Villa America (34 page)

Young Spaniards were dotted around the ring, taunting the juvenile bulls, and Gerald saw one young man get tossed up in the air.

“Don’t worry,” Ernest called to him. “Those are small horns. And they’re padded for the ladies.”

The crowds were obviously enjoying what looked to them like comedy. Gerald hoped no one could see him shaking.

Ernest stood several feet away, but Gerald could see he was watching him out of the corner of his eye. At that moment, besides fear, he felt hatred. He thought of leaving, but he couldn’t, and then he heard Sara yelling his name. He turned and saw there was a bull coming straight at him.

There was something hideous about the way the animal looked with its head down like that, coming to cut a swath through him. And there was Ernest watching, watching, always watching. And Sara.

Gerald lifted his raincoat out of some perverse sense of showmanship and held it in front of him.

“
To the side,”
Ernest yelled. “To the side.”

It was almost upon him, almost too late, but he managed, somehow, to process Ernest’s words, and he pulled the raincoat to his left, and the bull followed, just passing his body.

Ernest was suddenly next to him, slapping him on the back, saying something about doing a veronica, but Gerald could hear only the buzzing of blood in his head.

He looked up and saw Sara clapping and smiling. Ernest saw it too, and then he was gone from his side. Gerald watched as Ernest waved down a bull, and when it charged him, he threw himself over its horns in a kind of insane somersault and landed on the animal’s back.

The bull bucked once, stopped, swayed for a few moments, then fell to its knees under the burden of Ernest’s great weight.

And the crowd yelled:
“Olé!”

It was early evening and they were all making their way to the ring to watch the corrida, Sara’s heels clacking on the cobblestones. The sun, which had made a reappearance before lunch, was still high in the sky, casting short shadows onto the street.

It was her first bullfight and they were going to see Villalta, whom Ernest knew and admired so much. The run had been…well, she couldn’t even put it into words. It had been hot and mean and beautiful all at once.

She didn’t know if she would ever love something as much as she loved Pamplona. If there would ever be anything so visceral again.

After lunch, she and Ernest had walked through the maze of merchants and unicyclists and men performing feats of strength. The others had decided to stay and lounge at the Café Iruña and watch the world go by.

She wanted a guitar for Baoth. While Honoria was a perfect blend of herself and Gerald, and Patrick was a little Gerald—more “Gerald than even Gerald,” as Archie liked to say—Baoth was her. Or a boy version of her younger self: strong and sturdy and naughty and fearless. And out of all of them, he would love a Spanish guitar the most.

After dismissing some of the plainer ones, she found the perfect specimen: small, its face inlaid with mother-of-pearl, vines engraved into the fingerboard. Ernest bargained the price down for her but in such a dignified way that none of them, including the merchant, felt bad when it was over.

“Now,” Ernest had said afterward, “we have to find a
bombo
for you.”

“My own little drum,” Sara said, “to bang whenever I want.”

He insisted on choosing it himself. It had a polished red wooden base with a top skin as white as snow and waxed woven cords securing the top to the bottom. He carried it back for her.

“Do you know what I think would be wonderful?” he’d said.

“What?”

“I think you should put on all your diamonds this evening and a silk dress and wear them to the corrida. And with the late sun, the diamonds will flash, and you’ll flash, around your neck and on your ears and your lovely wrists, and we’ll watch the man who may become the greatest killer of his generation do his honor by the bull.”

She’d felt light-headed when he’d said this. The idea of herself the way he saw her.

And now here she was, on her way to see Villalta in a silk dress the color of sea foam and every single diamond she’d brought.

A group of Spanish couples pointed at Gerald as they passed.

“What are they saying?” he asked Ernest, and for a moment her heart stopped.

“They call you the ‘man in the silver suit,’” Ernest said.

“Oh,” Gerald said. “Do they approve?”

“They think it’s fine,” Ernest said. “But I prefer the cap.”

Sara exhaled silently.

When they reached the Plaza de Toros, Gerald handed the man their tickets and he showed them to their seats: Sara on the outside, followed by Ernest, then Hadley, Gerald, and finally Pauline. They were practically in the ring.

“These are good seats, in the shade for the true aficionados,” Ernest said. “Still, it’s not quite the same as being poor or the first time you come.”

“No,” Sara said. “But nothing is ever like the first time, is it?”

“The mistress of understatement.” Ernest smiled down at her. He leaned over and called across them to Pauline: “How are you feeling all the way down there at the end, Daughter?”

It surprised Sara a little to hear him call her that, but then, Gerald’s language had always been infectious.

Pauline raised a hand. “I’m just fine and dandy, as always,” she said. “God, this is going to be a smash, isn’t it?”

The
paseíllo
began, the constables on horseback in their black velvet caps topped with glorious red plumage, then the three matadors, their
trajes de luces
encrusted with gold, each clad in a different color silk, black, pink, and blue; they were followed by their teams of
subalternos:
three
banderilleros,
shimmering in silver, and two picadors, in gold like the matador. They lapped the ring, making tracks in the burnished dust, before saluting the
presidente
and, finally, departing again.

Sara had carefully written down all the Spanish words in a black book she’d brought with her. Now she rolled them over her tongue.

A trumpet sounded, and Villalta and his three
banderilleros
came into the ring, their capes flashing. The matador was tall and slender and walked on the tips of his toes like a ballet dancer. He crossed himself while the
banderilleros
spread their magenta capes wide and the bull entered the ring.

They goaded the animal into attacking, making passes, exposing the gold lining of their
capotes.
Villalta, meanwhile, studied his opponent, the way the bull moved, its reactions to his assistants’ maneuvers.

Then he stepped forward into the center and called the bull himself. His stance was set—arched back, head forward, chin down, one foot planted, the other on tiptoe—as the bull circled and passed.

Something about his height, his profile, perhaps, reminded Sara of Gerald. The matadors were not bulky in a traditionally masculine way, and yet these men were the killers of bulls. They commanded by grace and skill rather than brute force.

It was like an opera, with its three acts and the staging and the bright colors and the arias of movement. With its noble, somehow tragic hero. Ernest had explained to her that there was no hatred in the matador’s killing of a bull; he respected the bull and would fight only a worthy and honorable opponent.

 The picadors entered, each with a long lance held in one hand. She was rather shocked to see the condition of the horses they rode. They looked malnourished, broken down. They were blindfolded.

She looked over at Ernest. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his face set hard in concentration. She touched the diamonds around her neck. They were slightly warm from her skin, though not exactly sparkling in the shade of their seats.

The bull had noticed the horses too and now went for one of them. Head down, it endeavored to thrust its horns into the poor animal while the picador turned the horse, his lance poised.

The bull’s horns ran the horse through its rib cage. Sara looked again at Ernest. “Why doesn’t it make any noise?” Sara whispered.

“They cut their vocal cords,” Ernest said without even looking at her, a slightly irritated tone to his voice.

She was suddenly quite angry that he hadn’t told her about this part. There was no honor in sacrificing a completely defenseless and worn-out animal in this fashion. There was nothing operatic about this.

The bull backed up ever so slightly and dipped its head. Its horns pierced the horse’s stomach at the same time that the picador’s lance pierced the bull’s neck. But the bull didn’t disengage. And then, all at once, the horse’s stomach was torn open and its bowels dropped into the dust, the horse and the picador dropping too.

A
banderillero
came from the side to distract the bull so that the picador could escape. But Sara had seen enough. She was disgusted.

Clasping her handbag, she stood up and walked quickly and furiously out of the ring.

Back at the hotel, she removed each piece of jewelry and carefully placed it back in the case. For a while, she studied the bracelet and necklace, lying straight out and still, like dead things, in their tray. Then she shut and locked the tiny casket and put it at the back of the dark wooden wardrobe and locked that too.

She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

She heard footsteps in the corridor outside and sat up quickly, smoothing her dress, touching her fingertips to her hair. The door opened. It was Gerald. She lay back again.

“Sal?” He came over and looked down at her.

“He didn’t even notice that I’d left, did he?” She saw there was a piece missing from the ceiling rosette.

“Who? Ernest?”

She propped herself up, looking at him. “He didn’t, did he?”

“No,” Gerald said, a little sadly. Then he offered her his hand. “But I did.”

“Yes,” she said, taking it and smelling it, the lovely, clean odor of her husband. “You did.”

On the last night of the festival, Hadley sat outside at the Café Iruña watching Ernest and Pauline and Sara and Gerald dancing the
boleras
with a crowd gathered in the Plaza del Castillo.

Tomorrow she and Ernest would travel to Madrid, then on to Valencia and San Sebastián. Pauline was going back to Paris. Hadley wondered if she could even risk feeling glad about that or if what was so wrong with them would pursue them through their travels in Spain.

Ernest had said it was her fault for asking him in the first place if he was in love with Pauline, said she’d put the idea in his head. What could she do after that? She’d been forced into acceptance. No, more than acceptance. She’d felt she had to go so far as to arrange for those two to be together, just to prove that she didn’t believe it.

That, of course, had led to the awful ménage à trois in Juan-les-Pins; the three of them living together, swimming together, eating together. All the while, Hadley’s heart was breaking. And in Pamplona, things only got worse, although Ernest’s admiration for Sara softened the situation a little.

She felt for Gerald. He was certainly uncomfortable around her husband. She could sympathize with his position. Ernest was the kind of man to whom men, women, children, and dogs were attracted. It was something. And he could make you feel lower than those dogs if he didn’t respect you.

Although with Gerald, it was a little more complicated than that. Hadley had noticed that Ernest had started calling Pauline Daughter, and he clearly didn’t like it when Gerald used the nickname himself, which was his to begin with, for goodness’ sake. Aside from the fact that it made her feel sick to her stomach to hear him call Pauline that, it also signaled to her that there was some part of Ernest that was jealous of Gerald Murphy. Even if her husband would never admit it.

She watched them now dancing in a large circle, Ernest holding Pauline’s hand tightly while she looked at him, obviously smitten. Pauline seemed so small next to Ernest, and Hadley thought of her own bigger, stronger body, the one that her husband had loved and admired for its ability to fish and hunt and ski and make love. What did he see when he looked at it now?

She supposed she’d thought that the trip to the Riviera might banish her fears about her marriage. She’d arrived at Villa America with high hopes. Ernest would join her and Bumby, and they could be a family again. And that house, and the
bastide,
with its white painted floor and crisp sheets and vases of flowers and soaps made by monks; anything Sara touched became exquisite, it seemed. How could bad things happen there?

But then poor little Bumby had become so sick and she was cast out. No, that wasn’t fair. She remembered the look of sheer terror on Sara’s face when the doctor told them it was whooping cough. And she’d heard all about how Sara hung her own sheets in train compartments before letting the children board. Hadley didn’t think the Murphy children had ever had any of the usual childhood illnesses, so, while Sara’s reaction might have been over the top, it was genuine.

Ernest let go of Pauline’s hand and moved out of the circle, and for a brief shining moment, Hadley thought he was coming to get her. Her heart even raced a little.

But then she saw he was gathering a few people from the crowd and talking to them, a big smile on his face. His up-to-something expression. Whatever he was saying was spreading through the crowd and they began to circle Gerald and Sara, who looked a little alarmed. The group started clapping and chanting: “Dansa Charles-ton. Dansa Charles-ton. Americanos, dansa Charles-ton.”

Ernest had put the crowd up to this, and Hadley knew why. On the train journey down, Gerald had been going on about how they’d hired a professional American vaudeville group touring the Riviera to come to Villa America and teach them all, including the children, how to do the Charleston. This was Ernest’s revenge, his way of punishing Gerald for this luxury, this knowledge. It made her sad.

But then the band seemed to catch on and they started playing something resembling jazz, and the Murphys looked at each other. Gerald held a hand out to his wife, and they began to dance. And they did it beautifully, two dark blonds, like a matched set. And then fireworks lit up the night sky, and Hadley wondered if there was anything they couldn’t make come out right for themselves, anything that could leave a mark on them.