Miracle in Seville: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘The Gypsies love her for her human weakness. They say: “She keeps her eyes crossed so she can squint down the crooked alleys of Triana to see where poor women might need her help.” Men, too, I suppose.’ When I looked at her again, with that explanation in mind, I saw that she was indeed a flawed peasant girl from some country village near Seville whom a reverent rural sculptor had used as a model two hundred years ago, and in that moment of recognition she became a human figure I could love.

  ‘The girl who posed for the statue—what happened to her? Did she ever marry?’

  ‘I don’t know. But bizcas make wonderful wives,’ the Don said. ‘They’re so grateful that someone has wanted them. One of my uncles married a bizca. He called her his little jewel.’

  When the time came to hoist the heavy float, a large group of men, towels wrapped about necks and shoulders, ducked under the apron, and their captain, who remained outside, was about to give the signal to raise the float when one of the men called to Don Cayetano: ‘Since you need all the help you can find for those bulls of yours, come on in. You don’t need to carry.’

  ‘I must carry,’ he said as he disappeared behind the curtain.

  The width of each float was limited by the dimensions of one of the notable streets in Europe—Sierpes, the serpent, an extremely narrow alleyway leading out of Seville’s central plaza. Converted centuries ago into a street of elegant shops, silversmiths and popular corner cafés, it represented the heart of the city and, some said, of all Spain. None of the magnificent floats that ventured out during Holy Week could consider their citywide transit complete if they did not move through Sierpes. This required exact maneuvering, accomplished by a system of signals to the bearers who could see nothing. The captain of the float remained outside to judge when his men should rest, resume marching or change direction. He did this by slapping the boards to give instructions. A watcher in the plaza who often worked under the float of his church told me: ‘One slap means “Pick it up!” Two slaps, “Move off straight ahead!” Three slaps—and we sure like to hear them—“Put it down!” ’

  As our Triana float neared the narrow entrance to the famous street I heard the captain shout to his team below: ‘Entering Sierpes! Careful, careful!’ and with that he gave three resounding slaps, indicating that his men could put down their heavy burden and refresh themselves with drinks and cool towels. It was during this pause that I made my move.

  Don Cayetano’s decision to participate struck me as so bizarre, especially for a man of his age, that I wanted a photograph of him naked to his waist and mingling with the workmen. I was no photographer, but I was sure I’d manage with the high-speed camera my office had provided. I asked one of the sweating carriers: ‘Can I slip in with you? Take some pictures?’

  ‘No light,’ he growled.

  ‘But if I gave you—’ When he saw my handful of pesos he said amiably: ‘For pesos I’ll sell the float,’ and without explaining to his fellow bearers, he helped me to slip under the heavy float, which was resting on its four wooden legs.

  There I found myself in a kind of medieval hell. The men were grimy, sweaty and smelly, laughing among themselves as they drank from leather flasks containing the brutal red wine of the countryside. They were powerful men who had easily adjusted to having Don Cayetano among them. Assuming that I had come to photograph them, they made faces as I swung my camera toward them while they crouched under the float, and in the confusion I was able to catch four or five excellent shots of Don Cayetano as he knelt among them, flexing his shoulders in preparation for the culminating march along Sierpes. ‘He’s a sturdy old buzzard,’ the men told me. ‘He carries his share.’

  Having taken my pictures, it was my intention to slip out from under the float before it started into Sierpes. But my timing was bad and while I was still trapped inside I heard the slap directing the men to lift the float and get going. The men, realizing I was trapped, laughed at my discomfort and indicated that since I was now one of them, I had damned well better help them carry. Shouldering my camera, I accepted a position two behind Don Cayetano, from where I heard him praying as before: ‘Blessed Virgin, let me restore the dignity of my name. Please, please allow me this one chance.’

  I cannot say whether the other men toiling in the dark saw what I saw next, but from the spot directly below where the statue of the Virgin stood above us, the boards separated several inches for just a moment, probably caused by the twists and turns of Sierpes. Perhaps I was affected by the heat and stench of sweaty bodies, but I saw the figure of the Virgin herself, suffused by the nimbus I had seen before, slip down through the opening. Bending down, she came directly to the side of Don Cayetano and there in the darkness touched him so that the light that bathed her also graced him. Grabbing my camera, I tried to photograph this astonishing sight, but my doing so must have irritated her, for in that moment she vanished. The crack in the boards closed behind her, and I found myself photographing nothing. Don Cayetano, straining from the weight on his shoulders, made no gesture to indicate that anything unusual had happened, but I know what I saw.

  When our float resumed its route up Sierpes to the reverent applause of all who watched, for our cross-eyed Virgin was one of the most cherished in the Seville parade, Don Cayetano and I exchanged no words because we were exhausted. Even at my age the labor was punishing; for him it must have been infinitely worse, but he would have accepted any travail to obtain help in restoring the reputation of his bulls.

  I desperately wanted to interrogate him about that strange happening under the float, but when he guessed that I was about to do so he edged forward, his shoulders bowed with pain, and refused even to talk to me. Only after we had climbed out from under the float, and were washing ourselves with the water and towels provided by women from the church, did he say: ‘That was a worthy experience. You’ll remember it.’

  ‘What was it I saw in there?’ I asked, but he diverted me by taking my arm and pointing up the street to a place I’d often read about in bullfight magazines but had never seen. On the whitewashed wall of a low building some self-appointed artist had used garish colors to paint a sign marking a famous taurine bar. When I saw it I had to laugh, for it proclaimed in black letters EL GALLITO, The Fighting Rooster, below which appeared a fancifully drawn rooster in a red bullfight uniform giving a pass to a tremendous black bull. It was a sign that would encourage any aficionado to enter.

  As soon as Don Cayetano led the way in, I realized that this was one of Spain’s famous tapa bars, for arranged along the front of a bar made of scrubbed light wood were many platters filled with the delicacies of Spain—anchovies, pickled walnuts, quail eggs, roasted peppers—inter-mixed with dishes loaded with the rural staples of Spanish cuisine, such as massive potato omelettes, chunks of braised oxtail, cheese, ham slices, pieces of roast chicken and piles of chewy peasant bread. A Spanish tapa bar is one of mankind’s inspired inventions and an irresistible place for drinking flagons of dark beer.

  But El Gallito had a special enticement, for it was also a taurine center, with its smoke-stained walls covered with dozens of photographs of past matadors in their moments of glory: Cuatro Dedos, who killed superbly despite the loss of a finger on his right hand; Cagancho, the praying mantis from Triana; Juan Belmonte and Joselito, the immortal pair; Pepe Illo, the shadowy great from the 1700s; Chicuelo, who invented the delicate passes; Manolete and the Mexican Arruza, who created their own age of glory and who both died young. All these and their brothers of the bullring lived again in this gallery of greatness, but visually, as was proper, they yielded first place to the horned heads of notable bulls who had fought in Seville: the stately Concha y Sierras, the deadly Miuras, the huge Pablo Romeros and, yes, even three Mota bulls who had been brave—in times past.

  Color was provided by the evocative bullfight posters from the last century, designed by fine artists and handsomely printed in colors that had not faded despite time and smoke and even grease from the row of fifty hams suspe
nded from the ceiling, where in the course of one or two years they would ripen in the smoke to become one of the delicacies of Europe.

  To stand at the tapa bar in El Gallito with a mug of dark beer, a small plate and a toothpick to spear tempting morsels was to become immersed in both the past and present of Spanish bullfighting. When we sat down at a table, men who had seen the disgraceful fight at Puerto de Santa María stopped by to criticize Cayetano for having sent such inferior animals to the important fight. They made him cringe, but others of better humor came to wish him well, men of the lower class who rarely had enough money to pay their way into a bullring but who knew bulls and matadors. ‘Buena suerte, good luck, Don Cayetano, con sus toros en La Maestranza.’ If he summoned the courage to smile at such visitors, they lingered at our table to talk about bullfighting, and their comments showed they were amazingly knowledgeable.

  As I studied the bar and its posters one feature saddened me: the only patrons of the bar seemed to be men, and I thought that with no women allowed the place is losing half its appeal, but that was the Spanish custom. But while I was thinking about this, I was surprised to see sitting at a table in the far rear the handsome Gypsy woman who had come into the church to spy on us. A patron at the bar, supposing that I was the usual American tourist, told me in broken English: ‘That one, señor, she is Magdalena, fortune-teller. All bullfighters come here, day of fight, give her coins for good fortune in ring.’

  As I stood to move toward her table, the Don whispered: ‘I recognize her now. She’s Magdalena, older sister of Lázaro López, and just as evil as him.’ Having warned me, he stayed at the table, for he did not care to associate with anyone from that infamous family.

  ‘You are most welcome here,’ came a soft voice from her table as I approached. ‘I can tell you many things, Mr. Shenstone.’

  I stopped cold, startled by the sound of my name in this place: ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘It is my job to know many things, Mr. Shenstone. When I see you and Don Cayetano entering the church across from my home, it is my duty to find out who you are, writing gentleman from New York. Sit down.’

  Two Gypsies who had been talking idly with her rose, leaving the table to Señorita Magdalena and me, and as I joined her my first impressions were reinforced: she was certainly very handsome, taller than usual for a Spanish woman and not at all the stereotypical Gypsy of legend. Close up, she was a most attractive woman, and I could not accept Don Cayetano’s judgment that she was evil.

  ‘Why do you bother, Mr. Shenstone, to write about Don Cayetano? Surely you know that his ranch has lost whatever glory it may have had.’ She pointed over my head to three Mota bulls on the wall: ‘In the old days, yes. Today, we weep for his collapse.’

  ‘Are you really Lázaro’s sister?’

  ‘I am. And he will reinforce what I said. He’ll tell you how bad the Mota bulls are.’ Placing her hand on my arm, she spoke as if her one desire was to help me with my story: ‘When you went to Puerto de Santa María you must have seen how bad the Motas are.’

  ‘How did you know I was at Puerto?’

  ‘As I said, it’s my business to know.’

  Before I could query her further her attention was diverted from me by a loud noise at the entrance to the bar, a most improper sound since this was the night before Christ’s crucifixion. The man entering the bar was Lázaro López. Tall, grotesquely thin, with a mop of jet-black hair, flashing smile and the imperial manner of a king, he masked in public life, where he was adored, the cowardice he displayed in the ring, where he was so often excoriated. He was a man I did not like, and I knew that Don Cayetano detested him.

  López, aware of the Don’s hostility, snapped his head back when he saw the rancher and, instead of ignoring him, went directly to his table, where he greeted the Don with a warmth so effusive that it was laughable to anyone who was aware of recent bullfight history. In a voice loud enough that I could hear he cried: ‘My dear friend, Don Cayetano, creator of those fabled bulls of Mota! May you continue to have great luck with them at Málaga and Seville, where we shall be meeting again.’ His manner and the way he uttered the oily words were so insulting that I wanted to rush over and hit him, but had I done so I’m sure he would have deftly sidestepped me as he did any dangerous bull and delivered a coward’s fist from the side when I wasn’t looking.

  Don Cayetano saved me from such a humiliation by smiling at the matador and saying with the grace of a Spanish grandee: ‘Maestro, may you cut ears and tail in your next fights, especially if you do so with my bulls.’ The adversaries saluted each other, and the matador moved on, surrounded by his sycophants.

  Any knowing aficionado would have recognized that Don Cayetano’s wish of ears and a tail to a coward like López was a sardonic jest, and several older men snickered appreciatively within hearing of the matador. Stung by the affront, he turned and glared at Don Cayetano with hate, as if to say: Beware, old man. If you were one of your pitiful bulls, I’d kill you right now. To underscore his hatred he threw an obscene gesture at the old man. Placing his right thumbnail under his big white teeth, he flicked it right in the Don’s face, an act equivalent to the challenge to a duel.

  Don Cayetano rose painfully to his feet and, facing the matador, threw the gesture back at him. Each knew there could henceforth be no reconciliation. Don Cayetano, honorable breeder of fighting bulls, had accepted the enmity of the matador and issued his own challenge, and I wondered what the outcome would be.

  Now the lanky matador, seeing me sitting with his sister, elbowed his way noisily to our table and shouted: ‘Writer of lies! You have no place in this bar. Get out!’

  His sister cried: ‘Lázaro! This one is a gentleman. No!’

  The matador was about to grab my arm and expel me, but his sister protected me: ‘He has a right to stay here. He knows bulls. He knows you.’

  ‘He has come to make a hero of Don Cayetano. He’s a fraud—a fool,’ and ignoring his sister’s pleas he ushered me away from Magdalena’s table. Don Cayetano and I retired from the field of battle and left the tapa bar to the jeering matador.

  WHAT HAPPENED on the next day, Good Friday, proved that Seville was justified in its claim as one of the world’s most devout cities, on a par at least for this one day with either Rome or Mecca. Since everyone was aware that on this day Christ was crucified, the citizens tried to replicate what must have happened in Jerusalem that Friday in the year A.D. 30.

  Relying upon the account given by Saint Luke, they read:

  And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour … and he gave up the ghost.

  Spaniards had interpreted the sixth to ninth hours to be late in the afternoon till dusk, and when those solemn hours came, the devout imagined their sky to be darkened during those terrible three hours of agony when Jesus hung on the cross. Little movement occurred in the city, for many tried to share Christ’s pain and would have assaulted any who broke the somber silence.

  The quiet became more intense as the darkness deepened and the hour of Jesus’ death drew near. Old men and women, themselves close to death, whispered: ‘He is on the Cross,’ and ‘How terrible it must have been,’ and others replied in hushed tones: ‘But he did it willingly, to save us.’ The old were deeply comforted by knowing that when they died they would be in the arms of Jesus.

  I roamed the quiet streets and at dusk dined in silence with the Don. At the end of the meal he said simply: ‘She stood at the foot of the Cross and tended his body when the Roman soldiers took him down. She could see the wound in his side, the nail holes in his palms, the points at which his legs had been broken. Her agony must have been greater than what any of us will ever know. Little wonder we love her and cherish her for the pain she suffered in our behalf.’

  I was about to correct him about the breaking of legs, for I knew from Sunday school classes that Saint John said specifically that the Roman soldiers broke only the legs of the two thie
ves who were crucified beside Jesus: ‘But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they broke not his legs.’ However, I decided not to mention this bit of trivia when I saw that the Don was in a kind of trance, speaking to some spirit or force that I could not see. His voice trembling with emotion, he said: ‘You must have suffered when you saw what they had done to the body of your son. My heart breaks with pity for you.’ And he wept.

  Saturday was spent in solemn reflection, but on Easter Sunday everyone rose early, for Saint Luke had said of the friends of Jesus: ‘Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre where they found it empty. For Jesus had resurrected and risen to heaven.’ The citizens of Seville, assured that he had been reborn, spent the day in quiet rejoicing and in meeting with their families.

  The passions of Holy Week exhausted, Don Cayetano and I left Seville and returned to his ranch, where we rode out on horseback to the tree-lined pastures where the fighting bulls grazed. I found it almost terrifying to be riding close to four bulls, each of which weighed nearly half a ton, even though they remained indifferent to my presence.

  But the Don reassured me: ‘If you remain on your horse, they think you are a horse, someone like them, and they ignore you. But if you got down they’d see you as a strange two-legged enemy, and they’d gore you with those long horns.’ Being so close to those powerful and deadly animals that I could even smell them helped me to understand these beasts. It was an Easter present I had not anticipated.

  THE WEEK following Easter was a quiet time in Seville. It was as if the solemn tragedy of the mournful days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday had so agitated the religious populace that it would require a week to recover. But even during this quiet period the Don could not afford to remain idle. His ranch was under obligation to provide two strings of first-class bulls, one to Málaga for a Sunday fight, the other to Seville for the following Sunday. The ranch’s reputation for the ensuing season would depend on what happened on the two occasions; if the catastrophe at Puerto Santa María was repeated at Málaga and a week later at Seville, he might have to go into hiding, so great would be his humiliation.