The Princess Spy

by Larry Loftis

  It was like a normal date before she had left for Paris, except for one thing: they had chaperones. With Luis’s sisters and brothers-in-law, they went to the Palace bar for drinks, Chipén for dinner, and the Villa Rosa for flamenco. They had dinner again three times that week, always with relatives, and Aline began to wonder why. Why the formality? Why didn’t he want to be alone with her?

  The following week they finally had a date by themselves, and Luis took her to a new nightclub, La Barca. On the dance floor he whispered in her ear: “This time you’re not going to escape, guapa.”

  She could hardly bear to say it, but she told him she had to return to Zurich in a month.

  Luis flashed his magnetic smile. “That’s what you think.”

  Overnight, life became just as before: golf at Puerta de Hierro in the morning, dinner at Madrid’s finest in the evening. Life, it seemed, had reset itself.

  Aline cabled Ryan to ask for more time and he agreed.

  * * *

  One day Luis invited her to a tienta at the Avila ranch owned by his uncle, the Count of Mayalde. A tienta, she had learned from Juanito, was a testing of young bulls. Spanish fighting bulls had been bred for four centuries to create the most lethal animal on the planet, and the tienta was a vital part of the process.

  Only the bravest, most aggressive bulls made it to the ring, and not until they were four years old. When bulls turned two, they were tested to determine which ones would qualify.

  “The bravery of the bull is the primal root of the whole Spanish bullfight,” Hemingway wrote in Death in the Afternoon. “The best of all fighting bulls have a quality, called nobility by the Spanish. The bull is a wild animal whose greatest pleasure is combat and which will accept combat offered to it in any form, or will take up anything it believes to be an offer of combat.” Seeing that quality displayed in the bullring, he concluded, was “something unearthly and unbelievable.”

  While only bulls would ever see the ring, male and female calves were tested because, as breeders learned through the years, a fighting bull acquired his size from the father but his heart—his fighting spirit—from his mother. And to prevent a bull from ever coming into contact with a man on foot, male calves were tested in various ways by picadors on horseback.III If the bull charged aggressively and repeatedly, it was bound for the ring; if not, it was marked for veal.

  The test for female calves—which also had horns and were quite dangerous—occurred in a corral about half the size of a bullring. There, apprentice matadors, or novilleros, would practice their passes with the cape, and the breeder would watch carefully to evaluate the tenaciousness of the heifers. If they were especially brave, they’d be earmarked for motherhood. The irony was that while the heifers were smaller than the bulls, they were trickier to fight. Being lighter than their male counterparts, they were faster and more agile, allowing them to turn more abruptly and sharply.

  Like most formal events in Spain, a tienta was a fiesta, and was always preceded by a banquet. By Aline’s count, there must have been some eighty guests at the Mayalde ranch, all drinking red wine and milling about a giant buffet table. She glanced around and was relieved to see that Juanito wasn’t there, but Spain’s finest matador—the incomparable Manolete—was. It was the first time she had seen him out of his matador’s costume. Instead he was wearing the traditional Spanish riding outfit: brown wool jacket, tight gray pants, embroidered leather chaps, and a wide cordobés hat. She was a few yards away, but she could see that it was true what the papers said—he did look like an undriven nail.

  And as she moved closer, the testimony of Manolete’s years of fighting was hard to miss. His face was long and gaunt, like the ones painted by El Greco, and his eyes were sunken, melancholy. She also caught a glimpse of two facial scars she’d never seen from the stands: a deep angled track above his left brow, and a long comma-like gash running from the corner of his mouth to the side of his jaw. He was twenty-eight but looked forty.

  Yet there was a calmness and gentleness about him that defied his immense celebrity.

  After a few minutes people began drinking from a wine pigskin that was passed around, and everyone watched as two novilleros tested several heifers. After that, amateurs were invited to have a go. Two men took up the challenge; both executed nervous and clumsy passes but managed to complete their turns uninjured.

  Another heifer was brought in and Manolete, who was sitting close by, turned to her.

  “Would you like to try this one, Aline?”

  It would have been next to impossible to turn down one of the three greatest matadors who ever lived, but Aline realized she actually wanted to give it a try. Part of it was that she was an American girl, and so was expected to know nothing about bullfighting, and part of it was to impress Luis.

  But she didn’t look his way before accepting. Though her heart pounded, she felt a degree of confidence because Juanito had shown her basic passes a year earlier, and working with a cape was much like dancing, or perhaps ballet. As Barnaby Conrad had put it: “A bullfighter is a dancer, but a dancer on a tightrope. The passes he does are as formalized and laboriously practiced as the entrechat and tour jeté, but whereas if the ballet dancer makes a mistake on the stage he merely loses face, the matador can lose a leg or his life.”

  While Aline wouldn’t be trying any pirouettes—those fancy spinning moves she had seen Juanito do—she could at least show she was as good as the two men who had just tried.

  Manolete offered to take the other half of the capote—the large cape used in the first part of a bullfight—but she declined. She wanted the excitement of doing it alone. He handed her a bright pink cape and she made her way down. The heifer was on the other side of the corral and she visualized what she had seen Juanito, Manolete, and other bullfighters do.

  She swung the cape from side to side.

  In an instant the beast charged. It was racing toward her at an alarming speed and the thought flashed before her: Aline, what are you doing?

  She held out the cape and the heifer rushed through.

  Swish.

  The exhilaration and adrenaline came next. This was why the bullfighters did it. The danger. The rush.

  The calf turned quickly though and came at her again.

  She held the cape low and again the heifer stormed through, tossing its head up as it passed. The crowd cheered and Aline glanced at them, accepting the praise.

  When she turned back, it was too late.

  A horn ripped through her jacket and she was airborne.

  I. Two months later, on December 31, Hitler wrote to Italy’s Mussolini of his disappointment: “Spain has refused to collaborate with the Axis Powers…. We had completed our preparations for crossing the Spanish frontier on January 10th and to attack Gibraltar at the beginning of February.”

  II. The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe believed to be the ancestors of the Basques.

  III. Bulls have tremendous memories, fighters and breeders have learned over the centuries, and if a bull had previously experienced a man on foot, particularly with a cape, it would mean certain death for matadors in the bullring.

  CHAPTER 22 THE BOOKKEEPER

  There was a sensation of timelessness and then a sudden jolt as Aline’s body crashed to the ground. Everything was a blur and there was a lot of commotion, but she felt someone pulling her leg. She spit up sand and heard men shouting. Then a flurry of capes.

  “What a silly thing to do,” came a friendly voice near her ear.

  It was Luis.

  Aline tried to find him through the cloud of sand, but she distinctly heard his next words: “You’d better stop these wild American pranks and marry me.”

  Aline’s eyes widened as Luis picked her up and examined her. “Are you all right?”

  The heifer’s horns had caught her jacket but missed her body, fortunately. There was no blood, but her leg hurt and her head was pounding. She nodded.

  Wait. Did Luis just propose?

  On th
e drive back to Madrid, Luis said nothing about his remark. He talked about bulls, tientas, and how foolish it was for her to jump in the ring. Not a word about marriage.

  When he said good night at the door, it was business as usual. Aline trudged to her bedroom, perplexed. Was Luis merely toying with the idea of marriage? Was his remark a sort of romantic Freudian slip?

  A week went by and he didn’t call. There, it seemed, was her answer.

  Finally, he asked her to join him again for morning golf and evening dinners, but there was never talk about anything permanent. As her date to return to Zurich grew closer, she received a cable from Ryan indicating that her next post would be Prague. Luis would have to make a decision.

  When he next picked her up for golf, she announced that she would be leaving soon. “This time my work is going to take me far away and I don’t think I’ll be able to return for years.”

  Luis seemed unphased. “You know we’re going to get married one day. You should give up your job and stay in Spain with me.”

  “Luis, I cannot quit my job.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I work for a living.” Aline realized this was a foreign concept to Luis; none of the girls he knew worked for a living. In any case, it was time to call his bluff.

  “If we’re going to get married,” she said, “you will have to name a date now.”

  Luis beat around the bush and then said, “Well, we’ll get married.”

  Aline did her best to hide her frustration. Why was it so hard for Luis simply to say, “I love you. Will you marry me?” Did the Spanish do it some other way?

  She dropped the subject and the golf and dinners carried on as before. She ordered her train tickets and let Angustias and Cecelia know that she would be leaving, this time for good; she was terminating the lease on the apartment.

  On the last day of her vacation, Luis came by in the early afternoon.

  “Why is Angustias crying?” he asked when he and Aline were alone in her bedroom.

  “Because I am leaving tonight. I’m sorry, Luis, but I will not be able to lunch with you today. Since I’m leaving for good, I am having my last lunch in Madrid with a friend.”

  “What?”

  “All this time I haven’t seen anyone but you. None of my other friends. I have a lunch engagement at Jockey.”

  Aline could see Luis’s temperature rising, but there was no avoiding it.

  “How can you have a lunch engagement at Jockey?” he asked. “You always have lunch with me.”

  She explained that she was having lunch with Raimundo Lanza, a handsome Italian prince whom Luis knew, and she was leaving momentarily.

  Luis stood there, astonished. “You’re really leaving Spain?”

  “Tonight. Here are my tickets.”

  Luis stared at them and then at the suitcases. Angustias, who had been eavesdropping in the hall, suddenly burst into tears and Luis looked at her and then back at Aline.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” Aline said, “I don’t want to be late.”

  “But I thought we were going to get married?”

  “What an incredible coincidence. So did I.”

  “Aline, be reasonable. You never told me you had made these preparations. Until right now I’ve been unaware that you really intended to leave.”

  Aline pressed her lips, her emotions dancing along the edges of anger, righteous indignation, sadness, and composure. “But the man is supposed to ask the girl to marry, not vice versa. It embarrasses me to keep mentioning the subject.”

  “Keep mentioning! You have imagined all of this. I’ve been asking you to marry me since I first met you. I will talk to my father right now.”

  “No, Luis, I think you would like to marry me, but I also believe, if you were decided to do so, you would have made it definite before now. I understand your family would not be pleased to have you marry an unknown American…. Forget it. I don’t want to put you through any disagreeable situations for my sake. And I really have to go. Goodbye.”

  She grabbed her purse and headed for the stairs, tears welling.

  “Wait,” Luis said, following. “At least let me take you there.”

  “No. I prefer to go alone.”

  Aline rushed out the door just as a taxi was driving by. She hailed it and jumped in.

  * * *

  About the time she and Raimundo were having dessert, Luis appeared at their table.

  “Aline, I would like to speak with you. Alone.”

  Aline excused herself and she and Luis went to a quiet corner. His voice was urgent.

  “My father is waiting for you right now, our priest is with him. Everything is set.”

  “What do you mean everything is set?”

  “Naturally my father has to talk to you. And since you didn’t believe that I was going to marry you, how else can I prove to you that I’m serious?”

  Aline paused. For all that she’d wanted Luis to propose, this was happening too fast, and not in the sequence she had expected.

  “Are you telling me that you asked your father if you could marry me?”

  “No, I told him that I was going to marry you. But in this country one’s parents must be properly informed and the family priest must make the preparations.”

  Aline was dizzy. What happened to the old-fashioned romantic evening with the presentation of a ring and proposal on one knee?

  “My father and the priest are waiting,” Luis said again. “We’ll be married one month from today. That’s the quickest I can arrange the papers, I’m told.”

  Before she could respond, he added: “Now you can send a cable to your company and say that you will not be returning. Ever.”

  Forgetting to say goodbye to Raimundo, Aline swept out of the restaurant with Luis and they hurried to the meeting with Luis’s father and the priest.

  She had met Luis’s father, the Count of Velayos, several times, mostly at horse races. He was president of horse racing in Spain, and they would sit in his father’s box at the track with generals and other dignitaries. However, they never had much opportunity to talk, and Aline didn’t really know him.

  When they arrived at Luis’s father’s home, he greeted her with a handshake. He was polite but formal, and not particularly warm. It seemed clear to Aline that the family had expected Luis to marry a Spaniard, preferably someone with a noble pedigree.

  “My son says he wants to marry you,” he began. “For us, in Spain, this is a serious decision. As you may be aware, we cannot dissolve a marriage in this country. It is for better or for worse and for always. I suggest you think this matter over for a while.”

  “I have already thought it over, and I am aware of your customs and laws, and I am also a Catholic. Even if I were not, please don’t think that everyone in the United States gets divorced!”

  The count nodded and his eyes softened. “Is it necessary that the wedding take place within a month? Why do you set this ultimatum?”

  Aline blushed. That was not exactly a correct summary of the situation.

  “I cannot afford to live in Madrid without working, and my parents would not approve. I would like to get married to Luis in the United States, but since foreign exchange is restricted, he says it is difficult to get visas and leave the country.”

  “In that, Luis is correct.” He turned to the priest. “One month is not much time to prepare a proper wedding, but I suppose it can be done.”

  The priest nodded and explained the papers that would have to be signed in the United States.

  Luis’s father seemed annoyed at the rush but suggested they proceed along to see Luis’s grandfather, who was waiting.

  As their car approached the home on the Castellana, it all came to her. This was the palace across from the embassy that Robert Dunev had pointed out in the office that day. Luis’s grandfather was none other than the Count of Romanones, the former prime minister and principal adviser to the king. Since Luis’s last name was Figueroa and his title was Co
unt of Quintanilla, and his father was the Count of Velayos, she had never connected the Romanones name. But titles, Luis explained, were inherited. When Luis’s grandfather died, Luis’s father would become the Count of Romanones, and then upon his father’s death, Luis would.

  A uniformed guard opened the palace gates and Luis pulled up to a side door. Aline snuck a glance at him as they hurried inside; he seemed more nervous than she.

  “Do not be frightened by El Abuelo,” Luis said. “He is overpowering, but if he doesn’t like you at first, he will eventually. He can be affectionate and his sense of humor is famous.”

  Aline was getting the picture. The family had to approve the marriage, and Luis’s grandfather was the most important person to win over. This explained Luis’s nervousness. Whether there would be a wedding ceremony depended upon her performance in the next hour.

  They went through a foyer with thirty-foot ceilings and came to a wide curving staircase. On either side were suits of armor.

  How appropriate, Aline thought. I’m going into battle.

  As they ascended, Luis said: “My grandfather is accustomed to getting his way. Everyone in the family is frightened of him.”

  Aline slowed her pace. “Are you afraid of your own grandfather?”

  Luis nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Great Just great. She was thirty seconds from meeting the former prime minister, the most famous man in Spain, and even his own family was afraid of him. This was worse than the tienta.

  Luis caught her eye. “Don’t worry. I am going to marry you, no matter what he says.”

  They reached the top of the stairs and Luis escorted her through several rooms. The Count of Romanones, eighty-four years old, was resting in an armchair with a blanket over his legs. His bright blue eyes, Aline noticed, were vibrant and alert, defying his age. They were also evaluating.

  “Quien es?” the count inquired.

  Luis nudged Aline forward. “Abuelo, this is my novia.”

  “Quien es?”