As you may know, the Lamkenovi are heading east this week to Ukraine (to delve into Tevye territory and maybe to deepen "Babi Leto, Babi Yar") and Moldova (to see first-hand 'the poorest country in Europe and, alas, survive!). I wasn't planning to craft a StaraEvropa story yet on this unbeknownst land, but couldn't resist mashing a plot I've had for a while with the seemingly natural circumstances: a bull-fighter displaced, trying to make something out of the nothing of that jury-is-out tradition. Katerina aptly found the name of the protagonist: Bogdan. Now I'd love any thoughts universal / specific on how this Moldavian cowherder will (or won't) make it as an erstwhile, first-time-failed bullfighter. I am mindful, by the way, that Spain is decidedly on the 'new' Europe side of things (as opposed to the 'old' Europe Rumsfeld designated in 2003ish--and no, I won't let the world forget that designation). I have been waiting for such a bridge, and conferences in Brussels and EuroDisney Paris have not (as you can imagine) done the trick. Without further ado, then, here is my pre-Moldovian launch, eager for your comments:
So
now, though I understand practically nothing of what we’re giving grace to, we
will sit for a moment before the plane takes you off.”
They sat—the mother, who spoke, the
father, who had never left his armchair near the window, the older sister, who stood
near her mother, the young sister, who cried silently beside her father. Three
neighbors had joined them: the silver-haired couple from the apartment next
door, and David, the gymnasium friend who may or may not have had anything to
do with Bogdan’s plan. Bogdan also, self-consciously, sat.
In the minute that passed, anyone
could have imagined a bull goring him, or thieves cornering him in an alley.
The details of who would meet him and take him for God knows what training were
scant; the specter of never returning home loomed large. The sitting was
supposed to defray any airplane mishaps, and they were the last demolition on
anyone’s mind.
Bogdan arrived, of course, in one
piece—his flight from Chisinau to Bucharest to Milan to Malaga not without the
mandatory checks. He had made a rough video about a year ago, with the help of
David as gaffer and his disappeared cousin as picador: though it didn’t pay for
the flight, it sufficed to invite him into the country and try out for a
singular spot as an alien matador. In his video Bogdan toyed with the biggest
bull of his emaciated herd, fluttering a pink cape as he had seen in countless
more professional videos he had watched, sometimes with his cousin. As for him,
the role of picador was solely to goad the bored bull to the center of Bogdan’s
designs, to give a semblance of hope to all involved that liveliness was at
stake here: the bull’s, Bogdan’s, and the myriad picadors that would vie for
blood money.
They were there, at the airport, to
Bogdan’s surprise. He hadn’t more than a notebook of Spanish but instinct was
starting to take root: he answered their questions and gave them a few, too.
Where would he stay, for example, and how would he get paid. All in good time.
Your instincts are right. You will be for us the first from afar to battle our
bulls. You will, if your instincts are right, be an international star.
So went the training, and the promos
withal. Bogdan posed for a pastel-drawn poster for the pressing Torremolinos
crowds and trained accordingly: he faced much fiercer animals than any he had
herded in Moldova, and in fact took on the showdown very unlike the way he
contrived it for the wayfaring, quintessentially naïve clip in cyberspace.
Less than half the crowd that
cheered him was Andelusian. Arguably, that was the reason he was enlisted—not
that any Moldovan tourists would conceivably tally as part of the gate sales.
Americans, Germans, Brits, and Scandinavians desired a palatable massacre of
black angus meat: what Bogdan would bring them was less an issue of ethics
(which hooked here and there) than of politics (which, bobber and all, hooked
where it could). The bull was definitively doomed; the matador definitively
heroic, with due circumspection. The crowd was definitively sanguine, some
sharing the sanguinary shrift of the picadors, aforementioned. And, waiting in
the wings, Bogdan definitively unprepared, notwithstanding his week-and-a-half
of simulated gloss.
His debut was fitting to the bill:
the alien fell fast, the local steamed ahead to the delight of the effervescent
event, then fell in abetted harmony with the convalescence of the alien, who,
with clowns all around, plunged festooned rapiers into the beast’s upper back.
The alien staggered this way and that; the black angus bull more local than him
fell jauntingly at his unfamiliar feet. The crowd (and the picadors) roared
relief, and begged Bogdan to cut off his ear.
He had no paramour to give it; he
cut thinking weirdly of his motherland. There’s no way to detect recidivist
thoughts, he thought, so why not pretend this escapade is more mine than the
masses here would due claim. The masses were hundreds, and their claim was to
usher him into an arena of thousands, which lent basically the same: he fell,
as he tried not to, and rose to the dalliance of the overall animalistic
milieu. He cut off an ear—this time for a girl he had met mere hours before the
show, and enjoyed what would be his last night of pre-marital bliss: the bull
that would follow not only cut short the ear offering but gored his
Moravian-cum-see-me galore. He knew when it hit that the crowd didn’t matter,
the promise of one ear could never make good for the love of another, the
complete stupid question of whether and when he’d go home would less than a
laugh be politically settled.
And thus he went home.
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