him. Even the men broke at that. Paco had his fists buried in his eyes. The man next to him was crying. They knew that they were seeing it. The impossible genius of man and beast in their dance of death.
The silence was so absolute when Pepe went to exchange the straight sword for the curved killing sword that Javier believed he could hear the sound of Pepe’s light-black pumps on the sand of the plaza. The bull watched him, front legs slightly splayed, foreleg and shoulder still slick with blood, chest heaving in silent bellows, the banderillas clacking a death rattle on his back. His dance partner returned, the muleta under his arm, the new lethal sword at his side. Pepe’s long shadow met the bull’s head and walked into him.
The horns came up. Their minds re-engaged. The crowd, who knew that if Pepe killed Biensolo well he would get everything — ears, tail,
The moment. The speed was breathtaking as the two forces shunted together.
But it was wrong. Pepe’s head came up. The sword struck bone and span away. The right horn sliced into his inner thigh and with a derisive flick Biensolo tossed him in the air. It was so fast nobody moved as Pepe tumbled in the triumphant updraught from the bull’s horns. The reed body came down, as broken as a torturer’s victim, and the horn disappeared into his belly. The bull drove forward, head down, a recollected atavism at work now that their pact had been broken. He rammed into the planks of the barrier with a splintering thud that seemed to wind the entire audience.
Pepe’s team erupted over the wall. The stillness went out of the crowd and a keening cry went up from the women. Javier ran down, stumbling over the heads of the horrified spectators. He sprinted to the barrier where Pepe was pinned. The bull savagely rammed his quarry with brand new, brilliant strength. Pepe grasped the horn in his stomach with both hands like a general who’d seen disaster and dispatched himself. His face bore only the sadness of regret.
The team worked to distract the bull. Hands reached over the barrier to hold Pepe. His rag legs, with a ghastly slash of red where the femoral artery thumped out thick, dark, vital blood, flapped and slapped against the wooden planks.
The bull pulled away, turned viciously on the waving capes around him and eyed each one individually like a victorious but unpopular emperor who has to endure the frivolity of peacetime politics.
They lifted Pepe over the barrier, arms now open, the red burgeoning from his stomach, and for a moment he was as pitiful as a
Javier ran after the six men holding Pepe, who reached out a hand to him. The news travelled fast and they didn’t bother with the infirmary but took him directly to the ambulance. The paramedics put him on a stretcher and threw him into the back.
Pepe called for Javier, his words hardly more than breath.
Falcon leapt over the back of the paramedic who was already slapping a compress on to Pepe’s stomach wound. The ambulance lurched away from the plaza. The other paramedic cut away the trouser and plunged his hands into the gaping wound in Pepe’s thigh. Pepe arched his back, cried out in agony. The paramedic called for a clamp. A packet was thrown at Javier, who tore it open and held the clamp out to the paramedic whose hands were in the wound, trying to find the artery. Javier took hold of Pepe’s hand, cradled his head in his lap. There was no blood in Pepe’s face and the pallor of death was creeping over him. Javier gripped his shoulders, whispered in his ear everything that he could think of that would help him hold on.
The ambulance careered down Cristobal Colon, sirens blaring, and headed down the underpass by the Plaza de Armas. Pepe ran his tongue over his lips. His mouth was as dry as cardboard from the catastrophic fluid loss, his hand as cold as dead meat. The paramedic cut up the sleeve of Pepe’s traje de luces and tore a sack of blood from the fridge. The other paramedic shouted for the clamp. Javier leaned forward and they clamped the femoral artery. He turned to help plug in the litre of blood to Pepe’s arm. Javier roared at Pepe to hold on. He saw him trying to speak. He put his ear to his lips. Even the boy’s breath was chill.
‘I’m sorry for that,’ said Pepe.
29
It had rained during the night. The new day arrived rinsed and refreshed. The sun played over the beads of moisture on the dripping trees and the first jacarandas came into high purple flower. Falcon stopped when he saw them, pulled over and dropped his window. He had rarely done this in the city — found in nature an expression of the complexities of the human condition. But the high, fragile, fern-like green leaf of the jacarandas feathering against the clean blue sky with the clusters of pale purple flowers hanging in the windless morning spoke the same language, could talk to anyone about pain.
He turned on the car radio. The local news was all about Pepe Leal. The media were trying to make a story about the fact that just as Pepe was going in for the kill his head had come up. A bullfight journalist talked inconclusively about the incomprehensible distraction. Someone on the panel mentioned camera flashes, the number of people trying to capture the moment. Another person said he remembered a bigger flash. The bullfight journalist scoffed. The myth had begun. Falcon turned off the radio.
By the time he arrived at the Jefatura the men had already dispersed. Only Ramirez remained. They shook hands. Ramirez embraced him and offered his condolences. He handed him a message, which told him that Comisario Leon wanted to see him as soon as he arrived. He took the lift up to the top floor, looking at his vague reflection in the stainless-steel panels. He was held together by threads. There would be no resistance from him.
Ten minutes later he was going back down. The weight of command had been lifted from his shoulders. He had been given two weeks compassionate leave and would have to undergo full psychological assessment on his return. He had said nothing. He was defenceless. He went to his office and cleared out his desk to find there were no personal items, only some letters, which he put in his pocket, and his police-issue revolver, which he should have returned to the armoury but didn’t.
At 6 p.m. he attended the funeral of Pepe Leal. The whole bullfighting community was in attendance. Paco was there, inconsolable and uncontrollable. He bawled into his hands, his shoulders shaking, the whole tragedy weighing down on them. Everybody cried. The mourners, the cemetery workers, the flower sellers, the onlookers, the grave
