Duende

by Jason Webster

  I milled about for a while, warmed by the friendly atmosphere. The only hat big enough for my head was a dull, brown straw thing with a black ribbon, more suited to a 60-year-old. I looked up at the unforgiving sun, then handed over the money. A small price to pay for not looking like a lobster.

  Eduardo was by the ticket office.

  ‘Hombre!’ He greeted me warmly and embraced me with a kiss for each cheek. I winced with the pain of my bruised ribs.

  ‘Christ! Look how thin you are. They not feeding you properly here in the capital?’

  He handed me a ticket.

  ‘Here. We’re sitting in sol – the sunny area. Where the men sit. Sombra, the shady area, is only for poofs. And aficionados.’

  ‘What about sol y sombra?’

  ‘That’s for people who still haven’t made up their minds.’ I laughed. It was good to see him again.

  We passed through the towering gate and headed up the stairs to find our seats. Great, wide corridors circled the outside of the ring, and were occupied by their own army of drink-sellers, snacks-sellers, and men renting cushions to sit on.

  ‘Get yourself one of these,’ Eduardo said. ‘What with your head complaining about the sun, you don’t want your arse moaning about the hard stone.’

  He handed me a cushion.

  The corridors were shady and cool, and we stayed there for a few minutes, knocking back iced beers before facing the intense heat and light of the ring itself. Old men with flat, wide-brimmed hats walked arm in arm discussing past fights, manicured ladies in silk blouses, family groups, men with their sons, young lads in training shoes, a group of four middle-aged housewives. It was a gentle scene.

  ‘I have some good news for you, son. Your guitar teacher – your former guitar teacher – has left Alicante. Went soon after you did. No-one knows where, but he’s gone, and that’s the most important thing.’

  I paused. It had been a long time since I had thought of Juan.

  ‘Did he . . .?’

  ‘Spill the beans? No, I don’t think so. At least, there’s no indication that he did. My sources tell me everything is still normal at the school. No major break-up, no rows in the broom cupboard.’

  He laughed, and slapped me on the back.

  ‘It’s history, son. You can’t still be thinking about her. Thought you would have slept your way round half of Madrid by now.’

  But I knew Lola. She was capable of hiding anything behind her school exterior.

  We finished our drinks and headed towards the entrance. Four men stood idly in the shade, their heads crowned with the all-important cap, which, combined with the whistles hanging from their necks, marked them out as ‘officials’, and men to be reckoned with. We handed over our tickets and a short, deformed man with a high, baby-like voice and sunglasses that almost covered his face took us through a short tunnel and out into the ring.

  The glare was fantastic, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Only half the seats were taken and the arena was empty, except for two white framing circles. The size of the ring created a sense of awe, and despite the echoing chatter, there was a cathedral-like quality to it as the words lifted up and were blown away by the sun and wind. Even from up here I could smell the sand. But there was something else, too. A smell, not of death, but of the expectation of death, I thought: a momentary presentiment of the ghastly, tremendous events that were to come in the next two hours.

  We were shown to our seats, opposite the white royal box.

  ‘So, tell me everything. I tried to call you a few weeks ago, but some mad woman on the other end of the phone said you’d gone on a world tour.’

  I laughed. ‘Yes, that’s Carlota, my landlady. You probably caught her at the wrong moment.’

  ‘Well, what’s it all about?’

  I hesitated, not sure where to begin, trying to relate my current life to a past one. I was hungry for conversation, real conversation, a chance simply to tell someone what I was doing. And so I began: the tour, Carlos, La Andonda, Juanito, the donkey. I told him about the endless gigs, the night in Benidorm, my new guitar, and knife-throwing. And he sat patiently, quietly absorbing this deluge of scattered stories, thoughts and feelings.

  The brass band – three old men with trumpets and drums – announced the opening parade had begun: men on horseback in black costumes with white scarves; thick-set men dressed in red holding wooden sticks; portly picadores with pointed spears in leather armour on tank-like horses. Then, the toreros themselves: subalternos, banderilleros and the stars of the spectacle, the three matadores, in their trajes de luces, ‘suits of light’, that were red, blue, gold and white, with shiny studs and tassels. The most experienced torero entered on the left, the second oldest on the right, and the youngest in the middle. They bowed to the president of the fight, sitting at his balcony in a sombre suit like a little dictator, then trooped out into the circle surrounding the sand, protected by thick wooden barricades – the burladeros.

  The first part of the fight – the tercio de varas – began, and the bull came racing out of its stall: over half a tonne of thrashing flesh concentrated into two, fine, lethal points rising from its head. There was a gasp from the crowd as it rushed out into the sand, the pain of the rosette pinned on its shoulders already producing the initial rage necessary for a good fight. The subalternos waved their purple and yellow capes at it as it charged wildly around the arena, and the onlookers assessed its capabilities.

  ‘Not a good bull,’ Eduardo said. It looked fairly impressive to me.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He’s running too hard, too soon. He’ll tire himself out.’

  The others in the crowd seemed to agree, and whistling had already begun. Soon it was filling the entire bullring, nothing like the music and carnival atmosphere I had expected.

  ‘You’ve got to understand, son, this is Las Ventas,’ Eduardo shouted above the din. ‘Not like any other bullring. You go anywhere else and people want to have a good time. Here, everyone takes pride in being the most exacting audience in the world. If they don’t like what they see . . .’ and he made a ‘thumbs down’ motion.

  ‘So why are they whistling?’ The noise was piercing.

  ‘They want the president to change the bull for another one.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘Doubt it. It would have to be really bad. Too much money, honour, at stake, that sort of thing.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a racket. Besides, this is Las Ventas. They always whistle. It’s part of the spectacle.’

  But the complaining had only just begun. The picadores appeared on their heavily padded horses. Two of them came striding out and sat, waiting for the bull to charge at them. They then thrust their long pikes into its shoulders to create a deep, bloody wound. And the whistling began again, almost as soon as they had started.

  ‘What’s the problem now?’

  ‘They want the president to declare this section over, so they don’t wound the bull too much, so it doesn’t get too weak for when the matador comes on.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, confused. ‘Why have this section at all, then?’

  ‘Tradition,’ he said.

  Blood was pouring down the bull’s back from the growing wound in its shoulders.

  ‘Course, because they’re such a critical lot round here, the greatest accolade a matador can have is to be hailed as a triumph in Las Ventas.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘They lift him up on their shoulders and take him out by the gate as a hero.’

  ‘No whistling?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  The banderilleros came on, with their brightly coloured, harpoon-pointed sticks – banderillas – to ram into the bull’s back. It was the most Minoan part of the show, with great acrobatic skill required to run at the animal, plant the sticks elegantly, and with a single, dart-like movement, into its flesh, then escape unharmed. The first attempt failed, both banderillas falling
to the ground. The crowd remained silent, not even deigning to whistle; it was still early and there was a sense that things had yet to warm up. The second attempt was more successful, one of the fighters passing within inches of the horns to land home his red and yellow spear. The atmosphere changed at once and the applause rang out just as quickly as the whistles had filled the air only moments before. Great shouts of ‘olé’ came from the people around us. The stress came on the second syllable, I noticed, unlike flamenco.

  With the wave of the president’s handkerchief and a blast from the band, the arena emptied and the steaming bull was left alone, panting, its tongue hanging carelessly from its mouth. Manzanares, the star performer, came striding out, sword and red cape tucked neatly under one arm, his hat – montera – raised in salute to the applauding crowd. Then he casually tossed it into the air behind him, and it landed face down.

  ‘If it lands the other way, it’s bad luck for the matador,’ Eduardo filled me in. ‘They say some of them weigh it down specially, like a gambler’s dice, so that the hat always lands as they want it to.’

  I wanted to ask him if Manzanares himself did this, but there was no time. The cheering turned into concentrated silence as the matador went through the first passes. He stood firm on the ground, chest pushed out, chin hooked in, his bottom lip contorted downwards in a vicious frown, tempting the bull with flicks of the cape, drawing it in like a cat might play with a mouse.

  There were gasps, cheers, whistling, applause from the crowd. I couldn’t understand why one minute he had their approval and the next, derision.

  ‘Sometimes it’s the bull they’re complaining about, sometimes it’s him. If he draws the cape too low, the bull will run itself into the ground. Too high, and the animal loses momentum by charging upwards. Sometimes it’s a mixture of things. And sometimes . . .’ he shrugged his shoulders, all the time his eyes fixed like a falcon on the drama below. ‘But just look at the man – grace, passion. He’s a genius.’

  It was time for the kill. The matador was handed his estoque – sword – from behind the barricade and stood over the exhausted bull ready to strike, enticing it to lower its head once more, opening up the vertebrae for the entry of the blade straight into its lungs. Manzanares waited. The bull didn’t move, saliva now dripping from its mouth uncontrollably. A solitary whistle came from the stands, then bull and man both charged simultaneously, and the sword was plunged two feet into the black mass in a single thrust.

  The crowd leapt to its feet. The bull fell onto its hind legs, still thrashing with his horns at the toreros as they gathered around waving their cloaks in its face, until a man with a dagger finished it off with an unceremonious stab in the back of the neck.

  Manzanares stood over the dead animal majestically, then saluted the crowd. With another cheer, the place turned white as people pulled out handkerchiefs and waved them frantically at the president, while the stocky men in red appeared with horses and dragged the bull’s corpse away, leaving a thick, red streak in the sand. Manzanares picked up his montera and saluted the crowd once more. But the whistling had begun again: the president was taking his time, and the audience wanted to see their hero honoured.

  ‘He may get one,’ Eduardo said. ‘But no more, I think. Not today.’

  The handkerchiefs fluttered on, and the whistling and abuse soared into the sky.

  ‘Come on, you son of a whore!’ a man with a rasping voice called from behind us.

  The president finally conceded, lifting his own handkerchief once to grant one ear to the matador. The handkerchief waving stopped, the ear was severed and handed to the matador, who then paraded it around the arena as a trophy of the kill.

  ‘He killed it well. That’s why he got the ear,’ Eduardo said. ‘Course, if he’d done really well, he would have got the other one as well. And even the tail.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Makes excellent soup.’

  Two uneventful fights later, we passed back into the cool of the corridor for the interval, and drank more beer. I had an odd sense of elation.

  ‘There’s a lot of drugs knocking about with this lot as well,’ I said hurriedly.

  ‘I can tell. You don’t get that thin from dieting.’

  I looked down at the clothes hanging from my body.

  ‘Cocaine, mostly.’

  ‘Goes with the territory.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does.

  We ordered two more beers.

  I still hadn’t mentioned Jesús. I simply didn’t know how to describe him. If he was a friend, he was like no other I had ever had.

  It was time to go back into the arena. A man with a bucket and a voice like a lawnmower was pacing up and down trying to attract custom.

  ‘Coca, cerveza, Fanta Limón! Coca, cerveza, Fanta Limón!’

  The fourth bull came on: Manzanares’ second. This time, the passes went better. There was a greater sensuality, a feeling that the matador was caressing the animal, like a lover. The way he moved over it, with the energy of the crowd concentrated on him, and his struggle – the inevitability of death – seemed to meet a profound need in us all. But the kill went wrong, the sword failed to enter the bull properly the first time, and he had to repeat, clumsily finishing it off with a spike. Nonetheless, the applause was energetic, and the great Manzanares received a standing ovation as he left, this time earless.

  ‘He’s a master,’ Eduardo enthused. ‘If he were a flamenco, I’d say he had duende.’

  An hour later, we passed out through the main gate. The spectators mingled and slowly dispersed in a cloud of cigar smoke, the evening sun cooling after the intensity of the arena. The feeling of elation was still with me, like a great tension had been removed from my body. Limbs supple, head cleared. The others felt it too – people were smiling, with open faces, as though the blood ritual had somehow emptied us of our own need for violence, and we were free to be human again.

  We walked up the Alcalá, found a bar and ordered brandies.

  ‘Anything else you want to tell me about this lot?’ Eduardo asked.

  I said nothing. It was better he didn’t know. I could guess what he would say, anyway. What any ‘sensible’ person would want to tell me. But he was sharp, and could tell there was more to the story than I had let on.

  ‘Listen son, you’ve got to realise that flamenco is yours, it’s mine. It belongs to everyone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you have to decide what it means for you, Jason. You can’t just keep on taking it off the shelf, already prepared by other people. You have to discover your own flamenco.’

  It was Friday night when I headed over to Carlos’s flat for what was to be the last time. I realised immediately that something was wrong. The children were not there, no games on the stairwell, no shouting from women in clattering kitchens. Only muffled sounds.

  María-José greeted me with tears at the door.

  ‘What is it?’

  She wouldn’t say, but pushed me through into the main room, where I saw Carlos sitting in the middle of the floor, his back against a chair, eyes swollen, face pale. The rest of the room was crowded with half-hidden eyes, hands brought up to ward off the pain, cigarette smoke circling the bodies like a protecting veil. And the sound of women wailing.

  Carlos looked up.

  ‘Hello, my friend,’ he choked. And he beckoned me to join him. I knelt at his side.

  ‘Carlos, what’s up?’

  He stared at me through thick, hairy eyebrows. ‘Jesús,’ he said. ‘Jesús.’

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Juanito. In the corner there was screaming, and the sound of someone hitting something slowly, rhythmically. I looked up. La Andonda was beating her head against the wall.

  I stood up, shaky on my feet, and turned to Juanito.

  ‘There’s nothing left of poor Jesús,’ he said. ‘He left us this morning.’

  I stumbled past him, unhearing, heading for the balcony. I wanted air.

  ‘How did
it happen?’ I said weakly, to no-one, to everyone. There was no reply.

  ‘For God’s sake, how did it happen?’ I began shouting uncontrollably. ‘How did it happen? How did it . . .’

  I was caught in the arms of Javier.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said as I sobbed. And he led me out onto the balcony.

  ‘We’ve lost him,’ he said, stroking my hair. ‘We’ve lost our beautiful Jesús.’

  I couldn’t say anything. The wailing from inside was getting louder.

  ‘How . . .’

  ‘He had an accident. A car accident, at the Plaza de Lima, just outside the Bernabeu. It was quick. He didn’t suffer, you know. He didn’t suffer.’

  Jesús and I hadn’t been out together since the night we escaped in a taxi a couple of weeks before. I had the impression Jesús was beginning to see me as bad luck. But it could have been me in that car.

  I don’t know how long I was there, my face on Javier’s chest, his hand on my head, swaying gently from side to side as the tears fell and fell. The time was punctuated by the rise and fall of the screams from inside, like waves of grief overcoming us and then ebbing away. In my mind, I was driving with him, driving down boulevards, country roads, car-lined streets, the lights flashing over his tied-back hair, his close-set eyes, the slightly flattened nose. But there was no sound from him.

  ‘Our beautiful Jesús, our beautiful Jesús.’

  ‘More beautiful than even you know, Jason,’ Javier said. ‘It’s his mother . . . his mother. I don’t know what she’ll do. She relied on him for money.’ And I felt his own tears splash down onto mine.

  A fog of grief seemed to have overtaken us all. The banging had stopped, but no-one was moving. It seemed only now, now that he was dead, that I could begin to feel something of what Jesús had meant to me. Not an ordinary friend. He was both more and less than that.

  It was black, and Javier’s hand moved rhythmically on my head. Yet at the back of my mind, something was nagging me. Something we had to remember, the main reason why I had come round that night.

  I stood up straight.

  ‘Oh Christ! The gig!’

  We were due to be playing that night. I pulled away from Javier and ran inside.