Part 2 (2/2)

I tried to separate the two men because Lopez was much younger and more powerful than Don Cayetano and might have hurt him badly had he started throwing his fists, but to my astonishment the Don did not want my help. Indeed he started to attack Lopez, both physically and verbally: 'You're not a bullfighter, you're an a.s.sa.s.sin! At Mlaga I provided you with the two best bulls of the afternoon. They were perfect. Allowed you to do whatever you wished with them. Didn't you feel the magic, you fool?'

'I did,' Lopez shouted, 'and it terrified me. It wasn't real. No bulls behave with such perfection. When I saw El Viti kill his second while his feet were planted in stone, I knew I was involved in witchcraft of some kind. That bull wanted El Viti to kill him, and so did Paco Camino's. Somehow, you evil old man, you bewitched those animals, and since you hate me, I knew that in the last moments of the last bull, you'd use him to kill me.' Drawing back, Lopez pointed a long finger at Don Cayetano and said in a deep, menacing voice: 'I've discovered your secret, you agent of the devil. You'll not kill me with your witchcraft bulls. Not me!'

'You deserve to die on the horns of a bull, the indecent way you mistreat them-the horrible way you destroyed my two great bulls at Mlaga. Lopez, you could have left the ring on shoulders through the great gate if only you'd done your share!'

The matador thrust Don Cayetano aside and growled as he moved forward to pray to his Virgin for success and safety on Sunday: 'I'll see you in Seville, Don Cayetano, you and your evil tricks.'

'On Sunday, then,' Mota said, with a menace of his own. Each adversary stepped back with mock politeness to let the other pa.s.s, and the last I saw of Lopez he was kneeling in the exact spot occupied by Don Cayetano only a few minutes before.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST DAYS at the Seville spring feria was the last Sat.u.r.day, for then older men, who had not been able to partic.i.p.ate earlier in the week because of business responsibilities, paraded to give the procession a more stately character. After our early morning prayers in Triana, I rode my own horse alongside Don Cayetano's because I had hired a Spanish photographer to snap some shots of me riding with the subject of my article. I hoped his camera might catch us stopping at one of the more ornate casetas, accepting sherry from a seorita dressed in a red-and-gold flamenco costume. One picture like that would epitomize the feria and allow me more s.p.a.ce to describe the performance of the Mota bulls.

That afternoon the big event was the first appearance in the Maestranza of fighting bulls from the recently established ranch of the charismatic Peralta brothers, Rafael and Angel, who had grown up near Seville and who fought bulls from horseback. They were an extremely popular pair in Seville, and aficionados who attended the fight would be hoping that their bulls performed well. It promised to be a gala.

When bulls were fought from horseback, a skill that the brothers had perfected, this act in the corrida came first. This distinct art form placed the matador astride a marvelously trained horse with which he performed extraordinary feats of skill and daring, culminating in the moment when, guiding his horse only with his knees, he held aloft two banderillas, rode straight at the bull, leaned far out of his saddle and placed the barbs in the neck muscle of the charging bull, then nudged the horse away from the horns at the last possible moment. It was breathtaking, but not entirely to my taste.

Of course, the horseman would try also to kill while mounted, using a long lance, but this maneuver required such a demanding mixture of horsemans.h.i.+p, skill with the right arm and luck that it was rarely completed. In such a case the horseman dismounted, took an ordinary muleta and sword and dispatched the bull on foot. On this afternoon it would have been improper for either of the Peraltas to fight and kill their own bull, so the a.s.signment was given to the horseman Fermn Bohorquez, who performed commendably. The afternoon was off to a fine start, but the Peraltas' bulls, giving ample evidence that they came from a new ranch, so dispirited the other three matadors that they gave only perfunctory performances and the affair degenerated into a corrida that produced no ears for the matadors and no accolades for the Peraltas. True aficionados did not lament the disappointing afternoon; they accepted it as the luck of the draw and were consoled by the thought of tomorrow's opportunity to see whether the apparent revitalization of the bulls of Mota extended into a second Sunday. If it did, the fight in Seville could be historic.

The day was so important to the fortunes of Don Cayetano that he did not join the Sat.u.r.day-night revelry in his caseta, nor did I. We went to bed in a back room, rose early and drove across the bridge to the bullfighters' church, where we offered our prayers to the Virgen de los Toreros. Once again in the sunlight the Virgin seemed to smile at him, as if promising that his prayers would be answered. For breakfast we went to El Gallito, and as we approached the bar I chuckled at its colorful sign. Through the years Gypsy toreros about to fight in the Maestranza had stopped by to ask the rooster for good luck. If he helped them perform well, late that night they would come back, salute the tough little fellow and whisper 'Gracias.' Then they would turn to the church and tell the Virgin: 'We thank you, too.'

Breakfast at El Gallito was invariable: a hard roll toasted and soaked in olive oil and rubbed with garlic, a small copa of Machao, an anise liqueur, and perhaps a mug of bitter chocolate so thick you could hardly dunk your roll in it, accompanied sometimes by murderously greasy doughnuts laden with granulated sugar. It was a meal ideally suited for men who spend all day unloading s.h.i.+ps docked in the nearby river-not for a magazine reporter-but I had to admit it was delicious.

As we ate, a ragam.u.f.fin of ten or eleven came to our table and, after looking about cautiously, said: 'I know you, Don Cayetano. My brothers and I sometimes sneak out to your ranch at night with our muletas to fight your young bulls. They're fine animals and we hope they do well this afternoon.'

Cayetano, who could not be happy to hear that his bulls had been caped, said gruffly: 'You be careful doing that. You'll get yourself killed. Boys do, you know.'

'You don't take them to the police?' I asked Don Cayetano.

'No,' piped up the boy, 'and that's why we feel good about you, Don Cayetano.' He hesitated, then added: 'That's why I've come to warn you.'

'About what?'

'You yourself may be killed this afternoon.'

Don Cayetano blanched, took the boy by the arm and asked: 'What do you mean? I might be killed?'

The boy drew closer, looked around the cafe again and said in a whisper: 'It's Lzaro Lopez, he's an ugly man.'

'What about him?'

'We heard him say the other evening-my brother and I clean up this place, so no one notices us-'

'What did he say?'

'He was bragging to other bullfighters-said that on Sunday in the Maestranza he was going to kill you.'

'How was he going to do it?'

'The others asked the same question, but he wouldn't answer. Said only that he had found out your secret. Knew how you did it.'

'Did what?'

'He wouldn't say. Just repeated ”I know what he's up to with his bulls,” and no matter how many times they begged him to explain, all he would say was ”We Gypsies know these things. My sister tells fortunes, you know-she solves riddles.” And then he repeated: ”Tomorrow that son of a pig”-that's what he called you-”tomorrow he dies.” '

The boy had delivered his message to a man he admired and even considered in some strange way his friend, and he slipped away, but Don Cayetano, unwilling to see him go without a reward, told me quietly: 'Run after him and give him this. I want no spies to see me talking with him.' When I caught up with the boy he refused the money, saying: 'I fight his bulls at night. I owe him something,' but I insisted: 'You're a brave boy to fight bulls by moonlight and to come see Don Cayetano with such a message. You've earned the money. Take it.' He reached for it, but before letting him have it I asked: 'Lopez said his sister solves riddles? What does that mean?'

'She's a strange one. A witch maybe. When I was young we were afraid of her, but when my brother's wife was going to have a baby he went to see her and without ever seeing his wife the Egyptian told him: ”Twins. One boy, one girl,” and that's what came out. People say she sees things others don't.'

'Who is this Egyptian?'

'Magdalena Lopez. She calls herself The Egyptian. They learn how in Egypt.'

'What could she see about today's fight?'

'She and Lopez talked a long time-about Mota bulls, about mysterious happenings in Mlaga, and the fight in the church.... She told him something-magic and something like that.'

'You think she was serious when she warned her brother?'

'Oh, yes! That one doesn't play games.'

Intrigued, I asked: 'Could I see this Egyptian?' and without hesitating he said: 'You'll have to give money. She tells fortunes, you know.' When I indicated that this would be no problem he said: 'Come along,' and we moved toward the exit. But feeling I could not leave Don Cayetano alone in the bar, I went back and was somewhat relieved to find him surrounded by aficionados with whom he was discussing that afternoon's corrida.

Their interests were professional: 'Tell me, Don Cayetano, how could your bulls have been so rotten in Puerto de Santa Mara and so excellent in Mlaga?'

'When a bull ranch is on its way back to respectability, sometimes the older bulls can be pretty bad, never rotten as you say, but difficult. A rancher like me has to live with that.' Here he smiled expansively: 'But he gets his joy in seeing what his new bulls are doing, and mine are on their way back. This afternoon in the Maestranza you'll see how fine a Mota bull can be.'

'You really think so?'

'I'm convinced of it. If the matadors prove equal to their task, you'll see miracles.'

The men listened in silence, for they respected this old man, even though his fortunes were down at the moment. He was a neighbor, a compadre, so they meant it when several of them embraced him: 'Buena suerte, Don Cayetano.' As I left the group I thought that in Triana it means something to be the owner of a bull ranch, even one like Mota that's been declining.

The boy led me to a typical Spanish cottage opposite the Church of the Toreros, a small whitewashed affair jammed in between two larger ones, also white, all of them encroaching on the sidewalk lining the road that crossed the Guadalquivir into Seville. The house, marked by a colorful sign proclaiming LA EGIPCIANA, had four windows facing the street, each barred with a heavy iron grille to prevent the riffraff from ransacking the place. Other than its sign, it was indistinguishable from a thousand others to be found in the small towns of Spain, but when the boy led me inside I found myself in a unique world, for Magdalena Lopez was an authentic Gypsy fortune-teller, and the room in which she met with her clients exuded an air of sinister mystery. It was dominated by a round table covered by a hand-woven cloth with a fringe that reached down to the floor. On it rested a milky-white globe some twelve inches in diameter. Around the table were four comfortable-looking wooden chairs, and in the only one that had arms sat the woman who had so entranced me at the tapa bar. When she came forward to greet me, her graceful walk made her skirt sway in the most charming manner, and again I was captivated.

The room contained many objects bespeaking her trade: a stuffed owl, a six-pointed wooden star, a deck of cards fanned out and glued to a board, a tall, slim earthenware vase containing a bundle of sticks that protruded at uneven lengths and colorful chromolithographs of the pyramids, Luxor and the Sphinx. Shades were drawn over the grilled windows facing the street, but the solitary one in the opposite wall looked out on a garden with flowers.

'I bring an American,' the boy said. In colloquial Spanish she addressed me: 'I'm a businesswoman. I will tell you all things, but we go no further, Mr. Shenstone, until you place silver here,' and she indicated a circle woven into the cloth covering the table. While I responded to her request the boy said: 'Remember, Magdalena, I brought him. Something for me, too,' and she gave him some pesetas. He then turned to me: 'And you? How would you have found her without me?' After I too contributed, he ran off, leaving us alone.

As I sat down her comment proved she had continued to monitor the movements of Don Cayetano and me: 'You continue to visit the Virgin across the way.' When I nodded, she continued: 'You want to know about the corrida this afternoon, and I know the answers.'

'Will your brother do well?'

'Ears and tail.'

'And the other matadors?'

'You're not interested in them. You want to know about the bulls of Don Cayetano.'

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