But there are no Ferdinands, put out to pasture if they will not fight. The ones that won’t fight go to the slaughterhouse. My sweet mother, smelling of talcum powder and perfume, reading to me of Ferdinand smelling the flowers. Then she would get up and go into the kitchen and cut the skin from a lamb, as happy as Saint John in the operating room. Contradictions, half-truths. But this is true. Death in the afternoon is real danger, real death.
One of the toreros came up the stairs toward where they were sitting. He stopped in the barrera and spoke to a group of men. Two men stood up and embraced him. They are his father and his brother, Rhoda decided. The torero was tall, and lithe, like a dancer. Beneath his white shirt his skin seemed soft and white. Rhoda wanted to reach out and touch him, to wish him luck.
He sat down between the men he had embraced. The one who appeared to be his brother put an arm around his shoulder. They talked for a while. Then the torero got up as swiftly as he had arrived and left and went back down the stairs. The music grew louder, rose to a crescendo, descended, then rose again. The gates to the arena opened. The alguacil rode out in his tarnished suit, leading the paseo de cuadrillas. Then the matadors, the banderilleros, the picadors. The mayor threw down the key to the toril. The matador who had come into the stand was wearing a short black jacket now, a montera, a dress cape.
The procession filed back through the gate. The gate to the toril was opened and the bull ran out. The matador, Guillarmo Perdigo, walked out into the arena and the ceremony began. This was no hairdresser, no high school football game, this was the most exquisite and ancient ceremony Rhoda had ever seen. The matador spread his cape upon the ground, squared his shoulders, planted his feet. The bull charged across the arena. The matador executed a pass, then another, then turned and walked away, dragging his cape. The bull pawed the ground, was confused, walked away. The matador turned to face the bull again, spread out his cloak, called to the bull. The bull charged again, and then again. The matador passed the bull’s horns so close to his body, to his balls, to his dick. Rhoda held her breath. It’s amazing, Rhoda thought. Where have I been while this was going on?
Dudley and Saint John had not moved. Mariana was still. A second matador appeared. Then the third. The matadors each did a series of passes, then the picadors came out on horseback and stuck the pics into the shoulder muscles of the bull. Rhoda was sickened by the sight. Fascinated and repelled, afraid for the matador and trying to hate the bull, but there was no way to hate him now since he was outnumbered. She turned her eyes from the bull’s wounds, turned back to the matador who was alone with the bull again. This is so sexy, so seductive, she was thinking, the hips on that man, the softness of his face, of the skin beneath his white shirt. How many years has he worked to learn this strange art or skill? To allow that bull to move its horns so close to his hips, to his dick, then to turn his back and walk away. Still, to torture the bull. Rhoda, don’t fall for this meanness. It is mean. Still, it doesn’t matter, not really, not in the scheme of things. It is how things are, how things have always been. Men learned these skills to protect themselves from animals, to protect their children and their women. And it’s so sexy, so fucking wonderful and sexy. I would fuck that bullfighter in a second, AIDS scare or not. I bet they think everyone from the United States has it. I bet no one in a foreign country would fuck an American now. They probably wouldn’t fuck an American for all the money in the world. Rhoda leaned into the arena. The matador spread out his cape and made four beautiful and perfect passes, then drew the cape behind him and turned his back to the bull and walked away. He walked over to the barrio and was handed an older, redder cape and a sword. He came back out into the arena and displayed the sword against the cape and then prepared the cape for the kill. The bull looked confused, hesitant, worried. Perhaps he smelled his death. He walked away. “Toro,” the matador called, “toro, toro, toro.” The bull pawed the ground, made a fake pass, then moved back. The matador prepared again, spread out the red cape upon the ground, displayed the sword upon it, then moved the sword behind the cape, moved his feet very close together, then waited. The bull charged, the matador stuck the sword between the spinal column, planted it all the way to the hilt, and the bull’s lungs filled with blood and it fell to its knees.
“The sword goes in and severs the spinal column,” Saint John said. It was the first time he had spoken in thirty minutes. “It punctures the lungs and the lungs fill with blood. An easy death.”
“Compared to what?” Rhoda said.
“Anything you can think of.”
“What would be the easiest one?”
“Anna’s wasn’t bad. The shock of the freezing water would cushion the shock of the cyanide.”
“What would be the easiest thing of all?”
“Fifty Demerols. I have a jar at home in case I have a stroke. I don’t want to recover from a stroke.”
“Nor I,” Dudley said.
“Well, you probably won’t have to,” Rhoda said. “You’ll just ruin your liver getting hepatitis down here in Mexico and call me up and ask me to give you one. God, I hope I don’t have to give you a liver.”
“I hope so too.”
“Kidney,” Saint John put in. “They don’t transplant livers.”
The picador ran out onto the dirt floor, took out a silver dagger, delivered the coup de grâce. The matador stared at the bull, then turned his face to the sky and walked back across the dirt arena. Rhoda rose to her feet with the crowd. This is what theater was trying to do, she decided. This is what plays aspire to but this is real death, real catharsis, real combat and real battle, and the thing I cannot understand and my shrink cannot understand. This is not subject to Freudian analysis because this is older than Freud and besides I am not a German Jew. I am from a culture more deadly and cold than even these Spanish people descended from Moors. She looked at the face of her brother and the face of her cousin. They were completely satisfied. She was satisfied. The young men from California were still sitting. They had put their camera away. Even they knew that something had happened. Later, Rhoda thought, they will get drunk and blow it off. Whatever the matador represents they will not allow it in. They are future people, remaking the genes. No second-rate Mexican bullfighter can impress them. Perhaps nothing can impress them. They will just get on a talk show and explain it all away. They are the future, but I am not. Rhoda stood up, extracted some dollar bills from her purse, excused herself, and walked down through the still cheering crowd toward the barrio. She wanted to be near the matador, to breathe the air he breathed, to experience the terrible sexiness of his skin, to look at him. She walked down the steps toward the concession stand underneath the stadium. He was standing with his back to her, his back was sweating underneath the soft white cotton of his shirt, his hair reminded her of a painting she had seen once of a Spanish child, so black it was no color, his neck was soft and tanned and the skin on his shoulders beneath his shirt seemed to her to be the sexiest thing she had ever seen in her life. He turned and handed something to a woman in a yellow blouse. Rhoda withdrew her eyes and walked on down the stairs and stood by a long concrete tub which held beer and Cokes. Two men were selling the drinks. “Un Coke,” she said. “Por favor.” The vendor extracted one from the depths of the icy water and removed the top with a church key. He handed it to her and took her dollar. The blindfolded horse stood against a fence. A few tourists walked toward the stand, two small boys chased each other with make-believe swords, the heat was all around her. She drank the cold sweet drink, felt her body melt into the heat. She stood there a long time. Finally the matador came out of a gate and walked toward two men in black suits who were awaiting him. The men embraced. The matador held one of the men for a long time. They were the same height and their arms slid around each other’s shoulders. The black-suited man patted the matador’s wet shoulder. The matador looked past his friend and saw Rhoda watching him. He met her eyes and received her tribute. I could fuck him, Rhoda thought. If I were still you
ng enough to have hope, I would walk across this twenty feet of earth and hand him a paper with my name on it and tell him where to find me. He would find me. He is young and still has hope. She set the cold sweet Coca-Cola down on the waist-high concrete tub and walked toward the matador. He excused himself from the men and came to meet her.
“Esta noche,” she said. “Donde? Where will I find you?”
“At the Inn of the Sun.” His lips were as soft and full as the skin on his shoulders. His hips were so close to her. The smell of him was all around her.
“I will come there,” she said. “When? At which hour?”
“A los siete. At seven.” He reached out and took her arm. “I was watching you. I knew you wished to speak with me.”
“I am called Rhoda. Se nombre Rhoda Katerina.”
His fingers held her arm. “At seven,” he said. “I will wait for you.” He moved closer. “Will you sit with me now?”
“No, I am with my brother. I will come at seven.” She turned to walk back to the stairs. He walked with her to the first landing. The tourists were watching them. The men at the concession stand were watching them. The children were watching them.
She walked back upstairs and rejoined Dudley and Mariana and Saint John. The afternoon grew hotter. Two more bulls were killed, including one from horseback. Then the corrida was finished. The band put up their tarnished instruments and recorded music began to play from the speakers. Rhoda and Dudley and Mariana and Saint John went out on the street to find a taxi but there was none so they began to walk toward the hotel where they had left the car. I have to ask Mariana how to get to the inn, Rhoda thought. I have to get her alone and get her to help me.
“There is too much violence in the world,” Saint John said. They were walking along the uphill dirt street, following the crowd in the direction of the town.
“Too much violence,” Rhoda answered him. “What do you mean? You’re as bad as those goddamn Stanford boys.”
“You’re all fascinated by your father’s violence,” Saint John said. “Look what it’s done to Dudley.”
“What are you talking about, Saint John? Make yourself clear. Jesus, it’s hot as noon.” They had walked out from the shade of the hill. It was as hot as noon, hotter, for the earth had had all day to soak up heat. Rhoda shuddered, thinking of the earth soaking up the blood of the bulls, blood soaking down into the earth and turning black. The matador’s soft hands, the silver sword, the red cape and blood soaking down into the earth, the heat. I’m too old for him, Rhoda thought. But then, what difference would my age make? Remember when Malcolm gave that speech at the medical college and we went to the party with all the surgeons. The oldest man in the room was the most powerful. God knows how old he was, but he came across the room and took me. Just took me because he wanted me. And I allowed it. I left everyone else that I was talking to and followed him out onto the patio and he said, I want to take you somewhere tomorrow. Where was it he wanted me to go? To see a cadaver or something terrible or grim and Malcolm came and found me and brought me back inside because even Malcolm knew what was going on. So it has nothing to do with age or even violence although violence is one of its manifestations. It’s power that matters, and in this Mexican town on this hot day power is killing bulls and Saint John knows it and is pissed off at the matador and pissed off at me.
“Goddamn, I wish we’d find a taxi,” Saint John said. “I’m not sure this is the way to town.”
“We can catch a bus,” Mariana said. “If we go this way we will come to the main street and a bus will come by.” They trudged up the dusty street and arrived at a main thoroughfare, and in a few minutes a dilapidated city bus picked them up and took them into town. She told them on the bus. First she told Saint John. “I’m going to meet the bullfighter,” she said. “I’m going to his hotel.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Dudley said. He turned around from the seat in front of her. “No, that’s final.”
“You don’t tell me what to do. I don’t take orders from you.”
“He’s right,” Saint John said. “You can’t go off with those people.”
“Why not? Why can’t I? What do I have to live for that’s so important I’m supposed to be careful? My children are grown. I’m going to his hotel at seven o’clock tonight.”
“You aren’t going off with a Mexican bullfighter,” Dudley said. “That is that. You aren’t going to do that to us, Shorty.”
“Is not a good idea,” Mariana put in. “He would not really expect you to come even if you said you would. Not if he saw you were with men. He would think they would not let you.” She lowered her eyes. “Even American men.”
The bus had stopped at the downtown square. They filed off with the other passengers and found themselves in the middle of a parade which was forming to circle the square. A young girl in a red dancing dress was seated on a throne on a car. Her attendants were around her. A band was getting out its instruments.
“Be a good sport,” Saint John said. “Don’t start something with a matador. Not tonight, please, Rhoda.” He took her arm. They began to walk toward the hotel where they had left the station wagon. “It was such a nice day. Why spoil it?”
“It’s about death,” Rhoda said. “I can’t stand to do nothing constantly but displacement activities, amusements, ways to pass the time, until we get into the ground to stay. What’s happening to us, Saint John? We are getting so old. We haven’t got enough sense to be alive and it’s almost over. We’ll be crippling around with a pacemaker soon. We’ll be completely dried out and ruined and I’ve never slept with a bullfighter in my life and I’ve always wanted to.”
“Stop and get her a margarita,” Dudley said. “Let’s go in there.” They had come to a restaurant on the square and went in and ordered a round of margaritas. They drank to the bullring and the brave matadors and Dudley began to give toasts.
“I’m going,” Rhoda said. “I’m going over there at seven o’clock.”
“Here’s to the girl from the Delta, who never would say you are right, who never gives in, please give in, Rhoda, your brother and cousin are begging and begging you tonight.” Dudley raised his margarita and signaled the bartender to bring them another round.
“Here’s to the girls growing old,” Rhoda raised her glass. She was into it now. “Who think they didn’t get laid enough. Lost their youth and their puberty and their childbearing years being good for Daddy and big brother and fucking Jesus.”
“Rhoda, you’ve had all kinds of husbands and boyfriends. What did you miss out on?”
“Normal relationships. Having one husband and loving him forever. Getting laid on a regular basis. Remember, Saint John, I missed from the time I was thirteen to nineteen. I never got laid during the great primitive fertile years, thanks to no birth control and our Victorian upbringing.”
“So you want to go fuck some Mexican bullfighter in a cheap hotel to make up for not having a normal life?”
“Don’t lawyer-talk me.” Rhoda put down her margarita. She had decided to take it easy and not get drunk. “And you’re not getting me drunk,” she added. “So don’t try that. It will just make me go over there more.”
“He won’t expect you to be there.” Mariana reached out a hand and touched Rhoda’s arm. This woman was so different from her brother. This woman was not careful. It would not be good to hunt with her.
“I want to go and fuck this guy. I’m fifty-three years old. It’s none of anybody’s business. I don’t mess around with your sex lives.”
“Hey, look,” Dudley said. “Here come the musicians.” Three guitarists had come in the door and were gathering around a table. The music began, beautiful, sexy, exciting music. A song Rhoda had heard once coming over a wall at a resort in Acapulco. “I heard that music in Alcapulco at Las Brisas once,” she said. “I was having a terrible honeymoon with a man I didn’t love. See, think of the terrible life I have been forced to live because I only liked power.”
&nbs
p; The music rose. Dudley motioned to the musicians to come their way. “I was on a honeymoon,” Rhoda went on. “But all I did was get drunk and swim in this pool where you swam over to the bar. It was New Year’s Eve and the musicians on the boats in the harbor played that wonderful music but it was all feet of clay, feet of clay.” Rhoda finished the first margarita and started in on the second. The musicians came nearer. Dudley gave them money. “Let’s dance, Shorty,” he said. “I want to dance with my baby sister.” Then the two of them went out onto the dance floor and began to dance together. My closest closest relative, Rhoda was thinking. My own big brother. My own hands and legs and arms and face. The gene pool, Jesus, what a fantastic mess.
“Que paso, mi hermano,” she said. “We shall dance a little while and then go and see the bullfighter.”
Dudley was a wonderful dancer and Rhoda loved to dance. He had Rhoda where he wanted her now and he knew it. They drank many margaritas and some wine and danced until the sun was far down below the horizon and seven o’clock had come and gone. “I have to go over to the Inn of the Sun,” Rhoda kept saying. “What time is it?”
“Let me dance with her,” Saint John said. “I never get to dance with Rhoda.”
Sometime later they found a restaurant and ordered tortillas and frijoles and chili with mole verde sauce. They drank sangria and ate the wonderful gentle spicy food. “The food of a thousand colors,” Rhoda said. “The food of orange tortillas and green avocado mashed and red peppers the color of the bull. I have to get over to the hotel, Dudley. I want to change clothes and go and see the matador.”
Rhoda Page 32
