Yet, a few seconds into the sixth round Dunphy managed to strike her elusive opponent on the side of the head with one of her blindly-thrown blows. At once the dazzling Aya staggered, thrown back on her heels.
There came cries of disappointment and dismay from the crowd. Dunphy continued to swarm forward, throwing punches. Her broad doughy face was bleeding, contorted. She was breathing through her mouth. Though Dunphy was plodding and graceless the mercurial will of the crowd was shifting to her, to the flailing white girl-boxer, that she might overcome the other, more beautiful figure, out of a kind of perversity.
Dun-phy!
But Aya was too smart, and too experienced. Even in distress Aya knew to clinch, to punch at her opponent’s kidneys, to get through the round without collapsing.
And then in the next round, as if her corner men had injected her with a magical potion Aya seemed to have completely recovered. Or almost completely. She even danced about the slower-footed Dunphy, like a bullfighter taunting and tormenting a bull. And Dunphy was slow, leaden-legged. You could feel the effort required for her to lift her dense arms, to protect herself with her gloves.
And again, the will of the crowd had shifted from Dunphy. Aya was the favorite after all. Of course—“Icewoman” was the favorite: look how beautiful she is, how easily she moves, with what contempt she eludes the fierce-thrown blows of her opponent. When one of Dunphy’s feet slipped and she almost fell, and Aya took advantage to strike Dunphy hard on the side of the head with a lightning-quick blow, the crowd erupted in cheers and whistles.
Ay-a! A-ya!
Naomi saw, or believed she could see, small white scars in Dunphy’s eyebrows like bits of exposed bone amid streaks and smears of blood.
The round ended with flurries of blows from both women. Siri Aya too was breathing through her mouth. Not very steadily she “strode” back to her corner when the bell rang.
“Who won that round?”—Naomi asked, with dread.
“Can’t tell. Pretty close.”
“But is Aya ahead?”
“Yah. Aya ’way ahead.”
Yet in the following round Aya behaved unpredictably. She tried to clinch with Dunphy whenever she could—as if, for her, the fight was over: she had won on points. Barring an upset she could not not win the fight, she had only to prevail against her opponent. The crowd sensed this, and became restless. In frustration Dunphy threw off the other’s binding arms, and lunged forward blindly. For a moment the boxers teetered together, and might have fallen except Aya pushed away. Aya was back on her toes. Aya was smiling and taunting her opponent, mocking the other’s clumsiness.
Always the elegant devious Aya was moving back from her stymied opponent, moving away, moving laterally, out of the range of Dunphy’s wayward blows. When it was necessary she defended herself with raised arms, elbows. Her tight-curled platinum-blond head bobbed and weaved like a snake’s head. She seemed to be taking pleasure in the very strain of the struggle though her beautiful cocoa-skinned face too was flushed, wet with perspiration. Still Dunphy pushed forward, trying to get inside. It was habitual, Dunphy’s dropping of her left glove, unconscious, lethal—in a moment of vulnerability Aya struck Dunphy with a precisely executed right cross to her chin.
Naomi understood from the eruption of the crowd that Dunphy was hurt. Staggering on her feet she was stunned, she appeared blinded. She could not defend herself. Her gloves sank as if the weight of them were too much for her.
Naomi cried: “No! No . . .”
Another blow to Dunphy’s head, blows to her torso, midriff, as the crowd erupted. Naomi felt a tremendous hatred for the crowd, like a pack of animals they were, savage, stupid.
Yet, Dunphy did not fall even to her knees. Dunphy remained standing, dazed, as the referee began to count: for the referee would not allow Dunphy to continue, in this state; the other boxer would destroy her.
At the count of six, the bell rang.
Naomi realized that she was on her feet, horrified. Others in the audience were standing.
Dunphy stood bleeding and confused in the center of the ring, not knowing what to do. Her corner men came hurriedly to get her.
Voices were heard—Stop the fight!
The ring physician was examining Dunphy in her corner. Naomi stood in the aisle, staring. She wanted to cup her hands to her mouth and call—Stop the fight!
Her throat was hoarse. She hadn’t been aware that she must have been screaming.