«Drink here,» he said in English.
He was verybashful about his English, but he was really very pleased with it, and as we went on talking he brought out words he was not sure of, and asked me about them. He was anxious to know the English for Corridade toros, the exact translation. Bull-fight he was suspicious of. I explained that bull-fight in Spanish was the lidia of a toro. The Spanish word corrida means in English the running of bulls-the French translation is Course de taureaux. The critic put that in. There is no Spanish word for bull-fight.
Pedro Romero said he had learned a little English in Gibraltar. He was born in Ronda. That is not far above Gibraltar. He started bull-fighting in Malaga in the bull-fighting school there. He had only been at it three years. The bull-fight critic joked him about the number ofMalagueno expressions he used. He was nineteen years old, he said. His older brother was with him as a banderillero, but he did not live in this hotel. He lived in a smaller hotel with the other people who worked for Romero. He asked me how many times I had seen him in the ring. I told him only three. It was really only two, but I did not want to explain after I had made the mistake.
«Where did you see me the other time? In Madrid?»
«Yes,» I lied. I had read the accounts of his two appearances in Madrid in the bull-fight papers, so I was all right.
«The first or the second time?» «The first.»
«I was very bad,» he said. «The second time I was better. You remember?» He turned to the critic.
He was not at all embarrassed. He talked of his work as something altogether apart from himself. There was nothing conceited or braggartly about him.
«I like it very much that you like my work,» he said. «But you haven’t seen it yet. To-morrow, if I get a good bull, I will try and show it to you.»
When he said this he smiled, anxious that neither the bull-fight critic nor I would think he was boasting.
«I am anxious to see it,» the critic said. «I would like to be convinced.» «He doesn’t like my work much.» Romero turned to me. He was serious.
The critic explained that he liked it very much, but that so far it had been incomplete. «Wait till to-morrow, if a good one comes out.»
«Have you seen the bulls for to-morrow?» the critic asked me. «Yes. I saw them unloaded.»
Pedro Romero leaned forward. «What did you think of them?»
«Very nice,» I said. «About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns. Haven’t you seen them?» «Oh, yes,» said Romero.
«They won’t weigh twenty-six arrobas,» said the critic. «No,» said Romero.
«They’ve got bananas for horns,» the critic said.
«You call them bananas?» asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled. «You wouldn’t call them bananas?»
«No,» I said. «They’re horns all right.»
«They’re very short,» said Pedro Romero. «Very, very short. Still, they aren’t bananas.» «I say, Jake,» Brett called from the next table, «you have deserted us.»
«Just temporarily,» I said. «We’re talking bulls.» «Youare superior.»
«Tell him that bulls have no balls,» Mike shouted. He was drunk. Romerolooked at me inquiringly.
«Drunk,» I said. «Borracho! Muy borracho!»
«You might introduce your friends,» Brett said. She had not stopped looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee with us. They both stood up. Romero’s face was very brown. He had very nice manners.
I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking.
«Tell him I think writing is lousy,» Bill said. «Go on, tell him. Tell him I’m ashamed of being a writer.»
Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her. «Go on. Tell him!» Bill said.
Romero looked up smiling.
«This gentleman,» I said, «is a writer.»
Romero was impressed. «This other one, too,» I said, pointing at Cohn.
«He looks like Villalta,» Romero said, looking at Bill. «Rafael, doesn’t he look like Villalta?» «I can’t see it,» the critic said.
«Really,» Romero said in Spanish. «He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?»
«Nothing.»
«Is that why he drinks?»
«No. He’s waiting to marry this lady.»
«Tell him bulls have no balls!» Mike shouted, very drunk, fromthe other end of the table. «What does he say?»
«He’s drunk.»
«Jake,» Mike called. «Tell him bulls have no balls!» «You understand?» I said.
«Yes.»
I was sure he didn’t, so it was all right.
«Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants.» «Pipe down, Mike.»
«Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants.» «Pipe down.»
During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing.
Bill was filling the glasses.
«Tell him Brett wants to come into-«
«Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ’s sake!»
Romero looked up smiling. «Pipe down! I know that,» he said.
Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod.
Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. «Let’s all drink to-« he began. «Pedro Romero,» I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with every one and he and the critic went out together.
«My God! he’s a lovely boy,» Brett said. «And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn.»
«I started to tell him,» Mike began. «And Jake kept interrupting me. Why do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I do?»
«Oh, shut up, Mike! Nobody interrupted you.»
«No, I’d like to get this settled.» He turned away from me. «Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us? People who are out to have a good time? For God’s sake don’t be so noisy, Cohn!»
«Oh, cut it out, Mike,» Cohn said.
«Do you think Brett wants you here? Do you think you add to the party? Why don’t you say something?»
«I said all I had to say the other night, Mike.»
«I’m not one of you literary chaps.» Mike stood shakily and leaned against the table. «I’m not clever. But I do know when I’m not wanted. Why don’t you see when you’re not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for God’s sake. Take that sad Jewish face away. Don’t you think I’m right?»
He looked at us.
«Sure,» I said. «Let’s all go over to the Iruсa.»
«No. Don’t you think I’m right? I love that woman.»
«Oh, don’t start that again. Do shove it along, Michael,» Brett said. «Don’t you think I’m right, Jake?»
Cohn still sat at the table. His face had the sallow, yellow look it got when he was insulted, but somehow he seemed to be enjoying it. The childish, drunken heroics of it. It was his affair with a lady of title.
«Jake,» Mike said. He was almost crying. «You know I’m right. Listen, you!» He turned to Cohn: «Go away! Go away now!»
«But I won’t go, Mike,» said Cohn.
«Then I’ll make you!» Mike started toward him around the table. Cohn stood up and took off his glasses. He stood waiting, his face sallow, his hands fairly low, proudly and firmly waiting for the assault, ready to do battle for his lady love.
I grabbed Mike. «Come on to the cafй,» I said. «You can’t hit him here in the hotel.» «Good!» said Mike. «Good idea!»
We started off. I looked back as Mike stumbled up the stairs and saw Cohn putting his glasses on again. Bill was sitting at the table pouring another glass of Fundador. Brett was sitting looking straight ahead at nothing.
Outside on the square it had stopped raining and the moon was trying to get through the clouds. There was a wind blowing. The military band was playing and the crowd was massedon the far side of the square where the fireworks specialist and his son were trying to send up fire balloons. A balloon would start up jerkily, on a great bias, and be torn by the wind or blown against the houses of the square. Some fell into the crowd. The magnesium flared and the fireworks exploded and chased about in the crowd. There was no one dancing in the square. The gravel was too wet.
Brett came out with Bill and joined us. We stood in the crowd and watched Don Manuel Orquito, the fireworks king, standing on a little platform, carefully starting the balloons with sticks, standing above the heads of the crowd to
