Counting the Blows: The Mark(s) of Exile

Abstract

Punctuating these concluding words with a determined stare, Boris seems to rise above the clatter of spoons, clinking glasses, and shreds of conversations surrounding us. The gravity of his remarks takes him far away from this January afternoon that we are spending together at a bar in the town center. Having begun with the meandering stories of each of his gym mates, Boris is now trying to tell the tale of his own elsewhere and explain the meaning of his commitment to the ring. It has now been 8 years since he left his home, in Martinique, and almost 5 years since he began boxing as an amateur at the Gants d’Or—as if the intervals of his Caribbean story were condensed in these spaces, in these fists that grow stronger every day with the practice of combat. Is boxing, with all its rings and rounds, no more than a metaphor for the hardship he has endured?