The Fencing Master (4 page)

"Yes, maestro."

They turned to the other pupils who, already equipped and with their masks under their arms, had witnessed the bout.

"If you let your opponent control your foible, then you're at his mercy. Are we all agreed?"

Four young voices chorused a yes. The pupils were all between fourteen and seventeen years old. The Cazorla brothers, both of them blond and extraordinarily alike, were the sons of a soldier. The third was a young man whose skin was reddened by a great number of small spots that gave him a disagreeable appearance. His name was Manuel de Soto, the son of the Conde de Sueca, and Don Jaime had long since given up hope of turning him into a reasonable fencer. De Soto was of too nervous a temperament, and had only to cross foils with someone three or four times to get in a complete tangle. Young Salanova, a dark, good-looking lad from an excellent family, was clearly the best. In another age, with the necessary preparation and discipline, he would have shone in
salles
as a star fencer; but the way things were going now thought Don Jaime bitterly, the young man's talent would soon be rendered worthless by the world they lived in, a world in which young people eager for other things: traveling, riding, hunting, and any number of frivolous pursuits. The modern world, alas, offered young people far too many temptations and their minds lacked the necessary spirit to find full satisfaction in an art like fencing.

He placed his left hand on the buttoned tip of his foil and bent the blade slightly. "Now, gentlemen, I would like one of you to do a little practice with Don Álvaro on that parry in seconde that's driving you all to distraction." He decided to be kind to the spotted young man and chose the younger of the Cazorla brothers instead.

"Yes, you, Don Francisco."

The young man stepped forward and put on his mask. Like his companions, he was dressed from head to toe in white.

"In line."

Both young men adjusted their gloves and stood facing each other.

"On guard."

They saluted each other by raising their foils before adopting the classical combat position; the right leg forward, both legs slightly bent, the left arm back and forming a right angle, with the hand loose and facing forward.

"Remember the old principle. You must hold the grip as if you had a bird in your hand: gently enough not to crush it, but firmly enough not to let it escape. That applies especially to you, Don Francisco, since you have an irritating tendency to allow yourself to be disarmed. Do you understand?"

"Yes, maestro."

"Right, let's not waste any more time. To your work, gentlemen."

There was a light clash of steel. The younger of the Cazorla brothers started the bout with grace and good fortune; he had quick feet and hands and moved as lightly as a feather. For his part, Álvaro Salanova covered himself with considerable ease, merely retreating one step instead of leaping back in moments of danger, parrying impeccably. After a while, they changed roles and it was Salanova's turn to lunge repeatedly, leaving his companion to resolve the problem with his foil in seconde. They continued like that, lunging and parrying, until Cazorla made a mistake that forced him to drop his guard too much after an ineffectual thrust. With a cry of triumph, carried away by the excitement of the bout, his opponent threw caution to the wind and thrust hard twice at his chest.

Don Jaime frowned and brought the bout to an end, interposing his sword between the two young men.

"A word, gentlemen," he said severely. "Fencing is, it is true, an art, but above all it is a useful science. When you take up a foil or saber, even though it may have a button on the tip or a blunt edge, you must never treat fencing like a game. If you want to play, go back to the hoop, the spinning top, or your lead soldiers. Do I make myself clear, Señor Salanova?"

Salanova nodded, his face still covered by his mask. The fencing master looked at him hard. "I'm afraid I did not quite hear your reply, Señor Salanova," he said, his voice severe. "I am not accustomed to speaking with someone whose face I cannot see."

The young man stammered an apology and removed his mask. He had flushed scarlet and was staring shamefacedly at the toes of his shoes.

"I asked if I have made myself clear."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Yes, maestro."

Don Jaime looked at the rest of his pupils. The young faces were all looking at him, grave and expectant. "All the art, all the science I'm trying to inculcate in you can be summed up in one word: efficiency."

Álvaro Salanova looked up and gave the young Cazorla a look of ill-concealed dislike. Don Jaime was talking, resting the tip of his foil on the floor, his two hands on the pommel of the hilt. "Our objective," he went on, "is not to dazzle our opponent with a graceful flourish, not to carry out questionable moves like the one performed just now by Don Álvaro, a move that could have cost him dear in a bout fought with bare blades. Our aim is to beat our opponent in a clean, quick, and efficient manner, with as little risk as possible to ourselves. Never make two thrusts where one will do; the second thrust might bring a dangerous response. Never adopt gallant or exaggeratedly elegant poses. They distract your attention from your supreme purpose: to avoid being killed and, if it proves inevitable, to kill your opponent. Fencing is, above all, a practical exercise."

"My father says that fencing is good because it's healthy," said the elder of the Cazorla brothers in mild protest. "What the English call 'sport'."

Don Jaime looked at his pupil as if he had just heard a heresy. "I don't doubt that your father has his reasons for saying so, but I assure you that fencing is much more than that. It is an exact, mathematical science, where the sum of certain factors leads invariably to the same result: triumph or disaster, life or death. I am not teaching you to practice a sport, I am teaching you a highly refined technique that could prove useful to you one day, when called on by your country or by some matter of honor. I don't care whether you are strong or weak, elegant or clumsy, tubercular or brimming with health. What matters is that with a foil or
2
l
saber in your hand you can feel equal or superior to any man in the world."

"What about firearms, though, maestro?" said Manuel de Soto timidly. "The pistol, for example. That seems much more efficient than a foil, and it makes everyone equal." He scratched his nose. "Like democracy."

Don Jaime frowned. His gray eyes fixed on the young man with unusual coldness. "The pistol is not a weapon, it is an impertinence. If two men are to kill each other, they should do so face-to-face, not from a distance, like vile highwaymen. Unlike other weapons, the sword has its own ethics and, if you press me, I would almost say it has its own mysticism too. Yes, fencing is a mysticism for gentlemen. Even more so in the age we live in now."

Francisco Cazorla raised a hand doubtfully. "Maestro, last week I read an article about fencing in
La ilustración.
It said more or less that modern weapons are making swords redundant and the conclusion was that sabers and foils would end up being museum pieces."

Don Jaime shook his head slowly, as if tired of hearing the same old song. He looked at himself in one of the large mirrors lining the gallery: the old teacher surrounded by his last remaining pupils, still faithful, waiting by his side. But for how long?

"Yet another reason to remain loyal," he replied sadly,
leaving it unclear as to whether he was referring to fencing or to himself.

With his mask under his arm and his foil resting on his right foot, Salanova made a skeptical face. "Perhaps, one day, there won't be any fencing masters," he said.

There was a long silence. Don Jaime was gazing abstractedly into the distance, as if observing the world beyond the gallery walls. "Perhaps," he murmured, absorbed in the contemplation of things that only he could see. "But let me say just one thing. The day that the last fencing master dies will be the day when all that is noble and honorable about the ancient battle between man and man goes down with him into the grave. After that, there will be room only for the blunderbuss and the knife, for the ambush and the stab in the back."

The four boys were listening but too young to understand. Don Jaime looked from one to the other, stopping at Salanova.

"In fact," he said, and the lines surrounding his smiling, bitter, mocking eyes grew more pronounced, "I don't envy you the wars that you will live through in the next twenty or thirty years."

At that moment, someone knocked at the door, and nothing would ever again be the same in the fencing master's life.

Compound attacks with two feints are used to deceive the opponent. They begin with the feint of a simple attack.

He went up the stairs, fingering the note he had in the pocket of his gray frock coat. The note was hardly illuminating:

Doña Adela de Otero requests the presence of the fencing master Don Jaime Astarloa at her house at no. 14, Calle Riaño, tomorrow evening at seven o'clock.

Respectfully,
A. de O.

Before leaving home, he had dressed with great care, determined to make a good impression on this person who was doubtless the mother of some future student. When he reached the apartment, he straightened his tie, then knocked at the door using the heavy bronze knocker suspended from the jaws of an aggressive lion's head. He removed his watch from his vest pocket and checked the time: one minute to seven. He waited, satisfied, while he listened to the sound of a woman's footsteps approaching down a long corridor. After a rapid drawing of bolts, the attractive face of a maid smiled up at him from beneath a white cap. While the young woman bustled off with his visiting card, Don Jaime was left in a small, elegantly furnished entrance hall. The shutters were down, but through the open windows he could hear the noise of carriages in the street two floors below. There were flowerpots with exotic plants in them, a couple of good paintings on the walls, and armchairs richly upholstered in scarlet velvet. He was, he thought, about to meet a good client, and that made him feel optimistic. There was no harm in that, given the times they were living in.

The maid soon returned and, after taking his gloves, walking stick, and top hat, asked him to go into the living room. He followed her down the dark corridor. The room was empty, so, with his hands behind his back, he undertook a brief reconnoiter. The last of the sun's rays, slipping in between the half-drawn curtains, cast a dying light on the discreet pale-blue flowers of the wallpaper. All the furniture was in exquisitely good taste. Over a sofa hung a signed oil painting depicting an eighteenth-century scene: a young woman in a lace dress was sitting on a swing in a garden, looking expectantly over her shoulder, as if awaiting the imminent arrival of the object of her desire. There was also a piano, with the lid up and some sheet music on the music stand. He went over to see what it was: the Polonaise in F-sharp Minor by Frédéric Chopin. The owner of the piano was doubtless a woman of considerable energy.

He had left until last the decoration above the large marble fireplace: a collection of dueling pistols and foils. He went over to them, studying the swords with an expert eye. They were both excellent pieces; the grip of one was French, the other Italian, both with damascene guards. They were in good condition, with not a trace of rust on the metal, although small notches on the blades indicated that they had been much used.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned slowly around, a courteous greeting on his lips. Adela de Otero was very different from how he had imagined her.

"Good evening, Señor Astarloa. I must thank you for taking the trouble to keep an appointment with a complete stranger."

Her voice had a pleasant, slightly hoarse quality to it, with an almost imperceptible foreign accent, impossible to identify. The fencing master bent over the hand she offered him and brushed it with his lips. It was a slender hand, with the little finger curved gracefully inward; her skin was agreeably cool and dark. Her fingernails were kept very short, almost like those of a man, and were not polished. Her hand was adorned only with a slender silver ring.

He raised his head and looked into her eyes. They were large eyes, violet in color, with small golden flecks that seemed iridescent when they caught the light. She had thick black hair, gathered at the back with a barrerte in the form of an eagle's head. She was quite tall for a woman, only a couple of inches shorter than Don Jaime, and of average build, perhaps somewhat slimmer than most women of the day, with a waist that required no help from a corset in order to appear slender and elegant. She wore a plain black skirt and a raw-silk blouse with a lace front. There was something slightly masculine about her, perhaps because of the tiny scar at the right-hand corner of her mouth, which seemed to impress on the mouth a permanent, enigmatic smile. She was at that age between twenty and thirty when it is hard to judge exactly how old a woman is. The fencing master thought that in his now-distant youth such a beautiful face would doubtless have driven him to commit certain foolish acts.

She asked him to take a seat, and they both sat, face-to-face, by a low table opposite the large balcony.

"Coffee, Señor Astarloa?"

He nodded, pleased. The maid entered, silent and unbidden, bearing a silver tray on which a delicate porcelain coffee set chinked and rattled. The lady of the house herself picked up the coffeepot and filled two cups, handing one to Don Jaime. She waited for him to take a first sip, apparently studying her visitor. Then she got straight to business.

"I want to learn the two-hundred-escudo thrust."

The fencing master sat holding his cup and saucer, playing distractedly with his spoon. He thought he must have misheard. "I'm sorry?"

She took a sip of coffee and looked at him impassively. "I have made inquiries," she said, "and was told that you are the best fencing master in Madrid. The last of the old school, they say. I was also told that you are the inventor of a famous secret thrust, which you are willing to teach to interested pupils for the sum of one thousand two hundred reales. It's a lot of money, I know, but I can afford it. I wish to hire your services."