To the end

After the session, I asked Panotti to go to Mr. Costa's room with me. The kid shrugged, but was perplexed, didn't understand why I wanted to talk to him alone. Even seemed uncomfortable and embarassed at my request.
"Why me? Did I say something wrong in the session? Why can't Morales and Galhardo come along?"
"Are you afraid of me?"
"Course not!"
"So what's the matter?"
Panotti was silent and looked down. He seemed nervous. It was no news to me I left him uncomfortable. He started fidgeting and I gently asked him to refrain from it.
"It's not what you said but what you didn't say", I resumed, looking at him and having him sit down. I wanted to be very objective lest Mr. Costa or Coach Rodrigo arrived. "I want to ask you some questions about Figueira."
He smiled.
"Me? About Figueira? What do I know? Why not ask Zangrandi, that walks around town with him all the time."
"Because I have already talked to him. And now I want to talk to you."
"What do you want to know?", he asked, giving in.
"What do you think of him?"
He looked caught by surprise. For a moment didn't seem to know what to say to me. Looked away to the trophy display as if he tried to get more time to think. He said he didn't understand Figueira. It was what he could find on his mind to say to me.
"I don't understand why he puts himself down so much so that others can rise at his expense, Miss Grisam. And I don't want to understand. He's tough to the end. He does things I wouldn't believe someone could do if I hadn't seen them for myself. So why does he do it? If you are here to fix someone, tell him to stop it. Tell him to stop just calling the others to fight and to start fighting himself. Please, tell him to stop it and win like he knows he can. If you want to help, this is what you can do."
What the kid says about Figueira reminds me of that day in which we saw him coming out of Galhardo so slowly and directly and wondered what it was he did in that moment. What Rodrigo had just told me about him faking defeat so perfectly he could deceive the referee time enough to be defeated. How to work these things out on his mind is the point here. And all the opinions seem to converge to one point. This one.

Eat my boots | Us and them

Radio Universal: The Making Of A Thousand Gods.