Hemingway Adventure

Series: Hemingway Adventure
Chapter: Valencia, Spain (third day)
Country/sea: Spain
Place: Valencia
Book page no: 128

Valencia, Spain (third day)

Valencia, Spain
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Preparing Aladdin for the Nuit del Foc, the moment of combustion at midnight on the day of San José when 700 fallas burn simultaneously across the city.

He disappears to the bathroom, leaving us with his valet, a small dark gnome-like older man with very black hair and thick eyebrows who is given to much shaking of the head and muttering. Robert whispers to me.

'He's saying this is very irregular.'

Vicente reappears. There is still no sign of our crew. He smiles thinly and stands beside a small table on which I notice pictures of the saints and the Virgin. I don't like to ask right now, but Robert tells me later that it is a portable chapel, laid out by his dresser so that Vicente can pray before the fight. All bullfighters pray before a fight.

Vicente is completely preoccupied. His hands and body keep repeating the movements of a pass rather as a golfer might replay a putt that let him down.

A mobile phone rings. He looks up. It's our film crew, calling to say their vehicle is stuck in traffic. Human traffic. The doorbell goes. A woman from Spanish television regards us anxiously. Did we know that Vicente had promised to appear on a live discussion programme in ten minutes' time?

Vicente's dresser shuts the door on her.

Vicente looks forlorn, well as forlorn as a bull-fighter in a bejewelled suit worth $3000 can look. His face betrays the strain of a profession caught between the demands of ancient tradition and modern exploitation. As we shake hands he apologises. This weekend there is a lot of pressure on him. He is fighting again tomorrow and the night after in Alicante.

'I'm playing with my life each night,' he says, almost bitterly. And in his case it is probably true.