Chapter Fifteen
Carmen met Maggie as she returned to her room. Dressed in a black suit, she wore her usual stern, disapproving frown. “Even if you aren’t Catholic, you should come to church with us and pray for Santos.”
Her grandmother knew she cared for Rafael, but clearly wouldn’t include a Gypsy in her prayers. “Thank you, but I really don’t feel up to it, and my prayers will go just as far if spoken here.”
“If you know any,” her grandmother murmured and marched down the hall toward the stairs.
Maggie closed her door and leaned back against it. She only had today to survive, and tomorrow she’d make a reservation for the first flight out of Barcelona to the States. Maybe it was better th
is way. If Rafael wasn’t speaking to her, she didn’t have to worry about how she’d tell him good-bye without crying so hard she’d make a fool of herself. She’d just disappear from his life before he’d begun to miss her.
She topped her bikini with cropped jeans and her lavender shirt and took a fresh towel down to the beach. She carried the last of the books she’d brought along to read and intended to stay on the beach until late afternoon. There were shady places to sit so she wouldn’t be burned to a crisp, but what she really intended was to hide until a few minutes before five o’clock when the bullfights would begin. She wanted to see Rafael walk into the Plaça de Toros with the others and pretend he was waving to her. Spanish men were a handsome lot, but he would surely be the best looking, with Santos a close second. Her stomach was already clenched in a tight fist, and she still had hours to go.
She showered and changed into her colorful skirt with a low-necked black top and went to her father’s room at a quarter to five. He was awake, stretched out on his bed, leaning against a mountain of pillows and eager for the corrida to begin. He welcomed her with a wide smile.
“I thought you might have changed your mind and gone with my mother, Cirilda and Fox.”
“I’d rather watch as much as I can from here. You appear to be feeling well.”
“Yes, I am, but Antonio insisted upon having a private ambulance here. He’s afraid should Santos be hurt, I might risk driving myself to the hospital.”
“There’s an ambulance here?”
“Yes, parked in the driveway. The men with it will spend the evening watching the television in the lounge downstairs with Fernanda. At least, I think she’s here today. After a while, the nurses are difficult to tell apart.”
The television was set on the cable channel showing the bullfights, and Maggie silently counted down the minutes. “How many fights will there be?”
“Eight rather than the usual six, because Rafael has joined the other three matadors. Each man will fight two bulls.”
She had to swallow hard. “Two?”
“The fights are only fifteen minutes long, Magdalena. There are three five-minute parts, or tercios. In the first, the tercio de varas, you’ll see the matador mock the bull with his cape, and the picadores will weaken the bull’s shoulder muscles with their lances. During the tercio de banderillas, the banderilleros set their barbed darts, and in the final tercio de muleta, the matador returns to make the kill. It goes by very quickly. You’ll see.”
She’d eagerly studied the sequence as a child, which appalled her now. “All I want to see is Rafael and Santos enter the arena.”
“Take the chair close to me. It’s almost time.”
She recognized the trumpet fanfares, but the music was swiftly muted by the crowd’s frenzied roar. Filled with equal parts of excitement and dread, she couldn’t bear to watch more than the opening parade. The cameras were facing the matadors, banderilleros and picadores as they marched and rode in. Santos had worn red, and she recognized him instantly. He came in alongside the other two matadors who were in blue and purple, and Rafael, in his menacing black, strode in right behind them. The cheers grew louder as the crowd recognized him.
“He was very popular in Mexico,” her father murmured. “Let’s see if he can live up to it here.”
There were thousands there, so Rafael wouldn’t know if she were present or not, but she was truly torn to have disappointed him so badly. She left the easy chair meant for visitors and took a seat at the balcony table. “This is close enough for me.”
“If you insist.”
“Yes, I do.” She sat with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. The two matadors she didn’t recognize were first and second and while her father criticized their work with an occasional comment, they left the bullring without injury. Then Santos entered the ring, and the crowd went wild.
“How can you stand this?” she asked.
“It’s in our blood, querida. It’s a grand ritual, an elaborate sacrifice, perhaps our true religion.”
She could accept that Spain had a rich culture with a couple of centuries of the bloody spectacle now broadcast on cable for the world to see. However, history was a sorry justification in her view. She didn’t care if the bulls had enjoyed four placid years before their final tormented afternoon either. She still felt sorry for the lumbering beasts and sickened such huge crowds would gather to see men risk their lives for their amusement. She’d never share in their appalling thrill.
“Come watch a moment of Santos. He’s the best of the lot.”
She stood at the end of his bed and hugged the bedpost tightly. Santos had an agile step and moved so quickly the bull streaked by his cape again and again without coming near enough to do him any harm. She made her way back to her chair.
“Yes, he’s wonderful. I can see that.”