Carlos Fuentes - Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins

So taught the insatiable madwoman, whose mother and father could have been a bull and a cow, or perhaps a calf and a bullfighter, who could tell, seeing her there, an image of dust, the statue of a brown and barren sun, a star as cracked as the lips and hands of this woman teacher, who showed them how to feint, to be slow to kill, to take advantage of the bull’s speed, for the bull is a rough beast that must be smoothed, posed and disposed by the bullfighter’s art, thus, thus, thus, and Madreselva made the slowest, the longest, the most elegant passes that pack of forsaken, deceived boys had ever seen, recognizing in the woman’s long, decisive passes a power that they wanted for themselves; Madreselva not only taught them to be bullfighters in the feverish September mornings that succeeded the fiery death of the sunflowers, she also taught them to be men, to have self-respect, to command with elegant, long, and …

— Deceitful passes, said the rebellious Rubén, what you call feinting is only deceit, Ma …

— And what would you do, maestro? Madreselva crossed her arms.

The proud, imperious boy told her then to play the bull, form its horns with her fists and rush straight at him, neither of them dodging, neither she nor he, neither the false bull nor the incipient torero, and she became for that moment the captive cow, and she appraised the proud, gaunt figure of this Rubén Oliva, puffed up with puerile but impassioned honor, and she, mother-bull, did what he asked: against her judgment as his teacher, she charged full-out at Rubén, and he did not guide her with his cape as she had shown them, he remained as motionless as a statue, combining the passes as she wanted, but without any of the feints she called for, instinctively he fought her face, beautifully, moving her though not moving himself, dominating the bull without commanding it, showing it its death as she wanted, as she had done.

And then Rubén Oliva spoiled it all, after he ended the series of passes, unable to resist the temptation to make a triumphal flourish, saluting, acknowledging, freezing his hips, and flashing his black eyes as though to outshine the sun, while she, the teacher, the mistress, called Dry-Bone in the village and Madreselva, Ma, Maresca by her disciples, each according to his own stone-deaf Spanish, language of the country of the deaf and therefore of the brave, of those who can’t hear good advice or the voice of danger, while she shouted with fury, Beggar! Sponge! Don’t ask for an ovation you don’t deserve — if you deserve it, they will give it to you without your making a fool of yourself, but what other chance did he have, he answered softly, wrapping his arms around Madreselva, asking her forgiveness, though she knew he was not repentant: the boy was going to be that kind of bullfighter, daring, stiff, and stubborn, demanding that the public admire his triumphal pass, his courage, his consummate manliness, the exhibition of his masculinity before the multitudes, which was permitted, encouraged, which the bullring authorized and which Rubén Oliva was not going to forgo, sacrificing instead the art which he considered deceit — breaking the savage force of the bull. They would always applaud his statue-like pose, his refusal to cargar la suerte, to direct the bull, the way Manolete won his acclaim. — This one doesn’t dodge, they said, he exposes himself to death right in front of us. He welcomes the thrust of the horns. Just like Manolete!

And she was resigned yet determined, and she asked them to time the passes they made at the calves; resting now, a light between her rabbit’s teeth, more mannish than ever, Dry-Mother, Sea-of-Sand, Junglemother, what should they call her? she made them track each bull’s speed, to encapsulate that speed within the matador’s own rhythm, because otherwise the bull would trap theirs in his, boys, slowly, listen to the metronome, each time, slower, slower, longer, until it’s more than the bull can do to rend cape or body.

Or body. That was the sensual longing that possessed Rubén Oliva: naked, at night, pressed against the body of the bull that he had to hold to keep from being stuck, divining the body of the enemy in a mortal embrace, all wet, emerging out of the cold river into that heated contact with the beast.

3

When Madreselva felt she had no more to teach them, she told those eleven, as she had told others on other graduation days, to prepare their bundles, get their hats, and go out into the bullfighting villages together to try their fortunes. She liked the number 11 because she was superstitious sometimes and like a witch she believed that when a 1 turns on another, the world becomes a mirror, in itself it sees itself and there it stops: beyond, it leads too far, to transgression, to crime. The witch was there to warn, not to entice. She was an exorcist, not a temptress.

Besides, she thought eleven generations of boys with a passion for the ring were not only sufficient but even significant, and signifying; she imagined them on the roads of Spain, reproducing themselves, eleven thousand matadors, the perfect reply to its eleven thousand virgins; and perhaps the two bands — matadors and virgins — would meet, and then Troy would blaze again. For they would meet in freedom, not by force.

She had her rules, and everyone accepted them, except Rubén Oliva. Who but he would have the cheek to go and wake her, a comic hat perched jauntily on his black hair, tieless though his shirt was buttoned to the neck, in a threadbare vest, peasant pants, with leather boots and empty hands: he had borrowed an old cape to throw over his shoulder to announce that he was a bullfighter.

No, she was enraged because Rubén Oliva entered without knocking and surprised her with her skirts up, rolling a cigarette on her thigh, which was fat and fine, in contrast with the rest of her body: no, she was enraged, dropping her skirts and hastily putting her breeches back on, as if magically to revert to her role of female bullfighter, you are not even an apprentice yet, don’t affect a guise you have not attained, don’t be impatient, don’t imagine the world is yours for the picking — the world is not your oyster, believe me, your wretched youth is stamped all over your rags and bags, and if that’s not enough, it’s plain to see in the hunger etched on your face, Rubén, which neither I nor anyone else will ever erase, because from now on your only thought will be where to sleep, what to eat, who to hump, and even if you get rich, even if you’re a millionaire, someone like you will still have a rogue’s mentality, you’ll just want to make it through the day and wake up alive the next and have a plate of lentils, even if they are cold.

She laced the legs of her trousers and added: You will never be an aristocrat, my Rubén, mornings will always torment you.

But we are all going together, we’ll help each other, said Rubén, still so much of a child.

No, there are only ten of you now, said Madreselva, taking his hand, forgetting her leather breeches and her tobacco: his Mareseca whom he longed to kiss and embrace.

Pepe is staying here, she said, anxiously.

With you, Ma?

No, he will return to the bakery.

What will become of him?

He will never leave here. But you will, said Madreselva, the rest of you will escape, you won’t be caught in a poor town, in a bad job, boring, the same thing over and over, like a long night in hell, you’ll be far from the bricks and ovens and kitchens and nails, far from the noise of cowbells that turns you deaf and the smell of cowshit and the threat of the white hounds, you will be far from here …

He hugged her and he felt no breasts — his own adolescent chest was rounder, it retained the lingering fullness of childhood; he was a cherub with a sword, an angel whose eyes were cruelly ringed, but whose cheeks remained soft.