Benchley, Peter - Novel 01 Read online

  Life is not hectic. One rises late (unless he lives in that cellar) and goes immediately to the beach, to lie in the sun and squirm on the rocks. Those who can afford it water-ski or skin-dive. The others just swim in the clear water and get second-degree burns on parts of their bodies that are never otherwise exposed—either to human eyes or to the sun. When the sun goes down, the men walk the streets in sandals and dungarees and form-fitting T shirts, the women in toreador pants and bare-midriff blouses. They eat at Pam-Pam, and they dance outside Whisky a Gogo if they can't afford the two or three dollars admission. They sit in the cafes and drink beer or Perrier and talk about what they did that day or have planned for the next. The very wealthy give parties and serve whisky, and the sounds of babbling voices and raucous music spill down the rocks from the great villas to the people necking on the beach.

  That night we drove to dinner, prepared to sleep either in the car or on the beach until we could get a room. Neither of us realized that dinner would last for two weeks.

  Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Rea had taken a villa in Cap d'Antibes for the summer. It was called "Le Ponant," and it sat on a hillside a few hundred yards from the shore. Mr. Rea, a theatrical producer who has recently opened a theater in Minneapolis, had settled his wife and three children in the villa for the summer and was commuting between Antibes and New York and Minneapolis, spending two or three weeks in each place. After a delicious dinner, we explained our plight to the Reas and asked if they had any suggestions. They named two or three places, which we tried and found either full or way up in the mountains, too far away from Antibes to be convenient. When all possibilities had been exhausted, the Reas, out of pity, desperation, incredibly kind hearts, and a feeling that since Mr. Rea would be away for a while and there would be no other guests it might not be a bad idea to have two sizable hulks around a house full of women and children, offered to put us up themselves. We demurred for perhaps twenty seconds, then sublimated both conscience and politeness and accepted eagerly. Our only attempt at good manners was to insist that the Reas tell us when they wanted us to leave, to which they just as eagerly agreed.

  The life was blissful. The Reas had a cabana at Eden Roc, the swimming club on the Cap that offers some of the only good swimming on the Riviera and a choice of both pool or sea, and they very nicely said we could use it as we wished. So during the day we frolicked about Eden Roc, jumping off the thirty-foot cliffs, swinging on ropes, meeting young ladies, and hunting for octopus among the rocks. Lunch was a Coca-Cola or a beer. Our days were shamefully devoid of responsibilities and useful endeavor, and we loved it.

  Our nights were active. The Reas had a number of friends in and around Antibes, and there were always parties, dinners, or excursions up and down the coast to keep us occupied. Sometimes we went to the casinos, where I practiced my infallible system, or to Vence to watch the fireworks, or to Cannes to see some friends.

  On the 16th of August, Mr. Rea returned and told us that since they were planning to have guests the following weekend, we would have to vacate our rooms before Saturday, as per the agreement we made at the start. Although we were enjoying ourselves, we were not unhappy at the prospect of moving on. We had had two weeks of complete lassitude, devoid of any responsibility, and as pleasant as it had been, we felt we should see something more during the summer than the Cote d'Azur.

  So on Saturday we started for Spain, after presenting the Reas with a case of wine, two cap pistols, and a toy car.

  That night I had to send a cable home. My camera had been stolen from the car while we were packing to leave the Reas, and I wanted to notify the insurance company of the loss. Apparently, the thief was one of the men repairing the road to Eden Roc. The workers take a long lunch hour, and to avoid the hot August sun they often crawl in among the bushes, where they can eat their bread and drink their wine and nap for half an hour. One of these workers must have been watching us pack, for the camera disappeared in a space of two minutes while Bob and I were in the house getting our suitcases.

  We had stopped at a small hotel in Beziers, a town at the foot of the Pyrenees a few miles from the Spanish border. The people of Bezier speak neither French nor Spanish, but Basque, the language of the Costa Brava, which is a combination of French, Spanish, Italian, and a mysterious eastern language no one can identify. When I found myself unable to communicate with the concierge in the hotel, I wrote out the cable in French, English, and my own Spanish, which bears little or no resemblance to any Spanish the world has ever known. I heard later that the message, as it arrived in New York, read, "Appareil stolen dos Aout, Costa Azul. Please contactame sueno de American Express, Madrid, Espagne."

  Only tourists and masochists go to Madrid in the summer. Sitting on a plateau in the barren, parched Spanish countryside, the city seems to be reaching for the sun, and the sun is all too willing to smother it. From one to four in the afternoon, the streets are deserted. People lie in doorways out of the sun or huddle close to the moist tile walls of the restaurants and gulp sangria, the fruit and wine drink that is perfectly harmless—for the first pint or two, after which the ceiling begins to spin and two large hands pull downward on your eyelids.

  It is a city of smells. We ate in the tascas, which are tiny, cheap luncheon joints cut out of the walls of the low buildings. From early morning until late evening, the odors of the tascas are everywhere. Side streets are full of the smell of fried squid, salami, peppers, fish, cheese, and beer. They do not quite blend, like normal smells, because they are too strong. Each one is so highly, and so individually, spiced that it stands out and prickles your nose, demanding to be noticed.

  We slept late, lying naked on sweat-soaked sheets. At noon, we hurried to the bar and had breakfast, a glass of orange juice, and read the papers. We ran across the street and checked our mail, then fled to the nearest tasca for lunch. After lunch, if we had no plans to go sightseeing, we went to the Prado and sat in one of the badly lit rooms, basking in the dark coolness and glancing idly at the Bosches and Goyas. We slept or read from five to seven, when we dressed and went to the bar. We drank, alone or with friends, until nine-thirty or ten, when most restaurants began to get crowded. We ate until twelve or one, then walked around the city or went to one of the many nightclubs.

  One afternoon, as we were coming out of the Prado, we saw two middle-aged women coming in. They had cameras and dark glasses and foam-rubber-soled shoes. One of them carried a copy of Europe On Five Dollars A Day. They bought tickets and went to the stand where postcards and guidebooks were sold. One of them asked for a guidebook.

  "Which one you like?" asked the man behind the counter.

  "The one with the names of all the pictures and the order they're in," said one of the women.

  The man gave her a book.

  "How much?"

  "Sixty pesetas," said the man.

  The woman reached in her pocketbook and brought out a fistful of money. "Here," she said, holding out her hand. "Pick it out of there."

  The man took sixty pesetas, and the woman dumped the rest of the money into her pocketbook. "Didn't take any more than sixty, did you?"

  "No, madam."

  "Good. Can't be too careful," she said to her friend.

  The other woman wandered away from the counter and studied the racks of postcards.

  "Carol!" shouted the first woman. "Come on! We can't waste any time if we're going to see this whole place."

  "Yes, Edna. What time does the tour leave?"

  "Four o'clock sharp. That leaves us forty-five minutes to do the Prado."

  "Where are we going this afternoon, Edna?"

  "Out of town somewhere. Toledo, I think."

  "What's there?"

  "How do I know? Steel or something. At least, that's what the book says. Now come on. If we get through early, you can come back to the postcards."

  "Do we have to, Edna?"

  "Of course we have to. What would the folks back home say if they knew we'd been in Madrid without seeing
the Prado? It's like the Eiffel Tower."

  "Oh, all right."

  Edna turned to the man behind the counter. "Hey, you," she said. "Are you sure this book has all the pictures?"

  "Yes, madam."

  "Room by room? In order?"

  "Yes, madam."

  "Good. Where do we start?"

  "There, madam," said the man, pointing to the left.

  "Thanks. Here," said Edna, and she handed the book to her friend. "Have you got your pencil?"

  "Yes, Edna."

  "Good. Now let's go. I'll look and you check."

  The Sunday before we left Spain, we went to a bullfight. There were six fights, all with novilleros, young matadors who had either never fought in a big arena before or never proved themselves to be worthy of the best bulls. Since these were to be our only fights, we splurged and got decent tickets, halfway up the stands on the sunny side of the arena. The best seats were across the way, in the shade, but ours were more than adequate. We went with a friend, Jim Dooley, who had spent the summer studying Spanish in Madrid, and he brought two wineskins full of a mixture of gin and sangria.

  Most of the pageant at a bullfight happens before the actual combat. The whole company, banderilleros, picadors, horses, and matadors, marches around the arena as the trumpets play the exciting staccato music of the ring. Announcements are made over the loudspeakers, and the bulls are brought out to be taunted by all the matadors, who make showy, safe passes. Finally, the bulls are herded out and the ring quiets down. The first bull returns through the small door. The fun is over, and the game is being played in earnest.

  As soon as the first bull was in the ring, he stopped, confused and blinded by the sudden light and space and noise. He shook his head from side to side and made quick, uncertain lunges at an invisible enemy. The picador, his long spear, the pic, held high, began to move his horse across the ring toward the bull. The bull spied the horse, charged a few yards toward him, then stopped. The picador moved closer.

  When the picador was within ten yards of the bull, the bull lowered his head, pawed the ground once, and charged. The picador lowered his spear. The bull took the spear in the thick muscle of his neck, and immediately blood began to spread over his black coat, but he did not stop. He drove his horns into the padding on the horse's side and moved his head up and down, trying to lift the padding and get to the flesh beneath. The horse, unable to see because of the blinders, gave with the weight of the bull and stumbled sideways. The picador pulled out his spear and moved the horse a few feet away. The bull stood still, panting. Blood flowed over his shoulders and dripped to the sand.

  On the second charge, the picador lowered his spear early and caught the bull before he could get to the horse. He held the bull away for a moment, then removed the spear and guided the horse to safety. The bull charged again, the picador lowered his spear, and hit the bull a glancing blow on the shoulder. The spear skidded out of his hand. The bull hit the horse on the underside of the padding and lifted his two left feet off the ground. The bull pulled back, then hit again. The horse fell over, and the man scrambled to his feet and ran to the side of the ring. The audience booed. Two men ran into the ring and diverted the bull from the horse, who rolled back onto his feet and trotted away.

  The first banderillero approached the bull in the center of the ring. He came up from the side, not from the front, and sank one banderilla, the short, razor-sharp spear, into the weakened neck, the other into the back. He made a sweeping gesture of acknowledgment of an applause that did not exist, and ran off. The second banderillero dropped both bande-rillas, but not before he had sliced a large gash in the bull's forehead. The third drove both into the neck, and they hung loosely from the flesh, bouncing gaily as the bull ran around the ring.

  The bull stood in the shade. His head hung lower now, for his neck was very weak. Blood ran into one eye from the gash on his forehead, and over his back and shoulders from the other cuts. There were circular trails of blood in the sand where he had tried to catch the banderilleros on their quick passes.

  The trumpets sounded, and the matador entered the ring. He was a young man, slim and erect, and he wore a pea-green costume covered with sequins. The crowd cheered, but the cheer was one of courtesy rather than enthusiasm, for this was a boy as yet untried, and he had to prove himself to them that afternoon. Later, they might be his fans, as they were of Dominguin and Ordonez and Ostos. Now they were his judges.

  The boy walked around the edge of the ring toward the bull, keeping out of his way until he could come up behind him and drive him into the sunlight, where the bull had no advantage. When they were close to the center of the ring, the bull charged. The boy moved back a step and had to lean over to get the cape in front of the bull. The crowd booed. The bull would not charge again. He stood looking at the boy. The bull's breathing was deep, and blood ran off his face. The boy moved closer, and the bull took three steps forward and twisted his head dully. The boy moved a few feet away and stood in a cocky, defiant pose. He stamped his foot on the sand, trying to goad the bull into charging him. The bull looked at him, then lowered his head and trotted toward him. The boy stood his ground, but again bent his body away from the horns. Again the crowd booed.

  "Matalo!" yelled the crowd. "Kill him!"

  On his next approach, the bull, blinded by his own blood, missed the cape and bumped against the boy, knocking him down.

  "Matalo!"

  The boy walked to the side of the ring and exchanged his large cape for a smaller one, the one with the killing sword. He walked back to the bull, who stood, head bowed, in the center of the ring. The boy aimed carefully, for a clean kill was the only thing that could give him even partial credit for the fight. The bull trotted toward him, and the boy bent over the horns and drove the sword in. He missed the space between the shoulders that leads to the heart, and the sword stuck in a muscle, swaying back and forth like a metronome. The bull turned his head and looked at the sword with a sort of blase curiosity. The boy walked to the side of the ring and got another sword.

  A woman threw an apple. A man threw a chicken leg. Suddenly everyone was throwing things—papers, garbage, seat cushions.

  The boy lunged again. The sword hit a bone and would not go in. The boy was furious. He chased the bull from the rear, ran around him, and stopped him. He jammed the sword in with both hands. The bull made a lazy pass at him with his head, but missed.

  The sword had not struck the heart, but the bull was dying anyway, from loss of blood. He sank to his knees. Two men came from the side of the ring and stood with the boy. When, after a moment, the bull still lived, one of the men bent over and with a quick flick of a small knife, slit the bull's throat. The bull fell over onto his side, breathed for a few seconds more, and was dead.

  The boy left the ring at the nearest exit. His head was bowed, and his shoulders were shaking.

  The second fight lasted longer, but the result was the same: the men had to come from the sidelines to slit the bull's throat.

  The third bull was what Dooley called a "hooker." When he charges, a hooker doesn't make a straight pass, but hooks his head to the left or right. A matador has to be doubly wary of a hooker, because while he can gauge how a normal bull is going to carry his horns, he is never sure a hooker won't drive a horn into his groin with a sudden twist of his head.

  The bull was beautiful, a heavy, fast, black hulk that didn't stop when it entered the ring but ran straight for the horse and knocked him up against the wall. He didn't seem to feel the pic in his neck, and kept trying to force his way into the horse's ribcage.

  The picadors and banderilleros worked hard to make this bull safe. They picked him seven times, until his head hung low and he swung it wearily from side to side. All six banderillas stuck like needles in his neck. The horses ran him around the ring to tire him.

  "They don't like the odds," said Dooley. "They're too even."

  The crowd began to boo, but just then the matador came into the rin
g, and they stopped. As soon as the bull spotted the matador, he charged. The matador planted his feet and held out the cape. As the bull passed, he twisted his head sharply to the left, narrowly missing the matador's side. The crowd cheered. The bull skidded to a stop in front of the wall. He turned and charged again. The matador took the pass on the bull's right side, avoiding the hook. This time the cheer was more polite than enthusiastic.

  "The passes are all show," said Dooley. "If that bull didn't hook, they'd be throwing garbage at the kid. He doesn't stand close enough. If he avoids the hook side again, you'll hear some catcalls."

  The matador took the bull on his right side again, and the people booed. Then he stopped for a moment, looking at the bull. He held the cape in his right hand, and he turned his right side toward the bull, holding the arm with the cape across his body so the cape was on his left side.

  "He's going to take him on the left," said Dooley.

  The bull charged. He hooked early, and though the matador spun to get out of the way, a horn caught him in his right buttock, and he fell down. Blood began to seep through a tear in his blue pants.

  "Well, damn well about time, too," said Bob.

  "Serves the bastard right," I said.

  Two men with capes ran into the ring and coaxed the bull away from the matador.

  On the next pass, the matador faltered and backed away. The bull turned and started for the cape, which was held on the safe side, then swerved and hit the matador full in the stomach with his head. Somehow, the horns passed to either side of the slim body, and the matador was thrown in the air.

  "Thataboy!" yelled Bob.

  "Give him a stomp for good measure!" I shouted.

  The matador was stunned, but not hurt. He hurried to his feet, picked up his cape, and approached the bull. He made two clean passes, but both on the safe side and both ordinary, unimaginative passes. The crowd booed.

  The boy tried once again to take the bull on the hook side. This time, the horn hit his thigh and tore a hole in his pants, but did not draw blood. By now, the blood from the wound in his buttock was running down his leg.