Iberia (111 page)
Authors: James Michener
In recent years bullfighting has been increasing in popularity
and probably more people are seeing it now than ever before.
New arenas are replacing old in cities like Burgos, Avila, Badajoz
and Córdoba, while completely new ones are being erected where
none existed before. The number of corridas fought and
attendance at them have grown. For every great Spaniard who
has opposed the art, one could name two others who have
supported it.
bullfighting with football, especially when they see the
A TYPICAL YEAR-1996
Total corridas
599
480
Number of bulls killed
3647
2836
Number of matadors
1
Not counting 193 bulls and 85 novillo bulls killed in France and 4 Spanish bulls fought
in Portugal but not killed, since that country forbids the fight to end with the death of the
bull.
2
eligible to fight
172
8162
Number of matadors fighting
116
247
Average corridas per matador
5.2
1.9
Median corridas per matador
7
3
Number of matadors
fighting only:
9
29
10
42
17
77
$25,000
$1,600
-$100
-$50
51
43
51
16
31
1
18
14
TOP MATADORS
Full Matadors
Fights
Paco Camino
95
78
74
71
70
Novice Matadors
Fights
Flores Blázquez
58
53
J. L. Bernal ‘Capillé’
50
48
Paco Ceballos
45
2
Men carrying cards issued by the matadors’ union.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the 1967 season.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the 1967 season.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the 1967 season.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the 1967 season.
3
S. Martín ‘El Viti’
68
68
S. Palomo ‘Linares’
64
53
Fermín Murillo
51
F. Rivera ‘Paquirri’
38
A. García ‘Utrerita’
38
4
Fernando Tortosa
35
A. Sánchez Bejarano
35
6F. Rodríguez
31 ‘Almendro’
huge stadia used by the latter or read that a hundred and ten
thousand fans have attended a football game, as compared to a
maximum of twenty-four thousand at a bullfight. Also, they see
boys all over Spain kicking footballs in the street, and it is not
illogical to conclude, ‘In Spain football is the rage. It’s all that kids
play, so bullfighting must be dying.’ The first two statements are
true. Football has become Spain’s lovely madness, as I have shown.
But this does not mean that bullfighting is dying, for the two
seem not to be in competition. The truth is that football is a
popular sport which commands an enormous following, and
bullfighting is an artistic spectacle which retains its traditional
adherents. An analogy might be the popular movies in Japan as
compared to the classical art of kabuki. One does not eliminate
the other, and no football player has attained in Spain the
popularity enjoyed by El Cordobés. The status of bullfighting, as
of 1966, is summarized in the accompanying table.
These figures require comment. They summarize the season
of 1966 in Spain only and do not take into account corridas in
Portugal, France, Mexico and South America. Contrary to what
some say, the total number of corridas fought each year has been
increasing rather than diminishing.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the season; their figures
are for the two categories combined.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the season; their figures
are for the two categories combined.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the season; their figures
are for the two categories combined.
Novice matadors who were promoted to full matadors during the 1967 season.
For purposes of comparison, in 1966 Curro Romero fought 24 times.
Retired from bullfighting at end of the 1966 season.
To me, the startling figures are those for the total number of
aspirant matadors and the minuscule few who make the grade.
Most depressing is the number of established matadors who are
able to fight only two or three times a year. These are the proud
and gallant men with whom the citizen who follows bullfighting
becomes so familiar. In his three fights a year such a full matador
down on his luck may earn for himself a total of a thousand
dollars, and on this he must support himself, keep his hair cut so
that he looks prosperous, his shoes shined and his clothes sharp.
And he must frequent the popular bars so as to be seen. Since his
professional pay will not permit these things he must scrounge
from his family, his wife or his girl friend; if unusually lucky he
will be able to attach himself to some well-heeled businessman
who in his youth vaguely wanted to be a matador and who now
finds pleasure in supporting a matador and so as to feel himself
part of the ambiente. It is this situation that accounts for the
minus figures at the line ‘Bottom pay one matador one corrida,’
for many times unscrupulous impresarios will allow a beginner
(and not infrequently a full-fledged matador) to fight in a given
city if the matador pays for the privilege. If a man has prospects
of only one or two fights a year, and if he has a friend who will
foot the bill, he will accept and will pay for the privilege of once
more appearing in the suit of lights, once more leading the parade
as the band plays. As for the number of times full matadors are
bullied into fighting for seventeen dollars an afternoon or nothing,
these are so common as not to warrant a special line in the
statistics.
To understand the lure of bullfighting, one must go, I think,
to Córdoba, where the city operates a taurine museum dedicated
to the five so-called Caliphs of Córdoba: Lagartijo (1841-1900),
Guerrita (1862-1941), Machaquito (1880-1955), Manolete
(1917-1947) and El Cordobés (1936- ). The numerous rooms are
evocative of these peasant boys who attained folk immortality,
and as one moves among the ancient costumes and posters and
sees the mementos of their dramatic lives he can catch a glimpse
of what bullfighting meant to the underprivileged; but more can
be gleaned, I believe, from walking the streets of Córdoba and
seeing those grandiloquent monuments to Manolete, whose death
at the horns of a Miura bull in Linares stunned the city. Fronting
the church of Santa María in the peasant barrio there is a huge
monument; a little farther along, at the square where his
once-impoverished mother lived, there is a second huge
monument which must have cost more money than she has spent
in her life; beyond, there is a plaque in the wall indicating where
the great man was actually born; and in the cemetery there is a
monument surpassing them all, showing the matador recumbent.
But more impressive to me than the museum and the monuments,
which are, after all, dead recollections, is the Bar San Miguel, not
far from where I lived in Córdoba and into which I stumbled by
accident. It is run by a fine-looking man in his thirties, Manuel
Barrera, and it consists of five rooms literally covered from floor
to ceiling with mementos of El Cordobés: three different niches
built into the walls display full-sized plaster statues of the matador;
half a dozen carved heads stand about; and at least five hundred
framed photographs hang in rigid order.
Before he became famous El Cordobés used to hang out in this
bar, Barrera says proudly, ‘and I was one of the first to recognize
his ability. The world’s first Club El Cordobés was launched right
here…in my bar. My sister carved the first full-sized statue of
him. That one. We make plaster casts of it and sell them to El
Cordobés clubs throughout the world. He’s the greatest man
Córdoba ever produced. He’s immortal.’ In the bar hangs a framed
slate with categories painted on in white enamel with space for
the relevant figures to be added in chalk.
CORRIDAS
82
138
28
THIS WEEK
1 ear
There are many such bars through Spain, each dedicated to a
predilected bullfighter, and if the art is on the wane, the habitués
of these bars, the members of the numerous clubs and the other
fanatics do not know about it.
On the other hand, the perceptive traveler soon discovers that
bullfighting is an anachronistic spectacle; if the Republicans had
won the Civil War in 1939 I suppose they would have outlawed
it in deference to progress, and most progressive Spaniards would
have approved. The victory of Generalísimo Franco provided the
art with a reprieve, for bullfighting is essentially a reactionary
operation dependent upon large areas of uncultivated land and
a feudal system; now that a new generation of managers is about
to take over responsibility from Franco, men alert to opinion in
Berlin and London, it is quite possible that bullfighting will come
under serious pressure. It will be interesting to see if its 1967
return to television will become permanent.
Why does one bother with a spectacle so archaic and so often
disappointing? On July 13, 1966, when I got up extra early in
Pamplona to be with the bulls on the last day of the running, I
went to Marcelino’s restaurant after the bulls had passed and had
a breakfast of bacalao (steamed salted codfish) and then went on
the unforgettable picnic at the Pass of Roncesvalles. In the patio
de caballos I renewed acquaintance with Domingo Ortega and El
Estudiante, and had my picture taken with Antonio Ordóñez,
who had been miserable on his first appearance and who wanted
to recoup this day. In the plaza I exchanged amiable greetings
with the Curro Romero devotee on my left, who took the
opportunity to remind me that, by all accounts, Curro had been
sensational a few days before in Madrid. ‘The kind of matador
we dream about,’ he said, repeating himself.
The fights this day were ordinary, with here and there a few
details, and then the fifth bull, a big red one, came out. Looking
back on it, I can scarcely believe that in the early morning this
extraordinary bull had passed my doorway with only a few inches
separating us, but I had been so excited that I failed to notice. ‘A
big red bull like that? You didn’t even see him?’ friends asked
afterward. I said, ‘He wasn’t there,’ nor had he been, so far as I
was concerned.
But he was certainly there that afternoon. He pertained to
Andrés Vázquez, a matador of only ordinary qualifications but
who was to prove the truth of what I claimed earlier, that any
professional, when he gets the dream bull, will at least have the
basic techniques for giving it a great fight. Whether he does so or
not is another matter, and much can go wrong in the process of
leading a noble bull from the first cape work, to the horses,
through the muleta work and on to the moment of death, so that
many fine bulls are wasted.
On this day nothing went wrong. The bull entered the arena
at a gallop and roared to the center of the ring, where he stopped,
motionless, as if posing for a poster. He then charged toward the
first cape that showed itself, and as soon as the crowd saw how
true he moved, a loud shout rose from the stands, applauding the
bull and expressing the hope that at last we were to see a good
fight. Vázquez, recognizing the quality of the beast the luck of the
draw had thrown him, ran into the ring and took charge,
unfolding a series of slow and majestic passes in which the bull
followed the cloth as if his nose were pasted to it. I had not seen
such passes for some years, nor had the crowd, and the applause
grew, with six or seven bands playing at the same time in a kind
of super-bedlam. The horses now entered, and for once we saw
a powerful bull charge the horses three times, take all that the
picadors had to offer, then slide each time off the horse and into
the cape of the waiting matador. Vázquez, El Pireo and Ordóñez
in turn launched beautiful series of passes in which the bull
followed the arabesques of the cape with arabesques of his own,
more astonishing in that he used his long and powerful body to
execute his passes. It was magnificent and the bands roared with
delight.
Now came the highlight of this fight. Vázquez and his
banderillero Mario Coelho came into the ring, dismissed the two
peons who would normally protect them with capes and the other
two matadors who stood by in case of danger, and ran in a series
of exquisite ellipses before the bull’s nose in such a way that
whenever the bull was about to catch Vázquez on his horns,
Coelho would mysteriously appear at the apex of his ellipse and
lead the animal away to the point at which the red beast was about
to catch him, whereupon Vázquez would suddenly appear and
the bull’s charge would be diverted. In the midst of this
chinoiserie, Coelho stopped long enough to place the first pair
of banderillas, and it was done so flawlessly that the crowd
exploded with joy. Now the brass bands grew silent and allowed
the primitive oboes of Pamplona to take over, and a rustic melody
from centuries ago filled the arena, as fine music as I have ever
heard at a bullfight. Suddenly the running figures converged with
the arc being described by the bull’s horns, and in some fantastic
manner Vázquez placed the second pair, almost as perfectly as
the first. The matador now left the ring, and no protecting capes
appeared to guard Coelho. Very slim, very quiet, the banderillero
took his position close to the red wall of the arena in a spot from
which escape would be difficult if he misjudged the bull’s charge.
Keeping his feet rigidly planted, he cited the bull from a
considerable distance, and as the animal started his charge, Coelho
moved his body but not his feet to the left and when the bull
lowered his head and charged at him there, he swiftly brought his
shoulders over to the right and as the bull thundered past, planted
two perfect banderillas in his shoulders.
