Sweet Torment

by Flora Kidd

  'How can I? I don't know your last name or where you live,' she complained.

  `It's possible you'll find out sooner than you think,' he said, his mouth taking on a grim twist as he looked past her at the group, and at that moment a girl's high shrill voice cut through the air.

  'Sorrel, Sorrel!' There was no mistaking Gabriela's delighted shriek. Looking round, Sorrel saw the small orange figure detach itself from the group of skiers and glide across the snow towards her. 'Oh, Sorrel,. we've been so worried about you! Where have you been? Who was that with you?'

  Again Sorrel looked round. Domingo had gone and was carving his way quickly down the slope in the direction of the hotel. She stared after him, admiring the grace with which he skied, and wondered at the sharp stab of disappointment she felt because he had left her without saying goodbye.

  The next minute she was smothering the feeling. Why should she care? She should be glad he had left

  her to make her explanations without his presence there. She turned back to Gabriela and almost at once found herself surrounded by the group of skiers, all of them speaking to her excitedly in Spanish.

  'What happened? Where have you been all night?' Ramon Angel's narrow sallow face was set in stern lines.

  'I fell and you didn't see me,' she began to explain, but everyone started to talk again and it was impossible for her to go on. Ramon made an exclamation of irritation.

  'We cannot talk here,' he said in English raising his voice above the excited babble. 'I will explain to the guide that he can call off the search and then we'll go down to the hotel. I expect you would like some breakfast.'

  She nodded, and within twenty minutes she was sitting in the cheerful warmth of the coffee shop explaining to Ramon and the two girls how she had become lost in the blizzard, while a waiter served her breakfast.

  'When did you realise you had taken the wrong direction?' Ramon asked.

  'When I saw the line of trees and a light shining. It was snowing very hard and I was glad to find shelter,' she replied, having decided to leave out the part of falling and banging her head.

  'Where was the hut?' He spoke sharply suspiciously. 'To the south of here, about ten kilometres away.'

  'I know,' said Gabriela brightly, trying to be of help.

  'It's the one where we spent the night once with ... Oh,

  Laura, what did you kick me for?'

  'Someone else was there with you?' asked Ramon.

  'Yes—a man. He was also sheltering. There was no alternative but to stay there. I could never have found my way back to the hotel in the snow. I hope you

  understand.' She spoke appealingly, and felt a flicker of uneasiness when she saw suspicion narrow his eyes again.

  'The man who was with you when I saw you?' piped up Gabriela.

  'Yes. He came with me this morning to show me the way to the hotel.'

  'Where is he now? Why didn't he stay with you until you found us?' demanded Ramon.

  'I ... I don't know. He just went off when Gabriela called to me.' Sorrel looked round the room, half-hoping to see a lean scarred face beneath a plume of ink-black hair amongst the people sitting at the tables. Then she became aware that Laura and Gabriela were arguing furiously in whispers.

  'Must you always be quarrelling?' Ramon snapped at them.

  'Gabriela says she recognised the man who was with Sorrel,' said Laura. 'I don't see how she could. He was wearing goggles.'

  'It was his ski suit I recognised,' muttered Gabriela stormily.

  'Who do you think it was?' demanded Ramon.

  'Juan Renalda,' replied Gabriela, flashing a defiant glance at her sister, whose fair face looked suddenly very unhappy.

  'Renalda?' Ramon exclaimed. 'El torero? The bullfighter?'

  'Si,' Gabriela nodded.

  'I think you're wrong, Gabriela,' Sorrel said gently. 'He told me his name was Domingo.'

  'He was El Valiente, The Brave One, I know he was! ' insisted Gabriela stubbornly.

  'And how is it you know El Valiente so well you can recognise him at a distance?' asked Ramon sharply. 'As

  far as I can recollect you have never attended a corrida, unless you have been to one without my knowledge. Have you? Either of you?'

  The two girls glanced uneasily at one another, both of them looking very guilty.

  `Si. We have been once, the December before last. It was during the festival at Copaya,' said Laura with slow reluctance.

  'Your mother was with you?' snapped Ramon. 'Si, senor.' Laura looked frightened.

  'And you saw Renalda there?'

  'Si.'

  'That would be before the fight in Manizales when he was badly mauled by the bull, then,' said Ramon musingly, then he flicked another sharp glance at Laura. 'Who invited you and your mother to go?'

  `Tia Isabella. Her brother-in-law is Diego Cortez, the promoter of the corridas for the festivals,'

  'And it was so exciting,' blurted Gabriela, unable to keep quiet for long. 'When the fight was over El Valiente came forward and made his bow to the box where we were sitting with Senor Cortez, and afterwards we were introduced to him.'

  'And was he wearing his ski suit then?' asked Ramon.

  `No, of course he wasn't.' Gabriela giggled nervously at her father's mockery. 'He was wearing his matador costume. The jacket was magnificent, all embroidered in sequins, red and black ones. He looked very handsome. He still is handsome except for the scar down the right side of his face where that bull gored him.'

  Sorrel almost choked on the food she was eating and Ramon gave her another sharp suspicious glance.

  `But the fact that you've had the dubious distinction of seeing Renalda perform in the arena with the muleta doesn't explain how you know what sort of ski suit he

  wears,' he said with ill-concealed impatience, turning to Gabriela again.

  'I know that because we saw him quite close here in the coffee shop this morning. Didn't we, Laura? We've often seen him here when we've come with Mummy, and once we had to shelter with him and some others in the same refugio where Sorrel stayed the night.'

  'Then all that remains to clear up the mystery is to ask Sorrel if the man who was in the hut with her had a scar on his right cheek,' said Ramon, his eyes hard and glittering in his stern face as he looked at Sorrel.

  'Had he, Sorrel?' demanded Gabriela, entirely unaware that she was causing trouble. 'From here to here?' She drew a curve across her right cheek from the lower part of her ear to the corner of her mouth. 'And was he tall and dark-haired with light grey eyes? And did he smile like this?' She gave a grimace which could have been an imitation of a slanted smile. 'And did he wear a black ski jacket with white stripes down its sleeves?'

  Sorrel could only nod in agreement. Gabriela clapped her hands together in triumph.

  'There, Laura, I told you,' she crowed. 'I was right! I was right! '

  'Then why did he tell Sorrel his name was Domingo?' queried Laura, who was looking very worried.

  'That is a good question. Why did he, Senorita Preston?' asked Ramon.

  The cold cutting sharpness of his voice, his sudden formality alarmed her. It was as if he had discovered her committing a sin and as a result he had turned against her.

  'I don't know why. I suppose he didn't want me to know who he was,' she replied.

  He pushed back his chair and stood up, looking down at her angrily.

  'A bullfighter would be so modest, so lacking in conceit?' he remarked. 'Por dins, I can't accept that, and going on what I know about Renalda he's more conceited than most—and no wonder, for in the eyes of his fans he's a home-grown folk-hero, born here in Colombia and not imported from Spain or Mexico. Like most of his breed he is a showman and a show-off to his fingertips.' His black eyes glared at her with hostility. 'There is another reason for you to be calling him Domingo, and I mean to find out what it is.' He turned to his daughters and spoke to them sharply. 'Go and collect your equipment. We'll go back to Medellin at once.'

  'But
it isn't noon yet and the conditions are perfect for skiing, 'Laura dared to protest.

  'I don't want to go home yet,' stormed Gabriela, her eyes brimming with tears.

  'Senor Angel, I'd no idea ...' began Sorrel.

  'Be quiet, all of you ! ' he snapped as he pushed back his chair and stood up. 'You will do as I tell you and you won't be coming here again, any of you. I can't have my daughters mixing with bullfighters and such like. Now go and collect your equipment.'

  Back down the tortuous cliff-hanging road they went, down to the alpine meadows, through the dense coniferous forest, down into the warm valley where the afternoon sun shafted down on to the coffee bushes and the heat forced Ramon to switch on the air-conditioning system in the big luxurious car. In Manizales shadows made black patterns on the white walls of old houses and flowers blazed in window boxes and tumbled from wrought iron balconies. Then they were

  out on the fast highway, turning north towards Medellin.

  In comparison with the journey to the ski resort the journey back was unpleasant. Laura and Gabriela sat in sullen silence, while Ramon was haughty and aloof behind the steering wheel, managing to convey his displeasure with his daughters and Sorrel through his handling of the car, flinging it round bends with a screech of tyres and overtaking anything which was in his way with loud blares on the car's horn.

  Walled into her own thoughts by the silence of the others, Sorrel sat in the corner of the back seat watching the dark shapes of the distant hills which were hunched against the sun-bright western sky and seemed to shift and remodel themselves into new patterns as the road curved about them.

  Into a small town they drove, and the hills were hidden so that she saw instead short side streets of squat houses slanting to the edge of a deep abyss. Twin towers of an adobe church soared up against a blue sky and the plaza in front of the church steps was alive with movement and colour as the local inhabitants spilled out of the doors after late morning Mass. Then the car was through the town and the dark silhouettes of the hills were back.

  A bullfighter. She should have guessed from that graceful swaggering walk or from the way he had watched her in the same way he would watch and wait for the bull to move in the arena. She should have guessed from the scar on his cheek where flesh had been torn away by the horn of an enraged animal. And now that she knew what he was it was easy for her to imagine him wearing the three-cornered black hat, the short glittering jacket, the tight-fitting breeches, pink stockings and black shoes, luring and deceiving the bull with

  a shake of his red serge cloak.

  She shuddered a little. She had never been to a bullfight and had never wanted to go to watch that spectacle of a man facing a wild bull in mortal combat. She had always considered it to be a display of cruelty to animals, and until now had never considered that it might also be cruel to the men involved.

  But why hadn't he told her his name? Why had he lied to her? And why was Ramon Angel so suspicious about her brief association with the bullfighter? What had he against bullfighters that he didn't want his daughters going to a place where they might come into contact with one?

  The car swept up over a ridge and dipped down the other side into a wide sunlit valley. With a sense of relief because the ride would soon be over Sorrel saw the slim shining towers of Medellin's skyscrapers thrusting up from amongst a collection of red roofs. Soon the car was speeding along a wide tree-lined boulevard where the big houses of the wealthy sparkled among their green landscaped gardens. There were orchids, orchids, everywhere, mostly crimson, crammed into flower beds down the centre of the boulevard, spilling from plant pots on shady verandahs, tumbling over balconies to blaze against white walls. Medellin might be the industrial centre of the country, but it did not express its prosperity in sooty chimneys or grimy buildings. It expressed it in flowers.

  In keeping with the fact that Ramon Angel was wealthy, the house where he lived was big and luxurious, set among sleek green lawns and hidden behind elegant cypress trees and delicately drooping acacias.

  He had hardly brought the car to a stop outside the porticoed front entrance than a woman appeared at the top of the shallow white steps which led up to the door.

  She was small, slim and raven-haired and was dressed in a smart black and white dress of silk jersey.

  `Ah, Isabella, it is good to see you,' Ramon greeted her warmly as she came down the steps towards him. `You came to keep Monica company?'

  'Si.' Isabella's dark brown eyes, deep-set under fine arching eyebrows, smiled at him before their glance slid curiously sideways to Sorrel, who was just getting out of the car. 'She phoned to say she was feeling lonely Without you and the girls. She sent Pedro over to fetch me in the limousine. You are back much earlier than we expected. Why is that?'

  `Something happened. Come inside, I will tell you. His arm about her shoulder he guided her back up the steps and into the house.

  'I don't understand,' Gabriela blurted, scowling after the departing couple. 'Why is Daddy so angry?'

  `Because you went on and on about Juan Renalda,' complained Laura as she helped Sorrel lift their skis down from the rack on top of the car. 'Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut for once?'

  `All I did was recognise him. What's wrong in that?'

  `Everything. It would have been better if you hadn't. Now we'll all be in trouble. Tia Isabella will be told off because she sold us the tickets for that bullfight. Mother will be in trouble because she took us to it without his permission. And you and I can't go skiing anymore.'

  'But I don't see why. What's wrong in going to a bullfight or in knowing a bullfighter?'

  `Everything, as far as Daddy is concerned,' replied Laura with an air of exaggerated patience as if it hurt to have to explain so much to her ignorant younger sister. 'He says bullfights are disgraceful exhibitions of brutality and that they should be banned.'

  'I don't think they are,' objected Gabriela. 'I think

  they are very exciting and dramatic and ...'

  'And Daddy says,' went on Laura, raising her voice above her sister's, 'that bullfighters aren't very nice men. They are rough and have no morals, and people in our position in society shouldn't mix with them.'

  'What a lot of rubbish! I think they are very brave men, and I think the bulls are brave too,' asserted the irrepressible Gabriela. 'And I think Juan Renalda is the bravest of the brave, and I like him even if he doesn't have—what did you say bullfighters don't have?'

  'Morals. Oh, Gabriela, don't tell me you don't know what that means.'

  'Yes, I do, but I don't care if he doesn't have any. I'm going in to tell Mummy what happened. Come with me, Sorrel, I know she'll want to hear all about your adventure.'

  'I'll come as soon as I've changed my clothes. I have to return this ski suit to her.'

  Half an hour later, washed and changed, wearing a leaf-green dress of linen which had a plain round neck which she dressed up with a silk paisley-patterned scarf, Sorrel entered the wide sunny room on the ground floor of the house which had been turned into a bed-sitting room for the invalid.

  Monica was sitting as usual in the wheelchair which she used to get about the house and Gabriela was sitting on a stool at her feet chattering away.

  'Thank you for the loan of the suit. It fitted very well. Shall I put it in the closet?' said Sorrel.

  'Yes, please,' Monica_ smiled across the room. She had blonde hair which she wore coiled on top of her head, a delicately moulded round face and big dark blue eyes. She had first come to Colombia at the age of eighteen, accompanying her father who had been leading a British trade mission at the time and had met

  Ramon when visiting the Festival of Textiles and Flowers in Medellin. After a brief courtship she had married him. Now at the age of thirty-four she still possessed some of her youthful beauty, although there were times when discontent made her mouth droop and pain brought a deep line between her shapely eyebrows.

  'Did you enjoy the skiing, Sorrel? Aren't the mountains w
onderful?' she said, chattering somewhat like Gabriela. 'Oh, how I used to love skiing, and how I wish I could go again.' Her voice shook a little and her mouth quivered, but she made an effort to smile again. 'But come and sit down and tell me about it. Gabriela, go and change out of your ski clothes now.'

  The girl jumped up, embraced her mother heartily and left the room, leaving the door slightly open.

  'Gabriela tells me you had to spend the night in the refugio with a man,' said Monica, leaning forward slightly, her blue eyes glinting with interest. 'She was just telling me who she thought he was when you came in. Was she right? Was he Juan Renalda?'

  'He could have been, I suppose. He didn't say he was.'

  Monica sat back, her eyes still bright, and nodded as if she understood why the man had concealed his identity.

  'What did he look like?' she asked.

  Sorrel described the man briefly. Monica listened intently and nodded again.

  'That was Juan,' she said in a curiously breathless voice. 'Did you tell him anything about yourself or about us?'

  'Yes, I did.'

  'And what did he say? Did he make any comment?' Monica leaned forward again eagerly. 'Tell me, Sorrel, did he give you any message for me?'

  Surprise held Sorrel silent for a few seconds. She was

  just about to say that Juan Renalda hadn't shown much of an interest when she had mentioned Monica to him when she felt the hairs on her neck prickle warningly, and turning, she looked towards the door. She was sure someone was standing just outside it listening.

  'Sorrel, what did he say ?' said Monica urgently. 'What's the matter? Why won't you tell me?'

  'Someone is outside the door listening,' replied Sorrel. 'Gabriela? Is that you?' Monica called out with a touch of impatience.