The Weight of the Heart

by Susana Aikin

  The other men chuckled, and the one with rotten teeth said, “At least you’ll admit he has cojones, and that’s why the public raves about him.”

  “When cojones get you killed, that’s the end of your cojones and of my contract!” Federico replied.

  “You’re lucky it didn’t puncture the lung. It came real close,” the doctor said. “We’ll have to take him to the hospital. I’ll just give him temporary stitches. But I can’t give an anesthetic. We’ll have to do this cold turkey,” he added.

  “That’s where the cojones come in handy too,” said the man in the oversized suit.

  When Marion heard the words hospital and anesthetic, she cried out again, and only then did Fernando open his eyes and look in our direction. Then he said in a dull, assertive voice, “Let her in.”

  “No women in the room,” Federico cut in. “Manuel, see that they leave.”

  “I said, let her in!” Fernando repeated in a stronger voice and made an attempt to sit up, but blood started gushing from the wound and the doctor made him lie down again. “Easy now. It’s all right if they come in,” he said, nodding to the nurse. The male nurse stood to one side and we stepped in.

  The moment Marion walked into the infirmary, a sort of freeze frame descended on the scene. The conversation between the men stopped. They watched as she swept through the space with her long burgundy skirt over cherry-red boots and waist-length curls trailing behind, exuding that tragic grace only on tap for beautiful heroines soon to be mortally wounded; that Pre-Raphaelite vulnerability Father had impressed on her by matching her with Proserpine and the Lady of Shallot.

  Marion reached Fernando’s side and took his hands, tears streaming down her face. Fernando smiled weakly. His face was waxy and clammy, his eyes liquid pools of ink.

  “I wish I hadn’t insisted you come to this corrida. I don’t want you to see me like this,” he said.

  “My love, you must promise never to step into that ring again. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  He sighed. “That’s not going to happen. Who would I be in your eyes if I become a coward?” he said with tenderness. Marion lowered her face toward his and they kissed. There was a sense of embarrassment in the men around them.

  “Let’s just turn off the lights and leave,” said Federico in a mixture of pleasantry and bitterness. “The moment goddamned women walk into the scene . . .”

  “C’mon Federico, give him a break!” Manuel interrupted, and led him and the other men out of the room, leaving us with just the doctor and the male nurse.

  “He had to fall in love at this crucial moment in his career,” I heard Federico’s voice trail down the corridor, “and to make things worse, with a guiri!” Guiri meant foreigner, unwanted tourist, or outsider, and I was annoyed to hear the word applied to Marion and me. Although, yes, we were extremely removed from this strange world of rough men, bulls, blood, leather, and dust. But guiri meant American, or at least Anglo-Saxon, inhabitants from a faraway culture that would never understand Spain or its traditions, who could interfere with the natural order of custom and belief. Part of Fernando’s reputation, as a poor boy who had stormed the bullfighting world with irresistible talent and courage, was now tied to his torrid romance with a beautiful guiri girl.

  But Fernando and Marion were not effaced by Federico’s words or any public opinion. They existed in their own separate bubble, oblivious of the world. They continued to pour passionate glances into each other while the doctor finished with his stitching, and Marion squeezed Fernando’s hand and stroked his face every time he winced with pain.

  When the doctor was finished, Marion turned to him in a huff. “Doctor, please give me a blanket, don’t you see he’s cold?”

  “The ambulance will be here any minute,” said the doctor, and gave her a white sheet to cover Fernando, who had closed his eyes again and was shivering.

  I was standing by the door, leaning with my back against the wall, observing them in silence, when the male nurse came over and stood next to me. He looked to be in his early thirties, with olive skin and sharp, hawklike eyes from which nothing seemed to escape scrutiny.

  “Your friend is head over heels about Fernando, isn’t she?” he asked quietly.

  “She’s not my friend, she’s my sister.”

  “She needs to watch out for herself if she doesn’t want to become a widow.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve seen many toreros. This one is branded.” I wanted to sneer at him, but that minute a security guard rushed down the corridor announcing the arrival of the ambulance, and everyone scrambled into a flurry of activity to move Fernando onto the gurney that was soon wheeled in.

  We ended up not going to the hospital; although the doctor had to promise Marion that he would personally accompany Fernando all the way and stay with him overnight, if needed. She could then visit him in the morning, when he would be recovering in a room of his own. We drove back home in silence. Marion entered the house ashen-faced and, claiming she had a headache, refused to have dinner, ran up the stairs to her room, and locked herself in. Later on, I put my ear to her door and heard her muffled sobbing, as if weeping with her face buried in her pillow.

  Fernando recovered, returned to the bullring only a few weeks later, and fought dozens of bulls until the end of the season. But Marion didn’t quite recover. She failed most of her semester exams, lost considerable weight, spent her days in a stupor, and only came to herself in the evenings when Fernando came to fetch her to go for a walk, or to one of the flamenco bars. Her room filled up with bullfighting lore. She wore a black, wide-brimmed Andalusian hat and bolero jackets to class, and listened to flamenco guitar all day long. Beside her bed was a giant bullfighting poster announcing a corrida to be fought by Fernando Rios, El Niño.

  She was madly in love.

  In the beginning, Father took it all lightly. He received Fernando in good humor and called him hombre, man, and even had a conversation or two about the art of bullfighting, of which he knew nothing. Fernando would laugh and explain things patiently, not realizing that most of the time he was being put on by Father. When things became more familiar between them, the jokes became heavier.

  “Hombre, how are those big bulls doing? I heard they give them sleeping pills before they come into the ring so that they’re easier to tackle. The days of real bullfighting are over, aren’t they!”

  Or he would say, “I’ve always been told that matadors are very brave, you know, to face the bull alone in the ring and all; but then there’s others who think that to be that brave you need to be totally stupid. What do you think? Are you that brave?”

  Fernando would break into his charming smile. “Mister James, I admit to not being the most intelligent of men. As for the ring, I’m as brave as the next man. Most of it is luck. You see, Jesus and the Virgin Mary protect me,” he’d say, and taking the crucifix that hung on his chest, pressed it to his smiling lips. “How else can a poor boy get away from the land and make a future for himself? I’d rather die by the horn than of hunger.”

  Fernando’s good looks and gentle manners were disarming. He was perfectly groomed without any affectation, his clothes were always spotless, starched and ironed. He never failed to arrive with a gift for Marion or the household. There was an innocence about him, a nobility; like he belonged to that breed of men who are almost customized for the weaving of legends. Clean-cut, noble-hearted, fearless in the face of destiny, unconditional heroes. He had grown up in Cordoba, a province of deep Andalusia, the son of a poor bracero, farm laborer. At the age of sixteen he’d jumped into the bullring as a spontaneous, as they were called, and managed to stave a vicious bull off a well-known matador who was being gored. For that reason he got nicknamed El Niño, the kid, and given a chance to work in the quadrilla, or the matador’s bullfighting team. Soon he was the rave of the bullfighting world, young and dauntless, and taking chances in the ring reminiscent of the old bullfighting masters. A natural they wrote him up; an
d as graceful in the arena as a dancer on stage. He had contracts for two whole years when he met Marion, and although probably making very good money then, still lived in a modest pensión, or bed and breakfast, in the heart of the old Madrid, with his whole quadrilla, when they were not traveling to the provinces to fight bulls in other rings.

  We were all so taken by him, so engrossed in his genuine, gentlemanly ways—even Nanny couldn’t resist coming out to greet him every time he visited—that we thought Father would grow into him too. But Father kept scaling up his mortifying comments, until it became clear that he would never accept Fernando. And the closer the bond between Marion and Fernando tightened, the brighter they shone together as a magnificent couple, the more his belligerence grew.

  On Marion’s birthday, when the small crowd of friends who were attending her party, including Fernando and Manuel, were watching the replay of a bullfight in which Fernando had broken records of swirling the capote, or cape, closely at the bull, Father suddenly insisted on interrupting and playing a video cassette in a VCR he had just brought from London. The film was Ferdinand the Bull, an old Disney animation from 1938, about a bull who refuses to fight in the bullring because he is a pacifist and wants to go back to smelling flowers in the meadows.

  “The funniest part is that the bull is named like you—isn’t that hilarious?” he said, laughing uproariously, with tears in his eyes. “Poor bulls, the things they have to go through!” And he offered everyone a glass of sherry to celebrate “Ferdinand’s accomplishments.”

  Marion was furious and got up from the sofa, saying, “Let’s all go for a drink somewhere else. I know a great bar,” and without a glance at Father, she walked out of the room. Everyone picked up and started leaving after her.

  Fernando got up too and nodded politely at Father. “Mister James, thank you for your hospitality, I will bring Marion back before eleven, as usual,” and followed Marion out. Father saw them to the door, taking with him the red shawl Marion had forgotten on the chair, which he held cape-like, making passes at an imaginary bull as he hummed a pasodoble, the classical bullfighting tune, and said “olé” now and then.

  When they were all gone, he walked back into the living room, still chuckling.

  “It’s not funny,” I said.

  “It is and it isn’t,” he replied, sitting next to me on the sofa and taking up his glass of sherry. “It sure isn’t for the bull.”

  It wasn’t fun for Fernando, either. His habitual, charming smile was beginning to fade from his face when he visited the house, and we could all see how downcast he was becoming as he lost footing with his girlfriend’s father. Marion, on the other hand, became cold and distant with Father as he pushed forward his campaign against her matador lover. He’d started a relentless drive to erode her confidence in the whole affair.

  He would typically open up a conversation at lunchtime by saying, “Bullfighting is not a sport, like cricket, tennis, or rugby. It’s never a fair game, because no matter how the bull performs, he’s always put to death in the end. It is just a cruel, gory spectacle for the entertainment of primitive, bloodthirsty audiences.” Marion, sitting next to me, would tense up and start pushing her food around the plate.

  “Well, what about fox hunting?” Julia would say in retort. “That doesn’t feel like a fair game either, all those people on horses with lots of dogs hounding one little fox.”

  “What would you know, Julia? No comparison whatsoever!” Father said, always dismissive of Julia’s comments. “Hunting is a noble sport, and has put food on the table for humans since the beginning of time.”

  “Who eats foxes?” Julia would insist in a smaller voice, well aware of her power to irritate Father.

  “What do you mean, who eats foxes? You mean what do foxes do? They attack chicken coops, and ravage fowl; they impoverish and endanger farmers! They need to be dealt with, don’t you think? Bullfighting is different, it’s entertainment, it doesn’t serve any economic purpose. It’s like the Roman circus, distracting the masses with bloody thrills, pulling their minds away from the real problems, from the state of the nation.”

  “I’m just sorry for the horses,” I would add, carried away by Father’s fervor, and then immediately realize I was betraying Marion. For the moment Father enlisted a partisan opinion, he’d charge for the kill.

  “And those men who call themselves matadors, with the pink and gold frills, all bells and whistles, their little ballet shoes and the red cape—they’re just butchers posing as clowns, they have no sensitivity whatsoever for the animal, for the pain, for the absurdity of it all . . .”

  Finally Marion would burst into sobs, storm out of the room, and run upstairs to lock herself in her bedroom.

  * * *

  “Hey, Anna! Aren’t you getting out of the car?”

  Marion is already crossing the street.

  It takes me a moment to realize we’ve arrived at Sanchez Romero, the fancy, ultra-expensive supermarket. I step out into the blinding sunlight. It burns the back of my head and neck like a rod of fire. Seconds later I walk into the shop, where the contrast with the glacial air-conditioner is so dramatic that a wave of brain freeze benumbs me. The place is empty. Some Bach concerto for flute and violin or another plays in the background. We walk around the neat aisles stacked with all sorts of chichi products wrapped in colorful designer containers.

  “Would there even be something as simple as salt in this place?” I ask out loud, irritated at the outrageous prices. A young guy clad in the store’s navy blue uniform, stocking a shelf close by, says, “We do, miss. Just follow me.” I follow him to the fish boutique section, where he disappears behind a door and brings out our five bags of coarse salt.

  “Enjoy your feast of salted sole,” he says with a smirk, as he loads them into my cart.

  “Feast of salted sole?”

  “You know, the recipe. I thought this amount of salt was for . . .” He falters.

  “Oh yes, yes,” I say, walking away. Of course, he’s thinking I’m about to wrap a whole school of sole into tight jackets of coarse salt and grill them for a party. For what other purpose would anyone be acquiring industrial quantities of salt in a dainty place like this? If he only knew what other creative purposes are reserved for the use of this particular load!

  As I push the cart down the aisles, I catch a glimpse of Marion, who is studying a shelf packed with bottles of wine. For a moment I observe her figure from afar, her round curves, the way she bends over to squint at labels, coyly curling her hair behind her ear. There is a delicate quality to Marion, a tearful softness that can escalate to hysteria, it’s true, but also an absence of hard feelings, of a callous heart.

  An unbidden quote from a forgotten author enters my mind, Those who won’t shed the salt of grief through tears, will later have to squeeze drops of blood to release their pain. This is one of the main differences between Marion and me. She knows how to cry, how to dissolve her grief through sobbing. As for me, it’s been years since I shed a single tear. Surely, the salt of my grief is well petrified by now.

  I walk up to Marion, who’s holding a bottle of red wine. “Don’t bother to get any of those. We can’t drink any alcohol in the house until the limpieza is over. Delia’s orders.”

  “I’ll buy a couple anyway, and keep them in the car for later. I also got us three chicken sandwiches—.”

  “Marion, I can’t believe you don’t know we’re both vegetarians!”

  “Never mind, you can take out the chicken and eat the veggies. Don’t roll your eyes. I paid a fortune and can’t return them.”

  We pay for the salt and the wine and make our way back to the car. Once inside, I sit back and relax. Whatever is meant for today, will be. I close my eyes and imagine the car from the outside. A small burgundy Toyota whizzing down the streets, hazed out by the vapor swirling from the asphalt.

  CHAPTER 7

  The moment we get back to the house, we’re engulfed by a thick smell wafting out of the
kitchen, a pungent, acrid smell surrounded by a zesty cloud of garlic. Someone is cooking meat. Not just meat, but the infamous lamb, to be more precise. I’d forgotten about the chops in the refrigerator. Marion looks at me in amazement, as if demanding an explanation, but I shrug my shoulders. We cross the patio and enter the house.

  Inside, the smell is even stronger and the smoke coming from the candles on the altar is nothing now, compared to the fog that pours out of the huge frying pan where Delia is sautéing the lamb chops with a pile of garlic and herbs. Constantine stands by her side, mesmerized.

  “Don’t just stand there! Get me some thyme and black pepper,” Delia says, with a hint of irritation.

  “Sorry, Delia, there’s only a bit of oregano left in this jar. The cabinets are empty. No spices.” Constantine hands her a big empty glass container with a few green wisps at the bottom.

  “The recipe won’t be the same, then. Pass the white wine.” Constantine steps over to the altar, takes one of the bottles among the saints and coconut shells, and gives it to Delia. I seek to make eye contact with Marion to express my shock at this last action, but I find her totally engrossed in what’s going on in the frying pan. Delia turns around to look at us. She’s wearing a flowery apron over her white dress, something she must’ve brought along in her suitcase, because I don’t recognize it as part of the household.

  “Oh, here you are! Just in time.” She smiles, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

  My eyes are beginning to water because of the smoke. “Do you need the salt?” I say, confused.

  “No, not the salt. I would need decent spices for the chops, but no matter. I was saying you’re just in time to eat.” She turns to Constantine. “Bring over the large plate.” Constantine carries an oblong platter to the stove, where Delia piles the lamb chops with a wooden spoon.

  “Ready!” Constantine says with satisfaction, and he carries it all out into the patio.

  Delia scoops up a bottle of wine—again from among the saints on the altar—and a loaf of white bread. “We’re eating out in the patio, it’s too hot in here.” We step out after her. They’ve already set the table under the grapevine, with plates, silverware, and glasses for the wine. Constantine brings chairs.