Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain)

by Caroline Angus Baker

“No, it’s okay,” Cayetano said and leaned on his cane. “You really want to know?” He watched them nod. “Are you sure? It’s a bloody story.” He watched them nod again, vigorously this time. “Okay… there I was… in a bullring…”

  “Ooh, this will be good,” Giacomo said and rubbed his hands together.

  “I stood there, and a 700 kilogram black Iberian bull watched me. He was a smart one. I had my muleta out, but I could tell that he wasn’t interested in the cape. He looked right into my eyes.”

  “Did he want to eat you?” Enzo said, almost nervous at the answer.

  “Oh, he wanted to eat me,” Cayetano replied, and tried not to laugh. “He wanted to go down fighting. He had already got stabbed with banderillas in the back of his neck but was still strong. Out I went with my estoque de verdad, my sword, and I knew I was in for a fight. The crowd cheered for me to tease the bull and then kill him.”

  “But you didn’t… did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. You know why? Because a spell had been cast on me.”

  “What?” Enzo asked with wide eyes. “Really? By a witch?”

  “Not a witch, but by an angel. You know, the only thing more dangerous than an angry bull is a beautiful girl.”

  “How can a girl cast a spell on you?” Giacomo asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cayetano said and shook his head. “This girl, she was the most amazing creature I had ever seen. I had seen her the night before the fight, and all I could think about was her. The world had been shaken and put back together wrong. I was so tired and confused inside that the bull thought he could get me with his horn.”

  “And he did?” Enzo asked.

  Cayetano patted his left thigh muscle through his jeans. “He did. I lifted my arms with my sword in my hands, and he dipped his head and jerked it back up, and got me right in the leg. I fell to the ground and cried like a baby, and blood squirted everywhere.”

  “Cool,” Giacomo grinned.

  “What happened to the bull?” Enzo asked.

  “They took him away. He got to go to the farm where he lived. I had to go and have an operation at the hospital. When I woke up again, the angel was still in my head. I can’t escape her spell.”

  “So it is the angel’s fault that you hurt your leg and a bull tried to kill you,” Giacomo said.

  “Yeah,” Cayetano said and glanced back up to Luna. “Girls are more dangerous than bulls. Remember that.”

  “Hey!” she said and folded her arms. “Two minutes and already you are all against me?” She watched her sons look up at her and giggle. “All the moaning from you two that I have listened to about not wanting to come with me today, and I thought of doing something fun with you, but now I’m not sure you deserve it….” she taunted them.

  “Boys,” Cayetano said. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out two watermelon-flavoured lollipops. “Maybe we should head around to the playground for a while before your Mamá bores us with her work.”

  They both leaped forward and grabbed the lollipops with a short sharp thank you to appease their mother’s stern expression. They all headed in the direction of one of the smaller courtyards within the parador’s walls at Cayetano’s moderate pace.

  “A few minutes and you think you have them all worked out, don’t you?” Luna asked Cayetano once the boys had run off in front of their mother once they saw the playground across the open courtyard.

  “Blood, guts, and a beautiful girl. Boys need nothing else. We are simple creatures.”

  “Parenting isn’t all games and lollipops.”

  “I know, boys need someone to teach them about girls.”

  “Can I just make one thing clear?”

  “Sure.”

  Luna watched her boys climb a ladder on the playground for a moment before she decided they didn’t need her help. “Cayetano, these are my sons. You can’t buy their affections with anything, from the most simple treat in your pocket to the most extravagant gesture. They’re here with me, but they’re off limits. Don’t play games with my kids because you are interested in me.”

  “You are like a tiger, and I have pulled your tail.”

  “Yeah, well… even if that comment jumped to conclusions, I have to say it now before today goes any further. I know Spanish people love to spoil kids, and I don’t mind that, but you have to appreciate raising sons is not easy, and I have to make careful and considered decisions about them every day. Even bringing them here to meet you is a massive step.”

  “Of course. I know I asked a lot of you. I just rang and didn’t stop to think about whether you were ready to bring the kids, or to drive that distance. I appreciate that you came.”

  “I don’t mean to sound like a bitch. I wouldn’t have come at all if I didn’t trust you, and let’s just say, if you ever pull my tail, you will get bitten.”

  “I look forward to it,” Cayetano said, and gestured for her to sit down on the bench seat by the playground.

  Luna sat in the sunshine and looked around. The walls of the parador surrounded the leafy courtyard. Who knows what would have happened in this space over the years. If not for the children’s playground, it would have been easy to imagine nuns and priests out here enjoying the sunshine. She glanced at some of the other parents; they seemed to all look back at her. “Ah… Cayetano… do you get the impression all the others here are watching us?”

  She watched him scan around the playground. “Maybe… but you have said that before.”

  “Little did I know that the last time I said it, I was walking through Madrid with one of its most famous sons. All the mothers in this courtyard are checking you out.”

  Cayetano turned and looked at Luna over his sunglasses and saw her cheeky smile. “Wow, that makes this uncomfortable. I’m sure that isn’t true.”

  Luna slid a little closer to him on the seat. “Okay, now that I’m closer to you, let’s see if they scowl. That will tell us.”

  “Maybe I should try the ‘stretch and reach’ move around you as well, while we’re playing silly games.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  Luna laughed when he slipped his arm around her, and his large hand rested on her shoulder, and pulled her into him. “Oh come on,” he said, “I am sure many men have tried that move on you.”

  “They have, doesn’t mean I let them get away with it.”

  Cayetano took his sunglasses off and placed them on his head. “I didn’t really say hello to you, did I?”

  “Not really.”

  “Buenas tardes, preciosa. ¿Como estás?”

  “Estoy mejor ahora que estoy aquí.”

  “Better now that you’re here? I’m flattered.”

  “You should be. How have you been? Have you tried the capsicum cream on your leg?”

  “Not as yet,” Cayetano admitted. “I have no one to rub it on me.”

  “Lucky I bought some with me,” she said, and turned to face him. Their faces were only inches apart.

  “I thought this trip was strictly business… not that I’m complaining.”

  “This trip does need to produce something,” Luna sighed. “I lost my job yesterday afternoon. I’m unemployed, effective immediately.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The boss laid off at least half of us. He blames the recession. I could see that we had fewer tourists than normal lately, and it seems there isn’t enough money to pay us anymore. In turn, the chance of getting my work visa renewed is now zero. I need to be able to prove my Spanishness.”

  “Spanishness?”

  “Yeah, my Spanishness.”

  “I could hire you. You could be my personal assistant.”

  “You have a personal assistant?”

  “Yes. His name is Hector. I am a brand, not just a person. I run my own company, which needs staff.”

  “You’re a company?” she asked, and looked him up and down. “Where do you keep this staff?” she teased.

  “Where you would like to hide on me?”

 
; “Now, now, this is a children’s playground. Let’s keep it clean. No, you don’t have to hire me, but thanks for the offer.” She paused for a moment. “You’ve never had to change jobs before, have you?”

  “I’ve known what I will be for my whole life. I was ready to be in the bullring from age four, so my mother tells me.”

  “Is it true, what you said before, that I did something that caused your accident?”

  Cayetano smiled, touched by her concern. When he sat with Luna, his leg didn’t hurt. Everyone else pitied him, or coddled him, but she didn’t. “It is my fault that I got hurt. Bullfighting is an art that requires me to draw inspiration for the skill of the performance. I require an emotional connection with the audience in order to concentrate on what I’m doing. However, I wasn’t connected, because I was fixated on you.”

  “Wow… I’m not sure what has blown me away more, the way you speak about what you do, or the fact that I just heard a man use the words ‘emotional connection’ in a sentence.”

  “If I don’t sound manly, can I remind you that I have a sword to kill an animal when I make the connection? I’m what every woman wants – I can be the man, but I can also write a poem about how sad I feel afterwards, if you like.”

  “My God, you are unbelievable.”

  “I thought I was charming and funny.”

  Luna watched the cheeky grin on his scruffy face grow when he tried not to laugh at himself. “You are very charming, Señor Beltrán. Passionate too, but from someone who has been called the greatest torero of his generation, I’m not surprised.”

  “It’s my responsibility to keep the tradition alive in this country. The anti-taurinos can’t be allowed to win just because they incorrectly label bullfighting a blood sport. It’s not even a sport, there is no competitive aspect.”

  “See? Spoken with such passion. That must be the ‘El Valiente’ side of your personality.”

  Cayetano leaned forward to whisper in her ear, his cheek against hers. “There are only two places I would let a woman call me ‘El Valiente’. Since I would never allow a woman in the ring because it would endanger her life, she would have to come with me to the only other place I like to be passionate.”

  “I think I have already been there.”

  Cayetano moved to bring his lips almost to hers. “You have been there,” his lips murmured against hers, “and there isn’t a day that passes when I don’t think about you.”

  “But then I got you hurt,” she whispered. She looked into Cayetano’s eyes, and there was that flicker of green in the honey brown again.

  “We need to get out of the sun,” he said and leaned away from her. “I can’t take the heat. You scorch me enough. I have no idea how we’re supposed to have a platonic visit to Cuenca.”

  Luna laughed and looked away towards the kids who played together. She felt rather hot herself. Lucky she had brought the boys with her, or who knows where the afternoon would have headed. Not to the Registro Civil, that was for certain. “Come on,” she said. “We should get on with what we came to Cuenca for.”

  12

  Cuenca, España ~ septiembre de 2009

  For all the drama and the dead-ends that Luna had faced on her search for Cayetano Ortega, the moment she got a helpful bullfighter was the moment things started to work. They made it to the Registro Civil just before they closed for the afternoon, but the information was ready, thanks to a phone call from Sofía’s office. Enchufe. It was the only thing that would get this job done. The woman at the desk, a weary looking middle-aged woman named Milagros, thought it was her lucky day when she saw Cayetano walk into her office. A few flirtatious charms and the folder appeared. Now flirting was helping to unwrap the mystery for Luna.

  It was refreshing out on the streets of Cuenca in the mid-afternoon. The crowds had all headed indoors for siesta, the restaurants and bars all full of the locals and tourists alike enjoying their lunch. The weather in Cuenca was much cooler than the fiery depths of Madrid, or the hot sea breezes of Valencia. It was a chance to wander the maze-like streets and relax. Cayetano watched Giacomo and Enzo both hold their mother’s hands and walk along the steep paths between the stone buildings. He still wasn’t sure which boy was which. “Who holds my hand?” he joked.

  The boys both looked at Cayetano and giggled. “You have full hands,” Enzo commented and gestured at his cane and the folder of details from the records office.

  “Do you want me to take the folder?” Luna asked him.

  “No, a man provides the directions. At least let me have the time-honoured tradition of the man getting the group lost.”

  “Are you sure you can do this?” she asked. They walked along Calle de San Martín, and it was less of a path and more of a constant set of stairs on the hillside. The entire Barrio San Martín was a cluster of buildings thrown together, with winding staircases through the narrow gaps left between them. On a cane on uneven steps could spell disaster, and Luna couldn’t help. She already had to balance two five-year olds.

  “Honestly, preciosa, you worry too much,” Cayetano dismissed her. The walk from the San Pablo bridge that had brought them over the gorge from the parador to the area was not that far. “Wait,” he said and opened his folder. “This is it. San Martín 16. This is where Cayetano Ortega and Scarlett Montgomery lived.”

  They all stopped in the shade of the four-storey building and looked up. It was an unassuming place; the light patchwork stone matched the cliffs of the town, as if rising from the land itself. The wooden frames of the windows suggested they had seen serious wear, but the whole thing was very innocuous. But what else could they expect? “Any idea what floor they lived on?” Luna asked. “Or is it one house?”

  “No idea,” Cayetano replied. “I would say it is all one house, since it’s very narrow. Guess we will never know.” The wooden arch-shaped door looked original. Cayetano Ortega would have put his hands on there to open it not all that long ago.

  “My grandparents lived here once,” Luna said to the boys. “Your great-grandfather and great-grandmother.”

  “Wow, that is so old,” Giacomo said.

  “Yeah, like about 100 billion years,” Enzo said.

  “We aren’t that old,” Cayetano chuckled. Though, with all those stairs, he felt it. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “Oh, do tell.”

  Cayetano turned and looked at the building across the narrow path. “Number 15.”

  Luna looked at the building, which was identical to number 16, except that side of the street was hard against the cliff edge. The view through its windows would have looked straight out over the Huécar gorge towards the parador. “What is so special about number 15?”

  “That is where my grandmother lived. The house was owned by Juan Pablo Beltrán Moreno. He lived here with his wife, Isabel. Their son, Alejandro, and his wife, Sofía, and the only daughter of the family, Luna Beltrán Caño, also lived there.”

  “You’re kidding! Did our families live across the lane from each other? That’s astonishing!”

  “I prefer to think it’s a sign.”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know yet. But everything happens for a reason.”

  “They could have wandered right by each other. They would have known each other. Who knows… if they were similar ages then they could have been friends… it’s almost scary really.”

  “I wish Papá was here right now. He never talks about his mother. He has never been here. He’s missing out on so much.”

  “Maybe you can bring him one day. What happened to Alejandro? Is he the owner of the building now?”

  “I have no idea. Those details aren’t listed here, but we could probably find out. I only found out that I have a great-uncle a few weeks ago. I will ask Papá, but he doesn’t like to talk about anyone.”

  “Why not?” Luna asked. She looked at the children, who kicked a stone back and forward to each other, oblivious to the conversation.

  “I don’t kn
ow. Something happened here, and I don’t know what just yet.”

  They stood in the silence of the shaded street. It was almost eerie. This street would have been full of life once. Children would have played. Women would have chatted. Men would have met after work. The end of the road stopped with the drop into the valley. The heavy walls held secrets, but they were locked behind the doors that surrounded them. “No one lives here now, do they?” Luna asked. She stepped forward to the window at number 16 and tried to peer inside. It appeared that the building was derelict, with a thick layer of dust over everything. “I would love to get inside. Who knows how long it’s been shut up.”

  Cayetano stepped across the cobbled path and peered into the window of number 15. He couldn’t see anything either. There appeared to be a stove against the wall, but nothing else. “We need to get in there. I will get Sofía to ring and find out who the owner is.”

  “These buildings shouldn’t be left to disintegrate.”

  “The council probably watches over them, in keeping with the world heritage listing that the town has. But still, who knows… maybe the owners will let us inside. We will have to come back.”

  “We certainly will,” Luna said and peered in again. She turned around to see Cayetano grimace. “Should we go and sit down somewhere? There was a bar just up around the corner.”

  “You are such a mother.”

  “Yep, our Mummy,” Enzo added.

  “She does all the Mummy stuff,” Giacomo added. “Like caring for us and being lovely.”

  “You have these children well-trained,” Cayetano joked, and the group turned back into the direction of the top of the street. “They say all the right things.”

  “Now Mummy needs someone to look after her so she doesn’t cry all night long,” Enzo said.

  Luna shut her eyes. Kids. Never could keep their mouths shut. She opened her eyes and tried to pretend it never happened. “Would you boys like some lunch?”

  “Yay!” they both cheered and started up the stairs of the narrow lane again.

  “Luna…” Cayetano began.

  “Don’t,” she interrupted. “Please, just don’t ask.” Some pain needed to remain private.