Fragile Beasts (17 page)

“Is she your
novia?”

“My fiancée? No, nothing like that. I didn’t say I’ve known her long. I said I know her well.”

He began to walk to the bar. I watched him, transfixed. It was as if a rare, beautiful animal had stepped unexpectedly from a forest and passed by me close enough that I could reach out and touch him but I knew I would never dare.

He turned and offered me his famous, captivating smile that I’d seen many times in newspaper photos after his better corridas.

“I could use a drink,” he said.

His request jolted me out of my reverie, and I hurried behind the bar.

I knew exactly where my father had put the special bottles of Scotch whisky.

I opened one and poured him a drink over ice.

He took it without showing any surprise at all that we had this expensive, imported whisky that was impossible to get outside our major cities.

He drank in silence while I worked up the nerve to ask him more about his pursuer.

“Why did that man want to kill you?”

He pondered my question for a moment.

“He would probably tell you he was protecting his daughter’s honor, but
he wasn’t. His daughter’s honor, belongs to his daughter, and she should be able to do with it what she wants. He was protecting his own reputation in this backward little town. He was saving face.”

“By keeping his daughter from being with you?”

“Something like that.”

“But you’re a great artist.”

“That doesn’t mean fathers want me to love their daughters.”

“Why not? They should.”

He laughed again.

“What’s your name?” he asked me.

“Luis.”

“I like you, Luis. You’re very brave. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Have you seen me in the ring?”

“Of course.”

“How many times?”

“Every time you’ve performed here.”

“That’s not enough.”

“How could it be more?”

“You’ve never been away from Villarica?”

“No,” I admitted, reluctantly.

“Not even to Toledo?”

I shook my head in embarrassment.

“Do you have some paper and a pen I could use?”

I went to my father’s desk in the small office off the kitchen and returned with both.

He began writing.

“Can you get a note to my mother?” he asked me.

My heart swelled with pride. Manuel Obrador liked me, and thought I was brave, and now he was asking me to deliver a message to his own dear mother.

“Of course.”

He finished the first note and started on a second one.

“And one to the girl if I tell you where she lives?”

“The girl!?” I cried in amazement. “Are you going to see her again?”

He put down the pen, folded both notes, and handed them to me, smiling.

“Not this time. It’s better to go away. But I’ll find a way to see her again someday. I can’t stand to leave a work of art unfinished.”

For the next few days, I walked on air. I never told anyone about how I saved El Soltero, partly because I didn’t want to be responsible for spreading bad rumors about him and partly because I didn’t think anyone would believe me, especially not my brothers and sisters.

I didn’t have to worry about the first part because by the next day the entire town knew what had happened, except for what unfolded inside my father’s restaurant. As for the second part, telling my tale would have been like an American boy claiming Superman had dropped from the sky and asked him for assistance in saving the world.

It didn’t matter that I had proof. My mother noticed the little cut on my neck and asked me about it. I told her I got it wrestling with my brother Jaime, the bad seed. She told me I needed to grow up. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her that Manuel Obrador thought I was grown up enough to take secret, crucially important messages to his mother and lover.

I also kept the glass he drank from.

Time passed as time does and soon it was hard even for me to believe my adventure with Manuel had ever happened.

Before I knew it summer had arrived and the bullfighting season was well under way. One day in July after spending a precious hour hanging out with my friends between siesta and starting my work in the kitchen, I was walking slowly across the plaza when I noticed a commotion going on in my father’s restaurant. It was far too early for customers yet there were dozens of people milling about among the outdoor tables and chairs.

I quickly walked inside where there were even more people. An excited buzz of conversation filled the air. My father and my oldest brother, Miguel, were busy pouring drinks for people.

One of my younger sisters, Teresa, the smart one, grabbed me by the arm.

“Luis, have you heard?” she asked elatedly.

Teresa never got excited.

“Heard what?”

“Come quick,” she told me. “Mama has the letter.”

I followed her to where my mother was sitting at a table surrounded by a pack of women all talking at the same time. My older sister, Sofia, the pretty one, sat next to my mother looking absolutely dazed. Her face was flushed a
dark pink and she had a glass of water sitting in front of her. One of the ladies stood beside her and fanned her with a folded newspaper.

My other younger sister, Ana, the lazy one, was busily folding a stack of cloth napkins on the table next to us with a look of determination on her face I’d never seen before.

The world had been turned upside down.

“Luis,” my mother said happily when she noticed me. “It’s unbelievable. What a happy day for us.”

She stood up and kissed me.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Your father received a letter today from Manuel Obrador asking if he and his cuadrilla can stay in our rooms when he comes for the fiesta de toros in August.”

When she finished speaking, everyone standing near us cheered, laughed, and clapped, even though I knew all of them had probably heard these same words repeated countless times in the past half hour.

Now I understood the fuss. This was huge news for my family.

Toreros had their favorite lodgings in every bullfighting town. Here, for Manuel, it had always been Hotel Villarica.

My father never took offense at this. We were a restaurant first and foremost. The Hotel Villarica was a true hotel. It was better equipped to care for overnight guests and had a widespread reputation, but with one simple letter, we were about to become a more coveted inn. There would be no limits to our fame.

“Isn’t it a miracle?” my mother asked me. “No one knows what changed his mind.”

“He finally came to his senses. That’s all,” Miguel shouted, happily. “He’s a man who recognizes quality.”

My youngest brother, Javier, squeezed out of the crowd and gave my mother a hug around her waist.

“It’s because of Mama’s cooking,” he cried.

Everyone cheered and clapped again.

He gave me a big smile, and I smiled back because I knew the truth. My mother wrapped her arms around him. He was the spoiled one.

Manuel and his men arrived in the middle of the night the day of the corrida long after I’d been sent to bed. My father and Miguel were there to greet
them. At breakfast they narrated all the details while the rest of my usually loud, animated family sat perfectly still in enraptured silence. Even Felipe, the funny one, never cracked a joke.

Manuel didn’t leave his room until he came downstairs to join his cuadrilla for lunch. I fully intended to approach him. I had planned what I was going to say—I had even predicted what his responses would be—but each time I tried to leave the kitchen, I was overcome by doubt.

They had grilled trout, and
escabeche
—another partridge dish where the bird is served cold with onions, tomatoes, and peppers—and
cuchifrito
, pieces of lamb fried in olive oil, then slow cooked with spices, garlic, and dried peppers. It was a dish typical of the Toledo region and one of my mother’s specialties. Some people said it was originally brought to Spain by the Arabs, but I never believed this.

They drank beer and wine and finished the meal with cheese and
bizcocho borracho
, drunken biscuit, a cake soaked with rum.

Manuel ate well but not nearly as much as the rest of his party. Most toreros hardly ate at all before entering the ring. Fear prevented some, and others wanted to be sure they had an empty stomach in case they had to be rushed into emergency surgery. Manuel was one of the few who didn’t skimp on his lunch, and inevitably accounts of his appetite were greatly exaggerated. In Sevilla it was once reported he ate an entire baby goat by himself.

Eventually I got up the nerve to go into the dining room, but I still wasn’t able to go near him. I lingered at the far end of the bar pretending to dry glasses.

I caught his eye at one point, but he ignored me and I was crushed.

As the hour drew near for Manuel to depart for the plaza, townspeople, tourists, and reporters began to fill our restaurant in the hopes of catching a glimpse of him as he passed through our front doors resplendent in his
traje de luces
, the lavish embellished suit that is a bullfighter’s traditional costume.

I waited with everyone else, but my heart wasn’t in it. My sisters wore their best dresses, and my brothers strutted around with a newfound dignity. Men stood at the bar drinking cold beers, and women sat at the tables with their fans fluttering in front of their faces.

I sulked near the windows, occasionally casting a glance down the street where six months earlier Manuel and I had run from the man with the knife. Now it seemed like a dream.

The roar of conversation suddenly began to lessen as one of Manuel’s errand boys come bounding down the stairs and walked into the crowded restaurant. By the time he arrived in front of my father’s bar, the noise level had dropped to a hum.

“Señor Martinez,” he said to my father. “Manuel would like to speak to Luis.”

My father’s face clouded over with worry.

“Has he done something wrong?”

“No, no,” the boy told him. “Luis is a friend of Manuel’s.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

My father’s face was a comical mask of astonishment, but it quickly softened and he nodded proudly.

Just like that, I was no longer the invisible one.

I followed the boy upstairs. He knocked on Manuel’s door, and his manservant came out. It was time for Manuel to leave, so I knew the man had just finished helping him dress.

He looked at me sternly, said nothing, and trotted down the stairs.

The door was open a crack. I put my eye up next to it.

Manuel was standing at the foot of his bed with his back to me. He was completely in costume, from his bullfighter’s black skullcap and fake pigtail attached to the hair at the back of his head to his salmon-pink socks and black leather pumps with bows over the toes.

His bedclothes were rumpled from his recent siesta. The shutters had been thrown open. Sunlight flooded the room and glinted off the golden embroidery, crystals, beads, and baubles encrusted on his sky blue suit. I knew the name of the color. “Celeste,” I whispered to myself.
Heavenly
.

“Come in,” he said.

I pushed the door open but only took one step inside.

He turned around and the motion sent darts of light bouncing off the walls and ceiling.

“I’ve been thinking about you, Luis.”

I was speechless.

“Have you thought of me since that day we met?”

“Yes,” I managed to stammer out.

“What did you think?”

“I wondered if you saw the girl again.”

He laughed, a sound that never failed to cheer me. I would find out soon that he had two laughs: a harsh, derisive one he used for the press and when he was put on display at parties and events, and this genuine one. Whenever he used the second, you knew you had amused or pleased him and you felt like the most important person in the world.

“Yes. I saw her.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“And lose my name? Then I’d have to be called El Esposo.
The Husband
. Bah. Never.”

We both laughed at the thought of this.

“What do you think of school?” he asked me while crossing the room to check his reflection in the mirror above the dresser.

“It’s boring.”

“Why is it boring?”

“Because we don’t learn anything interesting.”

He adjusted the collar of his ivory tuxedo shirt and picked at a gold tassel on one of his epaulettes.

“What do you think of this town?”

“It’s boring, too.”

“When you think about how a man should live his life, do you think the most important thing is that he should never be bored?”

I took a moment to contemplate his question.

“Yes,” I said, a smile of discovery lighting up my face. “I do.”

“Good.”

I watched him examine his nails. He would have clipped and filed them earlier to make sure there weren’t any ragged edges that might catch on his cape.

I marveled at his composure. He was about to face one of nature’s most powerful, fiercest beasts while alone and unarmed and here he was serenely checking for hangnails dressed in a costume so ornate and flamboyant that even a king or sultan wouldn’t dare to wear it.

I had replayed our first meeting over and over again in my mind since it happened, and each time I ended up wondering how a man who wasn’t frightened by bulls could be frightened by another man. Seeing him now and
hearing his questions, I suddenly realized he had never been afraid that day. What I mistook for fear and panic in his eyes and voice had been exhilaration. Running for his life had been fun for him.

“How would you like to work for me? You could be one of my errand boys; then if things work out, maybe someday my
mozo de espada.”

I was struck dumb by the suggestion. El Soltero’s
mozo de espada?
His sword page? The boy in charge of carrying and taking care of the swords and many other vital tasks like getting the
traje
ready?

Errand boys were as common as dust but the
mozo de espada
was the torero’s right-hand man, which made him formally a part of the cuadrilla.