A moment later there was a scuffling at the door and Cato burst in. The guide followed, trying to grab him, but the doctor said it was all right. Cato came to the bed and said in hesitant manner, ‘You’re lying there … not me. I want you to know …’
‘Son, I told you that when you run with the bulls, anything can happen.’
‘What I wanted to say was that my father … in all his life … not once has he ever acted like a man. Perhaps if he had …’
‘Perhaps you people run with tougher bulls.’
The two antagonists looked at each other in silence, then Cato said, ‘The bulls I run with, Mr. Holt, have horns as big as this bed.’
‘They always look that big … always.’
‘I’ll never forget you risked your life for mine.’
‘Who keeps score?’ Holt asked, and Cato left.
Holt was weaker than he pretended, the loss of blood having been considerable, and when Cato was gone he fell back on his pillow.
‘Was it a rough one?’ I asked.
‘No. You felt yourself trapped in those powerful arms … the poor Frenchman was terrified and totally irrational. What the hell could you do? I remember feeling a sense of satisfaction that the bull wasn’t going to hit Cato, pinned against the wall. I remember thinking that it was much better for him to come at me, because I had people behind me who would yield a little when the horn struck. That’s what happened.’
‘It was sensational to see,’ I said.
‘It’s sensational to be here,’ Holt replied. The doctor indicated that I had better go, but as I reached the door. Holt said again, ‘Make sure the kids catch that boat.’
At the entrance Britta asked if she could go up, but the guard said, ‘Nada más,’ and we walked up to the main square, where all the regulars gathered around us to hear a first-hand report. The German girl whom we had met the first night said, ‘They told us the priest had been called and that he was dead.’
‘He’s sitting up in bed, laughing,’ I said.
‘Have you seen the photos?’ she asked.
Britta, surprised that they should be available so soon, rushed us to the camera store, where we saw the linked series showing the fall of the bull, his charge back toward town hall, and the goring of Holt, but the photograph that would live permanently in the minds of all who had seen the incident showed Harvey Holt, newspaper in hand, citing the bull from a distance of perhaps eight feet. It was a portrait of courage and grace, of a lone man doing what had to be done.
The young people sat in the sun discussing whether they ought to skip the fight that afternoon and give up their plans for Moçambique, out of respect for Holt, but I told them, ‘The essence of Pamplona is that you run with the bulls in the morning, then see them fought in the afternoon, and if the doctors at that hospital aren’t watchful, you’ll see Harvey Holt sitting beside me this afternoon. He’s done it before.’
At two o’clock we trailed back to Bar Vasca and had a lunch of pochas, in honor of Holt, and after lunch Britta returned to the hospital, but again she was refused entrance.
I insisted that they pack the yellow pop-top so that they could leave immediately after the fight. ‘It’s a long haul to Barcelona, so if you want to make that boat, get cracking.’ Britta had tears in her eyes as she packed her duffel, but I assured her that Holt would be all right and that she could write to him at the military hospital, but later at the arena, when I looked back toward where the young people were sitting, I saw that she had not come to the fight. At one intermission I went back to ask where she was, and Monica told me, ‘She wants to say goodbye to Holt. Shell meet us at the car.’ Clive was occupying her seat.
When the fight was over, the last wild fight of this year, and the bands were gathering in the arena for their final march through the city, the young people hurried through the crowd to where the pop-top was parked, and there stood Britta, her duffel bag on the sidewalk. ‘I cannot go with you,’ she said, and I was astonished at how casually everyone accepted this decision.
‘Poste restante, Lourenço Marques,’ Gretchen said. ‘Tell us how he is.’
Cato shook hands with her and said, ‘I’ll see you in the States … or Norway … or somewhere.’
‘So long, Mr. Fairbanks,’ they shouted, and while a huge red sun was still visible in the west, the pop-top headed for the coast.
Britta and I started for the central square. I offered to carry her duffel, but this she would not permit, and after a few blocks we were mired in an enormous throng of people seeking to march with the bands on this special night. While struggling to free ourselves, we became part of the mob behind one of the noisiest bands and were swept along for a block or more, unable to break free. The noise was tremendous, hypnotic, the glorious end of a feria, and for a moment Britta forgot her anxiety over her own future and Holt’s and entered into the abandon.
Then suddenly, on a signal from nowhere except the hearts of those who were saying farewell to a riotous week, the music stopped, the singers fell silent, the noise halted, and even the whispers of the crowd ceased. All in the street fell upon the paving blocks and began knocking their foreheads on the stones. From the silence came one voice, then many, singing the traditional song for this solemn moment:
‘Poor me, poor me! How sad am I.
Now the Feria of San Fermín
Has ended. Woe is me.’
Britta, forced to a prone position by those around her, looked at me as I lay on the stones, and I saw that she was transfigured by this unexpected experience. Grief was walking the streets and giving itself visible form—her grief, and she was part of it. Tears came into her eyes and she pressed her hand over her mouth. She looked away and knocked her forehead against the stones.
Then, again with no visible signal, the bands simultaneously returned to their wild tunes, whereupon the fallen thousands sprang to their feet, and the cacophony resumed, but louder than before. When we had passed through three cycles of lament and exultation, I took the duffel bag from Britta and told her, ‘You should march with the mourners,’ and she did.
Toward midnight, as I was lugging her gear back to Bar Vasca, I happened to catch sight of the procession as it passed down a narrow street, and there was Britta, falling to the stones and knocking her head, and I knew it was not in grief for the passing of San Fermín but for that inconsolable anguish that sometimes overtakes young people when they unexpectedly face death, or the loss of their illusions, or a glimpse of the deadly years that lie ahead. She did not see me, nor did she seem to notice those who marched and mourned beside her. She walked like a ghost, eyes blank, through the beloved streets that had brought her so much happiness.
At two o’clock, when the marchers still faced four hours till dawn, she left them and sought me out at Bar Vasca, where I sat with the woodchoppers.
‘Mr. Fairbanks, you must take me to the hospital. Now.’
‘At this hour!’
‘Tell them I’m his wife … just in from Madrid.’
I accompanied her down the dark street to the military hospital, where I told the sleepy guard, ‘The injured American’s wife.’
‘Tell her to come in the morning.’
‘But she’s just arrived from Madrid.’
Protesting, the man in the white smock said, ‘All right, if she’s his wife I’ll go tell him.’
Motioning us to wait, he started upstairs, but I forestalled him by grabbing Britta’s hand and leading her along. When we got to Holt’s door the guard peeked in to see if he was sleeping, but Harvey was awake, so I pushed the door wider and shoved Britta into the room. ‘Su esposa está aquí,’ I said, and the guard departed. I started to leave, but both Britta and Harvey wanted me to stay.
It was an astonishing conversation, and if I had not heard it I would not have believed reports, had any reached me.
Britta went to the bed and took Harvey’s hands. ‘We prayed for you … in the sunken church,’ she said.
‘I told them you
were to catch the boat.’
‘The others will.’
‘You should have, too.’
‘Mr. Holt, I’ve been walking behind the bands with the marchers. “Poor me, poor me,” they’ve been singing. “Poor Mr. Holt,” I’ve been chanting under my breath.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘No. You’re not all right. You’re an unhappy, lonely man. It’s ridiculous. A man your age … cheap one-night stands with college girls.’
‘She was older than you are,’ Holt said defensively.
‘And when the years go by you’re going to be even more unhappy and more lonely. Mr. Holt, I want you to marry me.’
Harvey’s mouth dropped open, and I was afraid he might have a relapse of some kind, but it was only his astonishment at her words. All he could do was repeat, ‘I told them you were to catch the boat.’
‘I’m not catching any boat, Mr. Holt. I’m going to stay here with you. And as soon as you can walk again, you’re going to marry me.’
‘That’s crazy!’ Holt finally said.
‘I cannot live a life of loneliness, and neither can you.’ When she saw the consternation on Holt’s face she added softly, ‘I can work, Mr. Holt. I can bring in money to help us along, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Holt closed his eyes. He had nothing to say. Britta saw him wince and guesesd that he was in as much spiritual pain as physical, for she said, ‘I’m not going to leave you, Mr. Holt. ‘I’m going with you even to Ratmalana.’ She hesitated, then looked at me imploringly. ‘Where is Ratmalana, Mr. Fairbanks?’
‘It’s an airport somewhere.’
‘Where is it?’ she asked Holt.
‘Ceylon.’
The word seemed to explode in the room. Britta started to tremble, put her hand to her forehead as though to steady herself; but she said nothing, only stared into Holt’s eyes until tears filled her own. Then she turned away and, addressing a statue of the Virgin which decorated the wall, said softly, ‘All his life my father has dreamed of going to Ceylon. He buys every book about that island. He was a very good man, my father, very brave when the Germans occupied us. He was like you, Mr. Holt, a true hero. But he never got to Ceylon. I am going there with you, Mr. Holt, whether you want me as your wife or not.’ She came to the bed and kissed him. ‘Get well soon,’ she said and left the room.
Holt looked at me in bewilderment, then wiped his cheek and said, ‘Seems all you have to do to get kissed by pretty girls is to take a horn six inches in your gut.’
‘She means it,’ I said.
Trying to get into focus what Britta had said, he made his usual comment. ‘It’s like the time Signe Hasso watched over Spencer Tracy. She was Scandinavian too.’ I didn’t get this at all, and he growled, ‘When they were hiding from the Nazis.’
When the guard let Britta and me out, he said, ‘Your husband is going to be all right.’
As we walked up Santo Domingo, Britta took my hand and pleaded, ‘Tell him tomorrow, on your own, that I will not be a financial drag on him. I can type, you know.’
I said, ‘Britta, we’d better have some pochas, if the fire’s still hot.’ So we went into the bar, where some men were singing in the corner, the old, sad songs of Navarra, and I asked Raquel for some pochas, but when they came they were cold, for the fires were banked.
‘You’re entitled to know one thing about Holt,’ I said. ‘He won’t need the money you might earn on the side. He has a good salary plus a lot of extras like per diems, hazardous pay for climbing towers in typhoons and a hardship bonus for living in a place like Ceylon. How much do you suppose he totals in a year?’ She said she could make no intelligent guess, but when I pressed her, she suggested, ‘Maybe as much as six thousand dollars?’
‘Over thirty-nine thousand dollars.’
‘You mean every year?’
‘Some years more, never less. I know, because I save his money for him. And how much do you suppose he has saved?’ Again she preferred not to guess, so I told her, ‘Almost a million dollars.’
‘You don’t mean United States dollars?’ When I nodded, she stared at the table, then said softly, ‘To be a millionaire … in dollars … and to live so poorly.’ She said no more at that moment, but when the singers halted, we could hear in the distance the bands still playing, at four in the morning, and she said, ‘Mr. Fairbanks, tonight I’m so lonely I would leap from the window if I tried to sleep. I’m going to join the mourners again.’ I took her back to town hall, where I last saw her falling in behind one of the bands that was making a great noise. When the music stopped, Britta fell to the street and began beating her head against the stones. I left her there.
July 15 in Pamplona was hell. The oppression started at five-thirty in the morning, when not a single txistulari blew his flute nor one trumpeter his comet. At seven no rocket exploded and there were no singers in the cafés. With a speed that seemed impossible, the industrious city obliterated all signs of its preceding debauch, and stores opened at the customary hour. The wooden barricades behind which thousands had viewed the running of the bulls were carted off to storage for another year, and postholes in the streets were filled with wooden blocks and tamped with sand.
The central square showed no preparations for fireworks, and the draperies were gone from the bandstand. Traffic now flowed normally, Estafeta subsided to a minor artery of commerce, and Teléfonos was again a place to make telephone calls and not a scene of adrenalin-bravery. Bar Vasca had four customers at noon, and two of them were Britta and me.
‘This town is too lonely to bear,’ she said after returning from the hospital, where the new guard would not let her in.
‘You miss the others already?’ I asked.
‘I’d like to hear … just once more … Clive and his records. Like Octopus beating out a good number.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. But I will not leave Mr. Holt.’
‘If you’re going to marry him, shouldn’t you call him Harvey?’
‘He’s afraid of marrying.’
‘You think you can change that?’
‘It’s of no significance. I’m going with him to Ceylon. I must.’
We talked like this through our lunch, and Raquel came to our alcove to tell us that our bull stew was made from the bull that had gored Holt. I asked how she knew, and she laughed. Britta asked, ‘Did you see the photographs?’ Raquel pointed to a board beside the bar where four of the photos had been mounted.
‘Everybody’s surprised Holt acted so brave,’ Raquel said. ‘What do they think he’s been doing these past years?’ She sighed and returned to the bar.
At three I went back to the hospital and found Holt deeply disturbed by Britta’s visit the preceding night. ‘That Norwegian is plain nuts,’ he said.
‘And you loved it.’
‘I’ve been counting. I can name forty young girls who married old men. But not one of the men was poor.’
‘She thought you were. You heard her offer to work.’
‘An act. An act. What would I do mixed up with that gang of beatniks?’
‘Wrong word.’
‘What would you suggest?’
‘I don’t know. How about individual young people.’
‘And Clive? He was a great one.’
‘He may be the best of the bunch.’
‘Gretchen thought so. Did you know they were sleeping together?’
‘As somebody said, “Who keeps score?” How’s the stomach?’
‘Fine. I get out in a day or two. These doctors are unbelievable.’ He showed me the bandages and gave them a hearty slap. I winced.
‘When can we drive to Madrid?’ I asked.
‘Day after tomorrow. You drive.’
‘Britta’s a good driver too,’ I suggested.
‘Keep her out of it. She’s eighteen and I’m forty-three.’
‘She’s also in love with you. Walked the streets in anguish all last night.?
??
‘Thousands of people walked the streets last night.’
‘Harvey, this one is going to Ceylon with you. Whether you like it or not.’
‘I’ll buy her a bar in Torremolinos.’
‘She knows what I know, Harvey. You need her.’
‘Do girls do the proposing these days?’
‘The new breed does.’
‘I don’t like the new breed. And I don’t want her in the car. Send her home by train.’
‘Harvey, on one thing she’s right. This is your last chance. If you throw her out, you’re going to wind up a crabbed old man … alone.’
Apparently the goring was more serious than he had made it out to be, for he sucked in his breath. I left, and at dusk Britta came to my room and asked, ‘Would you walk with me?’ so we set out for a very long recapitulation of Pamplona. We walked down the boulevard, past Mr. Mehukoff’s hotel, which now had many empty rooms, and out to the railroad station, which stood in the country. ‘I suppose he wants me to leave by train,’ she said sardonically.
‘How did you know I saw him?’
‘I was watching the hospital.’
‘You haven’t convinced him.’
‘I will.’
We walked back by paths along the far side of the river and came to that quiet area where the bulls were kept in the early stages of their stay, and as we looked at the bleak corrals, Britta said, ‘I understand why men want to run with the bulls. If I were a man I’d run. I was gratified to see so many Scandinavians in the street.’
As we crossed the ivy-covered bridge which delivered the bulls to the holding corral, we could hear the imaginary thunder; in the darkness we could see the vital forms which have challenged men since the beginning of history. And Britta said, ‘This is so lonely the heart could break … like a twig. God, how can he come back year after year? Don’t answer. I know. This is where honor grows. On this steep street.’
We were now at the foot of Santo Domingo, and as she looked into its dark canyon she could visualize what the bulls saw as they leaped clear after the morning rocket. Here were the walls that pinned them in; here the ramp up which the policemen escaped at the last moment; here the spot where Harvey Holt waited to rush down to meet his enemy. In the darkness she could see him come, see the very point at which he made his turn, his gallant charge up the hill. She became a bull and lunged at him with her horns. She stopped and whispered a triad from a song which Clive had composed for Octopus: