Matadora
Nov 10, 2022 8:45:37 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 10, 2022 8:45:37 GMT -5
The old Spanish woman was sitting and praying before the hospital bed of her only son Miguel who was bandaged from head to foot and in traction. During the first few weeks of her daily evening visits at the Madrid hospital, he could only respond to her words with a painful groan. But that response soon was very clear:
“Leave me alone mother!” or a vehement: “I don’t regret any of it!”
To which the hapless octogenarian would reply with a shake of her head.
“But why my son? Why do you want to place yourself in such horrible danger again?”
Finally, each evening visit would end with her quick, wordless exit from his hospital room and back to her small apartment where she lived with her middle-aged, recently-divorced daughter Michaela. Upon seeing her mother’s distressed condition, of course, Michaela, did what any other daughter would do, she decided to speak to her brother about it when she had the time. In this case, it was three weeks later. So on the day of her visit, Miguel Guerrero, had recovered enough to be in a wheelchair albeit still only able to talk through a wired jaw, and to sip food through a steel straw. But now that his pain had subsided considerably, and he was no longer bed-ridden, he was in higher spirits.
As Michaela strode into the hospital, she was greeted by a somber, matronly nurse who bore an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo D Vince's Moral Liza, who calmly asked, with an expression profound pity.
"Are you that young man’s sister?"
“Yes!” Michaela responded tentatively, fearing that her brother had died of his injuries.
“See if you can talk some sense into that young man.” the nurse whispered.
"What is it?" Michaela whispered back.
Whereupon the nurse described her mother’s anguish each time that her son spoke about running with the bulls again in Pamplona as soon as he'd recover.
“You’ll see once he begins talking.” she added, “Room seven. Here, let me clip on a visitor ID.”
Armed with that information, Michaela marched to the room and stood at the door. There he was, her brother Miguel, sitting in a wheelchair with his back to her, with his dark brown eyes fanatically transfixed on the wall-mounted TV screen, watching rerun films of the Running with the bulls in Pamplona and cheering them on as they trampled and gored their way through the frenzied, surging crowd. He had heard the approaching footsteps up the hallway and the stopping at his room's door.
“Aren’t they magnificent?” he asked without turning to see whom it was.
“Very dangerous too!” Michaela responded coldly not having removed her coat nor sitting down but still standing at the opened doorway.
“Aha Michaela! How nice to see you again! How is mother doing?” Miguel asked, swiveling his wheelchair around to face her. She could mostly see him as a silhouette against the room's sun-drenched-window, making his voice seem disembodied!
“Why doesn’t she come visit anymore?" Miguel asked less enthusiastically as he gazed sadly at Michaela standing tensely near the room's door like a nervous matador apprentice about to bolt. She seemed more concerned about her own reflection from the cracked full-length dust-covered oval mirror that stood against the room's right-side wall than she was in him. She was also mindlessly fingering her rosary beads between index and thumb like a novice does with the glittering paraphernalia when first fitted with his suit of lights.
“Tell her to come visit me! Please!” Miguel added as an afterthought.
Momentarily brought back from her self-contempation Micheala responded
“Well, Miguel, she comes here and goes home depressed. You know?”
“Depressed?” Miguel had never understood his mother’s sudden silent departures as depression. Instead, in his convalescent delirium during which he would drift in and out of consciousness he had assumed she was tired or else had been bored after two hours of sitting by his bedside.
“Yes depressed,” Michaela replied sternly, annoyed by her brothers inability to show empathy.
“Oh because of me!”
“Not because of you personally. Because of what you say to her, Miguel. Because of what you keep saying to her!”
“But what is this? Have you come to visit or to recriminate me?” He had heard it all before from his older sister and was not in the mood to hear the whole thing again. Besides, the televised running of the bulls was in full swing, and he was missing it due to her visit.
“No Miguel, I am here only to tell you that you are killing our mother.”
“Killing our mother?”
“Yes Miguel, slowly leading her to her grave.”
“And how am I, man who can’t yet walk, a man who is being forced to sip food through a straw, killing my mother?” He couldn't help but notice how she had not completely entered his room.
“With your words Miguel. With your careless, selfish, infernal words.” She uttered while repeatedly stabbing an accusatory long, red-nailed, index finger at him.
“Oh you mean about the bueyes, the bulls?”
“And what else could I possibly mean Miguel? It's all you ever talk about?”
“And you have come to tell me what I am supposed to talk and think?”
“No Miguel. I am here to tell you not to say such things in front of our mother.”
“Well Michaela, I am not since she doesn’t visit anymore, does she?”
“But she wishes to Miguel. With her whole loving, motherly heart, she wishes to see you.”
“And she couldn’t tell me this herself?”
“She is weak and is afraid. "
“Afraid of what?”
“You see Miguel. She is afraid of you! The last time she was here, she suffered a mild heart attack.”
“Suffered a heart attack?” Miguel said, rolling his wheelchair closer to Michaela who took a step backwards in response. .
“Well, no one told me anything. and that was three weeks ago.”
“Because you were in critical condition, then, Miguel.”
“Critical or no, I still have certain rights”
“Yes Miguel you do. But she begged us not to.”
“And what is this anyway?" Miguel rolled his wheelchair a few feet closer to where his sister still stood beneath the door's lintel, her purple babushka still snuggling her head and her maroon wool coat wrapped around her body like a cape, to him she seemed more like a sudden apparition from hell sent to torment him than a visiting sister.
“So now you finally decide to visit me after six months and only because you want to protect our mother?”
“I had personal obligations, Miguel”
“Oh sure, sure you did, my dear sister! Personal obligations, and all of them more important to you than seeing a brother who was on the verge of death.”
“No one told you to risk your life in that idiotic way!” she almost shouted and moved back and under the door’s lintel. She kept glancing anxiously into the semi-dark hallway like a sailor on the lookout post anxiously hopes for land.
“ What does it really matter to a sister why a brother is injured anyway, right?" There was a certain child-like pleading in Miguel’s voice, and he inwardly swore it wouldn’t happen again. Not in front of this one. Not in front of her.
“I let God be my judge!” she immediately responded while unconsciously rubbing the rosary beads around her neck with index and thumb. Her rusted wedding ring and gold tooth momentarily glinted sunlight from the window as she stood tensely, like a matador before delivering the final deadly thrust.
“I’ll tell you what Michaela. I’ll let God be your judge, if you let God be my judge. How is that for a fair deal? ”
“You are an ingrate and a blasphemer, and now you are about to add a parent-murderer as well?”
“Is that really what God has judged? Or is that you, and not God speaking, my little sister?”
“Bah! You are hopeless!” she uttered as she turned away brusquely and walked away.
Miguel could hear the stubborn receding staccato of her heels, each one like a hammer blow to his heart, and each more painful than any bull could ever inflict. Then the traitorous gossiping murmur between her and the nurses, the indifferent lurch of machinery from the elevator as it came to a stop, and then the deafening silence.
Michaela had rushed out of the hospital into the cold evening air of Madrid and headed home in an angered daze. A friend waved from across a street, and she ignored it. The parish priest recognized her as part of his parish and greeted her, and she silently quickened her pace. How dare him treat her that way!
Once home, she found her mother sitting by the window on the old rocking chair gazing out at the narrow and darkening cobbletoned street below. She immediately described all that had happened during her hospital visit. How Miguel had totally ignored her advice. How he was planning to run with the Bulls again as soon as he’d recover. How he had recriminated her for her lack of love.
For a great while, her mother listened seemingly impassively at her daughter’s vehement complaints and accusations. Then she suddenly clutched at her chest with her wrinkled, boney hand, grimaced grotesquely, and died while, someone, somewhere, in some distant, heartless arena yelled:
"Ole!"
“Leave me alone mother!” or a vehement: “I don’t regret any of it!”
To which the hapless octogenarian would reply with a shake of her head.
“But why my son? Why do you want to place yourself in such horrible danger again?”
Finally, each evening visit would end with her quick, wordless exit from his hospital room and back to her small apartment where she lived with her middle-aged, recently-divorced daughter Michaela. Upon seeing her mother’s distressed condition, of course, Michaela, did what any other daughter would do, she decided to speak to her brother about it when she had the time. In this case, it was three weeks later. So on the day of her visit, Miguel Guerrero, had recovered enough to be in a wheelchair albeit still only able to talk through a wired jaw, and to sip food through a steel straw. But now that his pain had subsided considerably, and he was no longer bed-ridden, he was in higher spirits.
As Michaela strode into the hospital, she was greeted by a somber, matronly nurse who bore an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo D Vince's Moral Liza, who calmly asked, with an expression profound pity.
"Are you that young man’s sister?"
“Yes!” Michaela responded tentatively, fearing that her brother had died of his injuries.
“See if you can talk some sense into that young man.” the nurse whispered.
"What is it?" Michaela whispered back.
Whereupon the nurse described her mother’s anguish each time that her son spoke about running with the bulls again in Pamplona as soon as he'd recover.
“You’ll see once he begins talking.” she added, “Room seven. Here, let me clip on a visitor ID.”
Armed with that information, Michaela marched to the room and stood at the door. There he was, her brother Miguel, sitting in a wheelchair with his back to her, with his dark brown eyes fanatically transfixed on the wall-mounted TV screen, watching rerun films of the Running with the bulls in Pamplona and cheering them on as they trampled and gored their way through the frenzied, surging crowd. He had heard the approaching footsteps up the hallway and the stopping at his room's door.
“Aren’t they magnificent?” he asked without turning to see whom it was.
“Very dangerous too!” Michaela responded coldly not having removed her coat nor sitting down but still standing at the opened doorway.
“Aha Michaela! How nice to see you again! How is mother doing?” Miguel asked, swiveling his wheelchair around to face her. She could mostly see him as a silhouette against the room's sun-drenched-window, making his voice seem disembodied!
“Why doesn’t she come visit anymore?" Miguel asked less enthusiastically as he gazed sadly at Michaela standing tensely near the room's door like a nervous matador apprentice about to bolt. She seemed more concerned about her own reflection from the cracked full-length dust-covered oval mirror that stood against the room's right-side wall than she was in him. She was also mindlessly fingering her rosary beads between index and thumb like a novice does with the glittering paraphernalia when first fitted with his suit of lights.
“Tell her to come visit me! Please!” Miguel added as an afterthought.
Momentarily brought back from her self-contempation Micheala responded
“Well, Miguel, she comes here and goes home depressed. You know?”
“Depressed?” Miguel had never understood his mother’s sudden silent departures as depression. Instead, in his convalescent delirium during which he would drift in and out of consciousness he had assumed she was tired or else had been bored after two hours of sitting by his bedside.
“Yes depressed,” Michaela replied sternly, annoyed by her brothers inability to show empathy.
“Oh because of me!”
“Not because of you personally. Because of what you say to her, Miguel. Because of what you keep saying to her!”
“But what is this? Have you come to visit or to recriminate me?” He had heard it all before from his older sister and was not in the mood to hear the whole thing again. Besides, the televised running of the bulls was in full swing, and he was missing it due to her visit.
“No Miguel, I am here only to tell you that you are killing our mother.”
“Killing our mother?”
“Yes Miguel, slowly leading her to her grave.”
“And how am I, man who can’t yet walk, a man who is being forced to sip food through a straw, killing my mother?” He couldn't help but notice how she had not completely entered his room.
“With your words Miguel. With your careless, selfish, infernal words.” She uttered while repeatedly stabbing an accusatory long, red-nailed, index finger at him.
“Oh you mean about the bueyes, the bulls?”
“And what else could I possibly mean Miguel? It's all you ever talk about?”
“And you have come to tell me what I am supposed to talk and think?”
“No Miguel. I am here to tell you not to say such things in front of our mother.”
“Well Michaela, I am not since she doesn’t visit anymore, does she?”
“But she wishes to Miguel. With her whole loving, motherly heart, she wishes to see you.”
“And she couldn’t tell me this herself?”
“She is weak and is afraid. "
“Afraid of what?”
“You see Miguel. She is afraid of you! The last time she was here, she suffered a mild heart attack.”
“Suffered a heart attack?” Miguel said, rolling his wheelchair closer to Michaela who took a step backwards in response. .
“Well, no one told me anything. and that was three weeks ago.”
“Because you were in critical condition, then, Miguel.”
“Critical or no, I still have certain rights”
“Yes Miguel you do. But she begged us not to.”
“And what is this anyway?" Miguel rolled his wheelchair a few feet closer to where his sister still stood beneath the door's lintel, her purple babushka still snuggling her head and her maroon wool coat wrapped around her body like a cape, to him she seemed more like a sudden apparition from hell sent to torment him than a visiting sister.
“So now you finally decide to visit me after six months and only because you want to protect our mother?”
“I had personal obligations, Miguel”
“Oh sure, sure you did, my dear sister! Personal obligations, and all of them more important to you than seeing a brother who was on the verge of death.”
“No one told you to risk your life in that idiotic way!” she almost shouted and moved back and under the door’s lintel. She kept glancing anxiously into the semi-dark hallway like a sailor on the lookout post anxiously hopes for land.
“ What does it really matter to a sister why a brother is injured anyway, right?" There was a certain child-like pleading in Miguel’s voice, and he inwardly swore it wouldn’t happen again. Not in front of this one. Not in front of her.
“I let God be my judge!” she immediately responded while unconsciously rubbing the rosary beads around her neck with index and thumb. Her rusted wedding ring and gold tooth momentarily glinted sunlight from the window as she stood tensely, like a matador before delivering the final deadly thrust.
“I’ll tell you what Michaela. I’ll let God be your judge, if you let God be my judge. How is that for a fair deal? ”
“You are an ingrate and a blasphemer, and now you are about to add a parent-murderer as well?”
“Is that really what God has judged? Or is that you, and not God speaking, my little sister?”
“Bah! You are hopeless!” she uttered as she turned away brusquely and walked away.
Miguel could hear the stubborn receding staccato of her heels, each one like a hammer blow to his heart, and each more painful than any bull could ever inflict. Then the traitorous gossiping murmur between her and the nurses, the indifferent lurch of machinery from the elevator as it came to a stop, and then the deafening silence.
Michaela had rushed out of the hospital into the cold evening air of Madrid and headed home in an angered daze. A friend waved from across a street, and she ignored it. The parish priest recognized her as part of his parish and greeted her, and she silently quickened her pace. How dare him treat her that way!
Once home, she found her mother sitting by the window on the old rocking chair gazing out at the narrow and darkening cobbletoned street below. She immediately described all that had happened during her hospital visit. How Miguel had totally ignored her advice. How he was planning to run with the Bulls again as soon as he’d recover. How he had recriminated her for her lack of love.
For a great while, her mother listened seemingly impassively at her daughter’s vehement complaints and accusations. Then she suddenly clutched at her chest with her wrinkled, boney hand, grimaced grotesquely, and died while, someone, somewhere, in some distant, heartless arena yelled:
"Ole!"