Mexico

by James A. Michener

  He allowed his peóns to give the bull more preliminary runs than usual, and when the crowd protested he insolently directed his men to take the bull around once more. With some relief he noticed the animal was powerful and willing, but wild as a summer storm. At last he entered the ring himself and tried two classic passes. He launched them well, but the bull was so agitated—so loose, as the matadors say—that Juan was forced to shift his feet or the beast would have run over him. The crowd made no comment, but down in the caverns the breeder predicted, “A great matador could make something of this bull. You watch.”

  Gómez, beginning to sweat, tried two more classic passes, but again the bull gained terrain and forced him backward. This time the crowd booed. To end the opening section Gómez tried to give his bull one of the half passes Victoriano had used with such effect, and he planted himself properly and with much dignity, but the skittish bull roared past so wildly that Gómez did not just move, he ran, clumsily and without even attempting his pass. The crowd did not boo; its laughter was much worse.

  Gómez recovered his composure and tried again. This time the wild, horn-swinging animal lunged past like a runaway truck, but nevertheless Gómez completed his pass. When the picadors appeared Cigarro advised them, “Lay in a ton.”

  In the routine passes that followed the pics none of the matadors was able to accomplish much. Gómez tried. The other two went through spurious motions, thinking, This isn’t my bull. I don’t have to prove anything.

  When it came time for the banderillas, the peóns placed three perfunctory pairs, keeping well back from the rambunctious horns. At the dedication of the bull, Lucha González found herself wishing it could be given to someone else, for she suspected there was going to be very little honor out of this beast, but when Gómez came before her, she had to accept graciously and the crowd applauded.

  Cigarro, watching his former mistress accepting the dedication like a queen acknowledging a suitor’s bow, thought, She always know how to behave good, suppose she want to. Then he turned to Gómez: “Don’t have to prove nothin’, Juan. Kill and be done.”

  But Gómez had never been able to be content with finishing a bad job badly. His sense of honor would not permit that, so now as he slowly approached the difficult animal I could hear him chanting, “Come to me, torito. I’ll teach you how to dance.” And I thought, That bull weighs half a ton but to him it’s his little torn. The bull did not move, so Gómez, maintaining his shuffling gait, crept closer. “Come to me, torito,” he whispered, “and I will make you immortal.” Ever closer to the dark horns he moved.

  It was only then that I awakened to what this tremendously brave little Indian was going to do. With no flamboyance, no dazzling passes that caused the crowd to shout “¡Olé!” he was going to move right up to the bull’s nose and with a long series of low, chopping passes, pulling the neck this way, then that, he was going to tire the bull’s great muscles so that he became docile and manageable. This was the art of torero at its finest, the unspectacular but heroic act of a man dominating a wild bull, dispelling his rambunctiousness, taming him with one masterly low pass after another.

  Then suddenly, to the surprise of both the bull and the crowd, Gómez stood upright, feet resolutely planted, and with a high pass that brought the bull’s horns close to his head, he wrenched the animal’s head high, as high as it could go, stretching the tired neck muscles in the opposite direction. As the bull turned and came back, head still high, Gómez dropped the red cloth and down crashed the head, and the horns, and the exhausted neck muscles. The fight was over. The fractious bull had surrendered. The man had won.

  León Ledesma observed grudgingly to an impresario from the north, “We won’t see better fighting this year.”

  “How does he have the guts?” the impresario asked.

  “He’s an Indian.”

  “I’d give him a contract if he had a little style.”

  When Gómez came to the barrier for a drink of water, he told me, “Not sixteen people in this plaza realize what I’ve done. No cheers. Nothing for me. Well, I’ve subdued the bull, now I’ll subdue the crowd.”

  In order to understand what he did next, you must know that his series of masterly passes had left the bull perplexed and uncertain as to how or when to charge. The matador was about to risk his life on the assumption that he knew more than the bull himself about the animal’s intentions. Carefully testing the bull’s eyes, and watching his confusion, Gómez walked slowly up to the black snout. With great control, so that no sudden action might alarm the animal, Gómez dropped to one knee, his face only a few inches from the bull’s. When the confused beast gave no sign of moving, Juan dropped his other knee to a position from which flight was impossible. If he had guessed wrong and the bull charged, he was dead.

  “Look what he’s doing now!” Ledesma groaned.

  “This craziness is his only hold on the public,” the impresario replied. “It sickens me.”

  The crowd, remembering how difficult this bull had been, fell silent. Cigarro looked away and prayed. Veneno thought: ‘This damned Indian! Why is he allowed to do such ridiculous things? This isn’t bullfighting.’ Victoriano thought: ‘He’s better than that.’ León Ledesma, disgusted that a classic matador should resort to such cheap exhibitionism, muttered to the impresario from the north, “Get me a gun. If the son-of-a-bitch does the telephone act I’ll shoot him.”

  On the ground Gómez leaned forward until his forehead touched the bull’s. For five long seconds he stared at the animal’s dark and hairy face, then slowly he drew back. The crowd roared approval of the vulgar display, and from the cheap seats a man who had lugged a set of batteries into the arena for just such a moment began ringing a bell, which echoed through the stadium, while the sunny side chanted: “Teléfono, teléfono!” In the passageway León Ledesma groaned: “I refuse to look. Tell me when it’s over.”

  In the center of the ring, still on his knees before the bull, Juan Gómez cocked his ear as if listening to the bell ringing in the stands. Then, with his left hand he grasped the bewildered bull’s right horn and slowly pulled it down until its tip was level with his own left ear. In agonizing silence he brought the tip of the horn directly into his ear, and for almost ten seconds he kept it there, carrying on an imaginary conversation. One chop of the great black head and Gómez would be dead.

  No one moved. No one applauded. In the unbearable suspense the little Indian matador slowly drew back from the horn and began a slow pirouette on his knees until he had turned completely around, exposing his back to the horns, his brown face gazing up at the crowd. Dropping his sword and cloth, he raised his hands in a gesture of supplication.

  There was a suppressed gasp from the crowd and Ledesma asked the impresario, “What’s he doing now?”

  “Knees, back to the bull.”

  “That cheap, cheap bastard,” Ledesma muttered.

  The mighty roars that engulfed the arena signified that Gómez had gotten to his feet, and Ledesma turned to look at the bowlegged little matador just as the bull, unlocked from the spell into which he had fallen, charged with tremendous power. Deftly, Gómez kept him under control with three fine, low passes. As the great beast wheeled his half ton of muscle and bone in the sand, the crowd recognized the risks the matador had taken.

  When he came to the barrier to get his sword for the kill, Gómez asked me unemotionally, “You get good pictures of that?”

  “The best,” I assured him.

  “Get pictures of this kill, too,” he said bluntly.

  He went in hard and true, right over the horns. As the bull took a dozen faltering steps and dropped dead, the crowd shouted wildly. Instead of acknowledging the cheers, Juan Gómez did the sort of thing that made other matadors hate him. He ignored the crowd and marched over to the cave-like room from which the rancher had been watching his bulls.

  “Come out, Don Fernando,” Gómez insisted, and the hangers-on pushed the rancher into the passage and out into th
e ring. Together the two men, the bandy-legged little Indian and the tall rancher, circled the arena, and as he passed us I heard Gómez say: “If you give us brave bulls they don’t have to be suave. It’s my job to make them suave.”

  The crowd knew that the rancher should properly have taken a turn in the arena after Victoriano’s bull, a truly fine animal, and not after the Indian’s, which was unruly. But Gómez, by his courage and skill, had made the wild bull good and now he insulted the Leals, disdained the crowd that had applauded them, and scorned León Ledesma, who had been paid to publicize them. Veneno, watching the goings-on in the ring, thought: I’d like to get my pic into that Indian, just once.

  His family didn’t accomplish much with their second bull, which was not as difficult as the one Gómez had just fought but far too ugly for Victoriano to play around with. The matador allowed his brothers to place the sticks and engineered a halfway decent kill, which produced neither boos nor applause. As the bull was being dragged out Victoriano thought: “One good one, one bad one. Just like Gómez. The day’s a draw. But on Sunday, with Palafox bulls, we’ll show him how to fight.” The trumpet sounded for the last bull of the afternoon.

  It belonged, naturally, to Paquito. The young man’s manager warned him of the important people here. “If you want contracts, do something.”

  Unfortunately for Paquito, his last bull was another bad one. The young fellow, although lacking the skill of Juan Gómez, nevertheless tried to emulate him in subduing the dangerous animal by courage alone. Ledesma, watching carefully since he had received a small purse to say something good about the boy, was worried: “This is going to be pretty bad.”

  But Paquito’s placement of the sticks was an impressive show of bravery, and the audience warmed to him. Encouraged, by the time he took the cloth and sword for the final act of the fight, he was prepared to try some special feat that would save the day for him, as Gómez by bravery alone had rescued his. But it was apparent to those of us in the passage that the young torero was not sure what his gesture ought to be, and in this uncertain frame of mind he went out to face the bull.

  His first pass was a lucky one. By accident Paquito had planted himself where the bull intended going, and the resulting fusion of man and beast was both artistic and exciting. “¡Olé!” cried the crowd, hopeful they were going to see something after all. Spurred on, the young man achieved three more thrilling passes, and the loud cries of encouragement from the cheap seats tempted him to try a pass that most matadors reserved for what they called the stop-and-go bulls, the perfect animals that charge along straight and true lines. This pass, called the manoletina after the greatest matador of recent years, required Paquito to keep the sword and cloth in his right hand, as if for a regular pass, with the tip of the cloth in his left hand behind his back. Thus the target area provided by the cloth was markedly diminished, and the matador had to pass the bull under his right arm and very close to his body.

  Juan Gómez watching the attempt, mused: “I wouldn’t try it with this bull.” Victoriano said nothing but by instinct edged a few steps closer so that if the bull caught the boy there would be a better chance of rescue. Old Veneno, also reacting to instinct, motioned Chucho and Diego nearer the barrier so they might leap into the ring if trouble developed, then relaxed upon seeing that his sons had anticipated him.

  I saw León Ledesma glance at Paquito’s manager as if to ask, “You think this is all right?” The manager nodded and pointed to a group of impresarios. Ledesma came over to stand by me and said, “Well, if he manages it, I’ll have something to write about.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “If the kid does something really fine, maybe we’ll use it in the story. Show them how tough this racket really is,” but the journalist in me was thinking: So far we lack a good-focus shot of a man actually being tossed—if he tries the manoletina with this bull, he’s going right up in the air. Eyes on my viewfinder, I heard the young matador calling, “Eh, toro!”

  By luck he persuaded the animal to charge directly under his right arm, the banderillas in the beast’s back clattering noisily across the matador’s chest. It was a tremendous pass and the crowd bellowed, “¡Olé!” Veneno, although it was no business of his, ran to the barrier and shouted, “That’s enough,” but the boy’s manager, hoping to impress the impresarios from the north, shouted, “Keep it going.”

  Paquito, deluded by the roar of the crowd, launched the pass again, and again he brought the powerful bull close to his ribs. Confident that he had learned how to dominate this bull, he shut his ears to the advice being shouted at him by older men and elected to give one more display of his courage, a pass that had become his specialty in the small plazas where smaller bulls are fought. This time his luck failed him, and as the huge bull bore down, people started screaming: “¡Cuidado! Take care!” But the warning came too late.

  With a ripping sound the bull’s right horn tore into the boy’s left side. There was a confusion of legs and arms spinning in the air and then a collective gasp in the arena as the boy fell awkwardly back upon the horns. With lightning speed the animal tossed the boy three times, catching him on each descent in some new attitude, so that the two deadly horns chopped deep into the rectum and the chest and the face and the neck. With a violent toss of his powerful head, the bull threw the young matador hard against the boards, then wheeled for a last assault and plunged his red-stained horns into the limp body, crushing it against the barrier.

  Everyone knew the boy was dead. In one flashing moment the celebrated competition between Leal and Gómez had exploded into a tragedy of which they were not a part. I saw it all through the viewfinder of my rapid-fire camera and, as I automatically clicked the pictures that were later to become famous in bullfight circles, I thought: I’m shooting the wrong man. This one’s wearing the scarlet suit. I got a tremendous shot of the four Leals wrestling with the bull, old Veneno holding the tail while Victoriano tried to save the boy. Finally, as I photographed the arena workmen in blue pants and white shirts bearing the broken body toward the infirmary, I had another ugly thought: That blood smearing those white shirts will tell the whole story.

  But what I remember most about the death of Paquito is that in the hush of hauling him away I could see the top of the Ferris wheel as it moved slowly through the sky.

  When the ring was emptied, Juan Gómez stalked out to kill Paquito’s bull, for it was the senior matador’s obligation to see that the fight ended as planned even though a man had died. In mordant silence, Gómez led the animal to the proper location for a kill, quieted it with four carefully executed passes, then profiled as always. I wanted to shout, Don’t try that, Juan. He’s not your bull and he’s proved he’s deadly. You’ll be forgiven if you kill this one with a Victoriano side swipe.

  He refused the temptation; he would kill as he always had. When the bull started an unexpected charge, Gómez calmly surrendered his stance, and encouraged the animal to gallop away and release its wild fury. But again, with those low, knowledgeable passes he tamed the bull and again he profiled. This time he drove in deep, right over the still-red horns that had caught Paquito. The bull staggered sideways and fell.

  Like a bowlegged gnome in a fairy tale, Juan Gómez came silently back to the barrier, his dignity restored, his teléfono forgiven.

  9

  THE MEANING OF DEATH

  As soon as I could elbow my way through the crowd that lingered in the bullring, still shocked by the tragic death of Paquito, I reached the Avenida Gral. Gurza and rushed along pathways that led through the central plaza. My task was to get my story and my sixteen rolls of film to New York as rapidly as possible.

  As I took the steps leading to the Terrace I called for the Widow Palafox and gave her two commissions: “Call that man with the light plane. He must fly my films to Mexico City airport to catch one of the big planes heading north. And see if the man at the telegraph office will stand by till I get my copy done.”

  I ran up the stairs to my roo
m and started typing as fast as I could, but soon realized that I knew practically nothing about the dead matador. But as I tried to flesh out the few facts known to me, I had the good luck to hear coming into the House of Tile the troupe of Juan Gómez. Dashing out the door and down the stairs I was able to grab Cigarro and bring him back to my room, where he sat on a chair beside me and, in his near-illiterate manner, told me all he knew about Paquito de Monterrey.

  “Poor family. Mother ran boardinghouse maybe. Two daughters work there doing what? Father gone, long ago. Maybe work in Texas don’t send no money. Paquito, real name Francisco, in English Frankie, learn passes in the street.…”

  So the story went of a Mexican boy who wanted to be a bullfighter to escape the ugly poverty of his childhood. With me typing as fast as I could we put down each scrap of information, including the fact that Paquito had once been a choirboy in a storefront church operated by an uncle. I would leave it to New York to sort out the basic story and clean up my sentence structures, but as I was about to end my story I had an afterthought:

  I believe you will find film cassette Color #9 a shot of me helping to dress Paquito prior to the fight. Me holding towel between his legs, he with red jacket draped on chair.

  I was satisfied that with such an unusual photograph the story would be sure to run. Thanking Cigarro for his valuable help, I ran downstairs and back through the plaza to the telegraph office. On the way I came upon a group of male singers accompanied by two guitars, and when I heard their words I was satisfied that Paquito de Monterrey had already found a secure place in taurine history.

  When a matador is killed in the bullring it is customary for local poets to launch his immortality with a series of folk poems, which occasionally approach high standards. For example, many Americans are familiar with García Lorca’s lament for the death of his torero friend Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. I was not surprised, therefore, as I hurried through the crowds to hear this group of musicians offering a mournful ballad, which they had written, words and music, in the relatively brief time in which I composed my story. It was called, the brass-voiced lead singer announced with his handheld bullhorn, “Lament for Paquito de Monterrey.”