Mexico by James A. Michener
This amiable discussion was interrupted by the passage through the Terrace of a matador in full costume on his way to fight. He was a man for whom I had great admiration, so I called him over and made introductions: “This is Pepe Luis Vásquez, the Mexican one. He has the misfortune that Spain has its own matador of that name, but this is the good one.”
Ricardo was awed at having this fine torero standing beside him. He rose and with his right forefinger indicated various parts of the matador’s costume: “Wound here. Wound here. In the trade he bears the honorable title The Pincushion. No matador in recent times has survived the wounds this man has,” and he indicated: “Horn here could have been fatal but the medics saved him. Horn through here. Eight or nine horns in the buttocks down here. This leg, that leg.”
“Is he telling the truth?” Penny asked, and Pepe Luis bowed and said in good English: “Under more favorable circumstances, I could prove it.” Penny said without changing her tone or her expression, “That would be compelling,” and I thought, Señorita Penny knows how to handle herself.
We chatted briefly, and he was a splendid torero of the solid middle group, never a transcendent star but always the man of dignity who faced the bulls as they came. He represented the backbone of the bullfight business, the man who year after year filled the afternoon bill in second or third position, often outshining the stars.
He had barely gone when one of the aging phenomena of the Mexican scene passed through on his way to the arena. It was Calesero, the matador from Aguascalientes who each spring helped the Toledo people put together their program for Ixmiq. He was the gentleman of the profession, a man of exquisite delicacy in the ring, a master of cape work, none better, but never outstanding with the sword. Aficionados came to the plaza in hopes of catching him on a good day when with his cape, his nimble feet and his arching body, slim and artistic in its movement, he would weave miracles with some compliant bull. A man of great dignity, he nodded to me as he passed, and I did not try to intercept him.
So, by the simple device of having shared Ledesma’s table at the House of Tile, Mrs. Evans, Penny and Ricardo had seen at close hand the four toreros who were to be in that day’s fight: Conchita the adorable; Calesero, the elder statesman; Pepe Luis Vásquez, the valiant; and Fermín Sotelo, the new comet rising above the horizon. It promised to be a rewarding afternoon.
As we rose from our table for the bullring, Ledesma and I were detained by the arrival of my uncle, who presented the critic with a moral dilemma: “Don León, I’m aware that neither Calesero nor Pepe Luis has paid you your customary fee.”
“They have not,” Ledesma said coolly.
“But this festival is important to our city—to me, personally. To help me, trusted friend, to sell tickets for tomorrow’s fight, could you bring yourself to speak well of the matadors’ performance in today’s?”
“Praise them when they haven’t paid? Impossible.” He turned away, but Don Eduardo could not risk the damage a scornful review might cause.
“León, gentleman of honor, let’s admit that they did not give you your fee. Let’s admit that they’ve insulted you. But if I paid their fee, would that make it possible?”
Ledesma ignored my uncle and turned to me: “Señor Clay knows that I respect Calesero and Pepe Luis as men of courage and dignity. Will I be willing to testify to that in this after-noon’s fight? Yes, Don Eduardo, I shall do what I can to protect your festival,” and without looking back at my uncle he allowed the hand that I could not see to reach backward toward Don Eduardo, who, I am sure, placed some notes in it.
“They are two men of proven honor. I like them. Praise them when they haven’t paid? Impossible. Testify to their honorable behavior? I could do no less,” and the two old friends shook hands.
It was fortunate for me that we had lingered, for my delay enabled a messenger from Mexican Wireless to hand me instructions from New York:
Clay, Toledo. Photos copy sensational. Mexican study completed. Come on home. Drummond.
As I pondered these words, with the sounds of the festival echoing vaguely in my ears, as if calling me back to the bullring, I sat alone on the Terrace and contemplated the daring of Ricardo Martín in presuming to be a matador and Penny’s willingness to face her father’s wrath in her desire to see the completion of the adventure she had planned for so long, and I compared their daring with my timidity, and I was not proud of myself. I wanted to quit writing formula articles, which I could do so easily and so well. I remember a picture story I did when the French were struggling in what was then their Vietnam. With an even hand I cast up the pros and cons, reaching no decision as to who would win or who ought to win. My photographer had taken a great shot of a Vietnamese peasant in his rice paddy looking up at the sun and I titled the story “Pham Van Dong Faces the Future.” In other stories I’d had a Korean peasant facing the future, a Pakistani in East Bengal facing the future after one of the great floods that drowned thousands, and everybody else facing the future except me.
What I really wanted to do was write a book as good as my father’s about our Indian ancestors, our gallant Spanish bishops, those unforgettable ranks of dead Toledans in the catacomb and especially the revolutions and wars I’d seen in Toledo as a boy. The last idea caused me to cry out: Maybe that’s the good one. An American kid at the heart of the Mexican rural revolution, seeing everything and comprehending nothing.
Regardless of what I ultimately decided on, I wanted to get started before it was too late, so while the others marched to the ring, I telephoned Mexico Wireless and sent New York this message.
Drummond. Glad Paquito fotos words usable. But you’re wrong. That doesn’t end the Mexico story. It’s just beginning. Am staying here.
As I walked to the ring I wished there had been a cameraman to record my progress, with the pots of flowers in the background, the wonderful façade of the cathedral and the statue of my father. I’d title the resulting story “Pham Van Clay Faces the Future.”
14
SATURNINE SATURDAY
A German tourist, proud of his mastery of English and his knowledge of bullfighting acquired in Spain, dubbed the second day Saturnine Saturday, for the six normal fights were dull and sluggish. No one was killed. No one was sent to the hospital for major attention. No ears or tails were granted, nor did aficionados petition for them. And certainly neither the bulls nor the matadors came close to being immortalized. It was a standard dull fight.
I actually enjoyed it, for not having to write about or photograph what I suspected would be a rather routine corrida, I sat in the second row with Mrs. Evans on my right, Ledesma on my left and Penny Grim in the first row in front of us so that we could share her enthusiasm in watching two toreros with whom she had actually spoken, the matador Fermín Sotelo and the rejoneadora Conchita Cintrón.
If the normal afternoon of six fights was tedious, that adjective did not apply to Conchita’s exhibition, for Don Eduardo kept his promise that her farewell to Toledo would be unforgettable. From the moment the big gates opened so that the fighters could parade forth in splendor, even Ledesma, who did not like rejoneadors, male or female, had to admit that the woman he had called an angel was superb in the effect she created. Riding erectly at the head of the parade on a large white horse, she was dressed in austere gray—calf-length boots, trousers protected by heavy leather chaps that reached to her waist, a general’s military jacket over a white shirt with lace at the cuffs, a delicate cravat tied neatly at the neck, all topped by a hard-finished felt hat with a five-inch brim all around, a seven-inch stovepipe crown and a top severely flat. She and her prancing steed seemed creatures from another era.
The stately horse was for the parade only. The animals on which she would actually face the bull would be smaller and capable of changing direction instantly, but the parade horse was amazingly effective, for she had trained it for two displays: in crossing the sand in the parade, the animal pranced in what was almost a dance step, first one fore
Penny cried: “He’s bowing to me!” and she could be forgiven this error, because I was certain that the horse was bowing to me, and I’m sure Ledesma and Mrs. Evans felt the same. All I can say is that it was some entrance.
The parade over, Conchita wheeled her big white horse and galloped him across the arena and out the big gate, through which she reappeared quickly on a much smaller white horse. Returning to our side of the ring, she waited as the bugle blew, and when the small red door was opened a large black bull roared in, front feet high, horns slashing about to locate an enemy.
Just as matadors on foot run their bull in the opening stages with a big yellow cape, so Conchita, brandishing a long spear with a flag at the far end, placed the lure before the bull, twisting it now and then, allowing the bull to charge it and hook it with his horn. In this maneuver the rider had to have a stout right arm and the horse the ability to anticipate where the deadly horn might strike and avoid it.
“How can she work so close to the bull without getting caught?” Penny asked, and León explained: “It’s a matter of intersecting trajectories, the bull going in one direction, the horse at an angle in the other.” When the time came for Conchita to place the banderillas and the horse had to make his moves without guidance from the reins because both of Conchita’s hands were occupied with the sticks that she must place in the bull’s neck muscles while leaning down from her horse, Penny watched the fluid motion of bull and horse as their trajectories converged. The extreme danger and beauty of execution combined to create a breathtaking moment.
“Oh!” Penny cried, clutching my arm. “She’s so wonderful—doing a thing like that!” and I could see that she was stunned by the realization that women could perform in areas that had once been the exclusive preserve of men.
On the second pair of sticks the horse won applause by riding up to Penny and bowing its head to her as if she were his princess in an old-time fairy tale, and Conchita gathered her olés by dedicating the banderillas to Penny, who dissolved in ecstatic wonder. Turning back to us, she asked rapturously: “Did you catch that in your camera, Mr. Clay?” and I nodded, which increased her pleasure.
After a superb display of horsemanship in conjunction with that big moving black target, Conchita tried to dispatch the bull using a sharp sword with a very long handle, but as happened nineteen times out of twenty with rejoneadors, she failed, three times. Since this was to be expected, she was allowed to dismount, send her horse back to the corral and finish the fight on foot. Able but not spectacular, she finally succeeded with the help of the man with the short dagger, who cut the spinal cord.
But the despedida was not allowed to end on the downbeat of that banal kill, for as the dead bull was hauled away, Conchita’s parade horse was brought back and she stood beside it as a score of dignitaries filed into the ring to pay homage to this radiant woman. The mayor was there, the governor of the state, the general from the barracks, Don Eduardo as owner of the Palafox ranch, León Ledesma as the premier critic, and others from the taurine fraternity. Speeches were made, flowers were presented, and at a signal from the mayor, the band, augmented for this occasion, played Mexico’s sad, sweet waltz of farewell, “Las Golondrinas” (The Swallows). As its limpid notes floated across the sands, people began to weep softly, and when a groom stepped forward to lead the white horse out of the arena, a sign that Conchita would never again perform there, Penny’s eyes filled with tears.
Then came the climax. From boxes that had been kept hidden two flocks of white doves were released, and as they flew upward in a flutter of wings a woman singer with a throaty voice stepped forward to sing a song that had always affected me deeply—“La Paloma” (The Dove). It was said to have been composed to honor the Empress Carlota as she went into exile after the execution of her husband, Emperor Maximilian. There were lines in this haunting lament that I had always cherished:
“If to your window there should come a white dove, Treat it with tenderness, for it is I, myself.”
“Have a tissue,” Penny said. “Your nose is dripping.”
“Tears,” I said. “Look at Ledesma,” and his eyes were brimming, too.
Thus did my friend Conchita Cintrón bid farewell to a town in which she had often performed with elegance and valor. As she left the ring for the last time, Penny sat silent, biting her knuckles. Then, in a soft voice, she leaned back to tell me: “To meet a woman like her! To have her nod to me from the ring. It was worth the whole trip.”
It was unfair to the three matadors on the regular part of the afternoon’s fight to have had such an emotional episode precede their appearance, but a despedida had to occur at the end of a torero’s exhibition, and since Conchita fought only one bull, her culminating celebration came early. But drab though the following six fights were, they contained such a tremendous surprise for Penny that even her memories of Conchita would be erased when in later years she remembered this day.
Calesero, as I had explained to the Americans when he passed through the Terrace, was an elder statesman of his profession, never the prime minister but always the trusted secretary of state who could be depended on. When he received a fine bull in the draw, he was capable of doing exceptional work, but when, like today, he drew a difficult bull, his accomplishment had to be limited. A few elegant passes, two sets of above-average banderillas but nothing sensational, and a workmanlike final act—his performance provided nothing for condemnation but only occasional displays for praise. At the end he received the polite applause to which he was entitled, a man of great integrity who had not had much luck.
Pepe Luis Vásquez could always be depended upon to give a stalwart performance, and today he started by trying to engage his first bull as it came out the chute. It was a foolhardy attempt, for at that early stage the bull had too much power. It knocked aside Pepe’s cape, then did the same with Pepe. The crowd gasped when blood showed clearly on his leg, and Calesero rushed to where the peóns were dragging the wounded man. He was understandably apprehensive about the extent of the damage, for the custom of the bullring demanded that if one of the junior matadors was wounded so severely that he could not continue, the senior man—in this case Calesero—would have to fight his own two bulls plus the two of the injured matador, a disappointing prospect for both him and the public, since he was neither a strong man physically nor one who was likely to provide a spectacular show.
Fortunately the bull’s right horn had merely grazed Vásquez’s left leg, but had penetrated enough to bring a respectable show of blood, which, fortunately, was stanched immediately in the infirmary. Calesero and Fermín Sotelo, the third matador, conducted the middle passages of the fight, leading the bull to the picadors and then placing the banderillas. By the start of the final segment Pepe Luis was back, bandage showing and ready to take control of the sword work. He was valiant and he was good, bringing the bull perilously close to his chest in a series of passes that brought the first real cheers of the afternoon. But he was not lucky with the sword, and when the colorless fight ended with a protracted attempt to dispatch the bull, the crowd yawned.
Everyone was eager to see what the new man, Fermín Sotelo, would do. He was willing but his bull was not, and it was almost painful to see the young man straining to prove his merit to a new audience but failing even to show that he was competent. It was a dismal performance with not one exciting pass, not one acceptable pair of sticks and a pathetic last act, with the wounded bull walking stolidly about the arena as Fermín tried desperately to end the fiasco. The warning trumpet sounded an aviso that the time allowed for this fight was running out, and the period of nervous sweating began.
So when the second aviso sounded, Fermín really began desperately to chase hi
“This is certainly a dull set of fights,” Mrs. Evans said during the intermission. “My Oklahoma friends were smart to duck out. With a show like this they might have become violent.”
“What you’ve just seen,” Ledesma told her, “is an honorable part of the bullfight. It’s like one of your baseball games where nothing happens, where the outcome is never in doubt, and no one gives a damn who wins. Or a football game with not one decent run or long pass. One side wins with three field goals that excite nobody. Lovemaking’s much the same way, and so are the novels you read. Workmanlike, but who gives a damn?”
“Is that your view of life, Señor Ledesma?”
“Not just my view. It is life. Most of life is damned dull. Remember, in a long season you’ll have a lot more boring games than no-hitters, where you’re on edge the last four innings.”
“But one can hope for more,” Mrs. Evans said, “especially if one has driven all the way from Oklahoma. Which reminds me, who’s going to drive that damned Cadillac back for me?”