So Long Read online

  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 “Chirusín 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, signalling 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 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 ok?”

  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, ‘Goodbye 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 grey 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 his head. With an undulating zig-zag 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 arm-rest 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.

  Señor Errazuriz and Jane accompanied the old couple on the far, far climb to the top of the plaza. Giglio had killed Genovés with one perfect thrust. He was awarded two ears and a tail. The brave bull was being dragged triumphantly around the place to cries of “Toro! Toro!” People spilled onto the narrow steps, many drunk, all ecstatic. The alquacil was walking across the sand to Giglio, carrying the ears and the tail.

  Jane walked behind the Yamatos. Señor Errazuriz and a guard led the way to the blare of trumpets, deafening shouts of “Torero, torero.” Roses and carnations and hats flew through the air, darkening the sky.

  Friends

  Loretta met Anna and Sam the day she saved Sam’s life.

  Anna and Sam were old. She was 80 and he was 89. Loretta would see Anna from time to time when she went to swim at her neighbor Elaine’s pool. One day she stopped by as the two women were convincing the old guy to take a swim. He finally got in, was dog-paddling along with a big grin on his face when he had a seizure. The other two women were in the shallow end and didn’t notice. Loretta jumped in, shoes and all, pulled him to the steps and up out of the pool. He didn’t need resuscitation but he was disoriented and frightened. He had some medicine to take, for epilepsy, and they helped him dry off and dress. They all sat around for a while until they were sure he was fine and could walk to their house, just down the block. Anna and Sam kept thanking Loretta for saving his life, and insisted that she go to lunch at their house the next day.

  It happened that she wasn’t working for the next few days. She had taken three days off without pay because she had a lot of things that needed doing. Lunch with them would mean going all the way back to Berkeley from the city, and not finishing everything in one day, as she had planned.

  She often felt helpless in situations like this. The kind where you say to yourself, Gosh, it’s the least I can do, they are so nice. If you don’t do it you feel guilty and if you do you feel like a wimp.

  She stopped being in a bad mood the minute she was inside their apartment. It was sunny and open, like an old house in Mexico, where they had lived most of their lives. Anna had been an archaeologist and Sam an engineer. They had worked together every day at Teotihuacan and other sites. Their apartment was filled with fine pottery and photographs, a wonderful library. Downstairs, in the back yard was a large vegetable garden, many fruit trees, berries. Loretta was amazed that the two birdlike, frail people did all the work themselves. Both of them used canes, and walked with much difficulty.

  Lunch was toasted cheese sandwiches, chayote soup and a salad from their garden. Anna and Sam prepared the lunch together, set the table and served the lunch together.

  They had done everything together for fifty years. Like twins, they each echoed the other or finished sentences the other had started. Lunch passed pleasantly as they told her, in stereo, some of their experiences working on the pyramid in Mexico, and about other excavations they had worked on. Loretta was impressed by these two old people, by their shared love of music and gardening, by their enjoyment of one another. She was amazed at how involved they were in local and national politics, going to marches and protests, writing congressmen and editors, making phone calls. They read three or four papers every day, read novels or history to each other at night.

  While Sam was clearing the table with shaking hands, Loretta said to Anna how enviable it was to have such a close lifetime companion. Yes, Anna said, but soon one of us will be gone….

  Loretta was to remember that statement much later, and wonder if Anna had begun to cultivate a friendship with her as a sort of insurance policy against the time when one of them would die. But, no, she thought, it was simpler than that. The two of them had been so self-sufficient, so enough for each other all their lives, but now Sam was becoming dreamy and often incoherent. He repeated the same stories over and over, and although Anna was always patient with him, Loretta felt that she was glad to have someone else to talk to.

  Whatever the reason, she found herself more and more involved in Sam and Anna’s life. They didn’t drive anymore. Often Anna would call Loretta at work and ask her to pick up peat moss when she got off, or take Sam to the eye doctor. Sometimes both of them felt too bad to go to the store, so Loretta would pick things up for them. She liked them both, admired them. Since they seemed so much to want company she found herself at dinner with them once a week, every two weeks at the most. A few times she asked them to her house for dinner, but there were so many steps to climb and the two arrived so exhausted that she stopped. So then she would take fish or chicken or a pasta dish to their house. They would make a salad, serve berries from the garden for dessert.

  After dinner, over cups of mint or jamaica tea they would sit around the table while Sam tol
d stories. About the time Anna got polio, at a dig deep in the jungle in the Yucatán, how they got her to a hospital, how kind people were. Many stories about the house they built in Xalapa. The mayor’s wife, the time she broke her leg climbing out of a window to avoid a visitor. Sam’s stories always began, “That reminds me of the time …”

  Little by little Loretta learned the details of their life story. Their courtship on Mount Tam. Their romance in New York while they were communists. Living in sin. They had never married, still took satisfaction in this unconventionality. They had two children; both lived in distant cities. There were stories about the ranch near Big Sur, when the children were little. As a story was ending Loretta would say, “I hate to leave, but I have to get to work very early tomorrow.” Often she would leave then. Usually though, Sam would say, “Just let me tell you what happened to the wind-up phonograph.” Hours later, exhausted, she would drive home to her house in Oakland, saying to herself that she couldn’t keep on doing this. Or that she would keep going, but set a definite time limit.

  It was not that they were ever boring or uninteresting. On the contrary, the couple had lived a rich full life, were involved and perceptive. They were intensely interested in the world, in their own past. They had such a good time, adding to the other’s remarks, arguing about dates or details, that Loretta didn’t have the heart to interrupt them and leave. And it did make her feel good to go there, because the two people were so glad to see her. But sometimes she felt like not going over at all, when she was too tired or had something else to do. Finally she did say that she couldn’t stay so late, that it was hard to get up the next morning. Come for Sunday brunch, Anna said.

  When the weather was fair they ate on a table on their porch, surrounded by flowers and plants. Hundreds of birds came to the feeders right by them. As it grew colder they ate inside by a cast-iron stove. Sam tended it with logs he had split himself. They had waffles or Sam’s special omelette, sometimes Loretta brought bagels and lox. Hours went by, the day went by as Sam told his stories, with Anna correcting them and adding comments. Sometimes, in the sun on the porch or by the heat of the fire, it was hard to stay awake.