Miracle in Seville: A Novel Read online

  I admired the handsome appearance of Paco Camino and El Viti, while I was amused by the ungainly figure in the middle—the scarecrow López looked completely out of place, his awkward stride a half-beat off the count. And as if that were not enough, behind him came not a handsome slender banderillero but a shortish fellow with a suggestion of a hump on his back. He looked strange and I asked Don Cayetano: ‘How can that one place the banderillas?’ He replied only: ‘You’ll see.’ Following him came another grotesque creature, half horse, half man. He was the picador of the López troupe, a huge fellow who must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds, dwarfing his horse. Indeed, the man in his leather suit seemed so heavy that even though the horse was sturdy the monstrous man caused a pronounced dip in the middle of the animal’s back.

  López with his two misshapen toreros looked so ludicrous in contrast to their handsome colleagues that I asked Don Cayetano: ‘Why are they allowed?’ and he said: ‘López has planned it that way. They’re so bad that when he’s good, he seems very good indeed. But of course he’s never good when he fights my bulls. You can expect a disaster.’

  As he uttered this gloomy prediction he crossed himself and offered a brief prayer: ‘Virgin Mary, let my bulls be good on this important day.’ I realized how important this particular fight in Santa María was, for if his bulls were as bad as they had been recently, the press would announce: ‘Once more the bulls of Don Cayetano gave a miserable account of themselves … little better than overage oxen picked off the streets.’

  Now the trumpet sounded, shrill and brassy, and the small red gate leading from the bull pens swung open to admit what looked to me to be a handsome young bull in his prime, and the applauding crowd must have judged him the same way. But then I saw Don Cayetano cringe and suck in his breath, as if he were whistling in reverse, and when I looked back into the ring I saw the fine-looking bull behaving in a cowardly way. He would not charge the capes of Paco Camino’s men. He ran in terror from the horses, and he showed no disposition whatever to follow the matador’s big red cape. He was a disaster, and within five minutes from the start of the afternoon, the crowd was booing the bull and whistling derisively.

  That was the start of as painful an afternoon as I would ever know, because I had to sit there beside Don Cayetano in the darkened breeder’s box and share intimately with him the humiliations of that long day. With the first bull Paco Camino could do nothing. The second bull was a fraud which allowed El Viti to stand motionless before him and await a charge that never came. When López faced the third bull, catastrophe invaded the plaza, for the bull was so bad that the scarecrow could not even try one of his poetic passes. The animal was so cowardly that when the time for killing came the audience demanded it be returned to the corrals while a substitute from another ranch with a better reputation was brought in. But even though the substitute was a decent bull, López could do nothing with it either.

  At the halfway mark, when mules hauling rags circled the arena to smooth the sand, I could not escape an unworthy thought: This day must be agony for Don Cayetano, with all his dreams collapsing, but it’s good for my purposes because it will allow my readers to feel in their guts the distress my little hero is experiencing. As I thought these ungenerous words I heard Don Cayetano praying again: ‘Holy Virgin! One boon only. Let the last three be acceptable bulls, let me know again one afternoon of glory.’ I should have allowed him to pray undisturbed, but I had to ask: ‘What did you mean by that last bit?’ and he was so eager to regale me with bullfighting lore that he showed no irritation at my rude interruption.

  ‘I have known afternoons of glory, but not many recently. And Mota bulls have been sent from the ring alive with bands playing—indultados, because they were so brave.’ He sighed: ‘Indultados, the highest honor, happened three times with my grandfather, but it’s happened to me only once and that was long ago.’ Suspecting that he wished to speak about that glorious day I asked: ‘Where did it happen?’ and he said: ‘Bilbao, that city up north where they fight the biggest bulls in Spain … It was a memorable bull, Granero by name, because as a calf he used to break into the feed bins. That afternoon the crowd demanded that his life be spared—there was enormous shouting at the president, who finally waved his white handkerchief. When Granero rushed out of the ring the entire crowd shouted “Ganadero! the breeder,” and I was invited to make two circles of the ring to honor my great bull.’

  Turning suddenly to face me he said solemnly: ‘I swear to you that I shall see an afternoon like that again. My bull leaving the ring in glory, I walking behind to cheer his going.’ He spoke with such fervor, such determination to continue working with his ranch until its reputation was restored, that I reached across to embrace him: ‘It will happen, Don Cayetano. I feel it.’

  It did not happen in Puerto de Santa María. The rough-and-tumble patrons in that town were in no mood on the opening day of their bullfight season to tolerate the inadequate bulls that the Mota ranch had sent them; when the fourth bull, belonging to Paco, refused to follow the cape or give any show of bravery whatever, cushions began littering the ring in censure not of the matador but of the bull—of all the bulls of this afternoon, the disgraceful bulls of Don Cayetano.

  When El Viti strove desperately to construct a respectable fight with the fifth bull but failed because the bull would not cooperate, objects began to rain down on our box with such force that I whispered to Don Cayetano: ‘I’m glad the roof is solid.’ He merely groaned, and then I heard him praying again: ‘Virgin Mary, one boon, please! Let this last bull do well. Let him save the day for us.’ I realized that he was making me part defender of his ranch, and I found myself praying, too: ‘Let’s have one decent bull, Mary. Give it to the old fellow. He really needs it.’ It must have been my prayer that did the trick, for the sixth bull, the last of the afternoon, roared into the ring prepared to confront whatever enemies lurked there. With powerful snorts he attacked the capes the López peons trailed before him with one hand. The lanky matador, sensing that he had a good bull, ran out to assume command, and the bull stuck his nose in the cape and kept it there, permitting the Gypsy an opportunity to unfurl a series of linked passes that brought wild cheers.

  The bull wanted to fight and charged the horses several times with great vigor. When he passed the bull on to the banderilleros, López revealed himself as the master manipulator. Just as his humpbacked peon was about to start his run on the bull, López grabbed the sticks from his hands and dismissed him so that he could show off his own superior form. I must admit he did place the sticks well, three pairs of them, but his contemptuous treatment of his peon repelled me.

  The afternoon had been saved, for the aficionados of Puerto de Santa María acknowledged that they had seen a master artist engage a good bull, and I was heartened by the cheers that now rained down instead of seat cushions and jeers. The change in mood had been dramatic, but it did not delude Don Cayetano, for he gripped my arm: ‘No cheering, please. With López you never know till the bull is safely dead and out of the ring.’

  He was prophetic, because when the time came for the Gypsy to step forth with his muleta and sword, all courage departed. He had proved that the sixth Mota bull was an exceptional beast but was now terrified of it, and in a most shameful display he tried to convince the judge and the crowd that the bull was defective and could not properly be fought with the muleta. I heard him addressing the people near our box: ‘Too dangerous! This one does not follow the cloth. His left eye, you can see it’s defective.’

  Not even stern orders from the judge or condemnations from the crowd gave López the courage to face this honest bull, and as the Gypsy made one futile pass after another I cried to Don Cayetano: ‘If this bull had fallen to one of the other matadors, he’d have immortalized it.’ But the Don did not hear my consoling remarks, for a roar of disapproval accompanied an avalanche of pillows. The aficionados of Santa María, some of the most knowledgeable in Spain, were being defrauded, and they were vo
cal in their anger:

  ‘Cobarde! Coward!’

  ‘Sinvergüenza! Shameless one without virtue!’

  ‘Asesino! Assassin!’

  López ignored the derisive shouts and made no effort to kill the bull honestly, running instead in a wide circle and trying to stab it to death without ever placing himself in danger. A full-scale bronca ensued, with cushions littering the arena and chairs being thrown at López, who, with the sweat of fear staining his suit, tried vainly to hit a vital nerve in the bull’s neck while running away from the animal. It was shameful, the worst faena I had ever witnessed, and I grieved with Don Cayetano as I saw this splendid toro, who might have saved the afternoon had he been fought properly, so abused because a cowardly matador did not know what to do with it.

  ‘This is awful,’ I told Don Cayetano, and he said bitterly: ‘With López, a born coward, what else can you expect?’ When the bull was finally killed by a glancing, running stab, the arena filled with angry men wanting to beat López senseless, and the police streamed in to form a protective cordon around the matador. I again had two conflicting thoughts: What a tragedy for Don Cayetano. What a marvelous scene for my article. I hope I can buy some good photographs of the riot.

  As the long day ended, the pathetic man at my side angrily muttered through his teeth: ‘That López! Someone should murder that coward,’ and I was inclined to agree with him, for if a matador does not have a true sense of honor, the bullfight falls apart and its very essence is destroyed. Paco Camino would have used his muleta to work a miracle of passion and beauty with that sixth bull. El Viti would have stood like a noble statue, feet firm, as he drew the bull toward him in a culminating moment that would have caused the crowd to gasp in wonder. López not only failed to accomplish such a feat, but in his cowardice he denigrated a noble animal. I understood why Don Cayetano might contemplate killing him, for López was ruining the Don’s chances of revitalizing the Mota bloodline.

  TO CELEBRATE PROPERLY the famous spring feria in Seville requires three full weeks. The first begins on Palm Sunday and runs with great religious passion till Easter Sunday, the day when Christ rose from the dead and entered heaven. The second week is given over to quiet reflection, but the third is marked by an explosion of magnificent activity. There is a bullfight every afternoon for eight days, Sunday through Sunday. Parades in the park. The performance of bands and orchestras. Theaters giving plays. And above all, hundreds of tents are pitched in a bosky wood for the duration, and there the people of Seville entertain their friends—and any strangers to whom they have taken a liking.

  These three weeks present the finest spectacle in Europe. There may be certain extravagant celebrations in Asia that equal it, and I have friends who say that nothing can surpass Carnival in Rio, but I’ll take Seville in the three weeks after Palm Sunday. Then the historic streets and narrow alleyways of the city are filled with barefoot penitents laboriously carrying crosses eight feet high, such as the one Jesus bore on his way to Golgotha. Men of substance in the city—bankers, generals, elected officials—often appear in the processions in penitent’s rags, bearing their crosses to demonstrate to the public that they share the tortures that our Lord suffered.

  Bands also parade along the same streets and alleyways, but the climax of each day comes at dusk, when the huge floats that have made the city famous for its piety emerge from Seville’s many churches. These are monstrous affairs, sixteen or eighteen feet long, but no wider than six or seven feet so that they can navigate the narrowest corners. Each provides a platform for some huge religious statue, such as an oversize replica of the Virgin or a meticulously carved diorama depicting a scene showing Jesus at some point on the Via Dolorosa or at the Crucifixion. On some of the big floats actors in fine costumes represent Roman soldiers or Pontius Pilate rendering judgment.

  The massive floats are unique. Each of some sixty churches sponsors a float, but only a dozen or so are paraded on any night of Holy Week. One of the more spectacular displays comes from a small church in the Gypsy quarter of Triana across the Guadalquivir River from Seville, and although the float is properly known as the Virgin of Triana, in the street it is affectionately called La Virgen de los Toreros, the Virgin of the Bullfighters, for it displays in carvings unmatched by the other floats a beautiful Virgin bestowing benediction on a dying matador who has been killed in the Maestranza, Seville’s classic arena. Three members of the matador’s troupe—peon, banderillero, picador—attend the apotheosis, the last astride a stuffed brown horse in better condition than those seen in the ring. When this float passes through the streets on its appointed night, Maundy Thursday, the people of Seville bow reverently, for this is a death scene that frequently occurred in that city prior to the discovery of penicillin, which now keeps many matadors alive even when a bull’s horn with a jagged tip invades the belly or the intestines.

  The platforms on which the figures, carved or real, stand are about four feet from the ground, and the bottom of the float is covered by a gray cotton cloth so that spectators cannot see the two dozen or so sweating workmen who carry the float on their bent-over shoulders. It is brutal work, but the men of Seville seek it. Like the leading citizens who drag their crosses through the city, these workmen want to offer penance to the memory of Jesus who died for them. This work in the dark is so strenuous that each float, as it progresses slowly and funereally through the city on its two- or three-hour circuit, halts at short intervals to rest on wooden legs hidden at the four corners. Then the sweaty men, often bare to the waist, are free to look out from under the cloth hiding them and implore bystanders to offer them a drink.

  When the Virgin of the Toreros passes on its Thursday procession prior to the awful solemnity of Good Friday, there are many stops and much imbibing and even a certain amount of frivolity, for the toiling men know that on Friday, the day Jesus died, there will be neither drinks nor celebration.

  As Holy Week approached this year, after the debacle at Puerto de Santa María, I asked Don Cayetano what he would be doing and whether he would allow me to accompany him in order to flesh out my story. Having seen how serious I was about my work and how eager I was to depict him as he was—never a hero, never a braggart, always a somewhat downtrodden little man striving to protect the honor of his family name and the reputation of his ranch—he pleased me by saying: ‘For these three weeks, where I go you go.’

  On Palm Sunday he rose early at his ranch and inspected the six bulls he would be sending to Málaga for the big fight there on the Sunday after Easter, assuring me that at least three of them were as good as that sixth one at Santa María. Then he said: ‘Now to the carpenter’s shop,’ and he showed me the seven-foot cross made of some light wood from Brazil that he proposed to lug through the streets as proof of his willingness to undergo the same kind of torment Christ had suffered on the Via Dolorosa; and as I would discover later, he was also seeking special consideration from the Mother of Jesus. When I tried to heft the cross I was appalled by its weight, but he explained: ‘I don’t carry it. I drag it,’ and he showed me a polished metal plate at the foot that would ease the cross’s passage over the cobbled streets.

  ‘It can be done,’ he said, ‘and I must do it.’

  Before loading his cross on the small truck that would deliver it to the cathedral doors in Seville, he went into the chapel his family had maintained next to the small bullring for the past century and a half, and there I overheard him utter a fervent prayer: ‘Mother of God, allow me just once to guide my bulls. Help me to help them perform respectably. Help me! Help me!’

  On the way into Seville I asked: ‘What did the prayer mean?’

  ‘You were not supposed to hear,’ but with obvious reluctance he shared his daydreaming: ‘Since boyhood I’ve imagined this perfect fight, especially in these years when the ranch seems to be slipping backward. A Sunday in Seville—it would have to be Seville. Matador Diego Puerta for honor. Curro Romero for local patriotism. El Cordobés for display, and six
brave Mota bulls.’ He paused, then apologized: ‘Of course, all ranchers have that dream—maybe with other matadors, but always with their bulls.’ He laughed nervously, his round face lighting up with the flow of his dream: ‘But mine’s different, because in my dream I am the bull.’

  This amazing statement demanded an explanation, and he elaborated almost eagerly, as if having gone this far he had to go all the way: ‘When the trumpet sounds for my bull to enter the ring, I leave this box, fly across the sand, and run with him—inside—bringing with me all I know about how a bull should behave. I become part of his brain to give him wisdom, his heart to give him courage. I am what you might call a living part of my bull’s mechanism.’

  ‘That would make a powerful bull, but it would require a miracle.’

  Seeming to accept the idea of a miracle, his voice deepened. His pronouns changed and he no longer discussed the bull as a separate entity; he became the bull: ‘I come roaring into the arena, hooves flying and kicking up sand. I snort. I look in all directions and when I see a cape I drive directly at it, and if the matador is skilled I follow the cape and not him, and as soon as I roar past, as close to him as possible, I stop short, turn quickly and ready myself for another perfect pass and then another, until the entire arena is screaming with delight at the way I and the cape and the brave man form sculptures.