Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins

by Carlos Fuentes

  At times, the ranch guards detected those nocturnal intrusions and ran after us, shouting, brandishing sticks if there were any at hand, firing into the air, but without any real ill will, because even the cattleman knew that sooner or later these kids would be what kept his business from failing. But when the guards set dogs on the boys, even the watchmen questioned the goodwill of the cattleman.

  When she heard about that, Madreselva made an agreement with the cattleman that, once their nocturnal apprenticeship was completed, the boys could continue their lessons in the ring at the hacienda, with her as the teacher, and she told the cattleman that, if he liked, the older boys could handle the preparations, but once it was time for the lesson, she would be in charge, she would throw off her hat and cape, her wide lock of hair blinding her and she puffing it away from her face to be able to see; she would be dressed in a short Andalusian outfit with leather leg coverings, she would teach the kids, and especially Rubén Oliva, because in that child’s dark eyes, and in the shadows under his eyes, she saw a longing for the night, she would tell them the three cardinal commands, parar, keep the feet still, templar, move the cloth slowly, mandar, make the bull obey the cloth, those three verbs are the watchwords of the bullfighter, they are more your mothers than the ones you have lost, and that means you must lead the bull where you want him to be, not where he wants to be …

  —Don’t worry, said Madreselva, looking at Rubén more than at the others, at the end it will be just you and the bull, face to face, seeing yourself and seeing death in the face of the other. Only one of you is going to come out alive: you or the bull. And the art of bullfighting lies in reaching that point legitimately, with skill. You will see.

  Then Madreselva gave the first lesson, how to stop a calf that had newly emerged from the cow as though from the belly of a mythological mother, fully armed, already in possession of all its powers, watch, Rubén, don’t get distracted, don’t make faces, the bull appears before you as a force of nature, and if you don’t want to turn that into a force of art, you might as well become a baker: measure yourself against those horns, cross yourself with them, Rubén, place yourself before the horns, and go, boy, go to the opposite horn, or the bull is going to kill you. Here is the bull galloping toward you. Poor thing, what will you do?

  Then Madreselva gave her second lesson, how to cargar la suerte, to move the cloth to turn the bull away, not let the attacking bull do what nature tells it, but instead what it is told by the bullfighter, who is there for that purpose, not at the mercy of fortune but controlling it with his cape, never relinquishing the beauty and magic of the pass, boys; put your leg forward, so, making the bull change direction and go into the field of battle—put your leg forward, Rubén, bend at the hip, don’t break the pass, summon the bull, Rubén, the bull moves, why don’t you! You’re not listening to me, boy, why do you stand there like a statue, letting the bull do whatever it wants? If you don’t take charge now, make it obey, the bull will be fighting you, and not you the bull, the way it should be …

  But, after that, nobody was going to move Rubén Oliva.

  The bull took charge; the bullfighter was rooted in place.

  Rubén was rooted in place.

  What did Madreselva say, gritting her rabbit’s teeth, puffing from her lower lip to blow the ashen tuft from her forehead?

  —You have to break the bull’s charge, Rubén.

  —I won’t take the advantage, Ma.

  —It’s not advantage, cunt, it’s leading the bull where it doesn’t want to go, so you can fight it better. That is what Domingo Ortega said—you know more than the maestro, I suppose?

  —I don’t move, Ma. Let the bull take control.

  —What do you want from bullfighting, boy! said Madreselva then, expressing her annoyance, which she knew was reprehensible but necessary.

  —That everyone’s heart should stop when they see me fight the bull, Ma.

  —That’s good, boy. That is art.

  —That they should all feel like a thousand cowards in face of a brave man.

  —That’s bad, boy, very bad, what you said. That’s vanity.

  —Then let my fame endure.

  She taught them—always quoting Domingo Ortega, for in her opinion there had never been a bullfighter more intelligent and more in control and aware of his every move—that there is nothing more difficult for the bullfighter than to think when facing the bull. She asked them to think of bullfighting as a battle not just between two bodies but between two faces: the bull looks at us, she taught them, and what we must do is reveal its death to it: the bull must see its death in the cape, which is the bullfighter’s face in the ring. And we must see our death in the face of the bull. Between those two deaths lies the art of bullfighting. Remember: two deaths. Someday you will know that the bullfighter is mortal, that it is the bull who does not die.

  So taught the insatiable madwoman, whose mother and father could have been a bull and a cow, or perhaps a calf and a bullfighter, who could tell, seeing her there, an image of dust, the statue of a brown and barren sun, a star as cracked as the lips and hands of this woman teacher, who showed them how to feint, to be slow to kill, to take advantage of the bull’s speed, for the bull is a rough beast that must be smoothed, posed and disposed by the bullfighter’s art, thus, thus, thus, and Madreselva made the slowest, the longest, the most elegant passes that pack of forsaken, deceived boys had ever seen, recognizing in the woman’s long, decisive passes a power that they wanted for themselves; Madreselva not only taught them to be bullfighters in the feverish September mornings that succeeded the fiery death of the sunflowers, she also taught them to be men, to have self-respect, to command with elegant, long, and …

  —Deceitful passes, said the rebellious Rubén, what you call feinting is only deceit, Ma …

  —And what would you do, maestro? Madreselva crossed her arms.

  The proud, imperious boy told her then to play the bull, form its horns with her fists and rush straight at him, neither of them dodging, neither she nor he, neither the false bull nor the incipient torero, and she became for that moment the captive cow, and she appraised the proud, gaunt figure of this Rubén Oliva, puffed up with puerile but impassioned honor, and she, mother-bull, did what he asked: against her judgment as his teacher, she charged full-out at Rubén, and he did not guide her with his cape as she had shown them, he remained as motionless as a statue, combining the passes as she wanted, but without any of the feints she called for, instinctively he fought her face, beautifully, moving her though not moving himself, dominating the bull without commanding it, showing it its death as she wanted, as she had done.

  And then Rubén Oliva spoiled it all, after he ended the series of passes, unable to resist the temptation to make a triumphal flourish, saluting, acknowledging, freezing his hips, and flashing his black eyes as though to outshine the sun, while she, the teacher, the mistress, called Dry-Bone in the village and Madreselva, Ma, Maresca by her disciples, each according to his own stone-deaf Spanish, language of the country of the deaf and therefore of the brave, of those who can’t hear good advice or the voice of danger, while she shouted with fury, Beggar! Sponge! Don’t ask for an ovation you don’t deserve—if you deserve it, they will give it to you without your making a fool of yourself, but what other chance did he have, he answered softly, wrapping his arms around Madreselva, asking her forgiveness, though she knew he was not repentant: the boy was going to be that kind of bullfighter, daring, stiff, and stubborn, demanding that the public admire his triumphal pass, his courage, his consummate manliness, the exhibition of his masculinity before the multitudes, which was permitted, encouraged, which the bullring authorized and which Rubén Oliva was not going to forgo, sacrificing instead the art which he considered deceit—breaking the savage force of the bull. They would always applaud his statue-like pose, his refusal to cargar la suerte, to direct the bull, the way Manolete won his acclaim. —This one doesn’t dodge, they said, he exposes himself to death ri
ght in front of us. He welcomes the thrust of the horns. Just like Manolete!

  And she was resigned yet determined, and she asked them to time the passes they made at the calves; resting now, a light between her rabbit’s teeth, more mannish than ever, Dry-Mother, Sea-of-Sand, Junglemother, what should they call her?, she made them track each bull’s speed, to encapsulate that speed within the matador’s own rhythm, because otherwise the bull would trap theirs in his, boys, slowly, listen to the metronome, each time, slower, slower, longer, until it’s more than the bull can do to rend cape or body.

  Or body. That was the sensual longing that possessed Rubén Oliva: naked, at night, pressed against the body of the bull that he had to hold to keep from being stuck, divining the body of the enemy in a mortal embrace, all wet, emerging out of the cold river into that heated contact with the beast.

  3

  When Madreselva felt she had no more to teach them, she told those eleven, as she had told others on other graduation days, to prepare their bundles, get their hats, and go out into the bullfighting villages together to try their fortunes. She liked the number 11 because she was superstitious sometimes and like a witch she believed that when a 1 turns on another, the world becomes a mirror, in itself it sees itself and there it stops: beyond, it leads too far, to transgression, to crime. The witch was there to warn, not to entice. She was an exorcist, not a temptress.

  Besides, she thought eleven generations of boys with a passion for the ring were not only sufficient but even significant, and signifying; she imagined them on the roads of Spain, reproducing themselves, eleven thousand matadors, the perfect reply to its eleven thousand virgins; and perhaps the two bands—matadors and virgins—would meet, and then Troy would blaze again. For they would meet in freedom, not by force.

  She had her rules, and everyone accepted them, except Rubén Oliva. Who but he would have the cheek to go and wake her, a comic hat perched jauntily on his black hair, tieless though his shirt was buttoned to the neck, in a threadbare vest, peasant pants, with leather boots and empty hands: he had borrowed an old cape to throw over his shoulder to announce that he was a bullfighter.

  No, she was enraged because Rubén Oliva entered without knocking and surprised her with her skirts up, rolling a cigarette on her thigh, which was fat and fine, in contrast with the rest of her body: no, she was enraged, dropping her skirts and hastily putting her breeches back on, as if magically to revert to her role of female bullfighter, you are not even an apprentice yet, don’t affect a guise you have not attained, don’t be impatient, don’t imagine the world is yours for the picking—the world is not your oyster, believe me, your wretched youth is stamped all over your rags and bags, and if that’s not enough, it’s plain to see in the hunger etched on your face, Rubén, which neither I nor anyone else will ever erase, because from now on your only thought will be where to sleep, what to eat, who to hump, and even if you get rich, even if you’re a millionaire, someone like you will still have a rogue’s mentality, you’ll just want to make it through the day and wake up alive the next and have a plate of lentils, even if they are cold.

  She laced the legs of her trousers and added: You will never be an aristocrat, my Rubén, mornings will always torment you.

  But we are all going together, we’ll help each other, said Rubén, still so much of a child.

  No, there are only ten of you now, said Madreselva, taking his hand, forgetting her leather breeches and her tobacco: his Mareseca whom he longed to kiss and embrace.

  Pepe is staying here, she said, anxiously.

  With you, Ma?

  No, he will return to the bakery.

  What will become of him?

  He will never leave here. But you will, said Madreselva, the rest of you will escape, you won’t be caught in a poor town, in a bad job, boring, the same thing over and over, like a long night in hell, you’ll be far from the bricks and ovens and kitchens and nails, far from the noise of cowbells that turns you deaf and the smell of cowshit and the threat of the white hounds, you will be far from here …

  He hugged her and he felt no breasts—his own adolescent chest was rounder, it retained the lingering fullness of childhood; he was a cherub with a sword, an angel whose eyes were cruelly ringed, but whose cheeks remained soft.

  All he did was repeat that the eleven of them, no, the ten, would go together and help one another.

  Ha, laughed Madreselva, surprised by his embrace but not rejecting it, you will go together and sleep together and walk together and fight together and keep each other warm, first you were eleven, now you are ten, one day you will be five, and in the end one man will be left, alone, with the bull.

  No, that’s not what we want, we’re going to be different, Ma.

  Sure, boy, that’s right. But when you’re alone, remember me. Remember what I tell you: on Sundays you are going to see yourself face to face with the bull, then you’ll be saved from your solitude.

  She pulled away from the boy and finished dressing, telling him: You are stubbornness itself, you will let the bull kill you to keep from wielding your cape, from luring the bull away from you.

  When a matador dies of old age, in bed, does he die in peace? Rubén watched her put on her jacket.

  Who knows?

  I will remember you, Ma. But what is going to become of you?

  I am ready to leave this town. I am going, too.

  Where did you come from, Ma?

  Look, said the dry, cracked woman with cucumbers on her temples, with her unruly hair hanging over her brow and a black cigarette between her yellow fingers, look, she said after a while, let’s just go without asking questions; things may be bad someplace else, but they’ve got to be better than here. I took care of you, boy, I gave you a profession; now just leave. Don’t ask me any more questions.

  You talk as if you saved me from something, Ma.

  Here you have no choice—he looked into her eyes, the eyes of his false mother—here you have to obey, there are too many people with nothing here, serving too few people with much, there are too many people here, and so they are used like cattle; you cannot be chaste that way, Rubén, when you’re one of that abundant, docile herd, when they call you and tell you to do this or that, you do it or you are punished or you are driven out, there’s no alternative. What they call sexual liberty really exists only in the fields, only in poor, lonely regions full of servants and cows. You obey. You must. There is no one to turn to. You are a servant, you are used, you are meat, you become part of a lie. The masters do whatever they want with you, for you are their servant, always, but especially when there are no other servants around to see what the masters do with you.

  She smiled and gave Rubén a pat on the rump. It was the most intimate and loving gesture of her life. As far as he traveled, Rubén still would feel that hard and loving hand on his backside, far from the burnt sunflowers and the goatbells sounded by the wind of the Levant, leaving behind the superb firs and horses of Andalusia, which are white at birth but which Rubén Oliva found to be black on his return. Now he was going far away, to the salt flats and estuaries, the landscapes of electric towers and the mountains of garbage.

  Saturday

  —Don Francisco de Goya y Lucientes!

  —What are you doing in Cádiz?

  —Looking for my head, friend.

  —Why, what happened?

  —Are you blind? Can’t you see it’s missing?

  —I did think something was odd.

  —But don’t dodge the question, what happened?

  —I don’t know. Who knows what becomes of your body after you’re dead?

  —So how do you know you don’t have a head?

  —I died in Bordeaux in April of 1826.

  —So far away!

  —So sad!

  —You couldn’t know. Those were dangerous times. The absolutists came to Madrid and persecuted every liberal they saw. They called themselves the Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis. I only called myself Francisco
de Goya …

  —Y Lost Census …

  —The kids stopped writing “deaf man” on the wall of my estate—instead, the absolutists wrote “Francophile.” So I fled to France. I was seventy-eight years old when I was exiled to Bordeaux.

  —So far from Spain.

  —Why did you have to paint the French, Paco.

  —Why did you have to paint guerrillas, Francisco.

  —Why did you have to paint for the court, Lost Senses.

  —But what happened to your head, son, lopped off that way?

  —I don’t remember.

  —So where did they bury you, Paco?

  —First in Bordeaux, where I died at age eighty-two. Then I was exhumed; they were going to send me back to Spain in 1899, but when the Spanish consul opened the coffin, he saw my skeleton didn’t have a head. He sent a wind message to the Spanish government …

  —It’s called a telegraph, Paco, a telegraph …

  —We didn’t have those in my day. Anyway, the message read: SKELETON GOYA NO HEAD: AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS.

  —And what did the government say? Come on, Paco, don’t leave us hanging, you always were such a …

  —SEND GOYA, HEAD OR NO HEAD. I was exhumed five times, friends, from Bordeaux to Madrid and from San Isidro, where I painted the festivals, to San Antonio de la Florida, where I painted frescoes, five burials, and the boxes they put me in kept getting smaller every time, every time I had fewer bones and they were more brittle, every time I left more dust behind, so that now I’m about to disappear completely. My head foretold my destiny: it just disappeared a little before the rest.

  —Who knows, my friend? France was filthy with mad phrenologists, crazy for science. Who knows, maybe you ended up a measure of genius—what a joke!—like a barometer or a shoehorn.

  —Or maybe an inkwell for some other genius.

  —Who knows? That was a century in love with death, the romantic nineteenth. The next century, yours, consummated that desire. I’d rather go headless than have to witness your time, the age of death.