Falling for June: A Novel (22 page)

30

W
ITH HIS WATCH
still in June’s pocket he couldn’t say for sure what time it was, but it must have been well after one in the morning when they finally pedaled into the sleeping streets of the old Spanish town. It was so quiet in the square he could hear the pigeons cooing and rustling up in the old stones of the church they stopped in front of to rest and get their bearings.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired before in my life,” David said, offering June his water bottle.

“I’m surprised these old bikes held up,” she replied.

“Frankly, I’m surprised these old bones did,” David said with a laugh. Then he looked around at the deserted square, a few gas lanterns casting pools of light onto the cobblestones. “You’d think there’d be an inn or a hotel, wouldn’t you? Where did you say Jose works again? In some underground bodega off the main square here somewhere?”

June nodded. “There’s supposed to be a network of old Roman cellars all beneath the town.” She opened her pack. “Sebastian gave me an address. Although I’m sure they’ve long since closed.”

“Let’s find it and wait for them to open,” David suggested. “I could lie down and sleep right here on the street.”

The square was dark but they eventually found the address
above the door of a tiny street-level shop. They had propped their bikes against a wall and were just sitting down on the curb out front to wait for morning when the shop door opened and someone came out. June stood to chase after the shadowy figure. David followed.

“
Disculpe
,” she called. “
Habla usted inglés
?”

The figure turned around, and they saw that it was a man wearing a hooded cloak. “
Sí, señorita
,” he said.

“Can you tell us where to find Jose Antonio Villarreal? He’s supposed to work here in a bodega and the address we were given is for the shop you just came out of.”

The man glanced around nervously, eyeing David and June with suspicion. Then he gestured toward the shop door. “Just go inside and down the
escalera
,
señorita
. You’ll find him.”

He turned without another word and hurried away into the shadows. Once he was gone, June leaned up onto her tiptoes and kissed David passionately on the lips.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Just in case we get murdered,” she said.

Then she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the shop entrance.

It was dark inside, but a lone candle was burning in a glass urn against the far wall where a little door stood open and a set of steps led down into the gloomy depths. They could see lights and shadows moving below, hear the quiet singsong murmur of hushed voices speaking Spanish. They looked at each other and shrugged. David took the lead as they descended the stairs.

At the bottom of the steps a stone passageway led to an open cellar door. Inside the cellar were several men and women standing around a tall table, looking intently at something on the tabletop. The cellar walls were lined with racks of wine.

“Jose, is that you?”

At the sound of David’s voice Jose spun around. There was a flash of surprise on his face, followed by recognition and a quick smile. “Señor David.”

“I’m afraid I lost your lucky walking stick.”

Jose waved this away. “Something lost, something better found. This must be June.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek. Then he did the same with David before gesturing grandly for them to enter. “Come in, come in. Join us. Juan, get down two bottles of the ’seventy-eight. Let’s celebrate the safe return of our comrades.”

They were introduced to the others and within minutes all were standing around the table, drinking wine and chatting like old friends. A platter of cold tapas was produced, and David snacked heartily on fresh cheeses and stuffed olives, hungry after their long ride. The table had a map spread on its surface. In the center of the map was a bullring.

“What’s the map for?” he asked.

“Ah”—Jose sighed—“this is
plaza de toros
, where the festival is taking place tomorrow. We are planning a protest but have just been informed that the
policía
are erecting a perimeter this year. We won’t be allowed within two hundred meters of any entrance, subject to arrest.”

“What are you protesting?” David asked.

“The torture of bulls, of course, my comrade. They say it is rich in tradition and we say tradition is no excuse not to change. There are other ways now, besides. They can dance with the bulls. Jump over them. But no torture, no blood.”

June seemed to take an immediate and keen interest in this disobedient endeavor, looking very closely at the map and asking Jose what exactly they had planned.

“We want to make the spectators aware,” he said. “We want to make a statement about how inhumane it is.”

A woman at the table who appeared to be Spanish but spoke with an Australian accent held up a matador costume and several vials of red dye. “We had planned to lie in front of the entrance covered in fake blood while a matador walked among us, as if proud to have slain his fellows. Let them see how it would feel if the victims were people instead of bulls. But now, as you can see, that plan is shot.”

“We don’t mind being arrested for the cause,” Jose added. “However, there is no point if we are nabbed before we can even get near the bullring. No point.”

“Well, this is all very interesting,” David interjected, “but I was thinking maybe we could find a bed to rest in. If it’s not too much trouble. It’s been a hell of a long day.”

“But of course,” Jose said, setting his wineglass down and straightening his posture as if ashamed to have been caught slacking on his manners. “I will take you to my place at once.”

But June was paying them no mind, looking intently at the map instead. She glanced back up at the matador costume.

“That thing looks like it might fit me,” she said.

The Australian woman glanced at the costume in her hand. “I think it would, yes.”

David did not like where this was going. “June, what are you up to?”

June looked at David, a mischievous grin forming slowly at the edges of her mouth. “Are you up for a little adventure, my love?”

“Oh gosh. Maybe after I’ve had some sleep.”

June turned to Jose. “I might just have an idea if you know someone who has an airplane.”

The big doors stood open and the crowds were funneling through, buying beers and renting seat cushions on their way
into the bullring. David was nervous, silently chastising himself for even allowing June to go through with this little stunt. But June would be June, and he had been so tired the night before after walking halfway across Spain, followed by their bike ride, that he would have agreed to almost anything in exchange for a soft place to lie down and a real pillow.

“You sure she’ll be okay?” David asked Jose.

“She’ll be fine, comrade. It is understood that we will do something every year. The worst they do is hold us in the
cárcel
until the festival is through. Two days. It’s a small price to pay.”

“Two days in the hoosegow sounds like a pretty high price to me,” David said. “Especially every year.”

“Perhaps,” Jose replied. “But still a much smaller price than the one paid by the bulls.”

David could think of no argument to counter this, so he sucked up his worry and followed Jose toward their seats.

The open-air arena was infused with a strange energy—excitement for sure, but with something else vibrating beneath the surface as well; jubilation laced with bloodlust, perhaps. David himself had never seen a live bullfight from the stands, and the way things were to work out, he never would.

They had paid for
barreras
tickets in the
sombra
section—ringside in the shade—giving them a clear view of the open-air arena and the blue sky above. As the grandstands filled, David glanced around, recognizing several familiar faces from the bodega the night before. He felt a shiver of excitement run up his spine, as if he were an important agent involved in some urgent and subtly brewing conspiracy. He felt it even more when Jose palmed him a vial of red dye.

Wait for the band,
he reminded himself, wait for the band.

As the seconds passed, his nervousness grew. The stands were nearly filled now, and legs and elbows pressed into David, adding to his anxiety. There was a rail in front of them, and on
the other side of the rail was a sunken alley that circled the ring. There were several offset splits in the wall wide enough to provide access into the ring for the banderilleros and other costumed assistants to the toreros who were now gathered in this alley, looking out over the wall into the empty ring.

David was about to ask Jose how June would be able to time her entrance, since there was no way she could hear the band, but before he could get out the first word, everything seemed to unravel at once.

First, several uniformed officers stepped out in front of the stands and scanned the crowd. One of them recognized Jose, saying something to his partner and pointing.

“
Mierda
!
” Jose said. “I’ve been spotted.” He nudged David and passed him his vial of dye, saying, “It’s all up to you now, comrade. Good luck.” Then he took off, shouting, “
Con permiso! Con permiso
!
” as he leaped over legs and knees, running the length of the grandstand and disappearing into the vestibule that led out of the arena. The officers gave chase.

David was now sitting there alone with two vials of dye when the band began playing a lively marchlike
pasodoble
tune. He knew this was his cue, but he was frozen with fear and confusion. He heard shouting and saw several of his fellow conspirators hopping down into the alley and making for the slits that led into the bullring, stripping off and casting aside their shirts along the way, men and women both. Their backs were marked with messages deriding the cruelty of the art. The band played on, oblivious, as the protesters successfully gained the ring, pouring their vials of dye onto their now-naked torsos and falling to the arena floor in the poses of wounded animals—seven in total, missing only Jose and David. And, of course, June.

Her timing could not have been more perfect. It was so perfect, in fact, that David sat watching the sky with wonder
over how she had managed it. Her parachute was silhouetted against the sun as she turned tight spirals above the ring, dropping altitude and descending fast. As she came closer into view, the crowd saw her gold-embroidered matador costume and began to “ooh” and “ahh,” assuming, or so it seemed, that this was an untraditional but planned part of the performance. She was still falling as the
policía
poured into the ring, running for the bloodied protesters with dangling handcuffs. But when they noticed June they froze in midstep, eyes glued to the sky above as she swooped down and came in on her final approach, flaring the canopy and touching down with the choreographed grace of a theater toreador entering the stage on wires. The police stood watching, amused and confused, possibly even wondering themselves if maybe this wasn’t all part of the act.

June shrugged off her chute, pulled out a wooden sword, and rushed to the prone and writhing protesters one after another to pretend-slay them. The crowd cheered louder; the police officers looked around for direction. David watched all this from the stands with a sense of unease. His unease turned to angst when the big doors opened, and his angst to horror when the bulls rushed in—six of them in all, each thundering out into the arena with tossing horns and angry eyes.

Without thinking, David stood and hopped the fence and dropped down into the alley, racing for the nearest entrance into the ring. By the time he got there it was sheer pandemonium, with police rushing for the exits and brave banderilleros charging in past them with pink capes to distract and corral the confused bulls. David could not find June. Her parachute had been caught on the horn of a bull and was being dragged around the arena, its yellow smiley face a taunting image circling the mayhem, but she herself was nowhere to be seen. David moved through the waving capes and the rushing ani
mals without fear, obsessed with his search for June. He did not find her. But fortunately, she found him just in time.

A particularly large bull was heading straight for David from behind, and June gripped his arm and wrenched him out of its path not a second too soon. The bull’s side brushed his thigh and the wind stirred by its passing parted and fluffed his hair. When he looked at June she was smiling with exhilaration.

“I’ve never felt more alive,” she shouted above the noise. “How about you?”

David was caught off guard by her question and paused to take in the scene. The entire bullring was melting down around them. One of the bulls had jumped the fence and was flushing costumed assistants from the alley into the ring like circus clowns running for their lives. Several bulls had been corralled by banderilleros but were resisting being forced back into their pens. June’s torn and shredded canopy trailed by, still being dragged by the circling bull. And the spectators were all on their feet now, on tiptoes or pressing into aisles for better views, cheering and shouting with delight at each wild turn of events. Strangely, the band played on through it all, as if the entire mad enterprise were the sinking
Titanic
and they its loyal musicians determined to go down with the ship.