“I’m sorry to hear of that . . . He would have been proud of you, as a successful boxer, don’t you think?”
Successful boxer caught Dunphy’s attention. She was staring into a dim corner of the banquet room with a faint smile and seemed for a moment to have forgotten the interview.
“Especially if you become a champion, as it looks you will, soon . . .”
Dunphy looked at Naomi, blankly.
“I mean—your father would be proud of you. Especially if you become a champion.”
Dunphy nodded, vaguely. She had been rubbing at the nape of her neck as if to alleviate pain.
“What did your father do, Dawn?”
“He was a roofer and a carpenter. He was a master roofer and carpenter, people said.”
“How did your father die?”
“My father died in a bad car crash.”
Dunphy spoke rapidly now, to get the words out. Her bloodshot eyes were welling with tears and shifting in their sockets like loosened marbles. She was a very poor liar.
Cruelly Naomi continued:
“How old were you when your father died, Dawn?”
For a long moment Dunphy did not reply. With the lack of self-consciousness of a child she lifted her T-shirt and wiped her eyes. Naomi had an impression of a black sports bra solid and tight as a brace.
“I don’t remember too well. Maybe ten, eleven . . .”
“What do you remember of your father?”
Dunphy sat very still. Her face quivered, as if she were about to burst into tears. Her injured eyes continued to well with tears that did not spill over onto her face.
After a long moment Dunphy’s lips moved. Naomi strained to hear her murmur— . . . loved my Daddy.
Naomi waited, but Dunphy said nothing more. In her brightly friendly disingenuous interviewer voice she continued as if nothing were wrong:
“Do you try to get back home as often as you can? It must be lonely—on the road as you are, so often.”
“Yah.” Dunphy spoke tonelessly, without conviction.
“You visit your father’s grave, I guess? When you go home?”
Dunphy nodded yes. A veiled, vague look had come into her face.
“Is your father buried in—‘Mad River Junction’—?”
Dunphy stiffened, and made no reply. Her swollen eyes blinked rapidly.
Naomi wondered at the young woman boxer, that she didn’t rise from her chair, lean across the table and strike the nervy and intrusive interviewer in the face with her rock-hard fist.
“Your mother is a nurse! That’s a very crucial profession. Are you close with your mother?”
Dunphy nodded yes. But she was a very poor liar.
“Any of your siblings?”
Naomi thought—What a foolish word, siblings! She felt a wave of revulsion for herself, and wondered how she could proceed. It was a hateful exercise. Yet, she could not seem to stop.
If your opponent is on the ropes, you continue to punch. Evidently. If you are a professional. That much, Naomi had gathered from the previous night in the Armory.
“‘Siblings’—I mean, your sister—or your brothers. Are you close?”
Belatedly she worried that Dunphy would be suspicious, the interviewer seemed to know a good deal about her family. But Dunphy only shrugged, pained. Her forehead, that was creased with faint lines, creased more visibly now. She muttered she was OK with them.
“Are they proud of having a professional boxer in the family? With an undefeated record?”
Dunphy shook her head yes. But without conviction.
“Do they come to see your fights?”
Dunphy considered. A look came into her face, almost of cunning.
“Yah sometimes. They do. My aunt came. To Cleveland. She was scared for me real bad but she was proud of me when I won, she said.”
Dunphy fell silent. It did not seem likely that she had told the complete truth here, but the interviewer would not pursue it.
“Is there any discrepancy, d’you think, between being a Christian and hitting other people? Hurting other women, in the ring?”
Dunphy frowned. Roughly she wiped her nose with the edge of her hand. For a long time it seemed that she might answer this question but finally she said nothing, staring at the floor.
“Well. I guess it is a sport. And that is the point of the sport.”
Dunphy nodded yes, vaguely.
“Are you friendly with other women boxers?”
“Not too much . . .”
“You don’t know any? Or—you are just not friendly with the ones you know?”
Grimly Dunphy explained: “You don’t be friends much with somebody you’re gonna fight. You don’t be friends with any of them.”
“Is it a lonely life, then?”
“No. If you have Jesus you are not ever lonely.”
These words had a brassy sound of having been memorized and many times recited. And now a look of defiance came into Dunphy’s face.
“And what is your religion?”
“I am a Christian with the Zion Missionary Church in Dayton.”
“Is that—Baptist?”
“Christian Zion Missionary Church.”
“That is a Protestant church?”
“Y-Yes . . . I guess so.”
“Is your religion helpful to you, as a boxer?”
“‘Helpful’ . . .?”
“Does your religion inspire you?”
“Jesus is my religion. Yes, Jesus inspires me.”
“In what way?”