Mexico (97 page)

With the sticks Gomez was adequate, but not exceptional, nor could he afford to hire men who were, so on this first bull he placed a desultory pair, but then felt obligated to offer Victoriano a chance to display what he could do, and the fans applauded this gesture. But it turned out poorly for the Indian, because poetic Victoriano drifted across the sand like an angel, rose on his toes and placed a pair so elegantly that the crowd cheered.

There was always a brief interval between the placing of the last sticks and the final stage of the fight, and in this pause Ledesma came to where we were sitting, pushed his big head between Mrs. Evans and Penny and whispered to me: "Norman, you'd better come down here with me," but I demurred: "I'm happy with these two." Severely he said: 'There may be something you should see," and with those cryptic words he lured me away from the Oklahomans and down into the passageway, from where we watched
Gomez
try to do something with his bull.

The animal, somewhat confused by previous happenings, did not arrive at the end of his day suitable for the kind of passes and close-in work at which Gomez excelled. Juan accomplished little with the red cloth and failed three times to drive the sword home. As the bull was dragged out he heard what the reporters called divisos, or a division of opinion: a few cheers for his bravery and effort to do well, many jeers for having failed.

It was as if the drab first fight had been a forgivable prologue to the real afternoon, for the second bull, belonging to Victoriano, seemed to have been sent by Don Eduardo to prove that any Palafox bull carried with him the possibility of a superb performance. At the sorting that day I had noted No. 33 as "Placid, allows others to shove. Explosive???"

I was privileged to see this fight through the eyes of Ledesma, who allowed me to look over his shoulder as he jotted down a running series of notes to aid him when he wrote his critique: "Vic. two beautiful veronicas. Gomez finally does something. Leads toro off 2 fine walking passes. Vic. magnificent banderillas. Band plays. Gomez only regular. Vic. opens faena farolazo de rodillas. [Starts final stage on knees with swirling pass over his head]. Gets better, better. Muleta held behind back, bull under his arm, inches. A decent kill, but bull stands. One jab with the dagger sword. Bull falls. Dianas [traditional music of applause]. Wild cheering. An ear. Another ear. More dianas. Cheers. Tail. Tour of the arena. Another. Another. He invites Don Eduardo to join him. Triumphant. Note his clever placement of toro."

When I asked what the last note meant, I was treated to another example of why it was rewarding to be near Ledesma at a taurine affair. He not only loved the gallantry of the bullfight world but also served as the recorder of its more sardonic elements: "Always watch how Victoriano places his bull during a fight. Whenever he feels capable of giving a fine series of passes, he directs his
Peon
s to bring the bull over here to Sombra, so that the high-paying customers can marvel at his artistry. When he has a bull with which he can do nothing, his men lead it over to Sol and leave it there. Victoriano goes over, gives a few bad passes and dispatches the bull as quickly and ineptly as possible. Sol gives meaningless cheers, Sombra pays the rent. He likes rich people, but, of course, so do I."

"Do other matadors behave any differently?"

"Gomez. Watch the way he orchestrates his fight. When he has a great series of passes in prospect, he takes his bull to the Sol, because those are the people who support him, the people who know what real bullfighting is. With them, no sham or fancy-dancy."

"Where did you hear such a word?"

He laughed: "I once escorted a Hollywood starlet who was mad about Mexico. She taught me."

When I watched how the two matadors used the broad expanse of sand to do their work I saw that my earlier instinct had been accurate: Ledesma was right. Victoriano was indeed the artist of Sombra, Gomez the man of Sol.

The litde Indian, having been forced to listen to the triumphant cheers for his opponent, was challenged to outperform him, and he certainly tried, but his valiant work on his second bull, the one we had spotted as being overage, was still unrewarding. For him the afternoon was degenerating into a debacle. One splendid moment, unfortunately, did not involve
Gomez
. True to his promise to Pepe Huerta, the substitute whom management had picked up on the cheap from Guadalajara, he allowed the young aspirant to place the second pair of sticks, having himself messed up the first pair. The eager substitute must have been rehearsing what he would do this day, if he got a chance to show the skills he knew he had but which others did not recognize. He took the sticks, decorated with garish purple tissue paper wrapped about their length, strode manfully to where Penny sat above him in the front row, and with the sticks in his left hand he pointed the barbed ends at her and announced he was dedicating his performance to her. The crowd cheered, and Penny, sitting with his frayed entrance cape still gracing the railing, started shouting in a most unladylike voice: "Mr. Clay! Mr. Clay! Get the photo!"

Heart pounding, nerves alert, wearing the one decent suit of lights he owned, Pepe went out toward the middle of the arena and started that long, dreamlike stalk toward the bull, feet together, jumping up and down now and then to hold the bull's attention. Fortunately, considering what Pepe had planned, the bull initially remained cautiously immobile, watching the thin figure approach with his arms extended over his head, until finally, with a mad rush, he came out of his defensive position driving right at the man. At that moment Huerta ran toward the bull, made a complete 360-degree turn to the right, and wound up facing the now bewildered bull only a few feet away. Up in the air leaped the man, sticks still high above his head, and with a deft turn and twist of his body he escaped the horns but left himself high enough in the air to enable him to place the barbed sticks exactly in the neck muscle behind the horns.

My automatic camera had caught some dozen shots of those last electric moments. One that showed the full drama and grace of that last turn and downward dip of the sticks would be widely circulated in Mexico as The Pair of Toledo. In a poster-size reproduction paid for by Penny Grim it would come to rest on the wall of her dormitory room at S
. M. U
. in Dallas; beside it would be a small shot of Huerta dedicating the famous pair to her. It had happened. She had come to Mexico hoping to meet a bull-fighter and she had found a champion.

Huerta's performance did nothing to help Gomez, because when Juan tried the third pair he looked almost pathetic in comparison with what the substitute had just done. And with the sword at the end he was brave but luckless. This time at the unsatisfactory kill there were not even divisos; they were all boos.

The pause after the third bull was like the midpoint of a baseball game in the United States when the groundkeepers run out to smooth the diamond, for now the big gate on the sunny side opened to admit two teams of mules dragging behind them heavy bags that leveled out the sand. Since the horses wore cockades in their manes and their drivers wore blue shirts, they made a colorful show and concluded their work at the far side of Sombra, from where they galloped in a mad chariot race to see which team would reach the exit gate first. After cheering the winner and booing the loser, the crowd was ready for the festival to resume.

Victoriano's second bull was almost a replica of his first, except that this time he was awarded only the two ears. The crowd made a noisy demand for the tail also, and when it was not granted, they made the triumphant matador circle the arena twice to wild cheering. I watched him as he passed and suspected that fear was hiding just below the joy he was entitled to show: 'There's still that big one to face. The killer." I knew from past experiences with matadors that he was already beginning to sweat, and I put new film into my camera to be ready for what was likely to be the climax of the afternoon.

1 missed Gomez's lackluster performance with his third bull, because before it started, Leon Ledesma tugged at my sleeve: "We may be able to see something not many witness," and he led me quietly to the sunny side of the arena, where we ducked furtively through a little red door into the darkened area in which the bulls were housed after the sorting. In their individual stalls only two of the six bulls remained, No. 38, the big sluggish oxlike fellow that Gomez was about to fight, and No. 47, the unshaven one who had killed Sangre Azul. As we stood in the shadows where we would not be observed, the gate enclosing No. 38 was jerked open with a loud bang while a man at the front end made a huge noise by rattling on the bars. The big bull, more than a thousand pounds of muscle and power, came rushing out of his cage and down the narrow passageway that would take him into the arena. Just as he left the darkness a workman with a steady hand reached down from a safe position and jabbed into the bull's neck muscles a short, sharp dart bearing a small ribbon showing the colors of the breeder's ranch, and this sudden sting caused the animal to leap forward. This one apparendy made a great entrance, snorting and charging, for the crowd roared its approval, but I lost interest in him, for Ledesma was guiding me to another spot from which we could look into the cage holding the last bull, the killer.

Standing almost face-to-face with the bull, I desperately wanted to photograph that great head--black, powerful, quick little eyes, and those deadly horns, straight, unmarred and unshaven--but when I moved my camera into position Ledesma knocked it away and indicated with a nod of his head that others were in this darkened area too, high above, looking down from a perch that placed the bull's rear quarters direcdy under them.

Because of my long acquaintance with Veneno, I knew he was capable of doing anything to give his son even a slight advantage against a deadly enemy, but 1 could not have guessed at the outrageous move he was about to make. Perhaps he was going to shoot a mild tranquilizer into the bull. No, his tactic was far more primitive, one sometimes used when a matador knew he had to face a fearful adversary, a strategy I had heard of but never expected to see.

Immediately after the close of Victoriano's triumphant fight with the fourth bull, Veneno had hurried to the area where the picadors kept their horses and the reserves in case one got killed or incapacitated during the fight. There he had waiting for him Diego and Chucho dressed in their uniforms, and together they had dragged from its hiding place the extremely heavy sack of cement that had been soaked in water. Heaving and huffing, they had hoisted it aloft to the runway overlooking the bulls' cages, and there they had positioned it directly over the rear hip joints of No. 47. Now, with
Gomez
about to start the third portion of his last bullfight, they were ready.

Within ten minutes, this powerful bull would explode into the arena and start looking for Victoriano with his needle-like horns, but Veneno intended him to reach the ring with his power to kill sharply reduced. As Ledesma and I watched in silence, we heard the picador whisper "Now," and the three Leals shoved the bag of cement forward, inch by inch, then "Ugggh!" and it fell with a thud on the most vulnerable part of the bull's rear end where the hind legs were joined to the hip. Ledesma and I, only a few feet away, heard the heavy weight hit the bull and watched as the wet bag slumped for a moment on the bull's back, then slipped to the ground. We heard the bull grunt and watched as he tried to exercise his suddenly painful rear quarters, and after a few irritated shakes of his legs, he adjusted to the new pain and was again ready to defend himself. But Veneno and his sons could now be sure that when he reached the ring he would have lost that extra degree of explosive energy that made a big bull so dangerous. This one would be slowed down, not enough to lame him but more than enough to retard him when trying to use his rear legs for that sudden burst of energy which could destroy horses and men.

As Veneno and his sons climbed down from their perch and hastened to their positions for the final fight, I wondered if Victoriano, who stood to profit from their furtive efforts, was aware that his bull had been so damaged that the fight would be unfair. I hoped that he was not, for I saw him as a man striving to be honorable, but in the treacherous world of bullfighting, who could be sure?

As Le
o
n and I crept back from our spying mission, we heard the dismal trumpet wail the first aviso to
Gomez
warning him: "Speed it up, matador! lime's awasting!" and before Ledesma and I could regain our places in the passageway, the second aviso sounded. We arrived in time to see the poor Indian sweating as he tried vainly to work this devilish No. 38 into position where it could be finished with the sword, but the bull refused to cooperate, even though badly wounded by the matador's previous thrusts. Slowly, planting its feet carefully and solidly, it staggered on, a foe of tremendous vitality who refused to lie down and die.

In desperation,
Gomez
called for the sword that ends in not a point but a dagger and with it he tried to cut the spinal cord with one thrust into the spot behind the horns where the cord joined the head. This was a most difficult operation requiring skill and luck. He had neither, and as he tried repeatedly, with sweat rolling down his face, the crowd began a monotonous chant with each thrust: "Tres, cuatro, cinco; seis ..." It was humiliating and disheartening, but Gomez did not allow the jeers to hurry or distract him. On the ninth try he placed his feet properly, as always, gripped the cloth in his left hand so the bull could see, and steadied the nerves in his right arm. Just as the trumpeter started his final aviso, the dagger hit home and the bull dropped dead spectacularly. Juan Gomez turned to salute the president high in his box and that official nodded back. Both knew what a hellish job it was to kill a powerful bull who refused to die.