Matador, Mi Amor

by William Maltese

  “Fanuco really doesn’t like you, does he, despite all of your mutual handshaking and how-good-to-see-you again charades?”

  She thought he would deny it. She was surprised…and not for the first time that day…when he didn’t.

  “He wants to be the best…THE VERY BEST,” Adriano said, “not because his competition doesn’t want to come out and play, but because he has met and bettered them all.”

  “He really thinks you might still be better than he is?” she asked, wondering if she were getting the message right.

  “Certainly, I don’t believe I’m better,” he said. “I never have. If he has that delusion, he really should get over it.”

  “So, why doesn’t he?”

  “A newspaperman once attended a practice session, back in the days when I was still being badgered successfully by my father into taking lessons. The reporter, I’m quite sure, was merely out to make points with my old man, but his resulting newspaper article described me in superlatives that would have you think every great bullfighter in the last century had been resurrected in Lalo Montego’s son.”

  “And, Fanuco dislikes Joaquín and Ladonna Hidalgo because he thinks they can outdo him in the corrida, too?” Alyssa asked sarcastically.

  “Who told you he dislikes Joaquín and Ladonna?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, I suppose that could be a half-truth. There was a time he wanted to marry Ladonna, you know? Joaquín objected, which might certainly give Fanuco reason to hate him. Since there’s a thin dividing line between love and hate, maybe Fanuco has even, by now, slipped over the edge as far as Ladonna is concerned, too. God knows, she can be as cold as any fish.”

  “He loves Ladonna?”

  “It’s probably ‘loved’—past tense—by now. The lady never did give him much encouragement. How could she? She’s been brainwashed since birth into believing that when she marries it must be to increase the Hidalgo land holdings. She couldn’t really have been expected to throw aside years of programming to marry for love, especially when Fanuco wasn’t all that well established as a matador at the time he proposed marriage to her.”

  “She loved him?”

  “My god, we are full of questions!”

  “Humor me awhile longer, please.”

  “To expect what from you, next?” He eyed her if he’d just caught her with her hand in the cookie jar. “Some questions, maybe, to do with you having heard I was once engaged to Ladonna, too? Fanuco possibly having suggested to you that my split-up with her was because you came along and got the ranch instead of me?”

  “Was that the reason?”

  “I suppose it was,” he admitted. “Our marriage was intended for the sole purpose of joining our two ranches. When that became impossible, there was no longer any reason to proceed.”

  “Love isn’t reason enough among the Spanish aristocracy?”

  “My dear, as far as I’m concerned, love is probably the most ideal reason for two people to become engaged and eventually marry. At the time we’re discussing, though, neither Ladonna nor I was in love with anyone, including with each other. Nor were we contemplating any such love; so, there seemed little reason why we shouldn’t oblige her father’s wishes and tie the knot.”

  “A loveless marriage for the sake of convenience?” Alyssa continued to be shocked by the very idea.

  “It became even more attractive when I realized how my father, despite all of his mouthing to the contrary, really didn’t want the marriage to happen.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.”

  Alyssa hadn’t run out of questions, and she was certain Adriano hadn’t run out of answers, but they’d reached the plaza de toros, built by the Hidalgo family as part of their estate complex, and they’d became a more intimate part of the converging crowd.

  The private bullring was not an affectation of the Hidalgo family. It was a standard fixture on any ranch used for raising bulls for the corrida, including the one Alyssa now owned. Mainly, they were used to test heifers for their bravery, since it was thought by breeders that bravery, or lack thereof, was passed from cows to their calves.

  Adriano led Alyssa to her seat.

  In the circular arena below them, Joaquín, Fanuco, and several other men were herding heifers into stalls. Each animal, amid a commotion of opening and closing gates, seemed nervously anticipating its eventual entrance into the corrida.

  Alyssa took a momentary lull to get in one more question. “What’s Fanuco doing here if he doesn’t care for any of you?”

  “It’s a love-hate relationship,” Adriano said, as if he doubted he could ever get her to understand an aspect of the Spanish male character which had to be forever a mystery to an outsider. “After all, he’s kind of an adopted member of my family. On a more obvious and more understandable level, he’s here because we can help him.”

  “Help him do what?” She was afraid Adriano was on the verge of stopping right there.

  “He’s very ambitious. He wants to be accepted not only in the bullring but in society, too. Probably because he’s sure that his not having been a member was the only reason Joaquín objected to his marriage with Ladonna.”

  “Was it?”

  “Not just the matter of social position. Again, land was the deciding factor. Ladonna could hardly marry someone without social standing or land, not when she could marry both by having Victoro Isidro.”

  Alyssa was tempted to ask if Ladonna would have ended up engaged to Victoro Isidro if Lalo Montego had made other provisions in his will. However, she lost her nerve at that moment and decided to satisfy her curiosity, instead, as regarded another point.

  “Just what exactly are you getting out of this?” she asked. “I mean, I see the advantages to Fanuco in his chumming around with the aristocracy, but what’s to be gained from your side?”

  “Joaquín and Ladonna are patrons of Sister Dominica’s orphanage, and its invaluable publicity to be seen as having been successful in getting Spain’s principal up-and-coming matador de toros to volunteer for the event.”

  “What about you? Are you a patron of the orphanage, too?”

  “I’m just returning favors owed Joaquín for his having offered me his hospitality when my father kicked me out on my ass. Fanuco is really only here to show off in front of me, you know. It’s his need to do that, by way of proving to me just how much better a matador he’s become than I could have ever hoped to be that allows him to have been maneuvered into attending not only today’s little fiesta but his real money-making performance in the plaza in Madrid next week.”

  “Do you think it fair to have tapped Fanuco’s insecurities?”

  “Alyssa, it is for a good cause. It’s not as if any of us are out to shovel the proceeds into our own coffers. Hell, this is being done purely for charity so that Sister Dominica won’t have to send any of her charges out onto the street. Besides, the publicity hasn’t hurt Fanuco’s career any. It’s more likely done it a world of good.”

  The gentleman sitting on the other side of Adriano took the opportunity to make himself known. After which, Adriano made formal introductions, and Alyssa found herself caught up in a three-way conversation that included everything from the champagne used in the breakfast punch to the lineage of the heifers herded into the pens.

  In the meantime, most of the men who had been moving the cows had vacated the ring in favor of seats in the stands. A few—like Joaquín and Fanuco—had taken up positions immediately behind the barriers.

  Ladonna Hidalgo sat not too far from Alyssa, amid a circle of obvious male admirers. By turning slightly to her right, Alyssa could unobtrusively catch flashes of Ladonna’s white teeth and sexy tosses of the woman’s cascading black hair.

  However, Alyssa’s attention was soon centered entirely on the ring when a heifer erupted into the circular enclosure. The animal raised a storm of dust as it proceeded to charge into the emptiness. At just a hint of Joaquín’s body f
rom behind the edge of the barrier, the animal charged.

  The crowd roared approval of the animal’s bravura, and it did so, yet again, as two men appeared without capes just long enough to send the heifer chasing after them. One of the men barely managed to regain concealment ahead of the animal’s charge.

  Finally, Fanuco stepped out, brandishing a magenta-and-yellow cape that immediately caught the heifer’s attention, and the animal rushed it.

  Alyssa was fascinated by just how fast the animal moved, charging the cape as if it had forever been its life-long enemy. In fact, she could hardly believe the heifer had so quickly covered the space separating it from the young matador.

  The cape swirled again, and the animal moved with it around the statue-like posturing of Fanuco. The crowd shouted its approval.

  “Fantastic!” Alyssa mumbled, hardly realizing she had put her thoughts into words.

  “And, that’s only a heifer he’s working,” Adriano said, seeming amused by Alyssa’s impressionability. “Fanuco stands just as solidly when he has a full-grown bull of over a thousand pounds, complete with sharp horns, dancing around him.”

  The next few minutes, Alyssa watched while Adriano kept up a running commentary, pointing out the good points of Fanuco and the heifer.

  “The cow can determine its offspring,” Adriano said. “This heifer obviously comes from a good strain. See the way she doesn’t give up, just keeps on charging the cape, even though Fanuco snaps the cloth away from her each and every time?”

  Fanuco finished with the heifer, ushering it out with a flurry of cape work. Then, he began practicing with yet another animal allowed entrance at a nod from Joaquín Hidalgo. This second animal was as spirited as the first. Fanuco cape-passed this one as expertly as he had the one before it.

  “Ole!” a man three places away from Alyssa screamed in appreciation and was echoed immediately by others.

  “Imagine how hundreds of people sound in Madrid’s Plaza de Toros when it’s a real bull and not merely a heifer performing to Fanuco de Galena’s tune,” Adriano suggested.

  Alyssa tried to imagine it, but she found it hard to do. What Fanuco was doing with that cow was more beautiful than she had ever imagined it could be.

  The second heifer exited the ring amid sounds of genuine appreciation for what Fanuco had accomplished with it.

  Alyssa was actually looking forward to seeing yet a third animal released to match its skills with the matador.

  Fanuco, though, had moved to a position almost directly below her and called up something.

  At first, Alyssa thought he was calling to her. Didn’t matadors sometimes dedicate their bulls to friends and acquaintances in the stands? But, this wasn’t a regular bullfight. There weren’t even any bulls. And Fanuco wasn’t talking to her but was calling up to Adriano. As soon as Alyssa realized that, she turned to Adriano and saw his expression that included discernable taut movements of the muscles along his jaw line.

  “What did he say?” she asked. At the same time, she already knew what Fanuco had said. Adriano and everyone else in the bullring knew, too. Since her question was superfluous, she really didn’t expect Adriano to answer—and he didn’t.

  “Well?” Fanuco shouted. The only other sounds in the place were the heifers moving in their pens. “Surely, that’s not too much to ask for a good cause, is it?”

  Alyssa did some fast mental computations. She still hadn’t adjusted to thinking entirely in Spanish, but, if her figures were correct, Fanuco had just offered to contribute the equivalent $4,000 U.S. cash to Sister Dominica’s orphanage fund if Adriano would cape-pass just one heifer a few times before the assembled crowd.

  The arena went even quieter. Even the animals seemed to sense something in the works, stopping their pawing of the ground and fastening large brown eyes upon Adriano in the stands. Alyssa was sure a pin could have been heard dropping if someone would have just bothered to drop one.

  She didn’t know what Adriano would do. She did know that whatever it was, she was furious with Fanuco for having put the man who she was with in this untenable situation.

  “That’s an awfully lot of money to pay for an amateur performance,” Adriano finally called back.

  “Yes, it is,” Fanuco agreed. “However, it’s all for a good cause, is it not?”

  “You won’t expect too much?” Adriano asked.

  Alyssa wondered if he was actually going to be sucked in by Fanuco’s baiting. On the other hand, what else could he do? It seemed like a simple enough request. After all, these weren’t bulls. Nor, was Adriano a rank amateur; he did have the background necessary to put on a fairly decent show. And since it was money for charity, it would have seemed a little spoiled-sport of him to refuse.

  “We all realize you’re a bit rusty,” Fanuco conceded. “We don’t expect perfection.”

  “Then, what can I do but accept your kind donation?” Adriano said.

  In reply, the stadium erupted with screams and shouts of encouragement. Even Alyssa found herself clapping delightedly. It wasn’t as if she was cheering a Christian being sent to the lions. Certainly, there was little danger for Adriano down there in this ring.

  “If you’ll excuse me, then, it seems I have suddenly become part of the entertainment,” Adriano said, scooting past her en route to the steps leading down to the barriers.

  Alyssa used her right hand to push hair off her forehead, realizing that she was exceptionally excited. Her heart pounded. Her flesh flushed and, then, went damp with perspiration. She could sense, too, that all those around her were excited, as well. Even Ladonna Hidalgo sat physically forward in her seat, her eyes avidly following Adriano’s progression.

  Most of these people had never seen Adriano Montego in any bullring. They had heard that some experts had once predicted he would go far in the profession, but they, also, knew he had rebelled against such predictions and against his father’s wishes. It was, indeed, a treat to get a peek at the greatness which might have been. If these weren’t real bulls, that made little difference. It was a treat, nonetheless. So much so that many from the audience would have gladly chipped into the charitable pot if Fanuco had only suggested it.

  Adriano reached the dirt enclosure, having climbed over the low wall separating it from the stands. He said a few low words to Fanuco before Joaquín arrived to separate the two of them, taking Adriano off to one side for more hurried conversation.

  Obviously, Joaquín was more than a little upset and wanted Adriano to know that he certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with any of these theatrics. He was well aware of how embarrassing for Adriano it would have been to refuse Fanuco’s invitation. As host, Joaquín was furious at what had rightfully looked, and been, a serious breach of etiquette and his hospitality.

  Adriano, though, seemed prepared to live up to his commitment. He walked back to Fanuco and took the magenta and yellow cape from him. As he took possession, he fanned it in a series of intricate flourishes that had colored material billowing all around him; there was thunderous applause.

  Alyssa surprised herself by jumping to her feet and joining in. Possibly, she was demonstrative as a means of chastising Fanuco for having maneuvered Adriano into such a corner. Fanuco must have recognized how the crowd was coming across far more excited by the prospect of seeing a bit of cape work by Adriano that by seeing Fanuco de Galena pass a third heifer—despite Fanuco having the better reputation, what with his participation in some major bullfights. That Adriano hadn’t appeared in the bullring for years couldn’t be told from the clamorous response he continued to receive.

  Alyssa only hoped Adriano wasn’t so rusty he wouldn’t be able to put up a halfway decent show. If he could just come through respectably, that would really show Fanuco had made a wrong move in forcing any comparisons.

  Adriano signaled for silence and was given it only after an extended session of more handclapping and cheers. When quiet finally did come, Adriano nodded to Joaquín.

  “Open
the gate!” Joaquín ordered, and the gate swung open, admitting another heifer into the ring.

  It looked larger than those which had come before it. Also, it moved with genuinely astonishing speed, running first here and then there, charging thin air while Adriano watched it.

  Meanwhile, Fanuco watched Adriano. Positioned behind the barrier, Fanuco must have wondered if he hadn’t miscalculated. Likely, he’d never really expected Adriano to accept the challenge. He couldn’t help but notice—by the way Adriano was working the cape—that the man had seemingly forgotten very little, if anything, of their early learning sessions.

  Adriano held the cape, twitching it slightly to get the heifer’s eye. The animal dashed pell-mell toward the movement, delighted finally to have something substantial on which to vent anger and frustration. It seemed little fazed that the target was soon ripped from in front of it. It merely relocated the movement which Adriano expertly provided and charged again…and again…and again. Five, six, seven times, the heifer doubled back on itself, running at the offending cape that was entirely under Adriano’s control.

  At times, the man and the animal were merged within the colorful swirl of the cloth. Man and animal became as if one in a stylistic ballet that held Alyssa rooted to her seat. Everyone else was rooted, too. Adriano Montego wasn’t disappointing them. It made no difference that it wasn’t a thousand-pound bull that he was working, there in the ring. Any aficionado, and there were many in the audience, could take what he or she saw and transpose it to another time and another place to conjure just how it might be if the heifer were a bull with the stamina and horns to kill the man who played it.

  Men and women more experienced than Alyssa at detecting the qualities of a man with a cape could tell they were seeing something special. Adriano was, indeed, the son of Lalo Montego.