There was a frenzy of activity before the next corrida. People ran up and down visiting, smoking, drinking beer, squirting wine into their mouths. Vendors sold alegrías and bright green oval pastries, pistachio nuts, pig skins, Domino pizzas.
There was a warm breeze and Jane shuddered. A wave of the deepest fear came over her, a sense of impermanence. The entire plaza might disappear.
“You are cold,” Jerry said. “Here, put on your sweater.”
“Thanks,” she said.
Deedee reached across Jerry’s lap and touched Jane’s arm.
“We’ll take you outside, if you want to leave.”
“No, thank you. I think it must be the altitude.”
“It gets to Jerry, too. He has a pacemaker; sometimes it’s hard to breathe.”
“You’re still trembling,” Jerry said. “Sure you’re ok?”
The couple smiled at her with kindness. She smiled back, but was still shaken by an awareness of our insignificance. Nobody even knew where she was.
“Oh, good, you’re in time,” she said when Señor Errazuriz returned.
“I don’t understand it,” he said. “I, myself, I can’t watch American films. Goodfellas, Miami Blues. That is cruelty to me.” He shrugged. To the Yamatos he apologized for the bulls from Santiago, as if they were a national embarrassment. The Japanese man was equally polite in his reassurances that on the contrary, they were grateful to be here. Bullfighting was a fine art, exquisite. It is a rite, Jane thought as the trumpet sounded. Not a performance, a sacrament to death.
The coliseum pulsated, throbbed with cries of Jorge, Jorge. Whistles and angry jeers at the judge. Culero! Asshole! because he didn’t get rid of the bull, Platero. No se presta, he doesn’t lend himself, Señor Errazuriz said. In the second tercio the bull stumbled and fell, and then just sat there, as if he just didn’t feel like getting up. “La Golondrina! La Golondrina!” a group in the sunny section chanted.
Señor Errazuriz said that was a song about swallows leaving, a farewell song. “They’re saying, ‘Goodbye with this pinche bull!’” Jorge was obviously disgusted, and decided to kill Platero as soon as possible. But he couldn’t. Like Giglio before him he bounced the sword off the bull, jabbed it too high, too far back. Finally the animal died. The bullfighter left the ring downcast, humiliated. The continued chants of “torero” from his loyal fans must have felt like mockery. The monosabios and mules came for Platero, who was dragged away to whistles and curses, thousands of flying cushions.
Whereas Giglio had been lyrical and Gutierrez formal, authoritative, the young Spaniard, Dominguez, was fiery and defiant, sweeping the bull Centenario after him across the sand, flaring his cape like a peacock. He stood with pelvis arched inches from the bull. Olé, olé. The matador and bull swirled like water plants. The picadors entered the ring, the banderilleros took turns. Capes swaying, they lured the bull toward the horse. The bull attacked the belly of the horse. Again and again the picador thrust the spear into the bull. Furious, then, the bull pawed the sand, his head lowered, then thundered toward the nearest banderillero.
At that moment a man leaped into the field. He was young, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, carrying a red shawl. He raced past the subalterns, faced the bull, and executed a lovely pass. Olé. The entire plaza was in an uproar, cheering and whistling, throwing hats. “Un Espontáneo!” Two policemen in grey flannel suits jumped into the arena and chased after the man, running clumsily in the sand in their high-heeled boots. Dominguez gracefully fought the bull whenever it came his way. Centenario thought it was a party, jumped up and down like a playful labrador, charged first a subalterno, then a guard, then a horse, then the man’s red shawl. Wham—he tried to knock over a picador, then raced to get the two policemen, knocking them both down, wounding one, crushing his foot. All three subalterns were chasing the man, but stopped and waited each time the man fought the bull.
“El Espontáneo! El Espontáneo!” cried the crowd, but more police entered and tossed him over the barrera to waiting handcuffs. He was taken into custody. There was a stiff sentence and fine for “spontaneous ones,” Señor Errazuriz said, otherwise people would do it all the time. But the crowds kept cheering for him as the wounded guard was carried away and the picadors left, to the music.
Dominguez was going to dedicate the bull. He asked the judge permission to dedicate it to the espontáneo, and for him to be set free. It was granted. The man was taken out of handcuffs. He leapt the barrera again, this time to accept the bullfighter’s montera, and to embrace him. Hats and jackets sailed from the stands to his feet. He bowed, with the grace of a torero, jumped the fence and climbed way, way up into the sunny stands, up by the clock. Meanwhile the banderilleros were distracting the bull, who was totally ruined now, like a hyperactive child, careening around the ring, ramming his horns into the wooden fence and the burladeros where the cuadrilla hid. Still everyone merrily sang “El Espontáneo!” Even the old Japanese were shouting it! The young couple were laughing, hugging each other. What a glorious, dazzling confusion.
Dominguez was denied a change of bull, but managed to fight the nervous animal with spirit and much daring, since Centenario had become erratic and angry. Whenever he tried to kill the bull, it shied and jumped. Catch me if you can! So again there were repeated bloody stabbings in the wrong places.
Jane thought that Jerry was yelling at the matador, but he had simply cried out, tried to stand. He fell onto the cement stairs. His head had cracked against the cement, was bleeding red into his black hair. Deedee knelt on the stairs next to him.
“It’s too soon,” she said.
Jane sent a guard for a doctor. Jerry’s parents knelt side by side on the step above him while vendors scurried up and down past them. With a hysterical giggle Jane noticed that whereas in the States a crowd would have gathered, no one in the plaza took their eyes from the ring, where Giglio fought a new bull, Navegante.
The doctor arrived as just below them the picador was stabbing the bull, to fierce whistles and protests. Sweating, the little man waited until the noise abated, abstractedly holding Jerry’s hand. When the picadors left he said to Deedee, “He is dead.” But she knew that, his parents knew. The old man held his wife as they looked down on him. They looked at their son with sorrow. Deedee had turned him over. His face had an amused expression, his eyes were half-open. Deedee smiled down at him. A raincoat vendor covered him with blue plastic. “Thank you,” Deedee said. “Five thousand pesos, please.”
Olé, olé. Giglio whirled in the ring, the banderillas poised above his head. With an undulating zig-zag he danced toward the bull. Two women guards came. They couldn’t get a gurney down the steps, one of them told Jane. They would have to wait until the corrida was over to bring one to the callejón, then his body could be lifted over the barrera. No problem. They would come as soon as they could get through. Another guard told Jerry’s parents they had to return to their seats, they might be hurt. Obediently the elderly couple sat down. They waited, whispering. Señor Errazuriz spoke to them gently and they nodded, although they didn’t understand. Deedee held her husband’s head in her lap. She gripped Jane’s hand, stared unseeing into the ring where Giglio was exchanging swords for the kill. Jane spoke with the ambulance driver, translated for Deedee, took the American Express card from Jerry’s wallet.
“Has he been very ill?” Jane asked Deedee.
“Yes,” she whispered. “But we thought there was more time.”
Jane and Deedee embraced, the arm-rest between them pressing into their bodies like sadness.
“Too soon,” Deedee said again.
The plaza was on its feet. Jorge had given Giglio