In the back room Brett and Bill were sitting on barrels surrounded by the dancers. Everybody had his arms on everybody else’s shoulders, and they were all singing. Mike was sitting at a table with several men in their shirt-sleeves, eating from a bowl of tuna fish, chopped onions and vinegar. They were all drinking wine and mopping up the oil and vinegar with pieces of bread.
‘Hello, Jake. Hello!’ Mike called. ‘Come here. I want you to meet my friends. We’re all having an hors d’œuvre.’
I was introduced to the people at the table. They supplied their names to Mike and sent for a fork for me.
‘Stop eating their dinner, Michael,’ Brett shouted from the wine-barrels.
‘I don’t want to eat up your meal,’ I said when someone handed me a fork.
‘Eat,’ he said. ‘What do you think it’s here for?’
I unscrewed the nozzle of the big wine-bottle and handed it around. Everyone took a drink, tipping the wine-skin at arm’s length.
Outside, above the singing, we could hear the music of the procession going by.
‘Isn’t that the procession?’ Mike asked.
‘Nada,’ someone said. ‘It’s nothing. Drink up. Lift the bottle.’
‘Where did they find you?’ I asked Mike.
‘Someone brought me here,’ Mike said. ‘They said you were here.’
‘Where’s Cohn?’
‘He’s passed out,’ Brett called. ‘They’ve put him away somewhere.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How should we know,’ Bill said. ‘I think he’s dead.’
‘He’s not dead,’ Mike said. ‘I know he’s not dead. He’s just passed out on Anis del Mono.’
As he said Anis del Mono one of the men at the table looked up, brought out a bottle from inside his smock, and handed it to me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, thanks!’
‘Yes. Yes. Arriba! Up with the bottle!’
I took a drink. It tasted of liquorice and warmed all the way. I could feel it warming in my stomach.
‘Where the hell is Cohn?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mike said. ‘I’ll ask. Where is the drunken comrade?’ he asked in Spanish.
‘You want to see him?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Not me,’ said Mike. ‘This gent.’
The Anis del Mono man wiped his mouth and stood up.
‘Come on.’
In a back room Robert Cohn was sleeping quietly on some wine-casks. It was almost too dark to see his face. They had covered him with a coat and another coat was folded under his head. Around his neck and on his chest was a big wreath of twisted garlics.
‘Let him sleep,’ the man whispered. ‘He’s all right.’
Two hours later Cohn appeared. He came into the front room still with the wreath of garlics around his neck. The Spaniards shouted when he came in. Cohn wiped his eyes and grinned.
‘I must have been sleeping,’ he said.
‘Oh, not at all,’ Brett said.
‘You were only dead,’ Bill said.
‘Aren’t we going to go and have some supper?’ Cohn asked.
‘Do you want to eat?’
‘Yes. Why not? I’m hungry.’
‘Eat those garlics, Robert,’ Mike said. ‘I say. Do eat those garlics.’
Cohn stood there. His sleep had made him quite all right.
‘Do let’s go and eat,’ Brett said. ‘I must get a bath.’
‘Come on,’ Bill said. ‘Let’s translate Brett to the hotel.’
We said good-bye to many people and shook hands with many people and went out. Outside it was dark.
‘What time is it do you suppose?’ Cohn asked.
‘It’s to-morrow,’ Mike said. ‘You’ve been asleep two days.’
‘No,’ said Cohn, ‘what time is it?’
‘It’s ten o’clock.’
‘What a lot we’ve drunk.’
‘You mean what a lot we’ve drunk. You went to sleep.’
Going down the dark streets to the hotel we saw the sky-rockets going up in the square. Down the side streets that led to the square we saw the square solid with people, those in the centre all dancing.
It was a big meal at the hotel. It was the first meal of the prices being doubled for the fiesta, and there were several new courses. After the dinner we were out in the town. I remember resolving that I would stay up all night to watch the bulls go through the streets at six o’clock in the morning, and being so sleepy that I went to bed around four o’clock. The others stayed up.
My own room was locked and I could not find the key, so I went upstairs and slept on one of the beds in Cohn’s room. The fiesta was going on outside in the night, but I was too sleepy for it to keep me awake. When I woke it was the sound of the rocket exploding that announced the release of the bulls from the corrals at the edge of town. They would race through the streets and out to the bull-ring. I had been sleeping heavily and I woke feeling I was too late.
I put on a coat of Cohn’s and went out on the balcony. Down below the narrow street was empty. All the balconies were crowded with people. Suddenly a crowd came down the street. They were all running, packed close together. They passed along and up the street toward the bull-ring and behind them came more men running faster, and then some stragglers who were really running. Behind them was a little bare space, and then the bulls, galloping, tossing their heads up and down. It all went out of sight around the corner. One man fell, rolled to the gutter, and lay quiet. But the bulls went right on and did not notice him. They were all running together.
After they went out of sight a great roar came from the bull-ring. It kept on. Then finally the pop of the rocket that meant the bulls had gotten through the people in the ring and into the corrals. I went back in the room and got into bed. I had been standing on the stone balcony in bare feet. I knew our crowd must have all been out at the bull-ring. Back in bed, I went to sleep.
Cohn woke me when he came in. He started to undress and went over and closed the window because the people on the balcony of the house just across the street were looking in.
‘Did you see the show?’ I asked.
‘Yes. We were all there.’
‘Anybody get hurt?’
‘One of the bulls got into the crowd in the ring and tossed six or eight people.’
‘How did Brett like it?’
‘It was all so sudden there wasn’t any time for it to bother anybody.’
‘I wish I’d been up.’
‘We didn’t know where you were. We went to your room but it was locked.’
‘Where did you stay up?’
‘We danced at some club.’
‘I got sleepy,’ I said.
‘My gosh! I’m sleepy now,’ Cohn said. ‘Doesn’t this thing ever stop?’
‘Not for a week.’
Bill opened the door and put his head in.
‘Where were you, Jake?’
‘I saw them go through from the balcony. How was it?’
‘Grand.’
‘Where you going?’
‘To sleep.’
No one was up before noon. We ate at tables set out under the arcade. The town was full of people. We had to wait for a table. After lunch we went over to the Iruña. It had filled up, and as the time for the bull-fight came it got fuller, and the tables were crowded closer. There was a close, crowded hum that came every day before the bull-fight. The café did not make this same noise at any other time, no matter how crowded it was. This hum went on, and we were in it and a part of it.
I had taken six seats for all the fights. Three of them were barreras, the first row at the ringside, and three were sobrepuertos, seats with wooden backs, half-way up the amphitheatre. Mike thought Brett had best sit high up for her first time, and Cohn wanted to sit with them. Bill and I were going to sit in the barreras, and I gave the extra ticket to a waiter to sell. Bill said something to Cohn about what to do and how to look so he would not mind the horses. Bill had seen one season of bull-fights.
‘I’m not worried about how I’ll stand it. I’m only afraid I may be bored,’ Cohn said.
‘You think so?’
‘Don’t look at the horses, after the bull hits them,’ I said to Brett. ‘Watch the charge and see the picador try and keep the bull off, but then don’t look again until the horse is dead if it’s been hit.’
‘I’m a little nervy about it,’ Brett said. ‘I’m worried whether I’ll be able to go through with it all right.’
‘You’ll be all right. There’s nothing but that horse part that will bother you, and they’re only in for a few minutes with each bull. Just don’t watch when it’s bad.’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Mike said. ‘I’ll look after her.’
‘I don’t think you’ll be bored,’ Bill said.
‘I’m going over to the hotel to get the glasses and the wine-skin,’ I said. ‘See you back here. Don’t get cock-eyed.’
‘I’ll come along,’ Bill said. Brett smiled at us.
We walked around through the arcade to avoid the heat of the square.
‘That Cohn gets me,’ Bill said. ‘He’s got this Jewish superiority so strong that he thinks the only emotion he’ll get out of the fight will be being bored.’
‘We’ll watch him with the glasses,’ I said.
‘Oh, to hell with him!’
‘He spends a lot of time there.’
‘I want him to stay there.’
In the hotel on the stairs we met Montoya.
‘Come on,’ said Montoya. ‘Do you want to meet Pedro Romero?’
‘Fine,’ said Bill. ‘Let’s go see him.’
We followed Montoya up a flight and down the corridor.
‘He’s in room number eight,’ Montoya explained. ‘He’s getting dressed for the bull-fight.’
Montoya knocked on the door and opened it. It was a gloomy room with a little light coming in from the window on the narrow street.
