SanFermin 2

By Jesse Graham

Widening its river banks, expanding its range, the roman fleuve of SanFermin 2 races on in full torrent. Change is coming to the cuadrilla. And, as Spain plunges feverishly into the modern world, change is coming to San Fermin. Mushrooming television coverage. The movies and the admen arrive. Balconies start being rented to view the bullrun. The local cartoon T shirts are on every back and marketed in every shop window. The systematic selling of the fiesta has begun.
For the habituals, the fiesta more and more immerses them in a Proustian memory palace that balances and contrasts past history and their present actions. As the cuadrilla become more deeply involved with the Navarrans of Pamplona and the pueblos, some find themselves eyewitnesses to history, swept up in the large events unfolding over the last decade and a half of the 20th century.
Israel, India, Egypt, Iran, and Africa. From the Berlin Wall to the Gulf War. Speculation in Silicon Valley. Midnight assignations in a Paris cemetery. Chasing opals and legends in Mexico. Dead men tell tales. Skeletons begin to escape their closets. Past and present coexisting, coiling upon each other as the end of the century and the new millennium loom into view.
New faces step up to join the dance. Tragedies and triumphs occur. Warriors fall. The inevitable changing of the guard. Unknown accounts of Hemingway surface. Marceliano's closes its doors. Death comes to the encierro for the first time in 15 years. The first foreigner to die. An American...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jesse Graham
• Release date: Apr 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301342990

Jesse Graham

Jesse Graham was born and raised in the Far East. He has been variously an oil rig roughneck offshore, a stagehand in London, a tour/travel guide in the Western United States, a film maker and screenwriter (details on IMDb.com) and a bull runner (retired).

Book preview

Praise for SANFERMIN 1 –

"Sui generis, unlike any other novel I’ve ever read. Anyone interested in Pamplona’s famed fiesta will want to read this book. And those interested in seeing a new kind of fiction, reading an original voice also must read this book whether interested in fiesta or not."

Ray Mouton – author of IN GOD’S HOUSE and PAMPLONA: Running the bulls, bars and barrios in Fiesta de San Fermin.

What went on and continues to go on in this miraculous fiesta celebrating life. The author has lived it, danced the dance, tempted death on the street and drunk deep of the experience. And like the fiesta itself, I just don’t want the book to end. Thankfully, there are two more volumes to come.

Jim Hollander – award winning photographer and author of RUN TO THE SUN: Pamplona’s Fiesta de San Fermin.

Jesse Graham has gotten the magnificent festival – the fiesta of San Fermin! – with a thoroughness no previous writer has approached. He has absolutely captured the unique chaos of the fiesta.

Allen Josephs – past president of the Hemingway Society and author of FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS: Ernest Hemingway’s Undiscovered Country.

*****

About the author: Jesse Graham was born and raised in the Far East. He has been variously an oil rig roughneck offshore, a stagehand in London, a tour/travel guide in the Western United States, a film maker and screenwriter (details on IMDb.com) – and a bull runner (retired).

*****

SANFERMIN 2

by Jesse Graham

Copyright JK Graham 2013. Smashwords Edition.

Cover by Miren Loinaz. Glyph design by Felix Igartua.

Production help by Sushuma. Editorial work by Lucy Ridout.

All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It is not meant to be resold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the work and the rights of the author.

for Doctor Frank and Bomber

CHAPTER ONE.:to look on the mountains of Moab

Que es la vida?

Es una bala perdida.

What is life?

A lost bullet.

(Spanish dicho

Kit found a cottage in a West LA back garden. His landlords were a lesbian couple who worked at a local radio station. He was lucky to find the area. One of the few walk-around neighborhoods in the city. Next door to Westwood, minutes from the beach. The end of Route 66.

From Israel Cathy wrote him two or three letters a week about the suffocating weather, the people, the bedlam world of the opera house, the difficulty of learning the language.

I suddenly feel spastic, I can’t retain anything. It’s awful. There’s times when I think I am truly insane. -

He called her weekly and wrote one letter for her half dozen as she, teasing, pointed out.

I plan to keep writing you for the next six months and if I don’t get at least one letter back in that time, I’ll get the message and stop. I’m quick like that. -

Los Angeles was a desert made green by imported trees and shrubs, the water piped by aqueduct from snowmelt in the Sierras on the far side of the Mojave. A city with no real center, it was dozens of small towns butted up together. A range of hills cut through it like a crescent arc to the sea. The cliché was true. Ten minutes to the ocean. An hour to the visible snows.

- I find it extremely upsetting, wrote Cathy, selecting tomatoes in the market, to lean across the blurred blue number blazoned on the arm. I look at the owner and expect to see some great understanding of humanity in their eyes. But I don’t. How can someone go through that and be normal? Meanwhile they elbow me aside and take the tomato I was reaching for. -

The neighborhood consisted for the most part of stucco bungalows from the 20s and low apartment buildings. There was a heavy Japanese presence from the time when it was the only area where they were allowed to buy property. Thus there were yakitori and sushi restaurants on Sawtelle. Asian grocery stores. Nursery gardens with bonsai trees. The streets were quiet and tree lined. Jacaranda with their carpet of fallen purple blossoms. Red bottle-brush trees. Night-blooming jasmine. Trumpet flowers. Avocado and citrus fruit ripened and fell on the gardens and sidewalks. When the black walnuts were ready, the squirrels and the crows competed for them. The squirrels, burdened, ran along the telephone lines above, chivvied by swooping attacks to drop their prizes. On their own the birds would take the nuts in their beaks and bomb the concrete below to crack the shells. Among the bushes hummingbirds darted and hovered like tiny crucifixes suspended in the air. In the taller trees, flocks of escaped green parrots banded together to screech and feast.

There were other animals. Deer in the hills above would venture down to back-yard gardens. Coyotes would lurk to seize small pets as prey. Possums and raccoons would search out porch cat bowls at night. It was true, Kit found, that raccoon eyes reflected green in the beam of a flashlight.

At the end of the street a large building, once a masonic temple, held a giant mural on its side wall. It showed a freeway, broken off thirty miles inland, lapped around by the ocean waves. A warning as Steely Dan, taking their cue from that very mural, sang of California tumbling into the sea. To Kit, as to other immigrants, the local risks of nature seemed worth the gamble.

He bought a small blue secondhand Japanese pick-up. He explored the city. He worked on the script and worried. He accepted every invitation. He promised he would fly to visit Cathy in Israel when he had got a rough draft of the screenplay done.

What problems do you have with it? she asked on the phone.

Avoiding the Hemingway cliché, Kit said. It’s always a case of ‘you just missed him. He was here a minute ago.’ And the ending, I still don’t know how to make that work. It’s making me crazy.

I can’t wait for you to get here and I can drive you crazy.

In late March he flew to visit her. She had warned him she would probably not be able to meet him at Lod. She had a La Traviata rehearsal. Sure enough, when he emerged from Customs, she was not there. Though forewarned, he was disappointed. He took a taxi to the Amsterdam Street address and scouted under the mat for the key as she had told him.

It was a basic apartment on the ground floor of a three-story building with an open central staircase. He put his bag down and lit a cigarette. He felt like a drink but there was no beer or wine in evidence. Cathy was not a drinker. He opened his duty-free whiskey, found a glass in the kitchen cupboard and poured himself a shot, diluting it with lukewarm water from the tap. He wondered how long it would be before she came home.

It was a couple of hours. She came in quickly and gave him a shy kiss before moving to the kitchen, talking as she went.

Are you dreadfully hungry? I just couldn’t get away.

Why don’t I take you out to dinner. A good steak.

Nobody eats meat here, it’s so expensive. I’ll make an omelette.

She inhabited the kitchen as if it were her kingdom. Once, in London, while she was making dinner, he had entered the kitchen, smoking a small cigar. She said nothing, but had in one clear movement turned on the sink tap and plucked the cigar from his fingers to douse it. The authority of the action had enchanted him.

An omelette sounds great.

They ate and made small talk about his flight and how rehearsals were going. She left him to wash the dishes while she disappeared to the bathroom. When he came out of the kitchen, she was already waiting in bed. She sat up in her nightgown, smiling.

I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered to put this on.

She let him lift it over her head. For a moment, he held her, blinded, trapped, as he kissed her stomach. She was shy again and wanted him to turn out the light. He would not let her. And she blushed at his hungry looking and clutched him with her arms and legs. He searched for the dark coinsized beauty spot on her breast. She watched as he kissed it. Then she pulled his mouth to hers.

After, spent, he held her from behind and she put her hands on top of his, holding him there. In the quiet, he heard a clumping sound from above.

Oh, God, Cathy said, she’s at it again.

What is it?

It’s the old woman who lives upstairs. She never ever goes to sleep.

But what’s she doing? That’s not just walking.

She was in Belsen, one of the camps. The landlord told me she’s got a mania for shoes. She has something like two hundred pairs. What she’s doing over and over is counting them. Moving them from one shelf to another. Or she moves the furniture round.

Does she do it all night?

She can go on for hours.

They lay there, listening. You’re in Israel now, he told himself. He was to get another reminder the next morning when they went to the vegetable market. An old lady stretched past Kit to check a melon. On her white underarm he saw the six blue tattooed numbers, the first time he had ever seen such; it caught him unawares. He remembered Cathy’s letter. But it jolted him all the same. The old lady put the melon back, moved on.

He had not given much thought to the country he was coming to. It was Cathy who filled his mind. So he found himself constantly off guard, bumped by odd moments, scenes and gestures that he was not prepared for. The lack of bars. It was a culture of sidewalk cafes lining the main street Dizengoff where people drank concoctions of fruit syrups and talked to each other with an array of hand and arm gestures he had never seen, a language that needed translation.

The opera house was on Allenby and he spent a couple of hours in a cafe opposite with a paperback while she was at rehearsal. Next door to the opera house stood another building along the front of which women sat on kitchen chairs sunning themselves. Soldiers drifted by in twos and threes. Occasionally they would approach the women and say something. In response the women would flip their skirts up, apparently to flash their underwear. Sometimes then the soldier and the woman would go in the door. It was clear what was going on but the rite of skirt-lifting puzzled him.

Cathy came over with a group of her colleagues. They were mostly American. Pam, a mezzo from Brooklyn. Tom, a conductor in training from Bath, camp and slightly waspish. Stewart, a large-framed baritone from Chicago. Tony, an Italian tenor from Pittsburgh. She introduced them as they found seats and ordered coffees.

Pam said, I suppose you’ve seen our great neighbor.

The cat house.

It’s so embarrassing. The soldiers are always accosting us as we come out the stage door. They get mixed up.

I don’t understand, Kit said, the women lifting their skirts.

The others laughed. Well, Tom said with emphasis, a number of the good ladies are in fact coxinellies.

What’s that?

Stewart said, It’s a local word for transvestites. The soldiers are checking the goods before going upstairs.

Afterwards, walking away, snuggling her arm inside his, Cathy said, I’ve fixed it to get two days off. So tomorrow we can go to Jerusalem.

How long to get there?

An hour about. It’s a small country. We’ll take a sheroot. It’s sort of a communal taxi.

And what about the rest of today?

Well, she gave him a demure glance, I suddenly feel this odd overwhelming need for a small siesta.

On the road the next day he noticed the reddish pink weather-proofed armored cars. They had been strategically placed in the bare terrain, she told him, as reminders of the war of ’48.

She said, Don’t you have a friend who works in Jerusalem? A news photographer or something.

Logan. He’s Reuters. I called him last week. He’s out of country. He did say, whatever else, I should see Masada.

We’ll do that tomorrow.

In Jerusalem they wandered along the Via Dolorosa. Side-street stalls displayed punk razor-blade ear rings, bootleg cassettes. As they entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they were seized by Armenian monks, one of half a dozen competing sects that laid claim to a piece of the Tomb. They examined the Wailing Wall. They strolled about the Dome of the Rock. There Cathy wore a scarf out of respect. And then because he could not stand it any more, they found a tiny Arab hotel and took a room. They showered. He had a splitting headache but did not admit it until after. She lay on top of his back and massaged his neck.

In the morning they took a bus with a talkative driver guide named Dov. He had a line of ironic self-deprecating patter which Kit was starting to think of as the national style. He could not get over how close everything was. Bethlehem ten minutes away. Jericho just down the road. Right there the spot where the Good Samaritan performed his act of humanity. He was beginning to see why Cecil B. De Mille had rejected the original terrain in favor of the larger vistas of Utah as a setting for The Ten Commandments.

They came to the shallow river Jordan and turned right down towards the Dead Sea. The high rock walls to the west, Dov announced, had been the hiding place for the Dead Sea scrolls.

Masada, the towering mesa of it, seemed like a ship in the desert. They took the tram up, electing to save the Snake Path for the descent. On top they trailed through the reconstructed stone half walls behind the guide, Cathy holding on to Kit with a finger crooked in a belt loop of his jeans. Standing above the outcrop of Herod’s palace at the northern end reinforced the feeling of being at the prow of an immense stone vessel thrusting through a sea of sand. Far below, the ordered outlines of the besieging Roman camps still stood clear and present as did the massive ramp of dirt the Legion soldiers had built over three years to take the fortress down. Cathy listened with a stricken look of woe to the guide’s practiced telling of the old tale, how on the last night all the remaining Jews had chosen to die rather than be taken.

Below, to the east, the Dead Sea glittered in the sharp air like a blue shield in the desert. On the far side rising in Jordan the purpling mountains of Moab stared back over the water.

Apart from an afternoon in Jaffa they made no further expeditions the rest of the time he stayed. Besides, the rehearsals were apparently getting tense. One night they went out to dine together with the others. Stewart brought his wife, who worried aloud about having left her two boys with an unknown babysitter. The meal was expensive and the quality not good. Kit passed most of his days in the cafe opposite. She was increasingly apologetic. They sought each other’s bodies more and more as the days left became rapidly fewer.

Once he was in the bath when Pam came by to pick Cathy up; they often took the bus together. Cathy called goodbye. Then he heard her halt outside to tell Pam she had forgotten something.

We’ll be late.

I’ll just be a moment.

He heard her come back in. She entered the bathroom, bent over the tub, smiling at him in mischief and plunged her hand to his groin and began to massage him. Pam called out, agitated. Cathy turned her head and called out Coming and gave Kit a quick kiss and released him and fled.

The last night they listened to the old lady above as she shuffled, counted her shoes endlessly.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when you go, Cathy said.

Come to California and live with me. We’ll make it work.

She was silent, then turned over and bussed his shoulder.

I want to finish out the season, she said. I don’t want to run away. Two months more.

I’ll send you the ticket.

Her hand reached over and took hold of his cock and slowly rubbed it erect. She bent over and kissed the straining head and then looked up at him, smiling.

The Lord of my thighs.

Again, for reasons of rehearsal, she was not able to accompany him to the airport. They hugged their farewell outside the apartment. Kit often wondered afterwards, returning to it tirelessly like a dog to worry a bone, what he would have done differently had he known it was to be a quarter of a century before they would set eyes on each other again.

Once back in California the sense of separation was worse than ever. Kit felt half crazed with lust and longing and loneliness. She seemed the same.

- I can’t take my thoughts away from you, although I don’t really want to, except that a little while would rest the turmoil you put my bruised body into (sweet bruises). It starts as a pleasant sensation and ends up driving me insane – I thought English ladies weren’t supposed to suffer that way! I want you to press on me till I can’t breathe. I’m dying to see you and for you to touch me. I must stop before I turn completely purple inside -

He sent the open ticket. They talked on the phone. Her letters became fewer. She sounded depressed.

Some two months after his visit her letter arrived.

- I wish I didn’t have to write this letter, and you wouldn’t have to receive it angrily and think what you must think of me and probably what I deserve. I am leaving here. I’m not, as you probably have guessed, going alone. Apologies at a time like this are superfluous and, I feel, not kind to pride so I suffocate the urge to say I’m sorry or to ask you to forgive me -

She was having an affair with Stewart, the Chicago baritone. And she was pregnant. Stewart was leaving his wife and two children. She and he were going to go away together and make a fresh start. He read the words over and over in chill disbelief.

Staring at the mimosa tree outside, he saw what had happened. They had roused each other to a state of heat and longing so that the itch could not be denied. Stewart had sensed the weakness and moved in. She had gotten lonely – and pregnant. For a moment he wondered if it could be his.

He sent a twenty-page letter, a self-pitying maudlin plea for her to change her mind. When a long time later, he stumbled across a Xerox, he reread it and cringed, aghast at the figure he cut. Nobody could have responded seriously to such infantile begging.

He knew from his own history how dangerous it was to have hostages to fortune. They were part of your identity. When they were taken off, so were you made hollow. There were other methods to survive than making yourself open. He should have learned that by now.

*****

Mace always claimed that this was the year of the most significant change. The rest of the cuadrilla scoffed. Franco’s death, the riots of ’78, surely weighed more than the current bone of contention – television.

Up until this date Spanish television had contented itself with showing some footage of the first encierro of fiesta; it was a ritual tick in the calendar. Mainly, the encierro was covered by local photographers. This meant a number of things.

If you were a foreigner with a yen to run, you realized quite simply you did not have enough information. You struggled to find a viewpoint somewhere along the course of the run and what you saw passed by as a blurred stampede. Maybe you saw the come-loose rope-soled alpagartas, dotting the callejón. Or as the barricades got dismantled and you were permitted into the street, you might note the medics treating a casualty on a stretcher. And you knew you definitely did not have enough information.

For a native Navarran, this was no problem. He had been brought up from childhood with the encierro. If his father did not run, his uncle or a cousin did. He would be instructed over the obligatory protests of the womenfolk.

The smartest thing a virgin guiri could do was scout Txoko after the run, maybe Marceliano’s or the Windsor. You scanned the tables, you eavesdropped and then you stepped up to ask politely if anyone at the table would be prepared to talk to you about running.

If you chose the right table, there was never an instant assent. Instead, you found yourself being mildly grilled. You would probably not be invited to sit down. What interested you about the encierro? What did you expect from it? If your answers showed you did not regard the encierro as an obligatory sporting challenge to be checked off by testosterone-loaded jocks on their summer tour of Europe, there would be a flicker of glances round the table – because all had pulled this duty many times.

One person would stand, say Marcus, set his glass down, draining it. Let’s have a stroll.

The next half hour of instruction probably drew more attention from you than any topic ever had in school. You would be told about the various divisions of the course into sections or tramos. Eight stretches was how most runners broke it down. You would be shown kick-off points and natural exits. You would be asked which side did your head most instinctively turn – back over your left shoulder or your right. The bull’s peripheral vision would be explained, how he saw well to the side and behind and not well to his immediate front. The psychology of the animal would be gone through. His instincts as a herd animal. How, when separated from his brothers, he might wish to attack or might simply be looking for a guide to lead him home. You would be warned that the people were more dangerous than the bulls, that there were times to freeze in a doorway and times when that would be the very worst thing you could do. It would be underlined that if you fell in front of the pack, you were not to try and get up. If your guide was Marcus, you would be instructed in a number of such things. And when you thanked your tutor, you might notice an odd melancholy in him. You might realize he had never encouraged you to take part. But he had done his duty and passed on the information you needed. This was how the runners had always learned. By watching, by example, by word of mouth. This was how it had always been.

Whether spectator or participant, if the encierro mattered to you, you were physically present. Some, like Harry, whose legs or age did not permit them to run, would stand daily in doorways along the course merely to be present. Those families who were fortunate enough to overlook some part of the course, shared their balconies with friends or relatives – like boxes at the opera. If you wished to view from the barricades, you had to rise early to stake out a good spot. It was a common joke that runners only ran because they could not rouse themselves that early to get into position to be spectators. If you knew what you were doing, there was always room to squeeze between the heavy timber balks of the barricades at the last minute. Time enough to wave at an aunt, knotting beads in her hand as she spied you, blew a kiss and made a discreet sign of the cross for your protection.

But now all of it was about to change. The pressures of modernity had hit Spanish television. This year they were to cover the whole encierro from start to finish – every day. They were going to show each encierro live to the nation. There would be repeats and slow-motion replays immediately after and again with the news hour at noon. Every bar had equipped itself with a big TV monitor mounted on the wall.

They’ll be after you to put a camera on your balcony, Mace said. They were drinking wine in the kitchen of Marcus’s restored piso.

They already have, Dixie said.

I said no, of course, Marcus said. But they just went to Jesus on the floor below. And he was more than happy to let them take over his balcony. Not that they’re offering much money.

That will change, Kit said.

Dixie was impatient. You’re all being way too gloomy.

They drifted down the corridor to the sunny front room and the balconies under discussion. It was still only the 4th. They were enjoying the calm, the anticipation before the storm.

Where are you and the girls now? Marcus asked. Espe said they’ve moved.

The piso’s in Navarreria just up from the Aussies and the fountain jumping. We’ve even got a pirate radio station broadcasting from the apartment above.

Christ, Marcus said. And you’ve got all the gitanos and punkis in the plazuela as well.

It does call for an anthropological study, Kit said. They’re like different tribal cultures regarding each other with mutual bafflement. The Aussies and the punkis with their mohawks.

Marcus leaned on the balcony, peering down at the street.

Isn’t that Balduz, our leftist alcalde?

Kit craned to see. And the scarlet woman he left his wife for.

Quite a looker.

Dixie said, Oh, I’ve heard all about her. Let’s see.

Look at them strolling. No bodyguards. Everyone knows their faces. It’s a bit like passing Socrates in Athens must have been like. No big deal.

Pamplona as ancient Athens, I rather like that image.

Marcus tilted the newly uncorked bottle. Drink up.

Mace said to Kit, So what’s the gossip with Raley?

Already holding hands with another local lady, Charo tells me.

Which sort of argues Espe’s suspicions were correct.

Of course they were, Dixie said. You’re all hound dogs. Don’t even dream of defending yourselves.

Do we expect fireworks?

I doubt it, but who knows.

Speaking of who knows – how’s Osborne?

Didn’t you hear?

No.¿ Qué paso?

You know he got kicked out of the Bearan and that place he was staying at in the pueblo. He’s just impossible, never mind being penniless. So he was passed out on one of the tables by the Banco de Bilbao. 3 a.m. And ETA – presumably – set a bomb in front of the bank. Glass flying everywhere. A pillar saved his life.

When the hell did this happen?

April. Anyway he’s vastly indignant, wants to sue the city for damage to his nerves, anything else that he can think of. And, believe it or not, they put him in the Meca. They gave him a bed.

The Casa Misericordia? The Old Folks Home! Really?

Mace said, Lucky sonofabitch. He can probably scalp corrida tickets out of there. You know, they’ve got a full bar downstairs. I always dreamed of talking my way in there when the time comes.

How’s he standing his round?

Carlos sends him money. And Nicholas Pursey too. All to help him complete his long-promised definitive volume on Navarran culture and fiesta. I wonder if he’s written a word.

Good for Pursey. Osborne – the remittance man.

I hope that’s not our fate, Kit said.

¿Quien sabe?

Morbid thoughts. Hand your glass over here.

Kit looked at Mace. When should we go over and visit him?

Before or after fiesta. Because once it all starts, I keep few promises – even to myself.

What other gossip is there?

Dixie said, Jay’s here with a documentary movie crew.

Mace groaned. Ah, shit.

It’s not that big of a deal. There’s only two of them.

Marcus said, By the way, how’s Hollywood? Anything happening?

No, Kit said. Hasn’t been a great year to date. My red-head whom I was actually serious about, she took off and got pregnant by some opera baritone. And as far as the script goes, I am currently being ‘given notes’, as they call it.

Sounds like you need this then, Mace said.

I certainly do.

Marcus said, My grandfather always told me – never trust a chestnut mare or a red-headed woman.

Kit walked over to the Casa Misericordia the next morning. He was given the room number and went up the wide stairs. Halfway along the corridor he opened the given door. Osborne was alone in the room, asleep. Kit watched him for a minute, the harsh breathing and the mottled red skin of the sunken face. He found a piece of paper, scribbled a note to say he would return, and put it on the marble-topped night stand. Osborne opened a bleary eye, stared at him without comprehension.

Hello, Gerald.

Osborne grunted.

I’ll come back some other time.

Get me some Esplendido, you cunt.

Osborne closed his eye, drifted back to sleep.

Espe and Charo were making breakfast for the just-arrived Yorkies when Kit got back to the piso.

Bryan said, Espe’s been telling us about Imanol. Incredible.

Still in Carabanchel. But they’re moving him, they think.

Hard to credit. What’s he got? Twenty years?

Did they really blow up a police station?

They did, Kit said. And I want to change the subject. I have a mission for los Yorkies.

A mission impossible, no doubt.

Kit went into his room and came back with a large plastic bag. He spilled out T-shirts, shaking them onto the sofa. He picked one up and unfolded it.

In white lettering on a black background the slogan said: "The FOB is a Tompion".

The Yorkies inspected it politely.

I want you to hand these out to all the usual suspects.

The obvious question— Fergus said.

That will be on all lips— Will continued.

Is ‘what the fuck’s a tompion?’ Bryan asked.

Here is where you swear the great oath of Thibold, the Ninth God of UberValhalla, on any terrible penalty you can conjure up – not to tell Finn Burke – or anybody. People will have to wear that shirt without knowing what message they are giving to the world. All will be revealed by the last day to the faithful. But since you are going to have to sell the mission, I suppose I have to tell you what it truly means.

If you’re expecting us to trifle with the FOB, I think you had better, Will said.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘a plug of mud that a bear shoves up his rectum before hibernating to prevent nasty little creatures from chomping their way up the anal orifice’.

The Yorkies made appreciative, approving noises.

Since the chances of his laying his hands on a serious English dictionary in the middle of his gutter fiesta are slim to non existent—

Will put on a Goon voice in the persona of Bluebottle.

He will beeee driven to a maddddd frenzyyyyy.

Finn. He’ll die rather than admit it, but it will send him up the wall – the not knowing.

Charo came in from the kitchen carrying plates. They made a show of springing up to help. But she brushed them off, unfooled. Un poco tarde, chicos. A little late, boys.

Bryan put on one of the T-shirts. Charo looked at the slogan.

El Viejo Verde es – ¿que es eso? The Filthy Old Beast is – what is that?

Fergus said, I look forward to hearing your fluent translation. I bet you a Kaiku and coñac you have to resort to pantomime.

*****

Most of the new faces and the action on Days 4 and 5 were as usual to be found at Marceliano’s. Espe had effortlessly attracted a knot of attentive beaux without indicating an inclination towards any of them. Raley and his new chica Rocio were nowhere in sight.

The FOB was pretending to ignore the T-shirts, dismissing them as not worth comment.

An unlikely literary competition had started in the Redin bar. The challenge was to come up with the single most inauthentic opening sentence for a story – one that would cause the reader to hurl the book aside in disbelief. Big Dave croaked out the winning line.

I could smell the gazpacho cooking as I flung on my suit of lights.

¡Coño!

Boone had earlier gifted Oscar with an exploding book of matches that, left idly on the bar, was catching out a swelling clientele, all of whom, after jumping and swearing, at once wanted to reset the device and see the next victim’s reaction.

Mace was chatting up a new blonde with pop eyes. She drank with determination and he was charmed. But Messy Mary and Brandy were systematically interrupting any conversation that looked as if it might be leading somewhere. This amused them.

The blonde said, My name’s Marie by the way.

I’m Tib. Glad to know you.

What’s that short for? Tiberius?

Mace grinned. No – it’s because I had TB as a child.

So what’s your real name?

I’ll never tell.

He raised his foot as Bullfrog rolled into arm-wrestling position with Flak on the pavement beside them.

Fancy getting out of here?

*****

Dixie and Courtney sat together outside the Iruña. Beau and Marcus had gone to the Casa Misericordia to pick up their season tickets, the abonos. The women had passed on the errand. Harpo, spotting them, sideslipped his way over through the tables. He had a thin Mid-Eastern-looking man with him who smiled shyly as Harpo introduced him as Ali.

He’s fascinating, Courtney told the table at lunch in Erburu. Half Iranian and half Afghani. He managed to get to the States and become a taxi driver in Beverly Hills. And for the last year he’s been making money smuggling cigarettes round the Med.

A contrabandista.

Harpo met him in Morocco, Dixie said. And since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he’s also been going in on trips to do what he can. He’s been taking a lot of photographs.

He was showing us, Courtney said, and he’s really good. Someone should be paying him. Ian, you and Logan should see them.

Ian said, Afghanistan’s not my b-beat. They’re moving me to Hong Kong probably. Ask Logan when he g-gets into town.

You really should see them, Dixie said.

I’ll take a look if the g-g-gods of f-fiesta allow. No promises.

By the way, Ian, Courtney said, giving him a meaningful look, Thalia particularly asked to be remembered to you.

Ian blushed. I was meaning to c-c-contact her. But work’s been so hectic that I d-didn’t think it was fair to her.

It didn’t seem to get in the way at New Years, I understand.

It was very sporting of her to fly d-d-down to S-salvador.

I think next year we’ll take the decision out of your hands.

Beau shook his head at Ian. I think you’re a gone goose.

I c-c-consider myself warned.

*****

Jay and Kit sat in front of Bar Sevilla, discussing the cartels of the feria and the season to date. The story of the temporada was the extraordinary return to the ring of the man second only to Ordoñez himself – Antonio Chenel. Antoñete. The Badger. It was all anybody could talk about. How quite single-handedly the old maestro had ignited a new Golden Epoch.

I’ve never seen him, Kit confessed.

Buddy, he’s amazing. His wrist’s the only thing moving. But what’s so unbelievable is how it all happened. He’s been hanging out on the beach in South America, retired, getting fat, going through coke and hookers like there’s no tomorrow. Hasn’t faced an animal in a dozen years. Somebody can’t show for some local corrida. They ask him. He says what the hell, let’s give it a shot. Calls Spain and gets somebody in the family to send him his old suit of lights. He starts running on the beach to sweat off the pounds so he can get into the suit. He aces the corrida. The promoters offer him some more gigs. It all comes back. He’s going, ‘Oh yeah, I remember how to do this.’ And the thing is, he’s actually better than he was before. Isn’t that amazing?

I really want to see him. But he’s not fighting here.

Stay on till Valencia end of the month.

A birdlike woman, American by her accent ordering coffee, was sitting at the next table looking round at the square. She had postcards and a pen before her. She seemed to be listening.

Kit went inside to the servicios. When he came back out, Jay and the woman were talking about toreros. The woman was declaring a preference for Dominguin over Antonio Ordoñez because everyone knows Antonio is not good with the sword.

Kit took it from the authority of her opinion that she must be one of those pure aficionados who usually avoided Pamplona because of the barbarity of the peñas in the corrida.

He said, I haven’t seen you in Pamplona before.

Oh, it’s my first time. I’m looking forward to it.

Her name was Cecile and she worked in some hospital administration in Phoenix.

You must know Alice Hall, Jay said.

I know of her, Cecile said with a bright smile.

So what do you think of today’s cartel? Kit said.

I think it’ll be fascinating. I can’t wait.

Well, the first time in the Pamplona plaza can be—

Oh, Cecile said, it’s my first time ever.

Jay and Kit looked at her. Right, your first time here.

It’s my first time in Spain. It’s been my dream all my life.

Kit glanced to Jay. Where’s your camera crew when we need them?

Jay said, disbelieving, Let me get this straight. This is your first bullfight. This is your first time in Spain. And we have been talking for the last twenty minutes about the respective records of all the figuras of the ring.

I’ve read all the books, Cecile said. She sounded anxious, as if wondering whether she had prepped well enough. Hemingway, Barnaby Conrad. Marguerite Steen. It’s my dream my whole life to see it properly in person.

Jay said, Cecile – it is Cecile, right? – I will meet you here straight after the corrida and buy you your first drink. Because I really want to know how you feel about it all then.

Cecile said, That would be very nice.

Walking away from her, they stared at each other for confirmation.

Is she for real?

She had me suckered. Jesus! She was discussing Domingo Ortega as if she used to take part at his tientas alongside Conchita Cintron.

It proved to be a terrible novillada. To show contempt for the first junior torero’s wasting of a good animal, one of the peña mozos jumped down on the sand and tied his pañuelo round the horn of the dead bull before the mulillas dragged it out.

The second torero was worse. This time the peñas threw out a live squawking chicken as if to say that was all he could manage to kill. They were in a particularly savage mood. They were eating strips of meat off the barrera rail like dogs during the merienda.

After the fourth bull, they had covered the sand with so much rubbish hurled in protest, they rose to demand a vuelta, a lap of honor for the sweepers for having to clean it up.

There was a fight across the Tendido 5 causeway with cushions and flour and buckets of sangria. Both sides applauded each other afterwards with great ceremony.

A new song was launched. It spread from the sol to the sombra who were quite as bored with the fight as the peñas but displayed more decorum. The song, however, was too irresistible. The inhabitants of the president’s box and the mayor himself, could be seen grinning as the chant roared forth and everybody shot their hands skyward as if held up at gunpoint.

¡Manos arriba! Hands up!

¡Este es un atraco! This is a robbery!

¡Manos arriba!

Kit sat with Vicente and Charo and Pedra, Imanol’s sister. Because they were on the barrera with the peñas, the girls draped hand towels over their hair against the champagne and spilled sangria. Sevy and Francois came over and squeezed in. Vicente and Sevy were jumping up and singing the song. Francois folded his arms on the barrera and fell asleep. The others, led by Vicente, used him as an ashtray cum garbage pail as he snored and mumbled.

At the Yoldi afterwards, Kit told Carlos about Osborne.

He wanted me to bring him a bottle of Esplendido.

You didn’t do it?

I didn’t feel I could.

I will bring him a bottle tomorrow.

He’s really not well. It won’t be any good for him.

If my friend wants it, I must respect his wishes. He is not a child. He can decide for himself.

Jay came up with Cecile, his new exhibit, introducing her to everyone with Today was Cecile’s first bullfight. She loved it!

When the toreros came in to go up to their rooms, Cecile could barely contain herself.

"I’m here