Running of the Bulls

Sure enough, the handler exclaims, “The gentleman is a foreigner! He is a foreigner, but he knows bulls!”

“Thank you for thinking so,” I tell him, and I mean it. A handler in Amblona at festival time cannot give higher praise.

“It is true, sir. You see what stands before you.” His own gaze sharpens. “Are you the foreign gentleman who also came here last year?”

“I was here then, yes.”

“I heard there was a foreign gentleman who was a true enthusiast. I had trouble believing it—you will excuse me for saying so. But now I see it was no lie.”

“You do me too much honor.” I would never talk about honor in Dubyook or Dunlin or Ecnarf. In Astilia, it is as natural as water to a trout.

“Not at all, sir. Not at all. And because you are an enthusiast, I want to tell you to watch out for Moremo when you go to the arena. Amblona has not seen a bullfighter like him in a heap of years.”

“I’ve seen his name in the sporting papers,” I say. “He was still an apprentice last year, wasn’t he? I don’t think I got to watch any of his fights.”

“You would remember if you had. He was something to see, even then. And he’s better now. The chances he takes! But when he does it, they don’t seem to be chances.”

“They never do, till one goes wrong.”

He nods. “You know how things work, all right, sir. One is all it takes. Remember the name, though. Moremo.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.” I go on to look at some more of the bulls. I like one of them even better than the first one I saw. He looks mean and smart and full of muscle. Anyone in the arena with him had better stay on his toes if he wants to come out with a whole skin.

Other handlers talk up Moremo, too. They call him the real thing. They sound pleased when they do it. The real thing does not come along very often.

“In bullfighting or anything else,” I say. The handlers nod. Some seem sad when they do. For others, that is just the way things go, and you cannot change it no matter how much you wish you could.

It is still early in the morning when I get back to the hotel. Obert Ohn is mooching around outside. He looks like hell. His shoulders slump. His tail is down. When he sees me coming, he runs over and grabs both my hands. “It’s no good, Baek,” he says. “It’s no good at all.”

“What’s no good?” I ask, though I have a bad feeling I already know the answer.

He kicks at the ground. The dirt is hard and dry, but his toeclaws furrow it all the same. Looking away from me, he says, “When I took that side trip out of Ganelon, I—I went to meet Ett.”

“Yeah, I pretty much figured that out.” I hold my voice as steady as I can.

“Just the two of us,” Obert says, so I cannot have any doubts. “And it was wonderful!” He sticks his snout in the air and shows his teeth. He is defying me to call him a liar.

I do not want to call him a liar. I am too damn tired. Besides, I remember how he was when he got back to Ganelon. Not like Obert Ohn at all, not hardly. I say, “Yeah, I pretty much figured that out, too.”

He grabs my hands again, like a drowning man this time. “But you saw how she was last night! The whole thing might as well never have happened!”

I am not the chunk of driftwood he is looking for. I have enough trouble keeping myself afloat, let alone anybody else. “That’s probably how she feels about it,” I tell him.

“But it meant something. It had to mean something!” Obert Ohn sounds as if he is trying to convince himself along with me.

“To you, maybe. Not to Lady Ett.” Why am I the one who gets stuck explaining the facts of life to him? He has been over on this side of the ocean for quite a while now. Hell, he should have learned that kind of thing before he ever left Dubyook.

“I love her!” he cries.

“Welcome to the club.”

“What am I going to do, Baek?”

“It’s over.” I shake my head—that is not right. “It never got started. She decided she’d spend a little time with you, so she did. And now she’s decided she’ll do something else for a while. Rough, I know, but that’s how things go. You can remember or you can try to forget. Whichever hurts less.”

“They both hurt,” Obert Ohn says.

“What do you want me to say? A moth flies into a candle flame. The flame can’t help being what it is. The moth can’t help doing what it does. It can’t help getting burned, either. And the flame just goes on shining.”

He looks as if he hates me. I bet he does. If somebody gives you the straight goods, how can you help but hate him? “I’ll make her notice me again!” he says. “You see if I don’t.”

“Maybe you will. But even if you do, it won’t do you any good.” Well, I end up right about that—righter than I know then. I go on, “I’m here to tell you, she doesn’t come back to yesterday.”

Obert’s face gets ugly. He is not handsome, but most of the time he is also not too bad. You would forget him an hour after you met him, if you know what I mean. You would not forget him now. “I’ll make her notice me again!” He forgets he has already said that once.