The road to Malaga was packed with cars and buses coming up from Torremolinos, Marbella, Estepona and probably, for such a fight as this, from as far as Gibraltar. Even if there had been more than a handful of Spanish aficionados who could afford the admission price, it looked improbable that they could have found seats in the bull plaza.
The Russkies, as always, were jubilant. Even on the way into town in the bus, the bubbling wine bottles went from hand to hand, laughter and jibes filled the interior, not to speak of raucous songs.
Mike stood, up next to the suffering driver.-He had tried to wiggle into the seat next to Catherina Saratov but had missed out to a hulking Russkie pushing seven feet in height who looked more like a Turk than a Slav. A really brawny specimen, with shaved head, he must have gone almost 300 pounds.
He had a ring of lard around the back of his neck, but he was far from fat otherwise. Now he had a magnum of champagne in one hand, a pair of castanets in the other. He was regaling all with a Russianized version of gypsy flamenco which made Mike inwardly wince-he was a flamenco lover, but was joyously received by the other's fellow countrymen, including Catherina.
One of the Russkies leaned far out a window and pointed excitedly. "Look, a car with wheels. Four wheels. How quaint. Look everybody!" She whipped up her camera for a shot and so did a dozen of the others.
Mike closed his eyes in pain.
Ana Chekova, the woman who had been with Catherina on the beach the day before, demanded of Mike, "Why do they still use land cars here? In the Soviet Complex, everyone uses aircushion cars.
Automated air-cushion cars. Much more comfortable and much safer. It's ridiculous to use wheel cars.
And here in Spain the roads are not even automated. Very dangerous."
Mike cleared his throat. "Well, in some countries, such as Spain, they haven't yet got around to acquiring aircushion cars the way you have in the Soviet Complex. Sometimes they can't afford to buy a new one.
As a matter of fact, some people prefer them-in a way."
"Ha!" Ana Chekova snorted.
Mike shrugged. It was a Russkie characteristic that they couldn't believe everybody wouldn't adopt each and every Russian gadget, given the chance. He didn't know it but it was a characteristic his own people were famous for a few decades earlier.
When he had first come to Spain, Mike Edwards had rather liked the bullfight. In theory, he was morally opposed to it. In practice it gave him a vicarious thrill he'd never found in any other spectator sport-if you could call it a sport, and purists didn't. Since the coming of the Russkie tourist wave, however, something was lost. The pageant, the excitement of the knowledgeable aficionado, the electric feeling of the fiesta Page 6
brava was gone. Now the stands were packed with first comers, more occupied with their bottles and their 3-D cameras, uncaring about the niceties of the spectacle going on below them.
Mike had arranged it this time. His seat was next to Catherina's and right at the edge of the barrera. As a matter of fact, he was rather keen to see the mono a mano competition between Segura and Arruza.
Also, he was trying to analyze this feeling he had developed for the Russkie girl. This was new-especially in season. He grinned wryly to himself. Was it because she was such an exception? A girl who wasn't wildly pursuing. There was a preponderance of female over male tourists of two to one in Torremolinos and usually it was all a thirty year old tourist agent could do to fight them off. They all seemed to act like bitches in heat. More than once he had returned to his room to find a nude woman in his bed, patiently waiting. How they got in he never knew.
The bugle blew and the paseo began. The two matadors, followed by their quadrilles, paraded across the ring toward the judge's box, to salute him in much the manner the gladiators of Rome had once called to their emperor. We who are about to die, salute you!
Catherina Saratov said to him, "Actually a very uncultured sport, this bull baiting. Is it allowed in England, as well?"
"Well, I don't believe so," Mike said. "Only in some of the Latin countries, I think. I'm an American, you know, not British."
"An American." She stared at him, fascinated. She leaned forward and said, "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Of course not." Mike was disconcerted. Not only because of her sudden eagerness as she leaned toward him, but due to the fact that this dress was almost as revealing as her beach costume.
Catherina said, with a certain horrified fascination, "Have you ever helped lynch a Black?"
He might have known that was coming. He got it with every contingent of Russkies that came through.
Mike said, "Well, no. Our authorities take a very dim view of such activities. I'm from the State of New Mexico, myself. I doubt if anybody's been lynched there since the days of Billy the Kid."
He decided to go a bit further than usual in his capacity as Horizonal Holiday's tour manager in Torremolinos. He said, "Do you mind if I ask you a question, in turn?"
"Why, of course not."
"Have you ever been purged?"'
"I beg your pardon?"
"Well, I understand that Russians think Americans spend half their time lynching each other. On the other hand, the idea in the United States is that the Russian national sport is purging."
"Purging?" Catherina said. "I don't believe I understand." Then, "Oh, purging. You mean back in the 1930s between Stalin and the Old Bolsheviks."
Mike said dryly, "I understand that wasn't exactly the last time you had a political purge."
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Catherina shrugged her shoulders, which only increased her decollete and brought a dryness of mouth to Mike Edwards, and her attention went back to the ring where Manola Segura was waiting for his first bull of the afternoon.
She said, "In the early days after the revolution when the Soviets were still very poor, everybody fought to get to the top, as man has in all societies down through the ages. Only the higher bureaucrats and a few others, such as the higher officers in the armies, some of the writers, artists and entertainers, were able to live well. But as production developed the competition to rise above everyone else slackened off.
Finally, for decades now, there is an abundance of everything, so we no longer need fight among ourselves."
Manola Segura's peones were running the bull, dragging their capes behind them, letting the animal chase them to the burladero shelters. Their matador watched warily, noting how el toro hooked, learning his characteristics. This was crucial, it was necessary that he learn everything possible about his opponent.
Mike Edwards had to tear his eyes away from the girl. It was a more sensible answer than he had expected after she had pulled that old wheeze about lynching.
Manola Segura came out now and went through a series of half a dozen veronicas with the bull. Very passable veronicas they were too; a Segura specialty. From the few Spaniards in the tendidos came a scattering of oles. The Russkies weren't particularly impressed.
Catherina said, "Why do they cheer?"
Mike said, "Well, he did that very gracefully and allowed the bull's horns to come very close."
The bugle sounded and Manola Segura retreated as the picadores emerged for the second act of the production, the Tercio de Varas.
"Those bulls are not so very large," Nick Galushko complained after taking a healthy swig from his champagne bottle. He was seated directly behind Mike and Catherina.
Mike said agreeably, "Well, they aren't as big as they used to be in the old days, so I am told, but I still wouldn't want to be down there."
Catherina said, "Very uncultured."
Somebody above them passed down a half empty but still chill bottle of champagne. Catherina took a short swallow, passed the bottle to Mike and returned her attention to the fray below. Mike didn't particularly want it but he took the opportunity to make a bond between them even though it was as small as a shared drink. What in the world was getting into him with this Russkie wench? He felt like a lovelorn highschool boy.