Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins (29 page)

But the house was not large; there was little more than a corral, the kitchen, two bare rooms where the boys slept on sacks, and the señora's bedroom, where she kept her relics, which were just some mementos of other kids, before the present group, and nothing from before that. It was known she had no husband. Or children. But if someone flung that in her face, she would answer that she had more children than if she had been married a hundred times. Parents, brothers, or sisters, who really knew? She had simply shown up at the village, appearing one fine day from among some rocks covered with prickly pear along a chestnut-lined path. Alone, hard, resolute, and sad, so skinny and dry that it wasn't clear if she was a woman or a man, with a wide hat and a patched cape on her shoulder, a cigar between her teeth, she inspired many nicknames: Dry-Bone, Hammerhead, Boldface, No Fruit, Crow's Foot, Cigar.

It was easy and even amusing to give her nicknames, once everyone realized that her severe appearance did not imply malice but simply a kind of sober distance. But who could say if those nicknames really fit her. She gave shelter to orphan boys, and when the village was scandalized and demanded that the dry, tall, thin woman give up that perverse practice, nobody else was inclined to take them in, so, through sheer indifference, by default, they let her continue, although from time to time a suspicious (and perhaps envious) spinster would ask:

—And why doesn't she take in orphan girls?

But there was always some other old lady, even more suspicious and imaginative, who would ask if they wanted to give the impression that they had a whorehouse of young girls in their village.

And there the matter ended.

So they let her continue her solitary labors, taking care of the boys. She stayed alone every night, watching them go off as soon as Venus, the evening star, rose; early in the morning, after her rest, she reappeared at the wattle fence, when Venus was the last light to retire from the sky and the boys returned from their nocturnal roamings. The woman and the star had the same schedule.

So, in a sense, for her every day was Friday, the day of the goddess of love, a day governed by the appearance and disappearance of Venus, the evening star, which in the sky's great game was also the morning star, as if the firmament itself were the best teacher of a long, eternal pass, like the passes Juan Belmonte made in bullfights she saw when she was a girl. Despite all that, nobody in the town thought of calling her Venus. With her cape and her broad hat, her multiple skirts, and her leather boots, she held on to a single beauty trick, they said—she, as unpainted as an Andalusian midday, with her face cracked by early aging, her eyes buried deep in their sockets, her rabbit's teeth!—and that was to put two cucumber slices on her temples, which was a well-known protection against wrinkles; but the apothecary said no, it's a cure for fainting, she thinks that will drive away migraines and faints, she has no faith in my science, she is an ignorant countrywoman. Poor kids.

And although the apothecary added another nickname—Cucumbers—the boys called her Mother, Madre, and when she told them not to and said they should call her Madrina, Godmother, they called her Madreselva, Honeysuckle, by instinct, seeing her as that spreading plant, flowering and aromatic, that was the only adornment of her poor house and was there, like her, for everyone, naturally, like the landscape that spread before the boys' eyes, from the oaks to the hills to the windswept pass, embracing everything, gardens, houses, and fields, and ending in the prickly-pear-covered rocks through which Madreselva had entered this town to take charge of the unfortunate but ambitious boys.

2

Rubén Oliva waited impatiently for the night. He had the gift of seeing the night during the day, beyond the spreading fields of sunflowers that were the day's escutcheon, vegetable planets that drew the sun to the earth, sky magnets on the earth, ambassadors of the heavens, flourishing in July and dead in August, scorched by the very sun they mimicked. His land taught Rubén that the sun that gives the day can also take it away; his Andalusian land was a world of sun and shade, where even the saints belonged to one or the other, so that he felt excited but also guilty to realize that his pleasures, his intoxications, were of the night; was it Madreselva's fault, the children wondered, as they waited for the last candles of the sun to be extinguished before going out to test themselves, when sunflowers became moonflowers, they slipped through the hedges, leapt the wattle fences, and danced past the barbs in the grazing range, stripped by the bank of the river, its water deep and cold even in the summer, felt the first chilling thrill of the caressing nocturnal water flowing through their legs, and floated along the banks, grasping the corkwood branches, feeling their bodies cooled and refreshed by the liquid breath of the river, and then suddenly they would feel the slap of dung that told them they were nearing what they sought, blindly, gropingly, in the darkest hour of the night, the hour when Madreselva urged them to go out, blind, in search of the beast: groping through the unlit corral, the boys' bodies brushing those of the calves, which they imagined black, only black, nobody wanted any other color, fighting body to body, bull and matador-child locked in their private dance, bound to each other, if I let the body of the bull elude me, the bull will kill me, I have to cling to that body, Madreselva, remembering the cool water between my legs and on my chest, where now I feel the animal's throbbing hide, his breath, his mouth by mine the black sweat of his skin brushing my breast, my belly, my nascent male down joined to the sweaty bristles of the calf's hide, hair to hair, my penis and testicles lacquered, caressed, threatened, painted by the enemy love of the beast that I have to keep pressed against my fifteen-year-old body, not just to feel, Mamaserva, Motherserf, but to survive: that is why you send us here, night after night, to learn to fight without fear, otherwise one cannot be a matador, there must be pleasure bound to that enormous danger, Ma, and I, your newest liege, am only happy fighting bulls by night, thrusting blindly in the dark, with nobody watching, acquiring a pleasure and a vice that will be bound together all my life, Honeysuckle, the pleasure of fighting bulls without an audience, without giving pleasure to anyone except myself and the bull, and letting the bull make the thrusts, letting him seek me, fight me, attack me, so that I feel the thrill of being attacked, immobile, without ever feinting, deceiving my dangerous companion on those nights, my first nights as a man.

At times, the ranch guards detected those nocturnal intrusions and ran after us, shouting, brandishing sticks if there were any at hand, firing into the air, but without any real ill will, because even the cattleman knew that sooner or later these kids would be what kept his business from failing. But when the guards set dogs on the boys, even the watchmen questioned the goodwill of the cattleman.

When she heard about that, Madreselva made an agreement with the cattleman that, once their nocturnal apprenticeship was completed, the boys could continue their lessons in the ring at the hacienda, with her as the teacher, and she told the cattleman that, if he liked, the older boys could handle the preparations, but once it was time for the lesson, she would be in charge, she would throw off her hat and cape, her wide lock of hair blinding her and she puffing it away from her face to be able to see; she would be dressed in a short Andalusian outfit with leather leg coverings, she would teach the kids, and especially Rubén Oliva, because in that child's dark eyes, and in the shadows under his eyes, she saw a longing for the night, she would tell them the three cardinal commands,
parar,
keep the feet still,
templar,
move the cloth slowly,
mandar,
make the bull obey the cloth, those three verbs are the watchwords of the bullfighter, they are more your mothers than the ones you have lost, and that means you must lead the bull where you want him to be, not where he wants to be …

—Don't worry, said Madreselva, looking at Rubén more than at the others, at the end it will be just you and the bull, face to face, seeing yourself and seeing death in the face of the other. Only one of you is going to come out alive: you or the bull. And the art of bullfighting lies in reaching that point legitimately, with skill. You will see.

Then Madreselva gave the first lesson, how to stop a calf that had newly emerged from the cow as though from the belly of a mythological mother, fully armed, already in possession of all its powers, watch, Rubén, don't get distracted, don't make faces, the bull appears before you as a force of nature, and if you don't want to turn that into a force of art, you might as well become a baker: measure yourself against those horns, cross yourself with them, Rubén, place yourself before the horns, and go, boy, go to the opposite horn, or the bull is going to kill you. Here is the bull galloping toward you. Poor thing, what will you do?

Then Madreselva gave her second lesson, how to
cargar la suerte,
to move the cloth to turn the bull away, not let the attacking bull do what nature tells it, but instead what it is told by the bullfighter, who is there for that purpose, not at the mercy of fortune but controlling it with his cape, never relinquishing the beauty and magic of the pass, boys; put your leg forward, so, making the bull change direction and go into the field of battle—put your leg forward, Rubén, bend at the hip, don't break the pass, summon the bull, Rubén, the bull moves, why don't you! You're not listening to me, boy, why do you stand there like a statue, letting the bull do whatever it wants? If you don't take charge now, make it obey, the bull will be fighting you, and not you the bull, the way it should be …

But, after that, nobody was going to move Rubén Oliva.

The bull took charge; the bullfighter was rooted in place.

Rubén was rooted in place.

What did Madreselva say, gritting her rabbit's teeth, puffing from her lower lip to blow the ashen tuft from her forehead?

—You have to break the bull's charge, Rubén.

—I won't take the advantage, Ma.

—It's not advantage, cunt, it's leading the bull where it doesn't want to go, so you can fight it better. That is what Domingo Ortega said—you know more than the maestro, I suppose?

—I don't move, Ma. Let the bull take control.

—What do you want from bullfighting, boy! said Madreselva then, expressing her annoyance, which she knew was reprehensible but necessary.

—That everyone's heart should stop when they see me fight the bull, Ma.

—That's good, boy. That is art.

—That they should all feel like a thousand cowards in face of a brave man.

—That's bad, boy, very bad, what you said. That's vanity.

—Then let my fame endure.

She taught them—always quoting Domingo Ortega, for in her opinion there had never been a bullfighter more intelligent and more in control and aware of his every move—that there is nothing more difficult for the bullfighter than to think when facing the bull. She asked them to think of bullfighting as a battle not just between two bodies but between two faces: the bull looks at us, she taught them, and what we must do is reveal its death to it: the bull must see its death in the cape, which is the bullfighter's face in the ring. And we must see our death in the face of the bull. Between those two deaths lies the art of bullfighting. Remember: two deaths. Someday you will know that the bullfighter is mortal, that it is the bull who does not die.

So taught the insatiable madwoman, whose mother and father could have been a bull and a cow, or perhaps a calf and a bullfighter, who could tell, seeing her there, an image of dust, the statue of a brown and barren sun, a star as cracked as the lips and hands of this woman teacher, who showed them how to feint, to be slow to kill, to take advantage of the bull's speed, for the bull is a rough beast that must be smoothed, posed and disposed by the bullfighter's art, thus, thus, thus, and Madreselva made the slowest, the longest, the most elegant passes that pack of forsaken, deceived boys had ever seen, recognizing in the woman's long, decisive passes a power that they wanted for themselves; Madreselva not only taught them to be bullfighters in the feverish September mornings that succeeded the fiery death of the sunflowers, she also taught them to be men, to have self-respect, to command with elegant, long, and …

—Deceitful passes, said the rebellious Rubén, what you call feinting is only deceit, Ma …

—And what would you do, maestro? Madreselva crossed her arms.

The proud, imperious boy told her then to play the bull, form its horns with her fists and rush straight at him, neither of them dodging, neither she nor he, neither the false bull nor the incipient torero, and she became for that moment the captive cow, and she appraised the proud, gaunt figure of this Rubén Oliva, puffed up with puerile but impassioned honor, and she, mother-bull, did what he asked: against her judgment as his teacher, she charged full-out at Rubén, and he did not guide her with his cape as she had shown them, he remained as motionless as a statue, combining the passes as she wanted, but without any of the feints she called for, instinctively he fought her face, beautifully, moving her though not moving himself, dominating the bull without commanding it, showing it its death as she wanted, as she had done.

And then Rubén Oliva spoiled it all, after he ended the series of passes, unable to resist the temptation to make a triumphal flourish, saluting, acknowledging, freezing his hips, and flashing his black eyes as though to outshine the sun, while she, the teacher, the mistress, called Dry-Bone in the village and Madreselva, Ma, Maresca by her disciples, each according to his own stone-deaf Spanish, language of the country of the deaf and therefore of the brave, of those who can't hear good advice or the voice of danger, while she shouted with fury, Beggar! Sponge! Don't ask for an ovation you don't deserve—if you deserve it, they will give it to you without your making a fool of yourself, but what other chance did he have, he answered softly, wrapping his arms around Madreselva, asking her forgiveness, though she knew he was not repentant: the boy was going to be that kind of bullfighter, daring, stiff, and stubborn, demanding that the public admire his triumphal pass, his courage, his consummate manliness, the exhibition of his masculinity before the multitudes, which was permitted, encouraged, which the bullring authorized and which Rubén Oliva was not going to forgo, sacrificing instead the art which he considered deceit—breaking the savage force of the bull. They would always applaud his statue-like pose, his refusal to
cargar la suerte,
to direct the bull, the way Manolete won his acclaim. —This one doesn't dodge, they said, he exposes himself to death right in front of us. He welcomes the thrust of the horns. Just like Manolete!