes a broad gesture towards the space that surrounds them.
"Are you staying here?" Carlos asks, secretly happy to divert the Serb's attention from his face.
"Yes. A few floors up." Novak looks up, measuring the façade as far as he can go with his gaze, then lowers it back to him. "If you want, I can have a room reserved for you tonight, if you need a decent mattress and stuff. You would be my guest, of course."
"Oh," Carlos is taken aback. "I don't know," he says, taking time, "my team, Juan Carlos.... they’re expecting that-"
"By the way," Novak interrupts, a twinkle in his eye. "Where is old Juanki? He told me he would escort you to the party in pompa magna."
He says the last words in Italian, so Carlos doesn't understand, but he still has to make up an excuse to justify the absence of his coach.
“Something came up at the last minute," he says, although he also would like to know what happened to Juan Carlos, since not only has he not answered the phone, but he has not even bothered to call him back to find out if he’s surviving the atrocious evening. "He is very sorry he could not be here-"
"Funny, because Ferrer called me a little while ago saying that he and your coach decided to spend the evening playing Parchis at their place because they have had enough of parties and Serbs. And of Serbs having party, of course.” Novak smirks, slightly narrowing his eyes. He’s looking like he's having a great time. “No offense taken, however, don't worry. I know you Spaniards. I know you aren’t particularly fond of me.”
“That’s not true,” Carlos tries to protest.
“Yes it is,” Novak says firmly. “It’s always been like that. You’ve always had your idols, and I was just in the way.”
"If you already knew about Juan Carlos, why did you ask me?" Carlos snaps, frowning slightly. He is blushing at being caught in a lie, and knowing that only makes him even more nervous.
"Because I want to see how far you can go with lies, Carlitos," Novak says softly, lowering his voice, and a shiver runs down the spine of the young Spaniard who, even if he doesn't know Novak as well as Rafa does, immediately recognizes the subtle threat well hidden behind his tone. "The grown-ups didn't teach you this well, apparently. Very bad. You should take an example from Juanki: he usually knows how to sort out an alibi when needed. And as for Ferrer, thorny situations simply bounce off him."
Since Carlos doesn't say anything — he doesn't find anything to say, in fact, — Novak continues, looking at him: "Or maybe you should ask Rafa to teach you. Is he or isn't he your hero? Lying may not be his specialty like hitting topspin, I have to admit that, yet he does quite well…”
Novak trails off deliberately. He looks at Carlos, who’s watching him with his hazel eyes wide and confused, his lips parted, and grins, dripping with satisfaction. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
“No”, Carlos says. “What’s this about?”
Novak laughs, shaking his head. He looks away from Carlos at somewhere in the distance. The gold medal sparkles around his neck every time he moves his head. When Novak doesn't look at him, Carlos can't take his eyes off it - hypnotized by the shining gold.
"Ah, that would be a great story to tell," says Novak, tenderly. Yes, tenderly. "But you're not ready, Carlitos, for what might come of it. The statues of the heroes can raise tsunamis when they’re knocked to the ground."
Carlos is more and more dazed with each passing minute. Many things seem to escape him and he feels, if possible, even more like an idiot than he did at the beginning of the evening. Now he knows what he will say to Jannik, when they catch up: if you are truly a fool, you will still feel like one regardless of how much alcohol you have in your veins.
God, he can't wait to hear Jan’s compassionate and cheerful voice on the phone - he feels he needs it as lifeblood now, to drag himself through the last days until he leaves for home. He wants to get out of France as soon as possible. He wants to get away from Novak.
But Novak is there, next to him, pressing down on him, leaving him no escape - as if he were going to win another medal, as if the war had never ended for him. How can it be possible that he is never tired of fighting - and winning?
"You played very well, anyway," the Serb says suddenly, and the change in subject - and tone - is so sudden that it takes Carlos a while to remember that well, after all, it’s all still about tennis. "You really put me in trouble, especially in the first set." Novak's expression is now serious, almost strained. Tennis is one of the very few things he doesn't joke about as usual. "You have a long and beautiful career ahead of you. Trust someone who has a nose for certain things."
"I should have won," Carlos says softly. His gaze slips for the umpteenth time on the golden medal that sways on the Serb's chest. "Everyone expected me to win."
"I know," Novak says, piercing him with his gaze. “Expectations are the most terrible thing. Expectations always fuck you in the end. Yours, those of others… You have to learn to survive expectations, before anything else. Remember that, Carlitos." He raises his long, thin forefinger and taps it twice against the Spaniard's temple, who finally tears his gaze from the medal and looks up to meet his eyes.
"Do you want to hold it?" says Novak, in a soft voice.
Carlos blinks. Again the reflection of light on the golden medal catches his eye, like a spell.
"Can I?"
Novak smiles. He slowly reaches up and let the ribbon pass over his own head - a gesture reminiscent of that of a soldier who lets a child hold for a minute his machine gun after killing his parents.
Carlos' hands reach out to take it. The thumb rubs over the polished surface of the medal. Carlos looks at it as if mesmerized, Novak looks at him in silence - his gaze weighs a lot more than the precious object that Carlos is holding on his palm does.
"It's not much different from mine," the boy says, weighing it in his hand. "Same consistency, same... coldness. Only the color is not the same."
“This is only apparently so," Novak corrects him, and a shadow flashes in his gaze. "But don't be fooled: they are very different in their deepest self, in their essence, in their value."
Carlos looks up a little disquieted. His eyes slide into Novak's, which now seem to be made of ice, almost as cold as the metal of his medal - just as soulless.
"Do you remember what you told me over the phone after Wimbledon, last year?" the Serb whispers.
Carlos feels his own face flush - while an icy shiver runs down his spine. All the hairs on his body stand up in unison. If he were an animal, he would have bristling fur right now and would be growling to intimidate an opponent from whom there is no escape. His fingers open mechanically; the precious medal would fall to the ground if Novak, with a lightning snap, did not grab it, putting it back safely around his own neck.
Carlos swallows, his mouth completely dry. "Yes," he says, so softly that Novak can't hear him, but he doesn't need to. He sees the boy’s lips barely moving and smiles, resting his gaze on them.
"I guess it's a kind of offer that never expires," he says, mellifluously. “Am I right?”
Carlos gasps, out of breath. "I don't... I didn't think you were interested, given what your answer was at the time."
Novak shrugs, tucks his chin over his chest to adjust the ribbon around the back of his neck. "I just didn't want to give you what you wanted, then. Simply like that. But now it's not about what you want anymore, is it? I won, you didn’t.”
Carlos has his back to the wall. A part of him tells him that he brought this on himself, and yet... Yet someone should have prepared him for all this, damn it. Instead, he found himself thrown into the wolf's den before he could even spot the entrance. For the first time, looking closely, he notices that Novak does resemble vaguely a wolf. The same gaze, fixed on the prey.
Carlos is not used to feeling like a prey. Carlos is a normal boy of his age who has always flirted with girls - before meeting Jannik, of course - and thought only about playing tennis, and sometimes he went to the disco but nothing serious, by the way. Carlos has just ended up in something much, so much bigger than himself that now coming out of it will cost him much more than a tie-break under the merciless August sun.
"Don't be afraid," Novak says, holding out his hand. "You've already got over the worst. This can only hurt less."
Carlos stares at his palm facing up. His head bursts with hellish thoughts, conflicting emotions. A part of him - the other one - has no intention of backing down. It's called the call of ruin - and Carlitos Alcaraz has just been seduced by it like others before him. It is a road from which there is no turning back, but he still does not know.
"I can teach you things too," Novak continues. "Not only Rafa and Juanki and David can. On the contrary. There are things that they, the Spaniards, simply don't know." Carlos is still staring at Novak’s hand, hovering over the edge of the precipice. He feels the vertigo, the intoxication of the imminent fall. "You just have to figure out how much you’re going to risk. How hard you want it. And how much heart you're willing to put into it, chico. The French are right, in the end: victory belongs to the most tenacious.”
Carlos slowly looks up at his face.
He thinks that this is a small price to pay, something that he himself once offered of his own free will - now the winner has come to collect his prize.
Yes, he thinks his innocence is a small price to pay, after all. Something that sooner or later he would have to give up anyway, in order to get to know what all the others - those older wise guys, Rafa, and Juanki, and David, all of them, - know, so that he would never have to feel excluded from real life again. He would never have to feel as lonely again - like a fish out of water, an alien coming from a world apart - as he felt at the party tonight.
This can only hurt less, Novak said. Carlos doesn't know whether to trust him, but does he really have a choice, anyway?
He reaches out to grab Novak’s hand. Certain victories - like certain defeats - can only be complete off a playing court. Real life resembles a game only to the extent that for one who loses there is always another one who wins, who snatches something from his opponent - but, in the end, even those who win lose a little piece of themselves, in the act.
Novak looks like someone who has collected a lot of pieces from others along the way. Carlos absentmindedly wonders how many pieces of himself Novak has left around in turn. Maybe he should ask Rafa - ask Rafa - and maybe yes, maybe this time Rafa would answer.
"Vamos," the Serb says, gently clasping his hand around the boy’s. “The night is young.”
Carlos feels like he’s carried far away. As he follows Novak in the direction he's gently dragging him to, he stops thinking. The reflection of Novak's gold medal bobs at the bottom of his irises, as if burned down into the photo paper of his memory - emblem of everything he himself is aiming to achieve.
The road to glory is studded with sacrifices.
Something tells Carlos that he will not forget this evening so soon.
Something tells him that he will not call Jannik up tonight.
A little party never hurt no one
That’s why it’s alright
[…]
A little party never hurt no one
That’s what your friends say
The end