Tomorrow Pamplona

by Jan Van Mersbergen

  Shopping’s more tiring than training.

  So why don’t you just think of it as part of your training?

  She dragged on her cigarette, inhaling deeply, and blew out the smoke. For a long time, they sat in silence. The door opened and a large group of women came in. Four of them sat down by the window. Danny slid into the corner and Ragna moved her stool aside. They were close together now. She stubbed out her cigarette, patted his leg and told him she was popping to the loo. He watched as she inched her way past the women. He downed his water and looked at a tram by the crossing. The driver had got out. He was levering a metal rod between the points of the tram tracks. Danny played with the cigarette packet.

  Smoking’s bad for you, he heard her say. She sat back down on the stool, her feet tucked behind one of its legs, her knee touching his back. He placed a hand on her back and rubbed his leg against hers beneath the table. Her face was close to his shoulder and for a moment he thought she was going to lean her cheek on it, but she didn’t. He looked at her dark eyes. Her long black hair framed her face. Some of her hairs bristled with static and clung to his sleeve.

  The women beside them finished their coffee and got up. The sun had moved past the houses now and was shining along the tramline. The rails gleamed.

  I have to go, she said.

  When am I going to see you?

  Tonight.

  *

  The noise between the walls is swelling by the minute. Danny goes over and joins Robert, who introduces him to the man he’s been talking to. They shake hands. He’s an Englishman who’s been to Pamplona several times before.

  How many times have you run with the bulls? he asks Danny.

  Never.

  A horn drowns out Danny’s voice.

  Then this is going to be a real experience for you, says the man. Danny leans against the wall, which feels cool. He rests his head against the bricks. Some other Englishmen come and stand with them. Men with tattoos on their arms. A heart with a knife through it. Faded Gothic letters. A man with a big belly and a thick neck who’s wearing an England football shirt. He has the logo of a beer company tattooed on his forearm, just above the name of the team he supports. He smiles at Danny and says: Shitting yourself?

  No, are you? Danny asks, sitting down.

  The man grins.

  Ten minutes, comes the call.

  As the men continue to dart out and challenge the terrifyingly empty street, Danny sees the man with the bull’s-head T-shirt again. He’s standing in the middle of the road and he seems to be looking for something. He spots Danny, walks over and sits down beside him. They watch the Englishmen running into the street, in pairs, screaming as they dash back to the group. One man runs so far he can almost touch the door that the bulls are behind. Robert runs out into the emptiness too, together with his English friend. Their armpits are dark with sweat and there’s a line of wetness running down Robert’s back.

  Did you come here with him? asks the man. He tugs at the hem of his T-shirt and the crudely sketched bull’s head moves.

  I hitched a lift with him.

  You didn’t know each other?

  Not until yesterday, no.

  Then he picked the right man.

  Danny looks at the man, then down at the ground. The man says: When I saw you, I knew. I thought: he’s the one.

  You could be right, Danny says quietly.

  The man stands up and looks down at Danny. It’s something in your eyes, he says. Have you ever looked a bull in the eyes?

  No.

  You have the same look in your eyes. That’s what I wanted to tell you.

  He turns around and disappears into the surging white multitude.

  The men around him fall silent. Shouts give way to whispers. Then, suddenly, an explosion shatters the tension in the air. A rocket. Like a flash of lightning. Everyone holds their breath for a moment. There’s a second bang in the distance, followed by a huge roar, which rings out between the walls. The doors are open, someone shouts. The ground trembles. Danny stands up and positions himself between the high walls. The sound washes towards him like water breaking through a dam. The Spaniards and the Englishmen and the Americans are all shouting. That sound grows louder, almost drowning out the noise of the bulls.

  He hears nothing else, as he retreats inside his head, to the hissing and pounding inside his skull, between his temples. In his last thought, he sees Ragna before him. A clear image. Light filtering through the leaves of a plant. Her skin is so pale. She looks into his eyes and he sees something glowing in her dark irises, just for an instant, less than a second. Then her expression changes. Everything changes.

  Suddenly he hears a referee counting. Danny sees his white shirt, the cuffs, a glove in the air. A big white thumb that shoots up as the count begins.

  One.

  His voice barely rises above the noise of the crowd, but Danny can still understand him.

  The index finger. Two.

  Danny slides his hands into his trouser pockets, puts his feet on the cobbles, closes his eyes and holds his breath. Then he breathes out. He can feel the bulls coming. Six bulls, twelve horns and the sound of twenty-four hoofs stamping on the cobbles. It feels as though his head’s inside an oil drum that someone’s beating with a stick. Through the pandemonium of Pamplona, the referee carries on counting.

  The middle finger. Three.

  The hollow sounds change in tone, as though the space has suddenly expanded. A man shouts something.

  Ahí vienen los toros. Here come the bulls.

  In his head, he is running through Amsterdam again, flying once more through the streets with no idea where to go, just the certainty of leaving everything behind. But right now, in Pamplona, it feels as though his boxing boots are stuck to the cobbles. He thinks about the fight and about her. He knows running isn’t an option because the referee’s four fingers are held high and his voice is counting, strong and clear. Danny stands his ground. A boxer does not run away, a boxer listens to the count, whether he’s the boxer who’s been hit and is trying to get to his feet or the boxer who dealt the last blow and is looking down at the opponent lying before him. Both boxers listen to the count.

  The glove shakes, all of the fingers are outspread.

  Five.

  People run past him. They touch his arms. An elbow brushes against his hip. The excited shrieks don’t reach his ears. Only Ragna’s soft breathing gets through.

  The other hand.

  Six.

  A young Spaniard runs towards him at full tilt. Danny stands there like a rock. The Spanish man tumbles to the ground. Someone helps him to his feet. Danny doesn’t budge, just presses his hands to his thighs. Through slitted eyes, he sees the bulls appear, a line of black backs parting the crowd. The boys and men in white are running, fleeing from the bulls. Robert is nowhere to be seen. Danny breathes in, closes his eyes for the last time.

  Seven.

  The referee’s voice is deeper now.

  He puffs the dry air out through his nose, as the muscles in his chest tense and he waits for the blow.

  Eight.

  Something presses into his hip. It’s surprisingly gentle. His eyes shoot open and he sees a huge brown bull heading for him. It’s not there yet. For a moment, this still life remains intact. The sounds of Pamplona fade away and the bull stands before him, as if frozen. One of its horns juts up into the air, the other is pointing in his direction. The bull’s eyes are small black bullets on either side of its head, as dark as its nostrils, which seem so much larger in comparison. In the middle of its forehead is a crest of brown curls. The head is followed by a huge mass of muscles, propelling the bull forward. Again that pressure against his body, as though a hand is touching him, moving down to his stomach, tender yet firm. That hand belongs to her and it strokes gently over his midriff and down his side, just like the first time. He hears the bull snort. Ragna is there in front of him, breathing, planning to launch her attack, but delaying the moment and ke
eping her distance, first exploring his skin with her fingertips. Darting closer, kissing him. Stepping back, gently blowing on his chest and moving upwards, like the breath he can feel on his neck right now.

  The other sounds return. Everything around him starts moving again. As the bull reaches him, two arms grab him around the waist and pull him to the cobbles. The man who tackled him is tossed aside and the noise of the hoofs slips away too, changes pitch, like the sound of a passing car, leaving silence in its wake.

  Danny’s head is on a smooth cobblestone in the shade. It feels cool on his skin. He watches the bulls thunder past. He sees Robert lying down the street, against the wall. There’s no one else in sight. The street seems to have been swept clean. The red handkerchief hangs over Robert’s shoulder, the rucksack is by his arm. His lower leg is at a strange angle to his knee. His trousers are torn and there’s a patch of blood on them.

  Danny breathes calmly. He slowly turns onto his back and looks up at the blue sky. People come running. He feels one hand on his shoulder and another under his armpit. He is surrounded by shouts in Spanish and English as people help him to his feet.

  You okay? an English voice asks.

  Yes, yes, he says.

  He makes it clear that he doesn’t need any help and stands up, but he feels dizzy, so he squats back down and rests one hand against the wall. The circle of people around Robert is growing larger. He walks over, asks them first to let him past, but then has to push his way through. He stops a couple of feet away from Robert. Their eyes meet. Robert just says: Why?

  Danny can barely hear him in the tumult of people. The question hovers in the air like a slight vibration, but Danny understands and hangs his head.

  Two men in orange jackets appear. One of them is carrying a case with a red cross on it. He puts it down on the pavement beside Robert. People stand aside to make room for them. The men look at Robert’s leg. The shorter of the two, a man with a beard, places one hand on Robert’s thigh and moves his foot slowly backwards and forwards with his other hand. Robert screams with pain.

  Las manos quietas! he barks. There’s a brief discussion between the two men. Robert groans and swears. Someone shouts into a walkie-talkie. Robert uses that dead time to look at Danny and repeat: Why?

  Danny doesn’t answer.

  Why did you just stand there?

  The blood trickles out of his trouser leg, forming a dark red puddle on the cobbles and seeping into the gaps between the stones. Danny looks away.

  *

  She stepped out of her clothes, left her trousers lying on the floor, dropped her shirt on top of them. She had two birthmarks on her hip. It felt as though he was seeing them for the first time, as though they had been applied to her skin since he last saw her. She held out her hand, came closer, kissed him gently on the mouth and led him to the bed. He pushed the sheet aside, knelt on the edge of the bed and waited for her to lie down, slim and naked and beautiful.

  Come here, she said.

  He stayed where he was, looking at her.

  Come here.

  He slid over to her and pulled up the sheet. He heard the siren of an ambulance going down the road. The sound ebbed away. She lifted her head, he put his arm under it, and she turned her face to kiss his shoulder, his chest. It was very quiet in the room. His body was rigid.

  Danny, she said softly.

  Her eyes were wide. He felt her leg rubbing against his. She turned onto her side, kissed him with closed eyes, nuzzled her forehead into his neck, climbed on top of him. She raised her bottom in the air. His cock felt big. It throbbed in her hand, then inside her. He could feel her heart thumping against his skin. His own heart thudded to the same rhythm, but at the same time it seemed to have stopped: his blood stood still in his veins and his thoughts were frozen. In that ice, a phrase was carved: To keep an eye on her.

  *

  The men from the Red Cross try to get Robert onto a stretcher. They tug at his arms. One of them takes hold of his shirt with two hands and pulls him up by his waist. All that time, Robert is looking at Danny. When he’s finally lying on the stretcher, the man with the bull’s head on his T-shirt appears for the third time. He says: I knew you were the one this year.

  The man thumps his chest with his fist, holds it over his heart. Then he goes over to the stretcher, kneels beside Robert, bends over him and whispers something in his ear. One of the men from the Red Cross places a hand on the man’s shoulder. He slowly stands up and walks away. Danny follows the man, stops him.

  What did you say to him?

  The man strokes his mouth with his thumb and says: That I underestimated him.

  What else?

  That was all.

  The man taps two fingers on the side of his head in farewell. Another explosion fills the air.

  The bulls are in the arena, says the man.

  A rocket bursts, faint against the blue sky.

  It’s over, he says.

  Danny sees his face change, but the same dark power still emanates from the head of the bull on his T-shirt.

  He points at Danny’s chest, says goodbye and walks away.

  The men have taken Robert to the ambulance. They’re closing the doors. Danny starts to head down the street without knowing where he’s going. The little man from the Red Cross steps out in front of him. Handing him Robert’s rucksack, he asks in English: Did you come here together?

  Danny nods.

  Are you coming to the hospital with him?

  Me?

  Who else?

  It sounds like the logical thing to do. The expression on the man’s face and the reflection of the sunlight on his orange jacket rob Danny of any reply. He follows the man to the ambulance. Robert is lying on a narrow bed, fastened in with thick straps. He’s staring at the ceiling. Danny waits outside for a moment. The little man places a hand on his back and signals at him to get in. He ducks as he climbs inside. Then he puts the rucksack on the floor and sits on a fold-down seat beside Robert. They drive off. The ambulance swings around a few bends and stabilizes before accelerating.

  Robert rests his hands on his stomach and laces his fingers together. You didn’t have to come, he says. His voice seems a long way off. His head rocks from side to side and his gaze is distant.

  He looks down at his limp leg. Danny follows his gaze. His jeans have been cut open and the denim is dark red, almost purple in places.

  After a while, the ambulance slows down and goes over a bump. They come to a stop, the doors open and someone appears with a wheeled stretcher. The ambulance men aren’t exactly gentle when they slide Robert onto the trolley. He screams and swears as they move him. A black man in a white coat pushes him inside. Robert tells him to take it slowly, but the man pays no attention.

  Danny follows them. As he passes through the sliding doors and into the lobby, he feels the cool air on his neck. He hears someone crying. It’s an old Spanish woman in a black headscarf sitting on a bench in the corridor. She’s wailing and her sobs seep into the lobby, constant, unremitting, like a dripping tap.

  The man pushes Robert into a room in the emergency ward. It’s a small room, square and white, with a curtain around it. The man parks the trolley by the wall and leaves. Danny sits down on a chair and waits. Neither of them says anything. After a while, a doctor appears from behind the curtain. Buenos días, he says. He takes a quick look at Robert’s leg and turns to Danny.

  What happened? the doctor asks in English.

  You’d better ask him that.

  The man turns to Robert, repeats his question.

  I speak Spanish, says Robert.

  The doctor turns back to Danny. Did he fall? In the bull running?

  Danny nods. He leans back against the cold washbasin. The doctor examines Robert’s leg and the wound on his thigh. He asks if he can move his leg, if he can move his foot. Then the doctor uses hand gestures and broken English to explain that they’re going to do some X-rays to see if they can set the bone or if they’ll h
ave to operate. The doctor turns back to Danny.

  Can you fill in the paperwork for him?

  Yes.

  The doctor goes away. A little later, a man with a clipboard pushes the curtain aside. He hands the clipboard to Danny, who looks at the form that’s attached to it. He doesn’t know Robert’s address or even his surname, but he says: I’ll fill it in.

  Just put it down, Robert says as soon as the man’s disappeared through the curtain. I’ll do it later.

  Two nurses come and push Robert away somewhere. Danny stays behind. There’s a mirror above the washbasin, a small rectangular one. Now and then, he glances up at the polished glass and the reflection of the curtain. It’s a long time before they bring Robert back to the room. His leg is straight now. The men push the bed to the wall, put the brake on and leave.

  What are they going to do?

  Plaster.

  Is it broken?

  Yes, when I fell. A clean break, they said.

  What about the wound?

  They’re going to bandage it up.

  Danny thinks of the car and the photo on the dashboard. The curtain flutters occasionally, but no one comes into the room. Robert wants to sit up, but his leg’s too painful. He swears. Danny helps him up.

  Could you get me a glass of water?

  He nods at the washbasin, which has a glass on it.

  Danny fills the glass from the tap, without looking in the mirror. Robert takes a couple of sips. After a long silence, he says: Why did you just stand there?

  Why did you come back?

  Danny turns his face to the curtain. Halogen lights are glowing in the corridor behind it, casting patches of light on the material and making it glow bright green.

  He walks through the curtains and sits down on the bench in the corridor. The old woman’s no longer there. Two large men are pushing a trolley with an unshaven man on it, who’s bleeding from a head wound. A boy, just a child, is walking beside the trolley. He’s talking to the man in Spanish. As they pass the bench, Danny smells the sharp odour of wine. The boy has a brown stain on the seat of his trousers.