The boxing match arranged by Antonio Ochoa is a rigged military contest that Adrián Gallardo experiences as the crowning achievement of his life. Ochoa engineers the conditions for an Army victory over Falange champion Alfonso Navarro, including a deliberately unnoticed low blow; Adrián, however, carries away the roar of the crowd and the conviction that the triumph belongs to him alone. The scene makes the distance between a manufactured result and a cherished memory the match’s decisive consequence.

The Contest and Its Stakes

At the weigh-in, Navarro shook Adrián’s hand in front of the photographers, smiling broadly. As they embraced for the cameras, he murmured an insult and predicted that Adrián would not last two rounds. Adrián could not see his face, but sensed that Navarro was still smiling when they separated. The taunt turned the contest into more than a public test of skill: it planted fear in the man who would soon be celebrated as its winner.

Half an hour before the fight, alone in the dressing room and without his scapular, Adrián’s fear became panic. His grandfather was waiting in the front row for him to behave like a true Garrote, while Navarro was the better boxer: faster, more elastic, and technically superior. For four rounds Adrián defended himself better than his protector expected, but Navarro was giving him a severe beating. Had judges decided the result on points, Navarro would almost certainly have won. The contest’s apparent sporting logic was therefore set against the result Ochoa had already arranged.

Ochoa’s Arrangement

Captain Antonio Ochoa sat beside Adrián, put an arm around his shoulders, and spoke softly. When Adrián promised to do everything he could, Ochoa made clear that effort was not the issue: Adrián had to win, and Ochoa had taken care of the necessary conditions. The crowd was on the pier; both corners would have their backs to it; and boats moored in the estuary would not see the ring clearly because the barge stood higher. Ochoa’s instructions transformed the physical layout into cover for a result that could not safely be produced in plain view.

After the fourth round, as Adrián’s cut eyebrow and lower lip were treated with vaseline, Antonio Ochoa held his face between his hands, looked into his eyes, and gave him a single word: “Now.” In the fifth round, Adrián moved toward the side of the ring facing the estuary. Navarro followed, trying to trap him against the ropes. Adrián escaped, clinched, and turned quickly when the referee separated them. Unaware that Ochoa had maneuvered him into position, Navarro threw a right hand; Adrián ducked it. Garrote stepped forward, using his body to hide the action, and struck Navarro in the groin as instructed. Navarro fell at once.

The referee counted to ten, waved away Navarro’s trainer when he came to ask what had happened, then raised Adrián’s right arm. The choreography depended not only on the concealed foul but on the referee’s performance and the officials’ willingness to sustain the fiction of a legitimate knockout.

Victory and Its Uneasy Memory

For Adrián, the raised arm and the crowd’s response eclipsed the arrangement behind them. He walked toward the center of the ring with his arms aloft as hundreds of voices shouted his name. In that moment he felt as though all his ancestors were applauding from heaven. A boat carried him back to land; on the pier, the crowd’s roar overwhelmed him as the generals congratulated him. Ochoa stood beside him, as exultant as Adrián’s grandfather, sharing in the success discreetly.

The victory was thus both real as an experience and false as a sporting achievement. Adrián’s happiness, the acclaim, and the public gestures of celebration genuinely happened, but his opponent’s defeat had been secured by collusion and a foul. The scene’s tension rests on that split: the same act that makes Adrián a celebrated winner also gives him grounds to doubt the honor attached to the win.

What Adrián Chooses to Keep

At the height of the celebration, Adrián did not remember what he and Ochoa had discussed in the dressing room. He forgot that the referee was a provisional second lieutenant, the son of an artillery general who wanted the Army champion to defeat the Falange champion. He forgot Ochoa’s assurance that the referee would not see the final blow, however close he stood; that the judges were military men and involved in the scheme; and that Navarro would have no opportunity to protest. Most pointedly, Adrián did not remember that he had won by hitting below the belt.

Instead, Adrián felt that the victory was his and that nobody could ever take it from him. The narrator identifies this as the only version of the match he would be willing to remember for the rest of his life. The contest therefore endures less as a sporting result than as a protected memory: public triumph is preserved by leaving its cause out of consciousness. Ochoa’s manipulation secures the immediate win, but Adrián’s selective recollection gives it a lasting personal meaning.