Tomato Sauce
Chi va lontan dalla sua patria, vede
Cose da quel, che gia credea, lontane;
Che narrandole poi non se gli crede,E stimato bugiardo ne rimane:
Che |' sciocco vulgo non gli vuoldar fede,
Se non le vede a tocca chiare e plane:
Per questo io so che I' inesperienzaFara al mio canto dar poca credenza.
Poca o molta ch'io ciabbia, non bisogna
Ch'io ponga mente al vulgo sciocco e ignoro —
Ariosto, L'Orlando Furioso, Canto VII.[01]
THE first time: at the corrida five weeks ago, when the black bull of Miura gorged little Quitino through the arm———[02]
And again the following Sunday and the Sunday after—I met him at each bull-fight. I used to sit in front in order to take a few snapshots; his subscription seat was next to mine. A little man with a round hat and the black smock of an English clergyman. Pale, smooth shaven, with a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose. And something else, too: he had no eyelashes.
I became aware of him immediately. At the moment when the first bull took the horse upon his horns and the tall picador fell clumsily off. The nag jumped up painfully again and cantered away, its body torn open, and its legs entangled in its own entrails, which hung down and dragged in the sand. At the same instant I heard a sigh at my side—a deep sigh of content. We sat together the entire afternoon, never speaking a word. The pretty play of the bandilleros interested him very little. But when the espada thrust his blade into the bull's neck, so that the handle rose like a cross above the mighty horns, then he gripped the barrier with both hands and leaned far over. And the garocha —that was the thing he prized most.[03] When the blood squirted from the chest of the horse in a stream as thick as an arm, or when a chulo put the mortally wounded animal out of misery by driving his short dagger into its brain, or when the maddened bull tore a horse's carcass to shreds in the arena, burying his horns in the lifeless mass—then this man softly rubbed his palms together. Once I asked him:
“You are a bull-fight fan—an aficionado?”[04]
He nodded but said no word; he did not want to be disturbed in his enjoyment.
Granada is not a big place, so I soon learned his name. He was the chaplain of the small English colony; his countrymen always called him the “Pope.” Apparently he was not held in high regard; nobody had anything to do with him socially.
ON Wednesday I visited the cock-fight. A small amphitheatre, perfectly round, with raised benches. In the center, the arena, directly under the skylight. The reek of the rabble, shouting and spitting—it takes some nerve to enter. Two cocks are brought in, looking like hens, with their combs and tails cut off. They are weighed, then taken from their cages. And they go for each other without a moment's hesitation. The air is full of flying feathers: again and again the two birds fly at each other, mutilating each other with beaks and spurs—without a sound. Only the human beasts around them cry and shout, curse and bet. Ha, the yellow cock has hacked out one of the white one's eyes, snapped it up from the floor and swallowed it! The heads and necks of the birds, long since plucked bare, sway like snakes above the bodies. Not for a moment do they let go of each other. Their feathers are crimsoned. You hardly recognize their forms any more, as they hack each other to bloody chunks. Now the yellow one has lost both his eyes; he hacks blindly in the air while every second the beak of his rival beats down on his head. At last he sinks down; without resistance, without a sound, he permits the foe to finish his task. Nor is this quickly done; five to six minutes are still needed by the white cock, himself exhausted unto death by a hundred spur-thrusts and bites.
There they sit around, my fellowmen, human beings, all; they laugh at the impotent beak-thrusts of the victor, urging him on and counting each new bite—for the sake of the bets.
At last! Thirty minutes, the allotted time, are spent; the battle is over. One fellow, the owner of the victorious cock, rises; with derisive laughter he slays his opponent's bird with a club: this is his privilege. Now they wash the cocks at the pump and count the wounds in order to settle the bets.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“How do you do?” the Pope asked. His watery eyes, without lashes, smiled contentedly behind his large glasses. “You like that, don't you?” he proceeded.
For a moment I did not know whether he was in earnest. His question seemed so utterly and stupidly offensive that I stared at him without answering.
But he misunderstood my silence, took it for consent; so certain was he. “Yes,” he said quietly and very slowly. “This is real satisfaction.”
We were pushed apart; they brought new cocks into the arena.
A FEW days later I was invited to tea by the English Consul. I was punctual, the first guest to arrive.
As I greeted him and his old mother, he said:
“I am glad you are early. I want to have a few words with you in private.”
“I am entirely at your disposal,” I smiled.
The Consul drew his rocking-chair closer and, with strange earnestness, proceeded:
“Far be it from me to dictate to you, my dear sir! But, if it is your intention to remain here longer and to move about generally in society, —as well as in the English colony—I should like to give you some friendly advice.”
I was quite curious to hear what he was driving at.
“And your advice?” I asked.
“You have been seen several times in the company of our clergyman…” he continued.
“I beg your pardon!” I interrupted. “I know very little about him. The day before yesterday we exchanged a few words for the first time.”
“So much the better!” the Consul replied. “Then I should advise you to shun association with him, at least in public.”
“Thank you, Consul,” I said. “Would it be indiscreet to ask the reason for this?”
“Of course, I owe you an explanation,” he answered, “although I am not so sure that it will satisfy you. The Pope—you know that they have given him this nickname?”
I nodded.
“Well, then,” he proceeded, “the Pope is taboo in society. He attends the bull-fights regularly,—that isn't so bad—he also never misses a single cock-fight; in short, he has tastes which render him impossible among Europeans.”
“But, Consul, if you condemn him so much for this, why do you permit him to retain his unquestionably honorable office?”
“Well, after all, he has been ordained,” the old lady volunteered.
“And, besides that,” the Consul affirmed, “in all his twenty years here he has never given the slightest tangible reason for complaint. Moreover, the position of clergyman in our tiny community is the worst paid on the entire continent—it would hardly be possible to replace him.”
“Then you are satisfied with his sermons, nevertheless,” I said, turning to the Consul's mother, making an effort to suppress a malicious smile.
The old lady straightened up in her chair.
“I would never permit him to speak a word of his own in the church,” she answered very definitely. “Every Sunday he reads his sermons from Dean Harley's collection.”
The answer flustered me somewhat, and I was silent.
“Incidentally,” the Consul began once more, “it would be unjust not to mention one of the Pope's good traits. He owns a considerable fortune, and uses his income solely for charitable purposes, while he himself, apart from his passions, lives an extraordinarily modest, even poor, life.”
“Nice kind of charity!” His mother interrupted him. “Whom does he assist? Wounded toreadores and their families, or even the victim of a salsa.” “A—what?” I asked.
“My mother means a salsa de tomates,” the Consul explained.[05]
“Tomato sauce?” I repeated. “The Pope assists the victims of —tomato sauce?”
The Consul laughed briefly. Then he said very seriously:
“Have you never heard of a salsa? It is an ancient, horrible custom of Andalusia, which still exists in spite of every punishment by civic and church authorities.[06] Since I have been Consul here, there is proof that a salsa has twice taken place. But even in these cases no definite facts were established, in as much as the participants, in spite of the floggings habitual in Spanish prisons, would rather bite off their tongues than reveal even a syllable. Therefore, I could only give you a vague, possibly false, report; make the Pope tell you, if the horrible secret interests you. For he—in spite of the fact that nobody can prove it—is said to be an adherent of this awful custom, and it is particularly this suspicion which causes us to shun him.” A few guests entered; our conversation was interrupted.
WHEN I went to the bull-fights the following Sunday, I brought along a few particularly good snapshots of the last corrida for the Pope. I wanted to make him a present of them, but he hardly looked at them. “Forgive me,” he said, “but they do not interest me at all.” I looked puzzled.
“Oh, I did not mean to offend you!” he proceeded. “You see, it is only the redness, the redness of blood which I care for.”
It sounded almost poetic the way this pale ascetic said: “The redness of blood!”
At any rate, we entered into a discussion. And, in the midst of it, I said without warning: “I would like to see a salsa. Won't you take me with you some time?”
He was silent. The pale, cracked lips trembled.
Then he asked: “A salsa?—Do you know what that is?”
I lied. “Of course!”
Again he stared at me. Then his eyes fell on the old scars of student duels on my cheek and forehead.
And, as if these signs of childish blood-shedding were a secret passport, he stroked them softly with his finger and said solemnly:
“I will take you with me.”
A FEW weeks later, one evening about nine o'clock, there was a knock at my door. Before I could say: “Come in!” the Pope entered.
“I have come to fetch you,” he said.
“What for?” I asked.
“You know,” he answered. “Are you ready?”
I rose.
“In a minute!” I cried. “Will you have a cigar?”
“Thank you. I don't smoke.”
“A glass of wine?”
“No, thanks. I do not drink either. Please hurry.”
I took my hat and followed him down the stairs into the moonlit night. Silently we walked through the streets, along the Genilsup[07], under pyrrhus-trees in red bloom. We turned to the left, ascended the Moor-mountain[08] and crossed the Field of the Martyrs.[09] In front of us glowed, in warm silver, the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra; round about on the hills, fires shone from the caves where the gypsies and other vagabonds live. We circled the deep valley of the Alhambra, filled almost to the brim with a sea of green elms; then through the avenue of age-old cypresses towards the Generalife; and still higher up the mountain, from the top of which the last prince of the Moors, the fair-haired Boabdil[10], sent his farewell sighs down to lost Granada.
I looked at my strange companion. His glance, turned inward, saw nothing of the glory of this night. As the moonlight played over those small, bloodless lips, upon those sunken cheeks and the deep hollows in the temples, a feeling as if I had known this gruesome ascetic for ages overcame me. And suddenly, like a flash, the solution came: this was the face which the fearful Zurbarán gave to his ecstatic monks![11]
Now the way led through broad-leaved agaves, which lifted the wooden stems of their blossoms the height of three men into the air. We heard the Darro roar as it leaped down the cliffs beyond the mountain.
Three men in brown, tattered coats approached us; already from afar they saluted my companion.
“Guards,” the Pope said. “Wait here. I shall talk to them!”
He approached the men, who apparently had been expecting him. I could not understand what they said, but obviously it was about me. One of the men gesticulated vehemently, looked suspiciously at me, threw his arms in the air and shouted again and again: “Ojo el caballero!”[12] But the Pope quieted him. Finally he motioned me to come closer.
“Sea Usted bienvenido, caballero!”[13] He saluted me and doffed his hat. The two other guards remained at their post; the third one accompanied us. “He is the patron; the manager, so to speak, of the affair,” the Pope explained.
A few paces ahead we reached one of the cave dwellings, distinguished in no way from the hundreds of others along the slopes of Granada. In front of the door-hole, as usual, there was a small, levelled spot, surrounded by dense cactus hedges. There about twenty ruffians stood around, but there was no gypsy among them. In one corner burned a small fire between two stones; above it hung a kettle.
The Pope reached into his pocket and took out one duro[14] after the other, which he turned over to our companion.
“These people are so suspicious,” he said, “they take nothing but silver.” The Andalusian crouched down by the fire and examined each single coin. He rang them on a stone and bit them with his teeth. Then he counted them —one hundred pesetas in all.
“Shall I give him some money as well?” I asked.
“No,” said the Pope. “You'd better do some betting; that will give you a safer standing with these people.”
I did not understand him.
“Safer standing?” I repeated. “How so?”
The Pope smiled.
“Oh—by betting you come down nearer to their level and make yourself more equally guilty with them.”
“Tell me, Reverend,” I exclaimed, “how is it, then, that you do not bet?” He met my glance firmly and replied carelessly:
“I? I never bet! Betting detracts from the pure joy of watching.”
In the meantime, another half dozen suspicious-looking individuals had arrived, all of them shrouded in the inevitable brown cloth which serves the Andalusians for a cloak.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked one of the men.
“For the moon, caballero,” he replied. “It must set first.”
Then he offered me a big glass of aguardiente.[15] I declined, but the Englishman pressed the glass into my hand.
“Drink! Drink!” he insisted. “It is the first time for you—you may need it.” The others, too, partook of the liquor. However, they made no noise; only hasty whispers and hoarse murmurs penetrated the night. As the moon sank in the northwest behind the Cortadura, they fetched long pitch torches from the cave and lit them. Then they built a small stone circle in the middle; this was the arena. Around this circle they dug holes in the ground and affixed the torches. And, in the red gleam of the flames, two men began to undress; they kept only their leather breeches on. Then they sat down opposite each other and crossed their legs in Oriental fashion. It was only now that I noticed two strong horizontal beams sunk into the ground, each one of which carried two solid iron rings.
Between these two rings the two men had taken their places. Somebody ran into the cave and brought out a few lengths of heavy rope which they wound around the bodies and legs of the two, binding each one to the rings. They were fixed as in a vise; only the upper parts of their bodies could they move freely.
They sat without a word, sucking at their cigarettes and emptying the liquor glasses which were filled for them again and again. Clearly they were both quite drunk by this time, their eyes fixed stupidly on the ground. And all around them, in the circle of smoking torches, the other men settled down.
Suddenly I heard an ugly screeching behind my back which almost burst my eardrums. I turned around; somebody was carefully sharpening a small navajo[16] on a round grinding stone. He tested the knife with the nail of his thumb, put it aside and took another one.
I turned to the Pope.
“This salsa is a kind of—duel?”
“Duel?” he replied. “Oh no. It is a kind of cock-fight.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “And why do these men engage in this—cockfight? Have they offended each other or is it jealousy?”
“Not at all,” the Englishman answered quietly. “They have no reason at all. Perhaps they are the best of friends; perhaps they don't even know each other. They only want to prove their—courage. They want to show that they are no worse than the bulls and cocks.”
His ugly lips essayed a wry smile as he proceeded:
“Something like your German student duels.”[17]
Abroad, I am always a patriot. That much I have learned from the English: right or wrong—my country!
Therefore I answered him rather sharply:
“Reverend, the comparison is ludicrous! That is something which you cannot judge.”
“Perhaps,” said the Pope. “But I have seen many a fine duel in Göttingen. Lots of blood; lots of blood….”
In the meantime the manager had selected a seat next to us. He pulled a dirty notebook and a small pencil from his pocket.
“Who bets on Bombita?” he cried.
“I!”“One peseta!”— “Two duros!”—“No, I'm going to back Lagartijillo!”
The drunken voices intermingled.
The Pope grabbed my arm.
“Arrange your bets so that you lose either way,” he said. “Give them long odds; you cannot be too careful with this crowd.”
So I took quite a number of the bets offered, and always at odds of three to one. Since I bet on both of them, I had to lose necessarily. While the manager was noting down all the bets in clumsy symbols, the sharpened navajos were handed round. The blades were about two inches long. Then they were shut, and passed to the two combatants.
“Which one do you want, Bombita Chico, my little cock?”[18] The sharpener laughed.
“Let me have it! No matter which!” grunted the drunkard.
“I want my own knife!” shouted Lagartijillo.
“Then give me mine! It's better anyway!” croaked the other.
All bets were entered. The manager saw that each man was given another huge glass of aguardiente, which he emptied in one gulp. Both threw their cigarettes away. Then each one was given a long red woollen scarf, a hip girdle, which he tied around the lower left arm and hand.
“You may start, boys!” the manager shouted. “Open the knives.”
The blades of the navajos snapped open with a click and remained fixed. A shrill, unpleasant sound. But the two men remained absolutely quiet; neither one made a movement.
“Begin, my little cocks!” repeated the manager.
But the battlers sat motionless; they did not stir. The Andalusians became impatient.
“Get him, Bombita, my young bull! Push your little horns into his body!” “Ah—you want to be cocks? You are hens! Hens!”[18]
And the chorus howled: “Hens! Hens! Why don't you lay eggs? You hens, you!”
Bombita Chico stretched himself and made a thrust at his adversary. The other lifted his left arm and caught the lazy thrust in his scarf. The two men were apparently so drunk that they could hardly control their movements. “Wait! Wait!” the Pope whispered. “Wait until they see blood!”
The Andalusians never stopped baiting the two; first with good-natured raillery and then with biting scorn. And again and again they hissed in their ears.
“You are hens! Go lay eggs! Hens! Hens!”
Now they both thrust at each other, almost blindly. The next minute one of them received a small wound in his left shoulder.
“Bravo, darling! Bravo, Bombita! Show him, my little cock, that you have spurs!”
They paused a moment, and with their left arms wiped the dirty sweat from their faces.
“Water!” shouted Lagartijillo.
A large decanter was handed over and they drank thirstily. One could see how they sobered up. The dull glances became sharp, piercing. Hatefully they stared at each other.
“Are you ready, you hen?” asked the little one.
Instead of answering the other lunged forward and cut his cheek open for its entire length. The blood streamed down over the naked body.
“Ah, it begins—it begins,” the Pope murmured.
The Andalusians were silent. Greedily they followed the movements of the one whom they had backed with their money. And the two human beings lunged and thrust….
The shining blades flashed like silver sparks through the red gleam of the torches and bit into the woollen guards on the left arms. A big drop of boiling pitch from one of the torches fell upon the chest of one of the men. He did not even notice it.
So rapidly did they flail their arms about in the air that it was impossible to see when one had struck home. Only the bloody rivulets all over the bodies testified to the growing number of cuts and gashes.
“Halt! Halt!” cried the patron. The men refused to stop. “Halt!” he cried once more. “Bombita's blade is broken!”
Two Andalusians rushed up, took an old door on which they had been sitting and ruthlessly threw it between the battlers, standing it on end so that the two could no longer see each other.
“Give me your knives, little beasts!” the patron shouted. The two obeyed willingly. His sharp eye had seen correctly; Bombita's knife was broken in half. He had sliced his opponent's ear and against the hard bone of the skull the blade had broken off.
Each one was given another glass of liquor, a new knife, and the door was taken away.
And this time they went for each other like two cocks, without thinking; blind with rage, stab for stab:
The brown bodies became crimson; the blood gushed from dozens of wounds. From the forehead of little Bombita a brown strip of skin hung down; moist wisps of hair licked the wound. While his knife caught in the enemy's bandage, the latter dug his knife twice, three times, deep into his neck.
“Take off your bandage, if you have the courage!” the little one shrieked, as he bore off his own with his teeth.
Lagartijillo hesitated for a moment, then followed suit. Automatically they still parried as before with their left arms, which were soon cut to shreds. Again one of the blades snapped. Again the old door separated them. Again they got liquor and new knives.
“Stab him, Lagartijillo, my strong bull. Stab him!” one of the men shouted.
“Tear the bowels out of the old horse!”
Unexpectedly Lagartijillo, at the very moment when the other was whisked away, gave his adversary a fearful thrust in the belly from below, and drew the blade sharply upward and sideways. A horrible mess of entrails crawled from the huge wound. And then, he stabbed once more from above, quick as lightning, and severed the big vein that nourishes the arm.
Bombita shrieked and doubled up while a stream of blood as thick as an arm gushed from the wound right into the other's face. It seemed as if he must topple over, utterly exhausted; but suddenly he rose once more, expanding his broad chest, raised his arm and lunged at his enemy who was blinded by blood. And he struck him, between two ribs, right in the heart. Lagartijillo beat the air with both arms; the knife fell from his hand. Lifeless, the huge body fell forward over its own legs.
And, as if this sight gave new strength to the dying Bombita, whose blood squirted in a horrible stream over his enemy, he stabbed like a madman time and again, thrusting the lusty steel into the blood-soaked back.
“Stop! Bombita, my little brave, you have conquered!” the patron said quietly.
Then came the most horrible thing of all. Bombita Chico, whose life-blood already covered the beaten man in a shroud of red, leaned with both hands upon the ground and lifted himself high; so high that from the wide gash in his body the yellow entrails crawled like a brood of loathsome snakes. He stretched his neck, lifted his head and, through the deep silence of the night, sounded his triumphant:
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”[19]
Then he sank down. This was his dying salute to life.
IT was as if a red mist of blood had suddenly enveloped my senses. I saw and heard no more. I sank into a purple, fathomless sea. Blood gushed into my ears and nose. I wanted to shout, but, when I opened my mouth, it filled with thick warm blood. I almost suffocated—but worse, much worse, was this sweet, obnoxious taste of blood upon my tongue. Then I felt a stabbing pain somewhere; but it took an eternity till I recognized the cause of the pain. I was biting on something, and it was the thing which I was biting that hurt me so. With an immense effort I wrenched my teeth apart.
When I took my finger from my mouth, I awoke. During the battle I had gnawed off my fingernail down to the root, and now I had bitten into the quick.
The Andalusian touched my knee. “Do you want to settle your bets, Caballero?” he asked. I nodded. Then he figured out in many words what I had lost and won. All the spectators pressed around us; no one bothered about the corpses.
First, the money! The money!
I gave the fellow a handful of coins and asked him to settle for me. He figured it out, and in a hoarse voice arranged matters with everyone.
“Not enough, caballero?” he said at last. I realized that he was cheating me, but I only asked how much more I had to pay and gave him the money. When he saw that I still had some in my pocket, he asked: “Caballero, don't you want to buy Bombita's knife? It brings luck—much luck!”
I bought the navajo for a ridiculous price. The Andalusian shoved it into my pocket.
Now nobody paid attention to me any longer. I rose, and staggered out into the night. My forefinger hurt; I wound my handkerchief around it. In long, deep draughts I drank in the fresh night air.
“Caballero!” somebody shouted. “Caballero!” I turned. One or the men came towards me. “The patron sends me, caballero,” he said. “Don't you want to take your friend home with you?”
Oh, yes—the Pope, the Pope! During all this time I hadn't seen anything, hadn't thought of anything.
I turned back again, passed through the cactus hedge. The shackled, bloody corpses were still on the ground. And over them bent the Pope, stroking with caressing hands the pitifully torn bodies. But I saw clearly that he did not touch the blood. Oh no! only in the air his hands moved to and fro.
And I saw that they were the delicate, fine hands of a woman.
His lips moved. “Beautiful salsa,” he whispered, “beautiful red tomato-sauce!”[20]
They had to tear him away by force; he did not want to give up the sight. He stammered and tottered uncertainly around on his thin legs.
“Too much booze!” one of the men said. But I knew: he had not touched one drop.
The patron took off his hat and the others followed his example.
“Vayan Ustedes con dios, caballeros!”[21] they said.
When we reached the main road, the Pope followed me obediently. He took my arm and murmured:
“Oh, so much blood! So much beautiful blood!”
He clung to me like so much lead. Painfully I dragged the drunken man towards the Alhambra. Under the Tower of the Princesses we stopped and sat down on a stone.
After a long while he said slowly:
“Oh, life! What wonderful things life gives us! It is a joy to live!”
An icy night wind wetted our temples. I shuddered. I could hear the Pope's teeth chattering; slowly his blood-intoxication evaporated.
“Shall we go, Reverend?” I asked.
Again I offered my arm.
He declined.
Silently we descended towards sleeping Granada.[22]
