“How sad and strange we all are,” I said to Don.
“That’s what had me so maudlin yesterday. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Let’s just be good friends who know these things but don’t have to say them.”
“All right,” he said, and looked at his hands, and drank some more of his beer, and the afternoon wore on this way until it was time for the corrida.
The young matador Cayetano Ordonez was a boy, really, but he moved so naturally and with such grace it seemed as if he were dancing. The deep red serge of his cape was alive with even the slightest flick of his arms. He had a way of planting his feet and leaning forward slightly, facing whatever came and urging the bull to charge him with the slightest gesture or glance.
Ernest had been in a foul mood when we entered the ring for the corrida but was starting to come awake as Ordonez moved. Duff got up to sit nearer to him, seeing the change.
“My God, but that’s a fine man,” Duff said.
“He’s the real article all right,” Ernest said. “Watch this.”
Ordonez was leading his bull in, turning one veronica and then another tighter one with his cape, drawing the bull magnetically. The picadors had backed off because they knew Ordonez had him and was in complete control. It was a dance, and it was also great art. His knowledge was primal and ancient and he carried it so naturally and easily for one so young.
“Some are just going through the motions,” Ernest said. “It’s pretty, all right, but it doesn’t mean anything. This hombre, he knows you have to get near enough to die. You have to already be dead really in order to live and to conquer the animal.”
Duff nodded, taken over by his enthusiasm, and, God help me, I was too. Ernest’s eyes, as he spoke, were suddenly nearly as alive as Ordonez’s cape. The intensity bubbled up from a deep place in him and came into his face and his throat, and I saw the way he was connected to Ordonez and the bullfight, and to life as it was happening, and I knew that I could hate him all I wanted for the way he was hurting me, but I couldn’t ever stop loving him, absolutely, for what he was.
“Now look,” he said. The bull came in low, his left horn pushed forward, his neck twisting. Ordonez’s thigh was inches from the bull’s powerful legs, and he leaned nearer, so that when the bull’s head lifted, searching for the cape, he just grazed Ordonez’s belly. We could almost hear a whisper as the horns passed the cloth of his silk jacket. A gasp went up in the crowd, because this is what they had come to see.
“You’ll never see it done better than that,” Ernest said, throwing his hat to his feet in respect.
“Goddamned beautiful,” Duff said.
We all sighed, and when the bull had been broken and was on its knees, bowing, Ordonez ran the sword in clean. Everyone stood, cheering, the whole crowd moved and taken over by the spectacle and the mastery. I stood, too, and applauded like crazy, and I must have been standing in a particularly bright ray of sun because Ordonez looked up at me then, up and into my face, and his eyes took in my hair.
“He thinks you’re
The young matador bent over the bull, slicing off its ear with a small knife. He called a boy over from the stands and sent him to me with the ear cupped in his palms. He delivered it shyly, barely daring to look at me, but I could tell he felt it was a very great privilege to carry it for Ordonez. I didn’t quite know how to accept it, what the rules were for such things, and so simply held out my hands. It was black and triangular and still warm, with only the faintest trace of blood-the strangest thing I’d ever held.
“I’ll be damned,” Ernest said, clearly very proud.
“What will you do with it?” Duff asked.
“Keep it, of course,” Don said, and handed me his handkerchief so I could wrap it inside and also wipe my hands.
Still standing, I held the ear in the handkerchief and looked down into the ring where Ordonez was being buried in flowers. He glanced up at me, bowed low and deeply, and then returned to being adored.
“I’ll be damned,” Ernest said again.
There were five more bullfights that day, but none matched the beauty of the first. When we went to the cafe after, we were all still thrumming with it, even Bill, who couldn’t stomach most of the day, particularly the way two of the horses were gored and went down and had to be killed quickly while everyone watched. It was all terrible and terribly intense, and I was ready for a drink.
I passed the ear around the table so everyone could admire it and be horrified in turn. Duff got drunk very quickly and began to flirt openly with Harold, who was too surprised and pleased to be discreet about it. The two disappeared at one point, which had Pat furious. When an hour or more had passed, they wandered back in a very jolly mood, as if nothing were amiss.
“You little bastard,” Pat said to Harold. He stood and immediately lurched to one side.
“Oh, put a lid on it, darling,” Duff said blithely. But Pat wouldn’t be chided.
“Just get the hell away from us, would you?” he said to Harold.
“I don’t think Duff would like that. You want me here, don’t you?”
“Of course, darling, I want everyone.” She reached for Ernest’s glass. “Be a pal, would you?”
Ernest nodded; she could have the glass, could have every drink on the table as far as he was concerned. It was Harold who disgusted him. “Running to a woman,” he said under his breath. “What’s lower than that?”
The waiter came around with more drinks and food, but the evening wouldn’t be set right. A canker boiled up and tainted everything that had been so powerful and fine.
Ernest sensed this, too, and tried to bring the talk around to Ordonez and his posture, his veronicas.
“Which is the veronica, again?” Duff said.
“It’s when the matador stands turned to the bull with his feet fixed and swings the cape away from the bull very slowly.”
“Yes, of course,” Duff said. “It was marvelous, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t believe her, Hem,” Pat said meanly. “She doesn’t remember any of it.”
“Give a girl a break, Pat.” She turned back to Ernest. “I’m just a little tight now. I’ll remember more tomorrow. I swear I’ll be good then.”
Ernest looked at her sadly. “All right,” he said, but he was clearly disappointed in her and with the whole group. The air had gone out of everything.
Back at the hotel that night, I took the ear, folded it into several more handkerchiefs, and put it in my bureau drawer.
“The thing will stink before long,” Ernest said, watching me do it.
“I don’t care.”
“No, I wouldn’t either.” He started to undress slowly and thoughtfully. “When this is all over,” he said finally, “let’s follow Ordonez to Madrid and then Valencia.”
“Will it ever be over?”
“Of course it will.” He turned to face me. “Ordonez was wonderful, wasn’t he? He makes all of this seem very ugly and very stupid.”
I closed the bureau drawer, then took off my clothes and climbed into bed. “I’m ready to forget Pamplona. Why don’t we try now? Help me, will you?”
At the end of that very long week, we disbanded, and everyone went off separately. Don left for the Riviera looking sad and exhausted. Bill and Harold were headed back to Paris, but took Pat and Duff as far as Bayonne. Ernest and I boarded a train to Madrid, where we took rooms at the Pension Aguilar, an unfashionable hotel in the Calle San Jeronimo that was small and very quiet with no tourists. It was like heaven after Pamplona. We went to the bullfights every day and were there the afternoon Juan Belmonte, arguably the best torero of all time, was badly gored in the belly and carried off to the hospital. We’d followed his fights for some time, and Ernest had always admired his bowlegged and hard-jawed determination, but we began to see, even before Belmonte was injured, that Ordonez was nearly as great as the master. His movements were perfection, and his bravery never wavered, and we watched him, both of us, in awe.
One afternoon Ordonez paid me the very great honor of letting me hold his cape before the corrida began. He came very close and I saw the utter smoothness of his boy’s face and the depth and clarity of his eyes. He said
