The Drifters by James A. Michener
‘Tech rep for UniCom … in Afghanistan.’
‘That’s a strong company. What’s an official of UniCom doing in a place like this?’
‘He comes every year … to run with the bulls.’
‘You mean he’ll stay down there? When the bulls come?’
‘Yes, sir. And what’s more, Mr. Melnikoff, he’s an intelligent man. And rather wealthy.’
‘It beats me.’
There was nothing more I could say, so we stared down the hill to watch the policemen as they slowly moved toward the ramp up which they would shortly escape. The first rocket went off and almost immediately the second, sending the bulls on their vigorous charge up the hill.
‘Look at that idiot!’ Mr. Melnikoff shouted as Holt started his dash toward the bulls. ‘Bruce, Bruce, he’s going to be killed!’
‘He knows what he’s doing,’ I assured him, but I was relieved when Holt, spotting some danger I could not see, turned back more quickly than usual and started running faster than I had ever before seen him move. Real fear showed in his face and he dove for the wall.
What had he seen to make him suspect trouble? In the narrowest part of the passage, where jostling among the animals often occurred, a steer had bumped into an ill-tempered bull, throwing the latter off stride. The bull had hooked at the steer, missed, and for a fraction of a second had lost his footing. Trying not to stumble, the bull had veered sharply to the left, which brought him close to the wall against which Holt had taken refuge.
Seeing along this wall a mass of forms, some moving, the bull now lowered its head, and like a scythe reaping barley, swept its left horn along the wall, wiping it clean. Three, four, five, six men went down before this savage horn, all punctured in one way or another.
The seventh man to be hooked stood just downhill from Holt, and unfortunately, in place of the traditional sash, he wore a leather belt which caught on the bull’s horn, impeding forward motion. Arrested for a moment, the bull savagely chopped its head, goring the man twice more. It then broke loose and for the count of four stood facing Harvey Holt, who remained ice-stiff, with the horn six inches from his gut. The man to Holt’s left moved, and the bull drove hard at him, tossing him to the ground and nuzzling at him, first with its nose, and then with its horns.
Mr. Melnikoff screamed, ‘For God’s sake, take the bull away!’
Britta, standing to my left, prayed aloud, ‘Make the bull move on. Make him move on.’ But Joe, next to Britta, watched silently, fascinated, as Holt remained motionless while the bull savaged the man at his feet. My breath came in such gasps that I scarcely felt Mr. Melnikoff clutching at my arm. ‘This is terrible!’ he screamed. ‘Get that bull away!’
With sudden force the bull left Holt and scraped his horn once more against the wall, knocking down numbers nine, ten, eleven, the last a man standing in the very door of the hospital. Then, with a kick of his hind legs, the great beast ran straight up Santo Domingo, ignoring everyone.
As soon as he was gone, teams began gathering up the bodies. Some of the gored men had fainted and were dripping blood. Others, not punctured by the horns, shook themselves, felt their bellies and their testicles, and walked off. Eight were carried into the hospital.
Mr. Melnikoff said, ‘I want to sit down.’ Yigal sat with him and assured him that none of the runners would die, but the old man snapped, ‘How can you be so wise? You saw that horn in the man’s belly.’
‘Believe me, Grandpop, that man is going to live. Ask Mr. Fairbanks.’
‘Why should I ask that fool? A grown man who comes here every year to watch such a spectacle. He might as well be back in the days of Nero. Three tickets to the Colosseum, please.’ He stopped for breath, then took his grandson’s hands and asked, ‘Tell me, Bruce, did the war harden you so much that you enjoy this sort of thing … look at those pools of blood … in a public street?’
‘I’m revolted by it.’
‘Then why, in the name of God, do you stay?’
‘Because there’s so much more to Pamplona. Some of the kids don’t even go to the bullfights. They never see a bull. Grandfather, they don’t go to bed till morning. Why would they bother with this?’
‘Tell me, Bruce. Is it a girl? You have a girl here, that’s it.’
‘Grandfather, I’m just here to enjoy myself.’
‘Enjoy! Enjoy! You talk like General Goering. Bruce, you’re flying home with me this afternoon.’
And Mr. Melnikoff swung into action. At Bar Vasca, where a huge crowd judged the day’s run to have been one of the worst in recent years and congratulated Holt on his miraculous escape, Melnikoff got on the phone, made a reservation on a late TWA flight to New York, hired a taxi to drive him and his grandson to Madrid, and sent a batch of cables to Tel Aviv and Grosse Pointe. Then he asked me to accompany them upstairs to pack Bruce’s gear, but when we reached the room and he opened the door, he drew back in disgust, because in Brace’s bed lay two girls from our picnic, with the boy from California who dug Octopus.
‘Get them out of there,’ he commanded me, as if I were one of his minor employees, so I went in and said to the kids, ‘Trouble. Better scram.’ All three were naked, and they hastily donned bits of clothing.
‘I think that shirt belongs to Yigal,’ I told one of the girls.
‘He won’t care,’ she said, and they traipsed through the hall and into Gretchen’s room, where they climbed back into bed and went to sleep.
‘Your close friends?’ Mr. Melnikoff asked his grandson with deep sarcasm.
‘I met them yesterday,’ Yigal protested.
‘They were in your bed.’
‘They were in my clothes—but what can I do?’
‘You can pack.’
The moment of decision had come. By every sign that I could read, Yigal wanted to stay with the gang, he wanted to continue his exploration of their values, their significance. He was inclined to tell his grandfather to go to hell, but instead he turned to me and asked, ‘Mr. Fairbanks, what should I do?’
‘Do?’ Mr. Melnikoff shouted. ‘There’s only one thing to do. Pack!’
‘Get out of here!’ Yigal exploded. ‘Go on. Wait out in the hall.’ He started to push his grandfather into the hall, but the old man resisted.
I said, ‘If you insist on having your way, Mr. Melnikoff, you’re going to lose this boy. You wait out in the hall and let me talk with him.’ I nudged the old man along—he muttering under his breath about who the hell I thought I was, and I pretending not to hear. When I closed the door I turned to see Yigal sitting on his bed, his head in his hands.
‘What should I do?’ he asked.
‘You’re not in love with any of these girls?’
‘No. I like Britta, but she doesn’t know it.’
‘Then there’s nothing to lose in that area.’
‘There’s always something to lose.’
‘Sure, but not crucial. It looks to me, Yigal, as if your big problem is exactly like Harvey Holt’s … and in a sense, mine.’
‘I care nothing for the bulls.’
‘I don’t mean the bulls. I mean America.’
‘Oh … what do you mean by that?’
‘America is the great magnet of our age. It’s like the sun exerting its tremendous gravitational pull. Especially if you’ve ever been touched by America, it becomes the great force which you must maneuver into balance. Holt never succeeded. He’s doomed to be an expatriate. I’m a marginal man. I can live in the States. I’ve proved that. And I can lick the States’ economic system … just as well as your grandfather has. I’ve proved that, too. But I’m always content to get away. I’m the way Gretchen and Joe will be when they’re fifty. Americans, but quite satisfied to live in Yugoslavia … or Israel.’
‘You’re saying my present duty is to get myself squared away on what I think about the United States?’
‘You state things better than I do.’
‘Even if it means listening to that old fraud tell me ho
‘I’m an old fraud. One of these days I’ll tell you how I made it big in World Mutual.’
‘You think I ought to go with him? Fly home tonight?’
‘I’m not going to tell you what to do.’
‘But goddammit, you are telling me. In your own superior way. No, you won’t come right out and say, “Kid, go home for a couple of months and weigh things for yourself.” You don’t have the guts to come out and say it. You don’t want to commit yourself.’
He was shouting, so I shouted back, ‘All right, I’m telling you. Go home. Go home this day, unless you’re afraid of a test.’
‘All right. Don’t yell at me,’ he bellowed. ‘I will go home,’ and he started to pack his bag in a way so vicious that you would have thought he hated every piece of clothing. ‘Where’s my blue shirt?’ he raged.
‘That girl took it.’
He banged out of his room, stormed past his grandfather, roared into Gretchen’s room, pulled down the covers, and ripped his blue shirt off the girl’s back before she could properly waken. ‘Pigs!’ he yelled back into the room.
Every summer, as the days of San Fermín drew to a close, Bar Vasca converted itself into an ipso facto tourist agency. At almost any hour of the twenty-four, young people would drop by to ask Raquel if she knew of anyone traveling to Brussels or Istanbul. The most casual arrangements were made, and trips that would require several hundred dollars and eighteen or twenty days were agreed upon within minutes.
But I often wondered what one careful mother from Appleton, Wisconsin, would have thought had she seen how her well-bred nineteen-year-old daughter traveled from Pamplona to Split in Yugoslavia. Joe had met her at the public square only that morning, and when I stopped by their table for a drink, after seeing Yigal and his grandfather off to Madrid, he introduced her as ‘Rebecca from Wisconsin.’ She was unusually attractive and had had three years at the University of Minnesota. I enjoyed her conversation, for she was majoring in economics and was interested in many of the things that concerned me.
That afternoon Joe brought her down to Bar Vasca to hear Clive’s records, and we sat in our alcove passing time till the bullfight began. She asked idly, ‘You happen to know anyone heading for Milan? I’d like to look at the industry there.’
We asked around the bar and no one knew of transportation to Italy, but a German, who was having a beer while listening to the new music from London, said, ‘I know a Dutchman who’s driving to Yugoslavia right after today’s fight.’ I was looking at Rebecca as he said this, and a reflective cast came into her eye and she said, ‘I might as well go to Yugoslavia. Probably never have another chance.’ So the German was dispatched to find the Dutchman, and in a little while a very handsome, tall, bronzed young man entered the bar and told us that he was Klaus from Amsterdam, and he was driving a Taunus to Split right after the fight.
I said, ‘This is Rebecca from Wisconsin. Economics major.’
‘Law.’
Rebecca had had exactly one minute to judge his character, but now she said, ‘I’ll pay half.’
‘You pay for your meals and hotel. I pay for the petrol.’
‘How many days do you figure?’
‘Can you drive?’
‘Four on the floor.’
‘We’d probably make it in five days. I don’t want to rush, but we’ll be deep into France by midnight.’
‘I’ll get my stuff.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Thanks. It’s out beyond Tres Reyes.’
And they left for Split.
With the departure of Yigal for America, the thoughts of all in Bar Vasca turned to what to do next. Holt and I would drive back to Madrid. The remaining five in the yellow pop-top had no concrete plans—maybe southern France, although that was rumored to be quite expensive. The two college girls were heading for Rome, and the boy who dug Octopus said he was going to stand on the highway and the first car that picked him up in either direction would determine his future.
So far as I know, at that time not one of my young friends had ever spoken the name Moçambique. It came into the conversation obliquely when Holt said, ‘Watching that young lady leave for Split reminded me of how Humphrey Bogart decided to go down the river with Miss Hepburn. It was about the same, only they were much older.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Joe asked testily.
‘One of Bogart’s best. I saw it at a movie house at Gago Coutinho.’
‘Where the hell is Gago Coutinho?’
‘Moçambique,’ I explained.
‘Where’s that?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘it’s one of the most exciting places I’ve worked in. Southern part of Africa, but on the Indian Ocean side. I was doing a feasibility study and fell in love with the place.’
‘Ninety-seven per cent Negroes,’ Holt replied. ‘But the Portuguese are in control,’ and he pressed his thumb firmly against the table.
‘It would be interesting for you,’ I told Cato. ‘To the south you have South Africa, where the Negroes are subdued. To the north, Tanzania, where they govern. Moçambique in the middle—geographically and spiritually.’
‘Isn’t that where they have a stupendous game preserve?’ Monica asked. I nodded, and she said, ‘Father saw it once and said it was the best in Africa.’ She hesitated, for the continent still held unpleasant memories, then snapped her fingers and said, ‘I think we should go. Right after Pamplona.’
‘Can we drive there?’ Gretchen asked.
‘No possibility,’ I said, ‘but boats go down … cheap too … car wouldn’t cost much.’
‘There’s a Greek boat which leaves Barcelona on the afternoon of the fifteenth,’ Holt said.
‘How do you know that?’ Monica asked.
‘It’s my business to know transportation. Sails the fifteenth of every month from Barcelona. Seventeenth from Livorno.’
Excitement began to grow, and Gretchen asked, ‘Do we need visas?’
‘Yes, but you can apply for them in Barcelona,’ Holt said. ‘They’ll be stamped in your passports at Luanda. That’s in Africa … on the Atlantic side.’ He also knew the cost and the duration of validity.
‘What kind of country is it?’ Cato asked.
I answered, ‘You’ve heard the phrase “miles of beach?” Well, Moçambique has thousands of miles … of the most beautiful vacant beaches in the world. Jungle, huge rivers, fascinating islands, good cities. The more I think about it, the better it sounds. If you can afford the boat fare.’
Without hesitating, Gretchen said, ‘If Joe and Britta need funds, I can let them have some. But could we drive our car in Moçambique?’
‘Good roads,’ I said.
‘Not good … but roads,’ Holt corrected. ‘He flies everywhere. I have to go by car.’
‘Do you suppose we could call the shipping line in Barcelona?’ Gretchen asked.
So Britta got on the phone, spoke to the operator in Spanish, and in a surprisingly short time Gretchen was asking the Greek line if they had any cabins to Moçambique. Then she frowned and shared her disappointment with us. ‘All booked,’ she reported, and was about to hang up when Monica grabbed my arm and said, ‘You know the Greek shipowners. Do something.’
So I took the phone and started to explain that I had some association with their company, whereupon the man on the other end interrupted and I could hear him speaking to someone. Soon a Greek I had met in the Torremolinos negotiations was shouting at me in a tremendous voice, ‘Yes, one of our boats does sail from Barcelona on July 15. Yes, it’s completely booked. Oh, you’re Mr. Fairbanks of World Mutual! Of course I remember, the one who arranged our loan! You need three cabins? Mr. Fairbanks, for you we have just dispossessed an entire Turkish family. Can your people telegraph us five thousand pesetas immediately? They can pay the balance in American traveler’s checks when they arrive … Yes, we can accommodate a Volkswagen pop-top.’
I pointed to ea
While Gretchen went to the telegraph office, the other four remained in the alcove and engaged in the type of discussion that was being conducted in all parts of Pamplona at the moment: ‘Shall we stay for the last fight, or shall we duck out a day early?’ Prudent people counseled getting out of the city early, for after the last fight the roads, particularly to France and Barcelona, would be jammed; but the more daring, who had paid eight or ten dollars for their tickets to that last fight, argued that it would be shameful to quit San Fermín before it ended. Our young people, with five to share the driving, decided to stay for the fight and ride all night.
That agreed upon, they began asking questions about the adventure to which they had so hastily committed themselves, and Holt and I answered as best we could. When Gretchen returned she had Clive with her, and he said, ‘I can go only as far as Barcelona. Then I’ll have to duck off to Ibiza, but Moçambique sounds super.’
I said, ‘It could prove very important, and for a reason you’d never guess. You’ve been living in cities … and ersatz places like Torremolinos and Pamplona. It would do you good to see nature in a place like Moçambique … immense jungles and rivers you’ve never dreamed of. Before a man’s thirty he ought to see for himself what nature is really like.’
‘Sounds reasonable,’ Joe said.
Then an incident occurred which epitomized those last days at Pamplona. Two young men whom I had not seen before were sitting in the alcove next to us, and they must have heard our conversation, for they excused their impertinence and asked if they could join us. ‘Are you heading for Moçambique?’ one asked. When Gretchen nodded, they asked, ‘Any chance of our going along?’ I was amazed when our group seriously weighed the possibility but concluded that there wouldn’t be room.
Seeing the dejection on the young men’s faces, Clive snapped his fingers as if trying to recall a name or a place. ‘Wait a minute! Those three girls at Bar Txoco. Weren’t they going to Greece? They wanted some man to go along to sort of look out for them. Cato, you know the ones I mean.’