by Lucia Berlin
There were four Japanese tourists. The Yamatos, an old couple in black traditional clothes. Their son, Jerry, a tall, handsome man in his forties, with a young Japanese bride, Deedee, dressed in American jeans and a sweatshirt. She and Jerry spoke English to each other, Japanese to his parents. She blushed when he kissed her neck or caught her fingers between his teeth.
It turned out that Jerry too was a Californian, an architect, Deedee a chemistry student in San Francisco. They would be in Mexico City for two more days. His parents had come from Tokyo to join them. No, they had never seen a bullfight, but Jerry thought it would seem very Japanese, combining what Mishima called Japanese qualities of elegance and brutality.
Jane was pleased that he should say something like that to her, almost a stranger, liked him immediately.
The three spoke about Mishima, and Mexico, as they all sat on leather sofas, waiting for the guide. Jane told the couple that she had spent her own honeymoon in Mexico City, too.
“It was wonderful,” she said. “Magic. You could see the volcanoes then.” Why do I keep thinking about Sebastian, anyway? I’ll call him tonight, and tell him I went to the Plaza 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, blindfolded horses, then the monosabios and areneros, 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 theater, whose costumes were the same as the men who worked in the bullrings. 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 CHIRUSIN 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, signaling 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 young couple was thrilled. The corrida was powerful, majestic to them. At last the bull lay down and died and Giglio withdrew the bloody sword. Mules dragged away the bull, to whistles and jeers from the crowd. They blamed the bad kill on the bull, not on the young matador. Jorge Gutierrez, his padrino, embraced Giglio.
There was a frenzy of activity before the next corrida. People ran up and down visiting, smoking, drinking beer, squirting wine into their mouths. Vendors sold alegrías and bright green oval pastries, pistachio nuts, pig skins, Domino’s pizzas.
There was a warm breeze and Jane shuddered. A wave of the deepest fear came over her, a sense of impermanence. The entire plaza might disappear.
“You are cold,” Jerry said. “Here, put on your sweater.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Deedee reached across Jerry’s lap and touched Jane’s arm.
“We’ll take you outside, if you want to leave.”
“No, thank you. I think it must be the altitude.”
“It gets to Jerry, too. He has a pacemaker; sometimes it’s hard to breathe.”
“You’re still trembling,” Jerry said. “Sure you’re okay?”
The couple smiled at her with kindness. She smiled back, but was still shaken by an awareness of our insignificance. Nobody even knew where she was.
“Oh, good, you’re in time,” she said when Señor Errazuriz returned.
“I don’t understand it,” he said. “I, myself, I can’t watch American films. Goodfellas, Miami Blues. That is cruelty to me.” He shrugged. To the Yamatos he apologized for the bulls from Santiago, as if they were a national embarrassment. The Japanese man was equally polite in his reassurances that on the contrary, they were grateful to be here. Bullfighting was a fine art, exquisite. It is a rite, Jane thought as the trumpet sounded. Not a performance, a sacrament to death.
The coliseum pulsated, throbbed with cries of Jorge, Jorge. Whistles and angry jeers at the judge. Culero! Asshole! Because he didn’t get rid of the bull, Platero. No se presta, he doesn’t lend himself, Señor Errazuriz said. In the second tercio the bull stumbled and fell, and then just sat there, as if he just didn’t feel like getting up. “¡La Golondrina! ¡La Golondrina!” a group in the sunny section chanted.
Señor Errazuriz said that was a song about swallows leaving, a farewell song. “They’re saying, ‘Good-bye with this pinche bull!’” Jorge was obviously disgusted, and decided to kill Platero as soon as possible. But he couldn’t. Like Giglio before him he bounced the sword off the bull, jabbed it too high, too far back. Finally the animal died. The bullfighter left the ring downcast, humiliated. The continued chants of “torero” from his loyal fans must have felt like mockery. The monosabios and mules came for Platero, who was dragged away to whistles and curses, thousands of flying cushions.
Whereas Giglio had been lyrical and Gutierrez formal, authoritative, the young Spaniard, Dominguez, was fiery and defiant, sweeping the bull Centenario after him across the sand, flaring his cape like a peacock. He stood with pelvis arched inches from the bull. Olé, olé. The matador and bull swirled like water plants. The picadors entered the ring, the banderilleros took turns. Capes swaying, they lured the bull toward the horse. The bull attacked the belly of the horse. Again and again the picador thrust the spear into the bull. Furious, then, the bull pawed the sand, his head lowered, then thundered toward the nearest banderillero.
At that moment a man leaped into the field. He was young, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, carrying a red shawl. He raced past the subalterns, faced the bull, and executed a lovely pass. Olé. The entire plaza was in an uproar, cheering and whistling, throwing hats. “¡Un espontáneo!” Two policemen in gray flannel suits jumped into the arena and chased after the man, running clumsily in the sand in their high-heeled boots. Dominguez gracefully fought the bull whenever it came his way. Centenario thought it was a party, jumped up and down like a playful labrador, charged first a subalterno, then a guard, then a horse, then the man’s red shawl. Wham—he tried to knock over a picador, then raced to get the two policemen, knocking them both down, wounding one, crushing his foot. All three subalterns were chasing the man, but stopped and waited each time the man fought the bull.
“¡El Espontáneo! ¡El Espontáneo!” cried the crowd, but more police entered and tossed him over the barrera to waiting handcuffs. He was taken into custody. There was a stiff sentence and fine for “spontaneous ones,” Señor Errazuriz said, otherwise people would do it all the time. But the crowds kept cheering for him as the wounded guard was carried away and the picadors left, to the music.
Dominguez was going to dedicate the bull. He asked the judge permission to dedicate it to the espontáneo, and for him to be set free. It was granted. The man was taken out of handcuffs. He leapt the barrera again, this time to accept the bullfighter’s montera, and to embrace him. Hats and jackets sailed from the stands to his feet. He bowed, with the grace of a torero, jumped the fence, and climbed way, way up into the sunny stands, up by the clock. Meanwhile the banderilleros were distracting the bull, who was totally ruined now, like a hyperactive child, careening around the ring, ramming his horns into the wooden fence and the burladeros where the cuadrilla hid. Still everyone merrily sang “¡El Espontáneo!” Even the old Japanese were shouting it! The young couple were laughing, hugging each other. What a glorious, dazzling confusion.
Dominguez was denied a change of bull, but managed to fight the nervous animal with spirit and much daring, since Centenario had become erratic and angry. Whenever he tried to kill the bull, it shied and jumped. Catch me if you can! So again there were repeated bloody stabbings in the wrong places.
Jane thought that Jerry was yelling at the matador, but he had simply cried out, tried to stand. He fell onto the cement stairs. His head had cracked against the cement, was bleeding red into his black hair. Deedee knelt on the stairs next to him.
“It’s too soon,” she said.
Jane sent a guard for a doctor. Jerry’s parents knelt side by side on the step above him while vendors scurried up and down past them. With a hysterical giggle Jane noticed that whereas in the States a crowd would have gathered, no one in the plaza took their eyes from the ring, where Giglio fought a new bull, Navegante.
The doctor arrived as just below them the picador was stabbing the bull, to fierce whistles and protests. Sweating, the little man waited until the noise abated, abstractedly holding Jerry’s hand. When the picadors left he said to Deedee, “He is dead.” But she knew that, his parents knew. The old man held his wife as they looked down on him. They looked at their son with sorrow. Deedee had turned him over. His face had an amused expression, his eyes were half-open. Deedee smiled down at him. A raincoat vendor covered him with blue plastic. “Thank you,” Deedee said.
“Five thousand pesos, please.”
Olé, olé. Giglio whirled in the ring, the banderillas poised above h
is head. With an undulating zigzag he danced toward the bull. Two women guards came. They couldn’t get a gurney down the steps, one of them told Jane. They would have to wait until the corrida was over to bring one to the callejón, then his body could be lifted over the barrera. No problem. They would come as soon as they could get through. Another guard told Jerry’s parents they had to return to their seats, they might be hurt. Obediently the elderly couple sat down. They waited, whispering. Señor Errazuriz spoke to them gently and they nodded, although they didn’t understand. Deedee held her husband’s head in her lap. She gripped Jane’s hand, stared unseeing into the ring where Giglio was exchanging swords for the kill. Jane spoke with the ambulance driver, translated for Deedee, took the American Express card from Jerry’s wallet.
“Has he been very ill?” Jane asked Deedee.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But we thought there was more time.”
Jane and Deedee embraced, the armrest between them pressing into their bodies like sadness.
“Too soon,” Deedee said again.
The plaza was on its feet. Jorge had given Giglio an extra bull, Genovés, as a present for his alternativa. Before the next corrida, areneros in blue, with wheelbarrows, came to cover up the blood in the sand, others raked it smooth. The plaza was empty when the gurney wheeled up below the barrera. Meet us in front, the medics said, but Deedee refused to leave him. It took a long time to move Jerry’s body, and to get him down through the now frenzied crowd and onto the gurney. Once in the callejón outside of the ring they kept having to wait, move out of the way of running banderilleros, of the man with water bottles to wet the red cape, the mozo de las espadas, the man who carried the swords. Indignant shouts at Deedee, because she was a woman, a taboo in the callejón.