Iberia

by James A. Michener

  Now came the highlight of this fight. Vázquez and his banderillero Mario Coelho came into the ring, dismissed the two peons who would normally protect them with capes and the other two matadors who stood by in case of danger, and ran in a series of exquisite ellipses before the bull’s nose in such a way that whenever the bull was about to catch Vázquez on his horns, Coelho would mysteriously appear at the apex of his ellipse and lead the animal away to the point at which the red beast was about to catch him, whereupon Vázquez would suddenly appear and the bull’s charge would be diverted. In the midst of this chinoiserie, Coelho stopped long enough to place the first pair of banderillas, and it was done so flawlessly that the crowd exploded with joy. Now the brass bands grew silent and allowed the primitive oboes of Pamplona to take over, and a rustic melody from centuries ago filled the arena, as fine music as I have ever heard at a bullfight. Suddenly the running figures converged with the arc being described by the bull’s horns, and in some fantastic manner Vázquez placed the second pair, almost as perfectly as the first. The matador now left the ring, and no protecting capes appeared to guard Goelho. Very slim, very quiet, the banderillero took his position close to the red wall of the arena in a spot from which escape would be difficult if he misjudged the bull’s charge. Keeping his feet rigidly planted, he cited the bull from a considerable distance, and as the animal started his charge, Coelho moved his body but not his feet to the left and when the bull lowered his head and charged at him there, he swiftly brought his shoulders over to the right and as the bull thundered past, planted two perfect banderillas in his shoulders.

  Bands and oboes alike sounded their approval. The fight stopped while Vázquez and Coelho came repeatedly to the center of the ring to acknowledge the tumultuous noise. They were forced to take a turn of the ring, with the music rising to a higher pitch, and gifts were tossed to them in honor of banderillas such as had not been seen in Pamplona for years. On July 8, 1915, the great Mexican Gaona had placed a pair here in a manner which seemed impossible; a camera fortunately caught the moment of impact and even today men looking at that photograph will swear the bull must have caught the man. The event has become historic and is called ‘The Pair of Pamplona.’ Statues have been made of it and the photograph is remembered as one of the most famous in bullfight history; if there were a fine snapshot of Coelho’s performance it might properly be called ‘The Second Pair of Pamplona.’ The set of three was one of the best offered in Spain in recent years. This seems to contradict what I said earlier about the mediocre quality of Spanish banderilleros, but it doesn’t necessarily, because Mario Coelho is a Portuguese and his performance had the stamp of Portuguese excellence about it.

  So far the fight had provided four above-average components, but the major tests were ahead, for a bullfight is judged not so much by early cape work of banderillas as by the faena and the kill. Bullfighters say, ‘With the cape a matador wins applause; with the muleta, contracts; and with the sword, money.’ Vázquez came forth for his faena, and the audience grew hushed as he started slowly to test the bull with the muleta. Finding the animal as good as ever, he began the first of what would ultimately be seven series of intricately linked passes, each series building in intensity on the one before. Before he was through, Vázquez displayed a good selection of the known muleta passes, executing them with a cool firmness that kept the crowd roaring its approval. He ended with a series of spinning passes, in which as the bull rushed past he whirled about in the direction contrary to its charge, drawing the red cloth away from the bull and wrapping it around his own body, unwinding quickly so as to be ready for the next charge of the animal. They were beautifully done, and the braying of the bands left no doubt that Vázquez had passed with honor the fifth test, but now came the kill, and many a matador had come to a culiminating moment like this only to dissipate it with inept sword work. (In the twelfth fight of Madrid’s 1967 San Isidro feria El Cordobés accomplished a feat rarely seen. With a splendid Antonio Pérez bull he performed such a dazzling faena that in spite of botching the kill and messing around until two warning signals had to be sounded, the public launched a blizzard of white handkerchiefs and screams, demanding that he be given two ears, and this was done. Previously I had not seen even one ear awarded under such circumstances.)

  Alone in the blazing center of the ring, in terrain as alien as the craters of the moon, the fighting bull waits for the challenge.

  Silence fell over the plaza again, but the suspense was to be short-lived. Addressing the bull with meticulous care, Vázquez prepared everything as properly as he could, squared the animal so that his two front feet were together, and sighted the fatal spot along the extended sword. Rising on his toes, he started forward with full power, and if at that first moment the bull had raised his head unexpectedly the horn would have caught him full in the chest. On and on he came, his abdomen and groin wholly exposed to the horn, and at the last moment he pressed the point of the sword precisely into the target, and with his stomach almost on the bull’s shoulder, drove the steel in up to the hilt, so that his fingers could have touched the bull’s back.

  Vázquez fell away, miraculously untouched. The bull staggered forward with this new burden of steel in his vitals and after a half-dozen bewildered steps fell in a heap. A great sigh rose from the crowd and for a moment there was unbelieving silence.

  Then the arena practically fell apart. Brass bands and oboes, men and women screamed their approval. For once in my life I saw a plaza truly covered with white as practically everyone inside waved a handkerchief to the judge, beseeching him to award honors to Vázquez; normally some time passes after such a petition to allow the judge to study the propriety of the request, but on this day there was none. One ear, two ears, the tail, almost as quickly as that. The grave alguacil in seventeenth-century costume stepped forward to detach the trophies, but before they were handed to the matador the dead bull in grandeur was dragged about the arena and the bands played for him.

  When the bull departed through the gates, trailing glory in the dry sands, Vázquez stepped forth to accept the trophies, but when they were handed him he did an unusual thing: he forced Mario Coelho to share the applause with him. He gave one of the ears to the Portuguese whose phenomenal pair had been the emotional highlight of the fight, and the two men made their parade together, two times around the ring, or was it three, gathering roses and women’s handbags and cigars and wallets and God knows what.

  After some fifteen hundred bulls, the vast majority of which were disappointments, I had at last seen my one complete fight. Of the six components, each had been performed properly, and I never expect to see this again.

  I must point out that in this fight no one of the six components was the best of its type that I have seen; it was the conjunction of the six that was so unprecedented. As to opening cape work, I had seen Marcial Lalanda do better. Regarding the picador who fought the bull so cleanly and so well, he did not compare with fat Felipe Mota, whom I had watched in Mexico. The cape work by the three matadors after the pics did not equal what Ordóñez and Dominguín are said to have done one afternoon in their famous series of hand-to-hand confrontations. The banderillas, as I have explained, were wonderful but not to be compared with the things performed by Carlos Arruza at his greatest. The work with the muleta was better than one sees in twenty typical fights but not so good as Domingo Ortega used to offer. And the final kill did not equal the recibiendo of El Viti. But if one records honestly what he has seen happen to one bull alone, I doubt if he could find an instance in which a more complete fight had been given.

  I can compare it only to an opera I once saw in which Gigli, Rethberg and Pinza sang, each at the very top of his career, each in flawless voice. A great deal can happen to spoil an opera and does, but once or twice in a lifetime one sees a Carmen, a Lohengrin or an Aïda in which all things blend in due proportion: the horse performs without going to the toilet on stage, the swan floats get past without getting stuck at the outskirt
s of Antwerp, the tenor is as good as the soprano and the ballet dancers do not bump into one another, and this kind of performance one never forgets.

  1Not counting 193 bulls and 85 novillo bulls killed in France and 4 Spanish bulls fought in Portugal but not killed, since that country forbids the fight to end with the death of the bull.

  2Men carrying cards issued by the matadors’ union.

  3Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the season; their figures are for the two categories combined.

  4Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the 1967 season.

  5Retired from bullfighting at end of the 1966 season.

  6For purposes of comparison, in 1966 Curro Romero fought 24 limes.

  XII

  TERUEL

  I was lost, and I was unhappy about it. I had been heading for Teruel, of all the Spanish cities the one with the most personal meaning for me, and it was late afternoon when I saw ahead of me the dirt road ending in a high solitary peak on whose top perched a little town. It was a heroic sight, one which evoked memories of sieges and a handful of men defending themselves against infidels or Christians, as the fortunes of war had directed. Then, as I progressed down the road, I spotted on the far edge of the peak a remarkable church whose slab-sided, unbroken walls dropped from a great height precipitously into deep gullies, so that it gave the impression of occupying an entire peak. From where I first saw it, the building was totally unapproachable, and the closer I drew the more convinced I became that there was no way by which human beings could get into the church. On all sides it was impregnable, alike to the infidel who might seek to capture it and to the Christian who might want to pray in it.

  I studied my map again and concluded that the village ahead could only be Castielfabib, a settlement I had not heard of. I had no intention of ascending that formidable hill, but since the road ended there I had no choice but to plow ahead, and finally I came to a point at which the road turned abruptly left, passed into a tunnel which carried it beneath the lofty town and broke out onto as fair a valley as I had seen in Spain. Hills rolled away in soft battalions and a bubbling river was coaxed into irrigation ditches. Fruit seemed to be growing everywhere and it was obvious that Castielfabib, in spite of its strange location and strange name, commanded an area of some prosperity.

  The road now swung back on itself and began a very steep climb, up and up until the church hung directly overhead, at which point I satisfied myself that my earlier conclusions were right; the preposterous building did occupy every inch of a peak and contained no visible entrance; yet it was so massive that it could obviously house the worshipers of a community many times the size of Castielfabib. Forgetting the church, I entered the village and found myself in a kind of fairyland that history had forgot. After a cursory exploration which showed far vistas in all directions, including a deep canyon that led the river through bright cliffs, I came upon an inn, if such it could be called, where on the very edge of the steepest cliff a small house perched, with one public room containing some thirty low rush-bottomed chairs placed in rows before the town’s only television set. The room was miserably lit by one narrow window which cast a pale light on the gloomy interior. The man who grudgingly tended bar seemed embarrassed by my presence and said he did not have any of the first three drinks I suggested. I concluded that Castielfabib had a negative influence on its inhabitants, making them as aloof and lonely as it was.

  Then the door banged open to admit a woman of enormous vitality. She was about five feet two inches tall, was not thick through the body but was strong in the shoulders, and owned a face of lively, amused dignity. Like many Spanish women in their late thirties, she was dressed in black, but her face was so animated that she made the dark clothes seem a party dress.

  ‘Ah!’ she cried warmly, ‘you’ve come to the loveliest town in Spain. It’s older than Valencia, twice as old as Madrid. Have you ever seen anything finer than our little plaza?’ She led me to the door to study the Plaza del Caudillo, which my own eyes had dismissed only a few moments before. Now, looking at it with her, I saw a severe lopsided square delineated by a series of ancient buildings with classic façades. Several trees threw congenial shade and in the middle a fine, simply carved granite fountain produced four jets of constant-running water from which village wives, all dressed in black, were filling large clay jars which they carried sideways on their heads, the nozzles so tilted that the water did not run out.

  Gravedigger.

  ‘Beautiful town, eh?’ she cried with real love. ‘And look at our fortress of a church.’

  ‘How does one get inside?’ I asked.

  ‘And up there the ruined walls of the old Moorish fort. Have you ever seen a town more exciting than this?’

  She led me back to the bar and ordered me a bottled drink. ‘You’ll like it more than what you wanted,’ she said. Kicking at the low chairs, she said, ‘You ought to see this room when there’s a good show on television. Forty people. We don’t charge admission but we do sell drinks. Forty people can sit here laughing for two hours and not one ever gets thirsty.

  ‘Husband!’ she called. ‘Run to Rodríquez and get his book of photographs.’

  Her silent husband disappeared, and while he was gone a delightful girl of ten ran in, duplicating her mother’s vitality and joy in living in this mountaintop village. The child insisted that I climb to the roof with her, for from there I would see the whole area, and the steep approach was worth the effort, for from the top of the building I could see a miniature presentation of Spain at its best. Hills closed in the valley on all sides, except to the north, where a distant village showed its red roofs. Lush fields of wheat and corn glistened in the sunlight, forming a golden checkerboard in which the darker squares were fields of apple trees and pear and apricot and cherry, with here and there large areas of low-growing grapevines. ‘Show him the ruined convent!’ her mother called from below, and the child pointed out the gray, weather-beaten relics of a building that must have been impressive in the late seventeenth century, standing as it did at the edge of the red-walled canyon. The little girl also traced out for me the footpaths used by the farmers, and I understood why those who lived in this remote village loved it.

  ‘What do you suppose is under us, as we sit here?’ the woman asked when we had descended to the bar. ‘A tunnel, right through the heart of this mountain. And what do you suppose the tunnel was for?’ I said I had just driven through the tunnel, whereupon she shouted, ‘Not that one. I mean the old one. The big one!’

  She launched into a history of Castielfabib. The name, she supposed, was a corruption of Castillo de Habib and referred to an age when the Moors had occupied the fortress at the peak of the mountain, more than a thousand years ago. The area had been rich in silver and copper, and the tunnel had been scooped out for a foundry in which coins and metal objects had been minted for more than a millennium. In this tunnel the bells of the church had been cast …

  Her narrative was broken by the return of her husband, bringing Señor Rodríguez’s photographs of the town, and with much civic pride she pointed out the features, and as she spoke I reflected on the peculiar fact that around the world generally, Spain is known as a man’s country, but the women of Spain seem not to have been informed of this fact. In England the proudest sign that can appear on a shop is ‘Henry Thompson and Son,’ signifying that the male line of the Thompsons is strong and that Henry’s son is prepared to carry on the traditions. The same is true of France, where ‘et Fils’ is a blazon of commercial nobility. In Spain, however, the proud sign is quite different: ‘Viuda de Juan Gómez,’ or more often the abbreviation ‘Vda. de Juan Gómez.’ This means that the widow of Gómez is carrying on the business and assures her patrons that she will give the same distinguished service she gave while her husband was still alive, except that now she will be relieved of his bumbling interference.

  ‘But how do you get into your church?’ I asked again.

&n
bsp; ‘You’ll be surprised when you see.’ We left the plaza and followed an extremely narrow footpath which appeared to end at the edge of the cliff; however, at the last moment it swung to the right, then ducked swiftly into a tunnel that ran completely beneath the church. At a midway point, as one stood under the huge structure, a door led upward from the tunnel, and it was by means of a very steep flight of stairs that one entered the church. It was indeed a church founded on a rock.

  Village cart.

  This unplanned excursion to Castielfabib, one of the more rewarding interruptions of my tour, meant that it would be nearly night when I reached Teruel, but this was not a loss, for as I wandered down from the hilltop and picked up the Río Turia, which would lead me in to Teruel, I came upon one of those memorable evenings in Spain when low-hanging clouds provide a darkened sky against which the sunset can reflect from below, so that one seems to move in a sea of color. How beautiful the little villages were as I drove through them. Take Villel, for example, with its enormous tower rising against red hills, streets lined with flower boxes, doorways glistening in blue-and-white tiles, cypresses lining a cemetery. Not many villages in Spain are prettier than those along the Turia. I also saw the imposing sign welcoming travelers to the province of Teruel: