— The third party.
— The other.
— The lover.
— Pedro Romero.
— He got away from them.
— He lived eighty years.
— A bullfighter who died in bed.
— Not a scar on his body.
— Him they did bury in consecrated ground, even though he was, in his way, both artist and actor.
— Lie: nobody escapes from hell.
— Sooner or later, they all fall.
— Death merely confirms the laws of gravity.
— But we ascend, too.
— We all have a double of our own dissatisfaction.
— Don Francisco Goya y Lost Scents.
— You think that you put the world in your canvases and you created the world in your art and nothing remained of that mud except this dust. What do we know except what you taught us!
— This dust!
— I didn’t invent anything, Christ! I only showed those who showed themselves. I made known the unknown who wanted to be known. Come high, come low: see yourselves. Ladies, gentlemen: see yourselves, see yourselves.
— Here comes the bogeyman.
— They dug you up five times, Paco, to see if your head had reappeared.
— Nothin’.
— But Romero, nobody was curious to see if his skeleton was all there or if his bones had invisible cuts.
— Nothin’.
— And she?
— She, yes, everyone wanted to know if she, who had been so beautiful and had died so young, was going to outlive death. What would her remains be like? To ask that was secretly to ask: What would her ghost be like?
— Goya and Romero agreed to bury her secretly, so that the curious could not find her. Isn’t that true, Don Paco?
— Not only true but sad.
— Look, Goya, only in death did you complete your ménage à trois.
— No, we didn’t want others to see her, and we didn’t want to see her either. But some years later, when nostalgia erased the sins of La Privada, her miserable natal town, which, although exempt from taxes, remained impoverished, tried to benefit from the enduring fame of the actress. The village leaders said they were sure Elisia Rodríguez had left something in her will for the town of her birth. She was faithful to her origins, you know that. But nobody found any such paper. Had she been buried with the will in her hands? Exhumation was requested. All the curious came to see if the beauty of the famous entertainer — or tragédienne, as she preferred to be called — had overcome death. Romero betrayed the secret of her grave; he said he was always ready to aid the authorities. He was old, established, respected, the founder of a dynasty of bullfighters.
— Did you go along with him, Don Francisco?
— No. I said no, and I began a painting, a picture of angels, moreover, in the poor, secret corner of the church where she was now so private, Elisia. The mobs stepped over my paint jars, making a rainbow to death and an obscene gesture at me.
— And then?
— They exhumed her right then and there.
— And then?
— When they opened the coffin, they saw that nothing remained of the body of the beautiful Elisia.
— She had risen!
— Pray for her!
— Nothing was left but the worm-eaten bun crowning the actress’s skull. La Privada was bone and dust.
— Caramba!
— But then from that dust a butterfly flew out and I laughed, I stopped painting, put on my cape and hat, and left, laughing like crazy.
— Her bun by her buns.
— The butterfly in her cunt!
— Who would believe it!
— Until death!
— What did you do, Don Francisco!
— I followed the butterfly.
— Touch my fingers, sweetie, my balcony faces yours and I’m so cold, in the middle of August.
— Our streets are so narrow!
— Our sea is so vast!
— Cádiz, little silver teacup.
— Cádiz, the balcony of Spain facing America.
— Cádiz, the double: American shores, Andalusian lanes.
— Reach out your window to touch my hand.
— You, nothin’.
— I gave you everythin’, and you, nothin’.
— Nobody marries a woman who is not a virgin.
— Don’t shave after eating.
— The noble Spaniard and his dog tremble with cold after dining.
— Let death find me in Spain, so it will be late in coming.
— Titian: one hundred years.
— Elisia Rodríguez: thirty.
— Pedro Romero: eighty.
— Francisco de Goya y Lucientes: eighty-two.
— Rubén Oliva, Rubén Oliva, Rubén Oliva.
— Six bulls, six.
— When?
— Tomorrow, Sunday, at exactly 6 p.m.
— Where?
— In the royal grounds at Ronda.
— Are you going to go?
— I always go to see Oliva.
— Why? He’s a disaster.
— You just never saw him when he wasn’t.
— When?
— Sixteen years ago, at least.
— Where?
— Also in Ronda.
— And what happened?
— Nothing, except nobody alive has seen a performance that could compare, except Manuel Rodríguez. There was never anything like it, since Manolete. That fellow stood in the center of the plaza like a statue, without moving, violating all the rules of the fight. Letting the horned beast do what it wanted with him. Exposing himself to death every minute. Not raising a hand to the bull. Refusing to fight, exposing himself to death. As if he wanted to embrace the bull. Closing his eyes when it came near, almost enticing it: Oh, bull, don’t leave me, let’s perform the ceremony together. And that’s how the fight went: with love for the bull, Rubén Oliva inviting it to his domain as he had always entered the bull’s, refusing to cargar la suerte, to control the bull with his cape, refusing to trade the steel for the aluminum blade, fighting with steel the whole time. That first bull of Rubén Oliva’s did not have time, gentlemen, to orient itself, to back off, to find a middle ground, to paw the ground. Rubén Oliva didn’t let it, and when the bull asked for death, Rubén Oliva gave it to it. It was madness.
— But he never repeated the deed.
— Correction: he hasn’t repeated it yet.
— You’re still waiting, eh?
— Maestro, when you’ve seen the best fight of your life, you can die in peace. The bad thing is that this bullfighter neither retires nor dies.
— It seems to me that this Rubén Oliva has conned you all and lives on the fame of his first fight, knowing he’ll never repeat it.
— May his fame endure!
— Well, if the fellow wants to live on that …
— Look: this is what makes bullfighting bad: a bullfighter keeps coming back for years and years even though he’s terrible, because, from one fight to the next, hope is reborn, and the final disillusionment is sometimes years in coming. Rubén Oliva is a scoundrel, he was good only once. We’ll see if he can ever repeat that day.
— Twenty years, for Rubén Oliva.
— And you’re going to Ronda to see him fight.
— Yes, who knows, maybe tomorrow he’ll surprise us.
— Tomorrow Rubén Oliva will be forty.
— The same age as Pedro Romero when he retired from the ring.
— Well, let’s wish him luck.
— That he won’t get pelted with pillows!
— Poor Rubén Oliva!
— You know him, Paco?
— Nobody knows him.
— Look, Paco. Here’s his photo in Diario 16.
— But this can’t be the man you’ve been talking about!
— This isn’t Rubén Oliva? Well then, even his own mother was mistaken, but you, Don Francisco, you dare to…?