The Return by Victoria Hislop Page B

. . . The list went on. The venues were all different, but one name was common to them all: Ignacio Ramírez.
     
    Sonia walked slowly along the row of prints, taking in detail, like an art critic at a gallery opening.The posters eventually gave way to a montage of black-and-white pictures of a man, presumably Ignacio Ramírez. Some of the pictures were stiffly posed portraits and in each one he wore a different bullfighting costume: tight, embroidered breeches, a short, heavily brocaded bolero jacket and a tricorn hat. He glowered, violent, handsome, an arrogance burning through the picture. Sonia wondered whether this was the same look he gave the bull in order to terrify him into submission.
     
    Another set of pictures showed him in action, apparently doing that very thing. There he was, facing the bull, only a few metres from five hundred kilograms of untamed fury. In several, the swish of his cape was a passing blur, just captured by the photographer’s lens. In one picture, the animal passed close enough to brush the matador’s body and his horns seemed wrapped up in the cape.
     
    By now, a cup of the deepest black coffee, along with a jug of steaming white foam, had been set down on a table close to where Sonia stood. She stirred in a drop of milk and sipped slowly, hardly taking her eyes away from the pictures. The café owner stood next to her, almost poised to answer a question.
     
    ‘So who was Ignacio Ramírez?’ she asked.
     
    ‘He was one of the boys who once lived here, and a star bullfighter. ’
     
    ‘And was he eventually killed by a bull?’ asked Sonia. ‘He looks slightly too close for comfort here.’
     
    ‘No, that wasn’t how he died.’
     
    They stood in front of a picture that showed the bullfighter with arms raised, sword held high and the bull only feet away. It captured the dramatic pause when the matador was ready to plunge his weapon between the animal’s shoulder blades. Man and bull looked each other in the eye.
     
    ‘That,’ said the café owner, ‘is “ la hora de la verdad ”.’
     
    ‘The hour of . . . ?’
     
    ‘Well, you would translate it as “The moment of truth”. It’s the moment when the matador must make the kill. If he gets his timing wrong, or doesn’t do it cleanly then that’s the end of him. Terminado. Muerto. ’
     
    It was only when she had studied every single one of the pictures and gazed into the impenetrably dark eyes that stared out at her, that she noticed the massive head and shoulders of a bull on the wall at the far end of the bar. He was as black as coal tar, with shoulders nearly a metre across, and, even in death, a look of terrifying ferocity. Underneath, though almost too high to read, Sonia could make out a date: ‘3 de Septiembre 1936’.
     
    ‘That was one of his best kills,’ said the old man. ‘It was here in Granada. The bull was a beast and the crowd went completely wild. It was a stupendous day. I can’t even begin to describe to you the excitement in the bullring. Have you ever been to a corrida ?’
     
    ‘No,’ said Sonia, ‘I haven’t.’
     
    ‘You should,’ said the old man with passion. ‘Even if it’s just once in your lifetime.’
     
    ‘I’m not sure I could sit there. It looks so brutal.’
     
    ‘Well, the bull usually dies, it’s true. But there is much more to it than that. It’s like a dance.’
     
    Sonia was unconvinced but knew it was not the moment for a discussion on what she imagined to be a cruel sport. She wandered to the wall opposite, which was covered with equal density by dozens of photographs, mostly of young women in flamenco costume. In some of them, there was a man too.
     
    At first glance they looked like a series of shots of different girls, but on closer examination Sonia saw that they were in fact one and the same person, metamorphosing from child to adult, from little girl with puppy fat in polka dots to glowering, voluptuous beauty in lace, from ugly duckling to