Read Online Death and the Sun by Edward Lewine - Free Book Online

reason to figure out where it is
before
you start driving,” said Fran. “Anyway, what’s the hotel called?”
    â€œIt’s something like the Vin . . . the Vinki . . . like the Vinki Lass.”
    At this Fran turned to me, switched to English, and said, “He never knows the way to the hotel. I find this so . . . how you say? Depressing.”
    Juani circled around downtown Valencia for a while and presently found his way to a new hotel on a pedestrian alley a few blocks from the bullring. The hotel was named the Vincci Lys, which, in Juani’s defense, was an odd name in Spanish or English. The lobby was empty apart from the night manager and a tired-looking girl behind a desk. The girl stared at Fran the way people stare when they see a celebrity; the manager asked Fran to autograph a menu that was hanging on the wall. The hotel was trying to attract bullfighters and aficionados, and offered a “bullfighting menu,” which consisted of the same Spanish food on offer in every hotel restaurant from Barcelona to Badajoz. Fran checked in, grabbed his suitcase, and headed for the elevator. He wouldn’t be seen again until just before the bullfight.
    When I got up to my room and turned on the television, whom should I see on the screen but Fran’s mother. Carmen was appearing on a program called
Tómbola
, which was like a demented version of an American Sunday-morning chat show. But instead of a governor or senator facing political journalists, there was Carmen in a sequined blouse, squaring off against a group of tabloid reporters. They peppered her with personal questions and impertinent comments before a studio audience that shrieked, groaned, and howled, enjoying the spectacle of a rich and famous person being humiliated.
    â€œWhere is your son?” asked one of the reporters. “Is he living at your house?”
    â€œNo,” Carmen answered. “He is bullfighting tomorrow. He is risking his life tomorrow.”
    â€œDo you feel terrible about your son’s situation?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    Then a reporter turned to Carmen and said, “When you sell your life stories to the press, you hurt your children, don’t you?”
    I couldn’t hear Carmen’s response. The cries of the audience drowned her out.
    I don’t know whether or not Fran saw his mother on television that night.

5
The Season Begins
    Valencia, March 14
. Valencia turned out to be a pleasant, muggy, and prosperous town with some attractive nineteenth-century neighborhoods surrounding a seedy central district whose jumbled street plan is a11 that remains of its medieval origins. Valencia is not on Spain’s main tourist route. It has no must-see sights, museums, or other attractions. But in mid-March Valencia puts on the Feria de las Fallas, which is one of the nicest
ferias
in Spain, especially for the tourist, because most of the excitement takes place in the streets and is open to all. The Fallas of Valencia is the first crucial
feria
of the bullfighting calendar, and thus the effective start of the season, because during the early part of the twentieth century it became established that most bullfights and almost all the important bullfights would take place during
ferias
, and the season follows the
ferias
around Spain.
    Valencia’s
feria
is dedicated to San José—Saint Joseph—the father of Jesus and a patron saint of the city. It lasts for about a week, and there are daily fireworks displays, processions of marching bands, and women dressed in traditional Valencian costumes. The
fallas
themselves are statues, two stories tall, made of wood and wax and painted papiermache. They are built throughout the year by local artisans who represent each of Valencia’s neighborhoods, and are displayed in the streets. On March 19, the saint’s day and the climax of the festival, the
fallas
are burned to the ground. During the
feria
that