Mexico: A Novel Part 17

The mighty roars that engulfed the arena signified that Gomez had gotten to his feet, and Ledesma turned to look at the bowlegged little matador just as the bull, unlocked from the spell into which he had fallen, charged with tremendous power. Deftly, Gomez kept him under control with three fine, low pa.s.ses. As the great beast wheeled his half ton of muscle and bone in the sand, the crowd recognized the risks the matador had taken.

When he came to the barrier to get his sword for the kill, Gomez asked me unemotionally, "You get good pictures of that?"

"The best," I a.s.sured him.

"Get pictures of this kill, too," he said bluntly.

He went in hard and true, right over the horns. As the bull took a dozen faltering steps and dropped dead, the crowd shouted wildly. Instead of acknowledging the cheers, Juan Gomez did the sort of thing that made other matadors hate him. He ignored the crowd and marched over to the cave-like room from which the rancher had been watching his bulls.

"Come out, Don Fernando," Gomez insisted, and the hangers-on pushed the rancher into the pa.s.sage and out into the ring. Together the two men, the bandy-legged little Indian and the tall rancher, circled the arena, and as he pa.s.sed us I heard Gomez say: "If you give us brave bulls they don't have to be suave. It's my job to make them suave."

The crowd knew that the rancher should properly have taken a turn in the arena after Victoriano's bull, a truly fine animal, and not after the Indian's, which was unruly. But Gomez, by his courage and skill, had made the wild bull good and now he insulted the Leals, disdained the crowd that had applauded them, and scorned Leon Ledesma, who had been paid to publicize them. Veneno, watching the goings-on in the ring, thought: I'd like to get my pic into that Indian, just once.

His family didn't accomplish much with their second bull, which was not as difficult as the one Gomez had just fought but far too ugly for Victoriano to play around with. The matador allowed his brothers to place the sticks and engineered a halfway decent kill, which produced neither boos nor applause. As the bull was being dragged out Victoriano thought: "One good one, one bad one. Just like Gomez. The day's a draw. But on Sunday, with Palafox bulls, we'll show him how to fight." The trumpet sounded for the last bull of the afternoon.

It belonged, naturally, to Paquito. The young man's manager warned him of the important people here. "If you want contracts, do something."

Unfortunately for Paquito, his last bull was another bad one. The young fellow, although lacking the skill of Juan Gomez, nevertheless tried to emulate him in subduing the dangerous animal by courage alone. Ledesma, watching carefully since he had received a small purse to say something good about the boy, was worried: 'This is going to be pretty bad."

But Paquito's placement of the sticks was an impressive show of bravery, and the audience warmed to him. Encouraged, by the time he took the cloth and sword for the final act of the fight, he was prepared to try some special feat that would save the day for him, as Gomez by bravery alone had rescued his. But it was apparent to those of us in the pa.s.sage that the young torero was not sure what his gesture ought to be, and in this uncertain frame of mind he went out to face the bull.

His first pa.s.s was a lucky one. By accident Paquito had planted himself where the bull intended going, and the resulting fusion of man and beast was both artistic and exciting. "Ole!" cried the crowd, hopeful they were going to see something after all. Spurred on, the young man achieved three more thrilling pa.s.ses, and the loud cries of encouragement from the cheap seats tempted him to try a pa.s.s that most matadors reserved for what they called the stop-and-go bulls, the perfect animals that charge along straight and true lines. This pa.s.s, called the manoletina after the greatest matador of recent years, required Paquito to keep the sword and cloth in his right hand, as if for a regular pa.s.s, with the tip of the cloth in his left hand behind his back. Thus the target area provided by the cloth was markedly diminished, and the matador had to pa.s.s the bull under his right arm and very close to his body.

Juan Gomez watching the attempt, mused: "I wouldn't try it with this bull." Victoriano said nothing but by instinct edged a few steps closer so that if the bull caught the boy there would be a better chance of rescue. Old Veneno, also reacting to instinct, motioned Chucho and Diego nearer the barrier so they might leap into the ring if trouble developed, then relaxed upon seeing that his sons had antic.i.p.ated him.

I saw Leon Ledesma glance at Paquito's manager as if to ask, "You think this is all right?" The manager nodded and pointed to a group of impresarios. Ledesma came over to stand by me and said, "Well, if he manages it, I'll have something to write about."

"Me, too," I said. "If the kid does something really fine, maybe we'll use it in the story. Show them how tough this racket really is," but the journalist in me was thinking: So far we lack a good-focus shot of a man actually being tossed-if he tries the manoletina with this bull, he's going right up in the air. Eyes on my viewfinder, I heard the young matador calling, "Eh, toro!"

By luck he persuaded the animal to charge directly under his right arm, the banderillas in the beast's back clattering noisily across the matador's chest. It was a tremendous pa.s.s and the crowd bellowed, "Ole!" Veneno, although it was no business of his, ran to the barrier and shouted, 'That's enough," but the boy's manager, hoping to impress the impresarios from the north, shouted, "Keep it going."

Paquito, deluded by the roar of the crowd, launched the pa.s.s again, and again he brought the powerful bull close to his ribs. Confident that he had learned how to dominate this bull, he shut his ears to the advice being shouted at him by older men and elected to give one more display of his courage, a pa.s.s that had become his specialty in the small plazas where smaller bulls are fought. This time his luck failed him, and as the huge bull bore down, people started screaming: "Cuidado! Take care!" But the warning came too late.

With a ripping sound the bull's right horn tore into the boy's left side. There was a confusion of legs and arms spinning in the air and then a collective gasp in the arena as the boy fell awkwardly back upon the horns. With lightning speed the animal tossed the boy three times, catching him on each descent in some new att.i.tude, so that the two deadly horns chopped deep into the r.e.c.t.u.m and the chest and the face and the neck. With a violent toss of his powerful head, the bull threw the young matador hard against the boards, then wheeled for a last a.s.sault and plunged his red-stained horns into the limp body, crushing it against the barrier.

Everyone knew the boy was dead. In one flashing moment the celebrated compet.i.tion between Leal and Gomez had exploded into a tragedy of which they were not a part. I saw it all through the viewfinder of my rapid-fire camera and, as I automatically clicked the pictures that were later to become famous in bullfight circles, I thought: I'm shooting the wrong man. This one's wearing the scarlet suit. I got a tremendous shot of the four Leals wrestling with the bull, old Veneno holding the tail while Victoriano tried to save the boy. Finally, as I photographed the arena workmen in blue pants and white shirts bearing the broken body toward the infirmary, I had another ugly thought: That blood smearing those white shirts will tell the whole story.

But what I remember most about the death of Paquito is that in the hush of hauling him away I could see the top of the Ferris wheel as it moved slowly through the sky.

When the ring was emptied, Juan Gomez stalked out to kill Paquito's bull, for it was the senior matador's obligation to see that the fight ended as planned even though a man had died. In mordant silence, Gomez led the animal to the proper location for a kill, quieted it with four carefully executed pa.s.ses, then profiled as always. I wanted to shout, Don't try that, Juan. He's not your bull and he's proved he's deadly. You'll be forgiven if you kill this one with a Victoriano side swipe.

He refused the temptation; he would kill as he always had. When the bull started an unexpected charge, Gomez calmly surrendered his stance, and encouraged the animal to gallop away and release its wild fury. But again, with those low, knowledgeable pa.s.ses he tamed the bull and again he profiled. This time he drove in deep, right over the still-red horns that had caught Paquito. The bull staggered sideways and fell.

Like a bowlegged gnome in a fairy tale, Juan Gomez came silently back to the barrier, his dignity restored, his telefono forgiven.

Chapter 9.

THE MEANING OF DEATH.

AS SOON AS I could elbow my way through the crowd that lingered in the bullring, still shocked by the tragic death of Paquito, I reached the Avenida Gral. Gurza and rushed along pathways that led through the central plaza. My task was to get my story and my sixteen rolls of film to New York as rapidly as possible.

As I took the steps leading to the Terrace I called for the Widow Palafox and gave her two commissions: "Call that man with the light plane. He must fly my films to Mexico City airport to catch one of the big planes heading north. And see if the man at the telegraph office will stand by till I get my copy done."

I ran up the stairs to my room and started typing as fast as I could, but soon realized that I knew practically nothing about the dead matador. But as I tried to flesh out the few facts known to me; I had the good luck to jiear coming into the House of Tile the troupe of Juan Gomez. Dashing out the door and down the stairs I was able to grab Cigarro and bring him back to my room, where he sat on a chair beside me and, in his near-illiterate manner, told me all he knew about Paquito de Monterrey.

"Poor family. Mother ran boardinghouse maybe. Two daughters work there doing what? Father gone, long ago. Maybe work in Texas don't send no money. Paquito, real name Francisco, in English Frankie, learn pa.s.ses in the street...."

So the story went of a Mexican boy who wanted to be a bullfighter to escape the ugly poverty of his childhood. With me typing as fast as I could we put down each sc.r.a.p of information, including the fact that Paquito had once been a choirboy in a storefront church operated by an uncle. I would leave it to New York to sort out the basic story and clean up my sentence structures, but as I was about to end my story I had an afterthought: I believe you will find film ca.s.sette Color #9 a shot of me helping to dress Paquito prior to the fight. Me holding towel between his legs, he with red jacket draped on chair.

I was satisfied that with such an unusual photograph the story would be sure to run. Thanking Cigarro for his valuable help, I ran downstairs and back through the plaza to the telegraph office. On the way I came upon a group of male singers accompanied by two guitars, and when I heard their words I was satisfied that Paquito de Monterrey had already found a secure place in taurine history.

When a matador is killed in the bullring it is customary for local poets to launch his immortality with a series of folk poems, which occasionally approach high standards. For example, many Americans are familiar with Garcia Lorca's lament for the death of his torero friend Ignacio Sanchez Mejias. I was not surprised, therefore, as I hurried through the crowds to hear this group of musicians offering a mournful ballad, which they had written, words and music, in the relatively brief time in which I composed my story. It was called, the bra.s.s-voiced lead singer announced with his handheld bullhorn, "Lament for Paquito de Monterrey."

"He had an eighth-grade education, Could write and read the finest books. He will be mourned by the entire population, For he was a young man of the most commanding looks.

"Weep for Paquito!

His cup of tragedy is full, Killed by Bonito, That unfair and disgraceful bull.

"His sainted mother lives in Monterrey, Where Mexican workmen make the world's finest gla.s.s.

Now her son must be laid away.

Because he failed to make the proper pa.s.s.

"Weep for Paquito!

Through all of Mexico's fair lands.

Killed by Bonito On Toledo's bloodstained sands."

Within two days we would be hearing this lament over the radio from Mexico City, and by the end of the week it would be popular throughout the nation, for Mexico reveled in its sorrow whenever a matador was killed. Paquito's lament contained two phrases that were obligatory for such songs. Any bull that succeeded in killing his matador was thenceforth known as "that unfair and disgraceful bull," as if no one realized that when men fight wild animals the beast must sometimes win. Yet at the moment of vilifying the lethal animal, the public also enshrined his memory, so that throughout Mexico men who loved the art would thenceforth never say: 'There was this promising kid from Monterrey who was killed by a bull." They would invariably say: "Remember when Paquito was killed by Bonito?" Thus the matador Balderas was killed not by a bull but by Cobijero, Joselito by Bailador, and Manolete by Islero.

The second requirement for a good lament was that it contain the phrase "his sainted mother." This was a convention of which I did not entirely approve, for most of the bullfighters I knew had mothers who had thrown them out of the house at the age of nine. The last time a leading matador died in the ring, his mother was accorded the compulsory sainthood in spite of the fact that up to that particular moment she had run a house of prost.i.tution whose three princ.i.p.al attractions were her own daughters, the sisters of the dead matador. In fact, he had become a bullfighter princ.i.p.ally because he grew tired of whispering to any man who looked like an American tourist a touching appeal his mother had taught him: "You like to sleep with my seestair, very clean."

I had no idea what Paquito's mother was like. Chances were she was an old harpy, but nevertheless the mariachis continued wailing about "his sainted mother," and accompanied by this phrase the young matador achieved immortality. His fame was guaranteed by the series of pictures I had taken showing the bull goring him to death. When our magazine ran this sequence Drummond labeled it, with his customary reserve, "the greatest series of bullfight pictures ever taken." I had seen better taken by German refugees in Spain using old-style Leicas, but who was 1 to contradict my editor?

It was half past ten before I completed the dispatch of story and film to New York, and as I walked back toward my hotel I was a.s.sailed by humiliating regrets: I ought to have written something new and perceptive about this sudden, dramatic death, but all I came up with was the same old guff. "Today the Festival of Izmiq in the beautiful colonial city of Toledo saw the career of a promising young matador snuffed out by an enraged bull. His loving family in Monterrey, who depended upon his earnings in the ring, was left dest.i.tute. Etc., etc." I had even stooped so low as to quote from the newly composed "Lament."

Weep for Paquito!

His cup of tragedy is full.

Killed by Bonito, That unfair and disgraceful bull.

What was even more deplorable than the junk I'd written was my personal reaction to the death: "d.a.m.n it all, the wrong man died. The background pictures, the story line-all wasted. Now, if it had been Victoriano or Gomez, the piece would've had significance."

Once before I'd been tempted into such shameful speculation regarding my work. It had occurred during a battle in Korea. Early one Sunday morning I had gone out to photograph the operations of a patrol-in-strength and we had penetrated fairly deeply into Chinese lines when we were hit by considerable enemy fire. We fought our way free and lost Only six dead. Some of our men had behaved rather well and I felt sure that I had caught some unusual battle-action pictures.

But as we climbed the rugged Korean mountains that led back to our trenches I realized that this d.a.m.ned patrol had gone out on Sunday, which would be Sat.u.r.day back in New York, and no matter how fast I filed, my story would miss the next week's edition, and by the week after that no one would give a d.a.m.n about a casual night action in Korea that was already two weeks old. I had wasted a good story, and I must have been under strain because I remember snapping at the lieutenant who had led the patrol: "You stupid jerk! Why couldn't we have gone out on Friday?"

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" the young officer asked.

"Well, if we'd gone on Friday I could have gotten this film back in time and you would've had your picture in the magazine."

Very seriously he replied, "But Friday was impossible because we were shifting units at the front." We considered this for a moment, after which he added brightly, "But we might have gone on Sat.u.r.day. Could you have made the deadline then?"

"Yes," I snapped. And neither of us saw anything ridiculous about our trying to move up by one day a patrol in which six young men from Texas and Minnesota and Oklahoma had been killed.

It was that way when you were a writer. You wanted life to adjust to patterns you had devised. Now the Festival of Ixmiq was shot to h.e.l.l because the wrong man had died. 1 told Drummond: Looks to me as if the story we had planned is dead. I feel certain that the Leal-Gomez bit is washed up and whereas the Ixmiq idea had a lot of merit originally, whatever happens from here on out has now got to be anticlimactic. I might as well come home but I'll stay to see the finish as a kind of vacation.

I felt sure Drummond would agree with my a.n.a.lysis, for with the shots of Paquito taking the horn so dramatically already in the magazine, there would be no need for a second story and I ought to fly back to New York. But did I want to follow the suggestion, even though I had made it? Clearly no! I wanted to remain in Mexico, to see the conclusion of this feria, to ascertain what steps I should take next to clarify my own life.

I was now in front of the cathedral, to which small groups of men and women clothed in black were coming, summoned by the bronze bells that tolled mournfully, for when a matador died it was customary to hold memorial services. In a curious way I thought I might have played a role in goading him to take the extra chances that resulted in his death. I recalled how, in the lonely room where he dressed, he had been so appreciative that I had come to photograph him. Perhaps he tried those dramatic pa.s.ses in hopes I'd catch some good shots of him for the newspapers. Of all the visitors to Toledo, I was the one most obligated to attend his wake.

Behind me the mariachis sang their own benediction: "At the manoletina he was by far the best, Knowing no fear with any bull. But now he has got to be laid to rest, Because Bonito made him look like a fool."

It was about eleven that night when I joined the crowd that would be attending the service for Paquito, and as I moved along I became aware of a small man in his mid-sixties who was hurrying toward me. For a moment I did not recognize him, for he was dressed in an ordinary blue business suit, but he obviously knew who I was, so I asked in Spanish, "Don't I know you?"

"Sure, you do," he replied in the American vernacular he loved. "Father Gregorio. I taught you your catechism in the cathedral cla.s.s you attended in the good days."

"I remember! Mother was determined to make me a good Catholic. She failed. You failed."

"Only because your father never allowed me a clean shot at you." He chuckled.

"Is it true? Did you remain right here in the heart of Toledo? General Gurza's troops searching for secret priests like you all the time?"

"G.o.d allowed me to achieve that act of faith."

"How did you have the courage?"

"The help of good people like your mother. Prayer. I was no great hero, Norman. A job to be done. Who could refuse?"

I was confused to see my old friend in street clothes, for although I had witnessed the intense religious hatred that accompanied the revolution, I had forgotten that Mexican law still maintained a strict ban against clerical garb, except within the limits of church property. A rather satisfactory concordat had been worked out between church and state, but even so the state insisted, "We would rather not see priests on the street," so they were forced to wear ordinary clothes.

"I haven't seen you for years," I said with real pleasure. "Are you still stationed in Toledo?"

"In the cathedral," he said proudly. "I'm not the princ.i.p.al priest, but tonight I'm conducting a Ma.s.s for the dead bullfighter."

"I'm attending," I said.

"I'll be proud to have a son of John Clay and Graziela Palafox join me," he a.s.sured me. "You like to talk with me while I change?"

We did not enter the main door of the cathedral but went down the side street that contained the open-air chapel, but before we reached the old fortress-church of which it was a part, we ducked into a small side door that led to the cathedral. "The old fortress," he said, "no longer pertains to the cathedral."

"What happened?"

'The state appropriated it for an orphanage." He spoke with no bitterness, but it was apparent that he resented the dismemberment of his church, for throughout history the huge cathedral and the even larger fortress-church had formed one unit, and to think of one divorced from the other was for me, and apparently for Father Gregorio, too, impossible.

"The state has treated you badly, Father," I said as we entered the room where the priests dressed, but to my surprise he corrected me, saying brightly, "It's not too bad, Norman. We now worship openly, and not in secret as we did when you were a boy." Then, as he slipped into his ca.s.sock, he added, "There are many things we object to in the present arrangement, but the Church does have freedom to exist. Do you remember when you had to come see me in secret?"

I said, "That was a bad time, Father. We never knew who would be hanged next."

He adjusted his chasuble and remarked, "Those were the cherished days, Norman, when G.o.d tested us. Today, when I say Ma.s.s it is with a deep conviction." I studied him as he made final preparations to welcome into eternity the soul of a dead bullfighter, and he seemed hardly changed from the days when I first knew him in hiding in the House of Tile. He was sixty-six, a small man, about five feet three, weighing a hundred and twenty. He retained the nervous excitement he had always found in pastoral work, and although I had reason to think that like many Mexican priests he was deficient in education, since seminaries were not allowed in Mexico, he had acquired a satisfactory vocabulary and a constantly deepening understanding of G.o.d's ways with rural communities. His street clothes were shabby, but now that they were covered by his clerical vestments he seemed taller and better groomed. He carried his Bible as if it were his personal book and he had developed the habit of looking directly at people; he had done this consciously after long years of hiding, during which he had been afraid to look at anyone lest he betray the fact that he was a clandestine priest. He had escaped death more miraculously than most of his generation, for the revolutionary troops heard of his subterranean Ma.s.ses and were determined to trap him, but where a wiser man might have been betrayed by his own cleverness, this simple, earthy priest had muddled along and survived with his love of G.o.d.

One day, in the quiet years that followed the Revolution, one of General Gurza's colonels had visited the House of Tile as a private citizen and had said to the Widow Palafox, "If we had known you was hidin' that priest Gregorio we would of strung you up."

"He was a good priest," the proprietress a.s.sured the colonel. "If you had shot him you'd have destroyed a man who was to accomplish a lot for Mexico."

"One thing honest, senora," the illiterate colonel probed. "Did Gregorio conduct secret Ma.s.ses here at the House?"

"Yes," she replied. "I warned him not to. The servants warned him not to. And the soldier you left as guard warned him not to."

"My soldier?" the colonel asked.

"Yes, we bought him off. He knew about the bull at the Mineral-and the priest."

"You can always buy a Mexican soldier." The colonel laughed. "So the little priest went right ahead?"

"Regularly."

"He had courage," the colonel agreed. "One night we almost caught him. A little village south of here. d.a.m.ned little rat ran down a hole in the earth."

"That's why he was so strong," the widow explained. "Close to the earth yet close to G.o.d."

"About a year ago, when the trouble had ended, I slipped into a church to hear what kind of nonsense he was preachin'. I sat in the back and he looked at me across the heads of the people, and we nodded."

Now Father Gregorio, who no longer had to run, showed me the pa.s.sageway into the nave of the cathedral. As I slipped from the hidden door I saw the five Oklahomans, dressed in formal clothes, and from the manner in which they hesitated about taking seats I knew they had never worshiped in a Catholic church before, so I joined them.

When O. J. Haggard saw me approaching he came forward and whispered with the exaggerated solemnity that Protestants use in Catholic churches, "Say, I'm glad to see you. Where do we sit?"

"Anywhere," I explained and led them to a spot from which we could see Father Gregorio as he stood at the altar. As we sat down, I noticed that Mrs. Evans had tears in her eyes, so I said, "In bullfighting death happens."

"I had a son about his age," she replied. "He was lost over Germany."

I started to say, "I'm sorry," but Mrs. Evans seemed like a woman who did not want routine condolences, so I said, "I flew over j.a.pan. In some ways that was easier. Less flak."

"From what I hear, it was never easy. You had to fly over great distances of water, didn't you?" She found a seat next to me and said, "I wasn't prepared for what I saw today."

"n.o.body ever is," I replied. "The bull is so terribly swift when he finally hits the target."