Miracle In Seville: A Novel Part 3

'Will they do well?'

'Why not? Under the circ.u.mstances.'

'What is it you know about the "circ.u.mstances"? Which your brother also seems to know about?'

Taking a filmy red cloth of considerable size, she draped it over the white globe and said: 'It's my responsibility to protect my little brother. Who took him out to the bulls of Mota on moonlit nights? Who counseled him when he was beginning to fight three-year-olds? Who advises him on his contracts, warns him which bulls to avoid, which to look for? Mr. Shenstone, I know far more about bulls and matadors than you will ever know, than most of the managers know.'

'But you haven't told me about this mysterious secret of Don Cayetano's.'

'Nor shall I, but I will tell you this. The widow in Texas that you've been thinking you might marry-forget her. She's bespoken to another man. And in her place do not court a blonde. For you they are no good.'

'Seorita Magdalena-'

'Seora. I was married twice. First time at fourteen. I've always had the gift of seeing things.'

'And what do you see for this afternoon?'

'Tragedy. This afternoon will be remembered in Seville, but you will not be free to write about it as it actually happens.'

'Your brother? Does he suffer the tragedy?'

'It's my duty to look after my brother.'

She would tell me no more, and when I found myself back on the street I lingered a long time basking in the morning sunlight. What faced me now was an undramatic but enchanting street, with whitewashed houses, cobbled roadways, a tapa bar at the corner, shawled women drifting by, the smell of chicory burning and the m.u.f.fled tolls of a distant bell. This was the real Spain, the ant.i.thesis of the glitter of the feria across the river, and as I started toward the Guadalquivir, which would take me back into Seville, I suddenly realized that I did not want to leave Triana; the answers I was seeking were to be found here in the Gypsy quarter rather than in the bullring itself.

As I stood in the middle of the street I could see to my left the delicate tower of the Church of the Toreros in which I had imagined seeing the Virgin step off her pedestal to respond to Don Cayetano's plea for help; to my right, huddled close to the earth, stood the fortune-teller's cottage, where Magadalena Lopez had instructed her brother when he came for help. The heavens toward which the steeple points, the ancient earth on which the cottage rests, I said to myself. Virgin and Gypsy. The duel between these two is as old as the stones in that bridge before they were dug from earth and cut to size. And it resumes this afternoon. What an uneven contest. The Virgin with all the powers of heaven, the Gypsy with only those fake Egyptian symbols and her animal cleverness. Bowing to the dignity of the church and saluting the Gypsy's cottage, I made my way back to Seville and the sorting of bulls for that day's fight.

As always, Don Cayetano avoided the sorting. I almost wished I too had stayed away, for three American congressmen on a junket to Spain, brought by a young man from our emba.s.sy to see the bulls, learned that I was an American and bombarded me with questions. I supplied them with bits of information about bulls that I'd picked up from Don Cayetano, and when they asked how I'd learned so much, I said offhandedly: 'I'm staying with the man who breeds these bulls.' This led them to ask who I was and I replied: 'A writer. Freelance usually. But this time for World Sport.' They'd seen some of my stories and asked to be photographed with me in front of the bulls whose fates were being decided by the matadors' peons.

I hope they kept the photographs, for they were posed with the bull branded 318, name of Torpedo, to be fought that afternoon by the fiery El Cordobes, who would lead him to immortality. If the man who took the photos kept the negative he could earn a pretty peseta selling copies in Spain.

When I returned to the caseta I found Don Cayetano alone in his bedroom, and I took the opportunity to ask him about something that had been puzzling me. Somewhat timidly I said: 'Forgive me for prying, but could you tell me why when we're here in the caseta or outside chatting with the riders who stop by or when we're in the church you talk freely, but when we're in the box at the fight, you refuse to talk?'

Looking at me curiously, he said: 'I'm worried about my bulls. Praying maybe.' Then he added: 'Hoping they'll perform well.'

'At Mlaga it almost looked as if you were consciously willing your bulls to behave this way or that, to give maximum opportunity to the matadors. Especially with those two kills by El Viti. Have you some magical secret about communicating with animals?'

Again he studied me, then smiled: 'It's in the breeding.'

'But what did Lzaro Lopez mean when he said in church that he was going to kill you today?' He was silent. 'And especially, what could that little midnight torero have meant when he told us that Lopez boasted his sister had given him your secret?'

He leaned back and said: 'Strange things happen in Triana. Gypsies, you know,' and he launched into an amazing yarn about how, some five hundred years ago, the first Gypsy arrived in Spain, on foot, over the Pyrenees. He was an ingratiating fellow who bamboozled the king of Spain into believing that he, the Gypsy, was from the fabled land of Prester John somewhere south of Egypt, where a colony of Christians lived in peril. On specifics the stranger had been cleverly vague; he deemed it best, he said, not to reveal the precise location of the land lest the Muslims hear and decide to invade it. What the Gypsy wanted was funds to gather an army and march through pagan lands to rescue the isolated Christians from Muslim tyranny. For some forty years this interloper lived off the riches of Spain, doing no work and making no effort to collect his liberating army. When either the king or his advisers asked when the invasion was to begin, the Gypsy had a dozen plausible excuses for his delay.

'What finally happened to him?' I asked.

'The chroniclers forgot to say. Most likely he remained in Spain and brought a lot of other Gypsies here with him. I think their invasion started in his time. Been a problem ever since.'

'Do you think Gypsies have secret knowledge? Does Lopez?'

'They all do. Didn't he say his sister had powers?'

'Yes.'

'Well, maybe that's it.' Preferring to answer no more of my questions, he prepared for the crucial afternoon on which the fate of his ranch depended. At four he gravely said good-bye to his friends at the caseta, and I noticed that he did so with an emotion that seemed almost excessive because the bullring was not much over a mile away. But, of course, this was an important day. At the plaza, too, he treated the men he had known for many years with the same deep affection: 'Greetings, Don Alvaro, it is truly good to see you. h.e.l.lo, Domingo, you rascal.'

Well before five we entered the ranchers' box and I paid attention to the cartel for the day. It was promising: The afternoon would start with Diego Puerta, a matador from Seville who was justly revered in the area. He would be followed by the clownish El Cordobes, a tested crowd pleaser, and the afternoon would end with Lopez, darling of Triana, capable of exciting even the most exacting aficionado if he had a good afternoon with a compliant bull. As for the string of Mota bulls, I'd seen them a few hours ago and judged them to be as fine as those we'd had at Mlaga, and the afternoon started as it had a week before.

Diego Puerta, highly regarded as the gentleman matador of his era, was textbook-perfect in his performance, never gaudy, never excessively daring, always at the right place at the right time. But again I had the curious feeling that his bull was cooperating with him almost as though he had been programmed, but when I turned to ask Don Cayetano about this, he was again praying to the Virgin, head bowed, hands across his stomach. Puerta gained two ears and in my opinion should have won the tail, too, but plaza presidents in Seville were demanding, as should be the case in Spain's cla.s.sic arena.

El Cordobes, I must admit, was a wonder, citing the bull from a preposterous distance, much greater than anyone else would attempt, for if the bull charged, he would arrive at the matador with such force as to knock him clear out of the ring. But Cordobes knew his bulls and could judge when it was safe to pull his tricks. Walking boldly in a straight line, one foot directly before the other, he closed on the bull, which charged smoothly at the right moment and allowed Cordobes to perform beautiful cape work. He followed this grand opening with flourishes and, dropping to his knees a fantastic distance from the bull and staying there, challenged the bull until it charged right at him with such force that I thought he was done for. Without s.h.i.+fting his knees, Cordobes swung his cape outward just far enough to lure the bull in that direction. As the bull roared past, inches from the kneeling man, I thought: That's an act of courage I can't even imagine duplicating. That kid must have ice water in his veins.

With the muleta he was brilliant, leading the bull around, as they say, 'like his puppy dog,' and showing the discriminating aficionados of Seville how to respond to a worthy bull. Indeed, at the height of his performance I thought the bull was the hero of this fight. Those in the stands thought so, too, and Don Cayetano, suddenly alert and observant again just as the bull died, grabbed my arm: 'Magnificent animal. The crowd wants him to circle the arena.' The president agreed with the spectators, and El Cordobes came to our box and led Don Cayetano to walk beside the animal that had performed with such grace and valor.

When El Cordobes finished three turns, Lopez stepped forward to await the entrance of his first bull. There were both cheers and jeers, but the Gypsy was determined to give a good performance before his Triana supporters, and even I had to admit that he was effective with his cape, better with his banderillas, astonis.h.i.+ng with his muleta and, uncharacteristically, capable at the kill. This was the Gypsy magician they had raved about when he first appeared on the scene, and he was given both ears, the tail and three circuits of the arena.

Diego Puerta's second bull was regular-a wonderful Spanish word with its last syllable drawn out and p.r.o.nounced -lahr to rhyme with scar, which meant 'Not good but not bad, either.' Puerta cut one ear.

For the fifth bull of the afternoon El Cordobes drew No. 318, Torpedo. From the instant the bull entered the plaza and charged straight across the arena, head high, horns c.o.c.ked to meet any adversary, patrons began to cry: 'Toro! Toro!' and the cries mounted when this n.o.ble animal left El Cordobes and his cape and from a surprisingly short distance hit the first picador with such force that the man was thrown down before he could lodge his lance in the animal's neck muscle. From there the bull cantered purposefully to the second picador, whom he also dismounted to cheers. The first picador had now remounted, and this time he protected himself and his horse so that he was able to place one lance, a tremendous blow, which he intensified by leaning forward with all his weight. He then performed what cynics derisively called 'the carioca,' a dancelike trick in which the picador kept his horse's bulky body moving in front of the bull so that the latter could not escape, while the picador continued to lean on his lance and really punish the animal. It was a disgraceful act, but it did aid the matador in reducing the power of a difficult bull; this time it reduced nothing, for the bull was more than able to withstand the extra punishment.

At this point the president, judging that the bull had been tired adequately by the two dismountings-which had required enormous effort from the bull's front quarter and hind legs-signaled the trumpeter to sound the call for the next act with this ill.u.s.trious animal. Cordobes did not object; recognizing that he had a chance for exceptional work with the muleta, he unfurled a series of such exciting pa.s.ses, one linked to another, that many in the crowd leaped to their feet shouting Toro! Toro!' When Cordobes finished his muleta work with a monumental pa.s.s of death, which fixed the bull for the kill, people began crying 'No! No!' The protest became so loud that Cordobes did not prepare to kill but, instead, launched another series of pases naturales of such grace that cheers thundered across the plaza, reaching a climax when he daringly tried yet one more pa.s.s of death, most dangerous because the bull might remember the trickery from the time before and go for the exposed man instead of the muleta. Not this bull. He drove straight ahead, lifted both his horns and his front feet and came to a dead halt, awaiting the sword, but the protests against killing him became even more vociferous. The president, fearing there might be a riot if he allowed the kill, finally lifted his white handkerchief and signaled that the bull should be spared, to the resounding joy of everyone in the arena.

Five tame oxen, castrated and heavy, entered the ring to rescue the bull and take him out alive. When they surrounded him he sniffed at them, recognized them as brothers from the corrals and the departure was completed, with women throwing flowers before the departing hero. While men near us shouted: 'He was too brave to kill' the Don quietly gripped my left hand and whispered: 'Once more a Mota bull is rewarded with an indultado. The a.s.surance of our rebirth.'

In the pause that followed, some spectators began chanting 'Matadors! Matadors!' while others cried 'Qanadero, Qanadero!' for the breeder, and I helped Don Cayetano rise to join the three matadors as they paraded. It was an honor few ranchers had ever known in the Maestranza. When the circuits were completed, the matadors returned Don Cayetano to our box, where Puerta and Cordobes, their major work for the day completed, embraced him. Far from making such a gesture, Lopez said venomously in a low voice that only Don Cayetano and I could hear: 'Now we duel to the death. My sister has explained your trick,' and Mota replied in a harsh voice I had not heard before: 'Let it be so. You deserve to die.'

As the fight was about to begin, Don Cayetano again bowed his head and began to pray, and again the Virgin seemed to respond, for the sixth bull performed much like the third, with which the Gypsy had achieved wonders. But then something happened that altered the entire day-indeed, my whole trip to Spain. At the conclusion of a series of cape pa.s.ses that even I had to admire, Lopez, inspired by some evil genius, stood before the confused bull and humiliated it with a series of gestures intended to denigrate it. When people began to protest, Lopez, holding his cape in his left hand, moved directly in front of the right horn so that it touched his own breast, and then, with a powerful swipe of his right hand, he beat the bull in the face, repeating the act three times.

'No!' I shouted to Don Cayetano, but his dazed eyes looked as perplexed and sorrowful as the bull's. Soon the entire plaza was booing, and in that instant I realized that Lopez was abusing not the bull but its owner; he had confused the two. 'What did you think of that exhibition?' I asked Don Cayetano, and when he didn't answer I shook him, for this had been a significant moment in the fight, but again he did not reply. Instead his head fell even farther forward and his hands, which I had disturbed in their peaceful clasp, dropped to his side. Supposing with horror that the old man had died, I started calling for help but stopped when I saw he was still breathing and that no external part of his body showed any signs of death. He was not dead, but had he fainted? I slapped him vigorously, but he did not respond. 'What's happening?' I shouted, but no one heard me.

In my confusion vivid images and remembered sounds started to return, tentatively at first, then in a flood. From the fight in Mlaga I heard myself saying: 'Don Cayetano, the bulls you gave those matadors looked as if they wanted to help. This one is hand-tailored for El Viti.' Or I was again under the float, with the Virgin coming down through the cracks in the planking to give the Don rea.s.surance. Next I heard the menacing words of Lzaro Lopez as he warned that he had penetrated the Don's secret. Then came the Virgin again, in the church, and her mysterious words: 'I hear you,' and, during the second visit, her cryptic promise: 'Once more.'

As I cowered in the darkness of the box, fighting to make sense of this jumbled evidence, it seemed as if an explosion suddenly blasted my mind, and for the first time I understood how the Virgin and Don Cayetano had conspired to restore the honor of his ranch. Don Cayetano had never been praying when he sat beside me; he couldn't because he wasn't there-he was in the bull! Determined to have his animals do well, he had, with a.s.sistance from the Virgin, become those bulls. After his many humiliations he had finally achieved afternoons of triumph; he had circled the plazas with cheering in his ears, and he had seen one of his bulls sent out alive crowned with laurels such as few bulls gather. The honor of his ranch had been restored.

But I was sure Don Cayetano would never be satisfied with gains only for himself. He must also protect the honor of bullfighting, the efforts of all the breeders who had suffered humiliation at the hands of the villainous Lzaro Lopez. The Gypsy must die. And he would be slain by Don Cayetano himself. As I reached this conclusion my mind was filled with a blaze of light in which I saw things clearly. At the climax of the fight Mota, the fat little rancher, the ridiculed one, would drive his right horn deep into the heart of the Gypsy, and do it in full sight of the aficionados of Seville and Triana.

But he must act immediately, for with the conclusion of this fight, the Virgin's obligations to the Don would end. Twice she had listened to his pleas, at Mlaga and now in Seville, and twice she had rewarded him with immortal corridas, but I myself had heard her give warning: 'Once more!'

Then I was gripped by a terrible thought: Had Gypsy Lopez somehow, with the aid of his clever sister, penetrated Mota's secret? If so, wouldn't he plan to kill Cayetano before the latter could kill him? Yes, I now remembered his exact words during that confrontation in the church: 'You'll not kill me with your witchcraft bulls.'

When my churning brain cleared, I saw that this weird plot could have only one resolution. Since Lopez and his necromancing sister had surely guessed the Don's secret, the Gypsy had only one escape from those deadly horns-he must kill the rancher before Mota could kill him. Fearing that Don Cayetano might be moments from death, I rushed through the pa.s.sageway between the fence enclosing the ring and the stands, shouting in Spanish toward the bull: 'Don Cayetano! He means to kill you! Don Cayetano! Leave the bull! Lopez is going to kill you!'

Of course, no one could make anything of the message I was trying to deliver, and before I could get anywhere near where Lopez was finis.h.i.+ng his preparatory work for the kill, the officials, thinking that I was one more drunken tourist, halted me and pinned me against the red fence.

Lopez, having given the bull an artistic fight filled with emotion, was a.s.sured of todos los trofeos if he killed decently, and he must have been tempted to try, but when I saw him put aside the wooden sword matadors used in the first stages of the muleta to take instead that long, curved-tipped steel sword that dealt real death, I saw that his face was gray, not from fear of the bull but from the secret knowledge of what he must do next.

At this moment he spotted me pinned against the fence, and I was close enough to shout: 'No lo hagas, Lopez! Don't do it!' When he dismissed me with a wan but bitter smile, I tried again to alert Don Cayetano, still convinced that he could hear me: 'Leave now! Now!'

'Let me go!' I shouted at the men holding me, but they feigned not to understand my Spanish, simple though the words were: 'Suelta me!' Still held back by stout arms, I had to watch impotently as the final act unfolded.

Instead of properly citing the bull, no sooner had Lopez taken the deadly sword from his peon than he ran directly at the bull, swung quickly to the left and jabbed the sword with all his might not through the hump of muscle protecting the spinal column but deep into the fleshy side of the bull and toward the heart itself. The astonished bull, mortally wounded, took two steps forward and collapsed. Before I could scream a warning to the peon running out with the dagger to complete the kill, a tremendous bronca erupted, protesting the shameful murder of this great bull. My voice smothered by the cries of outrage, my arms immobilized by the custodians, I stood powerless as the dagger man leaped forward and severed the spinal cord. Instantly, as if by magic, the bull dropped dead, and I wondered in panic whether Don Cayetano had escaped in time.

'Let me go!' I shouted, but no one heard, and by the time my captors released me I had difficulty fighting my way back to our box. The outraged spectators began leaping into the alleyway to thrash Lopez, who was begging the police to protect him, and I wasted precious minutes elbowing my way through the riotous crowd. I had no need to hurry; the foreman of the Mota ranch came running toward me shouting: 'Oh, Seor Shenstone! Don Cayetano is dead. Our day of greatest triumph and he's dead!'

When we finally reached the box a doctor who had been summoned from the crowd pointed to the flecks of blood on the rancher's lips: 'A blood vessel deep inside must have ruptured. You can see he was very fat.' As I looked at his corpse I asked myself: How can I report such a story? and a voice of conscience rebuked me: You unfeeling b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Your good friend is dead and all you can think of is how to write about it in your story. For shame!

Only then did I see Don Cayetano as he truly was: a man with two abiding pa.s.sions, to serve the Virgin and to restore honor to his ranch. He had died in the service of both ideals, and few old men can claim as much.

Kneeling beside the body that still remained in its chair, I straightened his hands, eased his head to one side and whispered: 'Your secrets are safe, Don Cayetano. And your bulls did triumph. Listen to them still cheering outside.' I was lying to the old man, for the noises in the arena came not from spectators cheering that last n.o.ble bull but from ragam.u.f.fins who were trying to kill Lzaro Lopez, who was creeping out of the bullring surrounded by the police, who had been given their orders five hours before: 'Go to the plaza and protect Lopez if he gives another of his afternoons.'

I was so unnerved that when the hospital crew came to take Don Cayetano's body away, I followed after them aimlessly. I saw the golden sand on which Don Cayetano had paraded in triumph, and the red gate through which his bulls had charged to glory, and then I was out on the streets of Seville, wandering not back to my hotel but across one of the bridges over the Guadalquivir and into Triana, for on this night I wanted to be with the bullfight people.

In a kind of trance I reached the Church of the Toreros, and when I looked in I saw only three flickering candles lighting the statue so revered by the Gypsies of Triana. She did not see me, for she looked over my head to the back of her church, her cross-eyed smile serene and all-embracing. I knelt before her and prayed: 'Compa.s.sionate Virgin, whose crossed eyes see the good and bad in men, guide your faithful servant Don Cayetano Mota through the gates of heaven this night. Pray G.o.d to forgive the murderer Lzaro Lopez. These d.a.m.ned Gypsies know no better. And grant me peace of mind, for mine has been badly shaken here in Seville.'

When I left her church I continued on to El Gallito, where the aficionados of Triana in noisy numbers were celebrating the triumphs of their hero, Lzaro Lopez. Standing unnoticed at the edge of the crowd, I could see the handsome Gypsy features of the matador above the heads of his adoring fans, and I noticed that he had one very black eye where some outraged spectator had punched him during the bronca that ended his performance.

Unwilling to be part of any crowd that was honoring such a man, I left the bar but not Triana, for I felt compelled to probe the secrets of this mysterious town, and this brought me back to the fortune-telling house of La Egipciana. Although it seemed likely that she would be somewhere in the town celebrating her brother's survival, I nevertheless banged on her door and was gratified when she opened it just wide enough to inspect me by the pale light in the street.

'Oh!' she cried as she admitted me. 'The man whose woman in Texas is betraying him!' and she indicated a seat at the table on which sat the gla.s.s sphere, still covered by the red cloth. She spoke first: 'Were you at the corrida, Seor Shenstone?'

'In the box of Don Cayetano.'

'Then you saw everything?'

Cautiously, for I could not guess what secrets she might be willing to reveal, I whispered: 'I saw your brother murder Don Cayetano.'

Betraying no emotion, she reached past me and removed the red cloth from the globe. Appearing to stare into the milky-white orb she said in a singsong voice that I had not heard before: 'We Gypsies are not powerless, you know,' and then she pointed across the street to the Church of the Toreros: 'All the world receives help from that one.'

'The Virgin?'

'Yes, even in America she's available to you. We Gypsies have our own special ways of helping each other. Why do you suppose, Seor Shenstone, that you find me sitting here in the dark on such a triumphant night? Because I know it's on such nights that Gypsies want to talk with me, to ask questions, to give thanks.' She paused, stared into the globe and said: 'I was expecting my brother, and you came along. Maybe that's better. You have difficult questions, don't you?' When I nodded she laughed and, as on our first meeting, I thought: What a handsome woman, what flas.h.i.+ng eyes. But I also felt fear, because if she was able to do in that bullring what I was sure she had done-protect her brother from the full weight of heaven-what might she do to me if she became angry?

Seeing that I was fearful, she placed her hand on my arm and said gently: 'Ask your questions, my American friend, but even if you get the answers, they won't do you any good, because you'll never be able to write about them, will you?' When I remained silent, she added: 'Who would believe you?'

'Don Cayetano was in the bull?'

'As a sensible man you must know that would have been impossible.' Then she flashed a condescending smile as if I were a small child: 'Do not try to solve all the mysteries.'

'How did you know so much?' I asked.

'Because I know bulls. Have to if I'm to protect my brother. Everyone knew the Mota bulls had become no more than confused cows. Yet at Mlaga-'

'You saw that fight?'

'No, but I listened to the toreros describe it, and those who studied bulls suspected that some spell had been cast.' Suddenly she banged on the table: 'Mr. Shenstone, you clever American who's supposed to know everything, you sat beside him through those fights, six bulls in each-'

'I thought he was praying.'

'He was. The moment he stopped praying his link with the Virgin would be broken.'

'How did you know the Virgin was involved?'

'I didn't.' This so obviously perplexed me that she added: 'But my people watch for me. What I don't see, they see.' Smiling mysteriously, she touched my arm again: 'On that morning the Virgin came down from her pedestal to speak with Don Cayetano-'

'You saw that?'

Ignoring my interruption, she said: 'Do you recall, maybe, an old woman in a shawl who ran out of the church when the Virgin left? Can you guess where she ran to?'

'Your house? Egipciana? What did your spy tell you?'

'She crossed herself three times and said: "Seorita Magdalena, she came down again." And then I knew.'

'You've seen her come down to bestow miracles?'

'She doesn't come to those like me.'

I was about to ask her what other miracles had been performed in that church, but I was interrupted by a loud thumping on her door, and when she opened it I saw Lzaro Lopez standing there. Ignoring me, he caught his sister by the hands, pulled her to him and embraced her vigorously: 'We managed it. Thanks, sister. We managed it.' Then, acknowledging my presence, he asked: 'This one? Does he know?'

'For an americano he's very clever. I did not have to tell him.'

For the first time since I started following the always hectic and often disgraceful career of Lzaro Lopez, he revealed himself as a decent human being, for he said: 'You know bullfighting, Seor Americano. No matador ever had a bull in the Maestranza as fine as that last one. How I wanted to continue the fight, show myself as greater than they had ever seen before. Saliendo en hombros through the great gate of Seville. That would almost be worth dying for. To die at the height of my powers, on the horns of a great bull, like Manolete. I'd be remembered forever in bullfight history.' When I saw that he had truly considered allowing the bull to kill him for the glory it would have given him, I felt respect. 'But my sister had warned me: "Lzaro, when the bugle sounds for the sword, you have half a minute. He dies or you die." So I really had no choice, for I knew that my sister needs me, to protect her.'

If I had ever seen a woman who required no protection from anyone-least of all a brother younger than herself and with no character-it was Magdalena Lopez, the Gypsy fortune-teller, but I thought it best not to say so.

The last I saw of this remarkable pair, she was bending over to tend to his black eye. 'The pigs gave you one, didn't they?' she said almost admiringly, pleased to think that he had again defrauded those who jeered him and had escaped with such a minor wound. Then she saw me about to leave and said: 'Don't try to explain what you saw today. Who would believe you?'

Back in the darkened street I looked to my left at the Church of the Toreros, so splendid and rea.s.suring beside the river, and thought: Virgin, in your fine church you promised Don Cayetano two supreme afternoons, and you bestowed them. Magdalena Lopez, in your snug little house you undertook to keep your brother alive, and you did.

It seemed incredible that a being as n.o.ble as the Virgin had engaged in a plaza brawl with a Gypsy fortune-teller from Triana, but in Spain that's the way things sometimes happen.

Their duel was a draw.

This fantasy is dedicated

to that Irish-American leprechaun

Matt Carney