Matador Moves From
'Massacre' To Moment of Grace
Posted Sept. 26, 2002
By Kenneth R. Timmerman in
Arles, France
Media
Credit: Cristina Abadia/EFE
In
part because of his stellar
performance in the previous
yearís bullfights, El
Zotoluco received top billing at
the Feria du Riz.
For El Zotoluco, known to his
mother as Eulalio Lopez, it was
supposed to be a triumphant
return to Arles, where at last
year's Feria du Riz he performed
with gusto and grace against the
fighting bulls of the Miura
ranch, the oldest and most
prestigious finca in Spain.
Instead, it was a massacre. His
first fight was so bad that the
crowd stood up to boo him from
the arena, and booed him again
when he came back for his second
bull.
He claimed top billing as a
matador and hailed from Mexico,
giving him an exotic flair at the
annual bullfight, which is held
in the excellently
restored Roman amphitheater in
this otherwise undistinguished
southern French town.
The fight impresarios managed to
ward off a legal challenge from
the hard-left "animal-rights"
crowd, which tried to convince a
court in Carcassonne recently to
ban all traditional bullfights in
France. But the biggest challenge
to the final day of this year's
three-day feria in Arles was an
act of God: torrential rain
which, just one hour before the
opening trumpets were supposed to
sound on Sunday, Sept. 8,
drenched the city, emptied the
streets of revelers and food
vendors, silenced the itinerant
mariachi bands and filled the
tiny canal saddled to the
disheveled main street with gray
muck. (Floods killed six people
in the area that evening and the
next day).
Seating at bullfight arenas
varies in prestige (and price)
according to whether you sit in
the sun or the shade. It's been
that way since the Romans first
built the arenas that the French
have restored. But today, more
prized were cheap blue ponchos,
available for $3, and the
proximity of the huge stone
porticos where the
nonafficionados took refuge from
the periodic gusts of rain.
But it wasn't the threat of rain
that spooked El Zotoluco when the
first bull charged out of the
gates at the far end of the
arena. The top-billed torero and
his entire cuadrilla (the team of
junior matadors, banderilleros
and sword carriers that
accompanies him) scattered like
scared monkeys, taunting the dark
brown bull with a quick fling of
their yellow and pink capes then
running as fast as fear could
carry them for the gates.
The bull was good: Despite his
weight ó 600 kilos (1,323
pounds) of lean muscle ó
he was fast and his movements
were quick. He was a noble bull.
His charge was frank, focused and
direct. He never swung his head
around as some bulls do when they
come in close, a gesture of
apparent distraction that can be
deadly to the unsuspecting. In
one of his first passes, he tore
away El Zotoluco's cape and
tossed it up on his horns. When
the picador entered the arena the
bull charged from midring,
slamming the armored horse like a
freight train, nearly knocking
the picador to the ground. Two of
the banderilleros swerved away as
the bull charged them and managed
to get in just one of the long
festooned banderillas each.
Perhaps it was the recollection
of another Miura bull that had
ripped apart his friend and
fellow matador Juan JosÈ
Padilla in Pamplona last year
that spooked El Zotoluco. Going
in for the kill on his second
bull at the Fiesta de San Fermin,
Padilla caught the horn and was
opened up from his neck to the
base of his spine. The encornada
severed his esophagus like a
razor and finished by smashing
two vertebrae in his lower spine
like a hammer. It was the type of
wounding you never forget.
El Zotoluco never came close to
this bull in the final faena,
when the torero works his magic
with the red muleta held stiff by
the killing sword. His rough,
hurried veronicas, instead of
flourishing backward gracefully
with the bull following him
around, all ended in flight. His
shoulder-high pechos were so
distant from the bull that the
audience jeered and catcalled.
His performance screamed fear,
not mastery, of the bull.
But the worst was the final death
ritual. El Zotoluco faced off
with the bull, then made a
hurried thrust from the side as
it charged toward him, getting
the long sword in two-thirds of
the way. The bull continued his
charge, spun around and howled,
popping the sword out of his body
so it clattered useless to the
ground. With a fresh sword, El
Zotoluco tried again but only got
it in half way. The crowd hissed.
The bull still was strong and
still charging. On his third try,
El Zotoluco missed the bull
completely, and the crowd erupted
in a thunderous chorus of boos.
Twice more he jabbed at the bull
with the long sword without
managing to sink it in. Finally,
one of his assistants took the
short butcher's knife used to
execute the coup de gr‚ce, a
single sharp plunge intended to
sever the spinal cord at the base
of the neck. He jabbed at the
bull once, twice, and the animal
continued to rage. Finally he
just stabbed the bull over and
over with the knife until it
collapsed. By this point the
crowd was on its feet, jeering
and booing hysterically. "It's a
massacre," someone called from
below me. "Send him to butcher's
school," someone else yelled. El
Zotoluco left the ring with his
head hung low, disgraced by a
Miura bull.
When a fight goes bad like this,
you can feel despair thick in the
air. It is something palpable; it
makes the heart beat faster, in
expectation of some disaster. El
Zotoluco's performance is a
betrayal of the sacred trust
between the matador, the audience
and God. This is the pact that
allows the matador to commit
ritual murder, but only if he
does it with talent, grace and
with great risk to himself. El
Zotoluco displayed none of this.
Now we in the audience wondered
if somehow we were not going to
be punished for our sin.
The next two bulls came from
different fincas, but they were
just as noble as the Miura bull.
French torero Denis LorÈ,
the darling of the French
audience, redeemed us with his
close passes, his fresh style,
his courage. During the final
muleta, with the blood from the
artful French picador Michel
Bouix splashed across the bull's
grey back but not spurting,
LorÈ put the edge of his
cape on the bull's nose, taunting
him to charge. Again, to great
applause, he offered the bull his
entire body; then he leaned
forward, thrusting his face into
the bull's own, staring it down
until he was satisfied, and he
snorted and whirled around,
victorious. After plunging in the
killing sword, LorÈ held
out his hand toward the horns as
the bull wavered, pawed the
crowd, wavered again, then
collapsed in a tremendous heap.
The judge awarded LorÈ an
ear in appreciation of his
skill.
In the next fight, Manolo
Sanchez, the third and youngest
matador, acquitted himself with
calm skill and competence,
wrapping the bull around his body
to the delight of the
audience.
But then, the dread returns. Each
of the three matadors is booked
to fight two bulls. Will El
Zotoluco be allowed back into the
arena? The crowd went silent as
the president of the corrida
announced the fourth bull, a 550
kilogram (1,213-pound) 5-year-old
from the Vargas finca. They
erupted in boos when he announced
that the bull would be fought as
scheduled by El Zotoluco.
And yet, the crowd went quiet
when the disgraced torero came
back into the ring. We saw
immediately that something in his
manner has changed. He strutted
out into the middle of the arena,
saluted the crowd with his black
hat, to polite applause, then
threw his hat onto the dirt and
left it there in challenge.
When his picador entered the ring
on his armored horse, the black
Vargas bull charged and pushed
the horse out of the end zone
where the picador is supposed to
keep him. He tried to work the
long lance, with its three-inch
blade, into the veins in the
bull's back, but it was inelegant
work. He withdrew the lance,
repositioned it and pierced the
bull again and again, but the
bull just continued to master his
horse and turn him around. The
feeling of dread filled the arena
once again.
Then, El Zotoluco entered with
his red muleta and the crowd went
silent. This time he was poised,
standing erect and proud, calling
the bull in a loud voice that
carried from one end of the
hushed arena to the other. He
began with a series of pechos,
the muleta held out shoulder high
so the bull flipped it over as it
passed beneath.
The audience realized something
was happening, a transformation
was taking place, and gasps of
pleasure and applause erupted
after each series of passes. El
Zotoluco was taking risks,
bringing the bull closer with
each pass, until you could not
see the space between the tip of
the bull's horns and El
Zotoluco's white "costume of
light," as the heavily brocaded
matador's vest is called. He
stopped just two meters from the
bull, wrapping the red muleta
around him, offering his whole
body as target, daring the bull
to charge. He advanced one foot
straight in front of him, not
angled out from his body as most
toreros do, but directly in
front, and took short hops,
edging closer and closer to the
mesmerized bull. Finally, he took
hold of the bull's horn and
pulled the huge animal beneath
his arm, guiding its pass, and
the arena exploded in thunderous
applause. El Zotoluco was
redeeming us from his miserable
performance earlier on. But he
had just begun.
The bull now belonged to him, and
he had total control. During one
pass, he gave the animal a
friendly swat on the shoulder as
it went by. At another point, he
took the horn again and inched
his body forward until it seemed
his entire torso was cradled
between the bull's horns. Then he
fell down on his knees, turned
full circle right before the
bull, just inches from its horns,
and sprang up at the last instant
just before the animal charged.
El Zotoluco has alegria, that joy
that comes from totally mastering
the bull, and he shared it with
us.
The crowd fell silent as he drew
the long sword from the folds of
the muleta, just a few meters in
front of the bull. This is when
it all could collapse, when the
redemption he had worked for us
can plunge us once again into
sin. It was so quiet, we could
hear the bull breathing.
El Zotoluco stared at the raging
animal, calling him, all the
while aiming the sword at the
precise spot on the back that
will send its tip directly into
the animal's heart. He called him
again and when the animal
responded and charged, he also
charged forward, plunging the
sword into the hilt. The bull
spun round and came in for
another pass, then falls over,
dead. El Zotoluco's perfectly
executed estocada sent the crowd
into a frenzy.
Suddenly, the bright blue ponchos
in the arena were replaced by a
sea of white, as people
frantically waved white
handkerchiefs in a sign to the
president of the corrida to award
the redeemed matador an ear, two
ears, or even the tail, for his
magical performance. People in
the cheaper seats stomped on the
metal bleachers above us, turning
the applause and cheers into a
thunderous roar that continued
unabated as the team of
workhorses was driven up to the
bull and the red-shirted cleanup
crew hitched their chains to the
bulls legs to drag it away.
Everyone was waving white
handkerchiefs, and when the
president signifies he will give
no award to our torero, the
cheers turned into boos as we
hooted the president out of the
ring.
Unperturbed, El Zotoluco took his
seconds and began a slow walk
around the arena, just beneath
the first row of seats, basking
in his triumph, pointing out
friends and acquaintances in the
crowd and taking his trophy from
us if not from the judges.
We had all witnessed a moment of
grace and it was as miraculous as
any apparition of the Blessed
Virgin, for with El Zotoluco we
all fell low and now we had been
redeemed in a magical
reaffirmation of faith.
[Note: El Zotoluco
returned to fight in the nearby
French city of Nimes on Sept.
15.]
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a
senior writer for
Insight
magazine currently on assignment
in Europe and the Middle East.
His first encounter with Miura
bulls was in the streets of
Pamplona during the Fiesta de San
Fermin in 1975.
|
