Mexico.
Señor Errazuriz looked like an old bullfighter himself, lean, regal. His too-long greasy hair curled in a perhaps unintentional colita. He introduced himself, asked them to relax, have a sangria while he told them a little about the corridas, gave a concise history and an explanation of what they were to expect. “The form of each corrida as timeless and precise as a musical score. But with each bull, the element of surprise.”
He told them to take something warm, even though now it was a hot day. Obediently they all went for sweaters, got into an already crowded elevator. Buenas tardes. It is a custom in Mexico to greet people you join in an elevator, in line at the post office, in a waiting room. It makes waiting easier, actually, and in an elevator you don’t have to stare straight ahead because now you have acknowledged one another.
They all got into a hotel van. The two women continued a conversation about a manic depressive called Sabrina, begun back in Petaluma or Sausalito. The American doctors seemed ill at ease. The older Yamatos spoke softly in Japanese, looked down at their laps. Jerry and Deedee looked at each other, or smiled for photographs they had Jane take of them, in the hotel, in the van, in front of the fountain. The two doctors braked and cringed as the van sped down Insurgentes toward the plaza.
Jane sat in the front with Señor Errazuriz. They spoke in Spanish. He told her they were lucky to see Jorge Gutierrez today, the best matador in Mexico. There would also be a fine Spaniard, Roberto Dominguez, and a young Mexican making his debut, his alternativa, in the plaza, Alberto Giglio. Those aren’t very romantic names, Jane commented, Gutierrez and Dominguez.
“They haven’t earned an apodo like ‘El Litri,’” he said.
Jerry caught Jane looking at him and his wife as they kissed. He smiled at her.
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said, but she was blushing too, like the girl.
“You must be thinking of your own honeymoon!” he grinned.
They parked the van near the stadium and a boy with a rag began washing the windows. Years ago there were parking meters in Mexico, but nobody collected the money or enforced the tickets. People used slugs or simply smashed the meters, as they did with the pay phones. So now the pay phones are free and there are no parking meters. But it seems as if each parking spot has its own private valet, who will watch your car, a boy appearing from nowhere.
Electric, exhilarating, the excitement of the crowd outside the plaza. “Feels like the World Series!” said one of the doctors. Stands sold tacos, posters, bulls’ horns, capes, photographs of Dominguín, Juan Belmonte, Manolete. A huge bronze statue of El Armillita stood outside the arena. Some fans laid carnations at his feet. They had to bend down to do this, so it seemed as if they were genuflecting before him.
The groups’ bags were searched by heavily armed security guards. All women, as were most of the guards all over Mexico. The entire Cuernavaca police force is female, Señor Errazuriz told Jane. Narcs, motorcycle cops, chief of police. Women are not so susceptible to bribery and corruption. Jerry said he had noticed how many women there were in public office, more than in the U.S.
“Of course. Our whole country is protected by the Virgin of Guadalupe!”
“Not that many female bullfighters, though?”
“A few. Good ones. But, really, it is for men to fight against the bulls.”
Below in the plaza monosabios in red and white uniforms raked the sand. Pointillist whirls of color as the spectators climbed far up in the tiers to the blue circle of sky. Vendors carrying heavy buckets of beer and coke scampered along the metal rims above the cement seats, ran up and down stairs as narrow as on the pyramid of Teotihuacan. The group looked at their programs, the photographs and statistics of the toreros, of the bulls from the Santiago herd.
Men in black leather suits, smoking cigars, charros in big hats and silver decorated coats gathered around the barrera. Except for the two Spanish hats, their group was definitely underdressed. They had all come as for a ball game. Most of the Mexican and Spanish women were dressed casually, but as elegantly as possible, with heavy makeup and jewelry.
Their seats were in the shade. The plaza was perfectly divided into sol y sombra. The sun was bright.
At five minutes to four six monosabios walked around the plaza bearing aloft a cloth banner painted with the message, “If anyone is surprised throwing cushions they will be fined.”
At four o’clock the trumpets played the opening thrilling paso doble. “Carmen!” Mrs. Jordan cried. The gate opened and the procession began. First the alguaciles, two black-bearded men on Arabian horses, dressed in black, starched white ruffs, plumed hats. Their fine horses pranced and strutted and reared as they crossed the plaza. Just behind them were the three matadors in glittering suits of light, embroidered capes over their left shoulders. Dominguez in black, Gutierrez in turquoise and Giglio in white. Behind each matador followed his cuadrilla of three men, also carrying elaborate capes. Then the fat picadors on padded, blind-folded horses, then the monosabios and aren-eros, in red and white. The men who actually removed the dead bulls were dressed in blue. In the last century in Madrid there was a popular group of trained monkeys performing in a theatre, whose costumes were the same as the men who worked in the bull-rings. They were called the Wise Monkeys—monosabios. The name stuck for the men in the corridas.
The toreros all wore salmon-colored stockings, ballet slippers which seemed incongruously flimsy. No, they have to feel the sand. Their feet are the most important part, Señor Errazuriz said. He noticed how Jane liked the colors and the clothes, the quilted, tufted upholsteries covering the picadors’ horses. He told her that in Spain the matadors were starting to wear white stockings, but most true aficionados were against this.
A monosabio came out of the torillo gate and held up a wooden sign painted with “Chirusín 499 kilos.” The trumpet sounded and the bull burst into the ring.
The first tercio was beautiful. Giglio made graceful swirling faenas. His traje de luces sparkled and shimmered in the late sun, turning into an aura of light around him. Except for a rhythmic olé during the passes, the plaza was silent. You could hear Chirusín’s hooves, his breath, the rustle of the pink cape. “Torero!” the crowd yelled, and the young bullfighter smiled, a guileless smile of pure joy. This was his debut and he was welcomed wildly by the fans. There were many whistles though, too, because the bull wasn’t brave, Señor Errazuriz said. The trumpet sounded for the entrance of the picadors, and the peones danced the bull to the horse. It was undeniably lovely.
The Americans were lulled by the ballet-like grace of the bullfight, surprised and sickened when the picador began jabbing the long hook into the back of the bull’s morrillo, again and again. Blood spurted thick and glistening red. The fans whistled, the entire arena was whistling. They always do, Señor Errazuriz said, but he doesn’t stop until the matador says so. Giglio nodded and the trumpets played, signalling the next tercio. Giglio placed the three pairs of white banderillas himself, running lightly toward Chirusín, dancing, whirling in the center of the ring, just missing the horns as he stabbed them perfectly, symmetrically each time until there were six white banners above the flowing red blood. The Yamatos smiled.
Giglio was so graceful, so happy that everyone who watched felt delight. Still, it’s a bad bull, dangerous, Señor Errazuriz said. The crowd gave the young man all their encouragement, he had such trapío, style. But he could not kill the bull. Once, twice, then again and again. Chirusín hemorrhaged from his mouth but would not fall. The banderilleros ran the bull in circles to hasten its death as Giglio plunged the sword still once more.
“Barbaric,” Dr. McIntyre said. The two American surgeons rose as one, and took their wives away with them. The women in their pretty hats kept pausing on the steep stairway to look back. Señor Errazuriz said he would see them to a cab, and pay it of course. He would be right back.
The old Yamatos politely watched Chirusín die. The