As he emerged into the ring with the others and they bowed before the fight director and the local celebrities who sat in the box, he wondered how life could possibly get better than this.
And everything is yet to come, he reflected, basking in the sheer joy of anticipation.
Ignacio was the third of the matadors to make his entrance in the ring. Though they had been polite, the crowd had been unimpressed by the other fighters.The second had a false start when his first bull rammed the wooden barricade and smashed his horns. The creature’s carelessness earned him his freedom and a return to the rich pastureland where he had been reared. This matador played his next bull deftly before making a swift, clean kill, but there had been no showmanship, nothing that thrilled the crowd.
They hoped for more drama with Ignacio. Many of them had seen him perform before and his reputation for deliberately breathtaking near misses with the bull had received plenty of coverage in the pages of the local newspapers.
The crowd was ready for something that captured the imagination and they always expected the best to be last. For many, the amount of death and violence they had witnessed in the past month or so had merely whetted their appetite for more. They had seen plenty of blood spilled that afternoon but the twin pleasures of danger and catharsis had so far been lacking. These bulls had not so far presented any real risk to these young men.
The cruelty of the crowd was palpable. They did not want the bull to die too soon: the stages of his degradation before the final decisive blow must be slow and painstaking and his suffering must be drawn out.
Most of the arena was now in shadow and the day was finally cooling. A shaft of low, late afternoon sunlight caught the dazzling gold embroidery of Ignacio’s jacket. This was the best time to fight.
The bull thundered towards him and, as his horns came into contact with the cape, its forelegs left the ground. Despite the wounds from the picador and the banderilleros, the animal still had plenty of energy. The
muleta
cape brushed its back as Ignacio executed a deft flick.
After he had executed his first few simple turns, Ignacio became more daring. He dazzled the crowd with the elegance of a ‘butterfly’ pass, sweeping the cape behind his back and then, to their astonishment, he knelt on the ground.
‘What absolute gall!’ they gasped. ‘What confidence!’ ‘What nerve!’
The bull’s head was lowered.Would Ignacio get away with such an audacious manoeuvre? Seconds later, the crowd would have their answer.
Ignacio got to his feet and acknowledged their applause. His back was turned to the bull now, a further demonstration of his supremacy over the animal.The gesture was almost contemptuous. If the bull had it in him, he might have gored the perfect, rounded buttocks of his pert derrière, but the beast was already losing his will.
The
faena
was nearly completed now. There were some more
verónicas
, when he twirled the cape above his head as he pirouetted. On the final one, the wounded bull brushed so close to Ignacio’s body that his pure white jacket was painted crimson with the animal’s blood.
‘Now I understand why he wore that colour,’ said Concha to herself.
Ignacio touched the left horn as he passed. It seemed almost affectionate, as if he was stroking the bull, thanking him for the opportunity to prove himself.
The build-up had all the grace and elegance of a dance seen in slow motion and now the bull came before him, almost on bended knee, worshipful. Ignacio raised the sword and plunged it deep, reaching the animal’s heart.As they watched the last twitch of the defeated beast, the crowd were on their feet and waving their handkerchiefs. Ignacio’s confrontation with the bull was as near perfection as a bullfight could be.
Apart from joining with the occasional gasps uttered collectively by the crowd, Ignacio’s parents had remained silent for the duration of the fight. Once or twice Concha had gripped her husband’s arm hard. It was difficult for a mother to see her son facing a charging bull and not experience a moment of pure terror. Only when the dead weight of the animal’s corpse was being dragged on its final circuit by the team of horses could she allow herself to breathe again. Then Pablo was up with the rest, awash with pride at the sight of his son basking in the crowd’s adulation.
The fanfare sounded. Ignacio returned, parading before the crowd, arms aloft to acknowledge the cheers. Sensual and provocative, these slim-hipped youths strutted a single circuit of the ring, dazzling in their purples, pinks and blood-stained white.
Concha rose to her feet. She too was proud of Ignacio but she hated this place, its atmosphere sickened her, and she was glad that they could now leave.
The bullfight seemed to bring about a brief renaissance of the old Granada. Everyone flooded out, the bars filled up, and into the small hours the streets thronged with people. Civil Guards kept a wary eye, alert for trouble, but anyone who felt uncomfortable about the underlying sense of right-wing triumphalism stayed indoors that night.
Ignacio was the man of the hour. In the smartest bar near the bullring he was fêted by his entourage and dozens of wealthy landowners and
aficionados
who queued up to shake his hand. There were dozens of women all keen to catch his eye too and the party went on late into the night. Everyone in this coterie shared similar views on the current situation in Spain and the drunken toasts and songs reflected this.
Lovely Lorca, what a bore!
NOW we bet your arse is sore!
They chanted the words over and over again, thrilled with the double entendre.
‘You should have seen my brother when he heard about Lorca,’ said Ignacio laughingly to the group he was standing with. ‘Devastated!’
‘So he’s a poofter too, is he?’ said one of the more vulgar men through a thick cloud of cigar smoke.
‘Well, let’s put it this way,’ answered Ignacio conspiratorially, ‘he doesn’t share my taste for girls . . .’
One of the more voluptuous women in the bar had sidled up to Ignacio during this conversation and his hand had slipped round her waist as he carried on talking to his male friends. It was an almost unconscious gesture. At three in the morning when the bar would eventually shut, they would stroll together to the nearby Hotel Majestic, which always kept a few rooms back for the stars of the bullfight.
During the days that followed, Ignacio was irrepressible. He could scarcely contain his jubilation. The family were given the head of his magnificent kill. Somewhere in a dark corner of the café, it hung for some years, its staring expressionless eyes looking out at customers as they came in to El Barril.
But even while Ignacio was celebrating, the violence continued. Lorca was only one of hundreds who had disappeared.
About a month later, there was a horrendous banging on the glass panel of the El Barril’s door at three o’clock in the morning.The violence of the knocking was almost enough to break it down.
‘Who’s that?’ yelled the elderly Señor Ramírez out of his third-floor window. ‘Who the devil is making all that noise?’
‘Open up, Ramírez. Now!’ It was a harsh voice and its owner, in using Pablo’s name, clearly meant business.
By now, every inhabitant of the street was out of bed. Shutters were open, women and children leaned out of windows, and a few courageous men had come out onto the pavement and were now face to face with the dozen or so soldiers in the street. Dogs barked and the strident sounds of their yapping ricocheted off the walls, creating a deafening cacophony in the narrow streets. Even as the bolts were being pulled across, the hammering continued to rain down on the glass. Only when Pablo opened the door, did it cease, and then even the dogs were silent. Five of the soldiers pushed past him into the café and the door banged behind them.The others remained in the street, loitering, smoking, indifferent to the resentful glares of the civilians around them. The street was quiet. Perhaps two minutes or twenty passed. No one could say.
Eventually the door was thrown open. Silence was replaced by the sound of screams. It was Señora Ramírez.
‘You can’t take him away! You can’t take him!’ she wailed. ‘He’s done nothing wrong! You can’t take him!’
There was a sense of desperation and helplessness in her voice. She knew that no protestation of hers could stop these men. The fact that they had no legal warrant to make an arrest mattered not a fraction of a peseta.
There were no streetlights so it was hard to see exactly what was going on in the shadows but everyone could see that it was Emilio who was standing in the street. He was still in a nightshirt, which glowed supernaturally white in the gloom, his hands were tied fast behind his back, his head was downcast and he was perfectly still. One of the uniformed men shoved him in the stomach with his rifle butt.
‘Get going!’ he ordered. ‘Now.’
With that, Emilio seemed to come to life. He stumbled away from his home like a drunk, almost losing his balance on the uneven cobbles.
Then there was the sound of Señor Ramírez, trying to calm his wife: ‘We will get him back, my dear. We will get him back. They have no right to take him.’
Half a dozen soldiers trooped down the street behind Emilio, two of them regularly jabbing him between the shoulder blades to steer him in the right direction. Soon they had disappeared round the corner and the metallic click of military footsteps had faded. Now the street was full of people, neighbours in huddles, women comforting Concha, men both furious and fearful.
Antonio and Ignacio stood nose to nose.
‘Come on,’ said Antonio. ‘We have to follow them. Quick.’
It had been a long while since Ignacio had responded to any instruction from his brother, but for now at least they had a common purpose. Concern for their own flesh and blood, particularly their mother, briefly united them.
It was only a minute or two before they caught sight of the uniformed group and then followed them stealthily for half a mile, retreating into dark doorways and archways every time they paused. If they were spotted, it would do no one any good, least of all Emilio. The real surprise to Antonio was that their route took them to the government building. Less than a month earlier, Granada had been ruled from there to the benefit of the people.
There was another jab in the back for Emilio as he fell over the threshold, and then the door banged firmly shut. By now it was beginning to get light and the two brothers would not be able to hang around in the street for long without being seen. They squatted in a doorway, unable even to light a cigarette in case a burning match drew attention to them, and for ten minutes or so remained huddled like this, arguing over what to do. Stay? Go? Bang on the doors?
The decision was soon made for them. Shortly afterwards, a car rolled up to a side door and two soldiers got out. Some unseen figures admitted them into the building and within a few moments they re-emerged. This time, there was another figure between them. They were supporting him because he was unable to walk, but it was not a humane gesture. The man was bent double with pain and when they opened the door of the vehicle and bundled him in, it was obvious that there was no kindness intended. He was being treated like a package. As he fell into the car, both Antonio and Ignacio caught a glimpse of the still-gleaming white nightshirt and knew beyond doubt that the person they had seen was Emilio.
The car roared off into the night and they had to accept that they could not follow.
Antonio’s heart was heavy. Men can’t cry, Antonio repeated to himself. Men can’t cry. His face was locked in a spasm of grief and disbelief, his hand held fast over his mouth to stifle the sound of his sobs, but his eyes overflowed with tears. For some time the brothers stayed crouched low in the doorway of some stranger, who even now slept soundly in his bed.
Ignacio was getting agitated. It was nearly light now and they had to get away from this place and back home. Their parents would be waiting for news.
‘What are we going to tell them?’ whispered Antonio, his voice choked.
‘That he’s under arrest,’ said Ignacio bluntly. ‘What’s the point of telling them anything else?’
They walked in silence, slowly through the empty streets. Antonio longed for some comfort from his younger brother, but he would receive none. Ignacio’s sang-froid about the situation puzzled him for a moment. He knew that Ignacio hated Emilio, but he could not allow himself to suspect that he was involved in his own brother’s disappearance.