Third Set, First Game

The Lombard looked at the poet from where they both lay sprawled on the ground. He raised his eyebrows in greeting. The Spaniard responded in kind. It was the first time since the night before that they’d had an exchange that wasn’t at the end of a racket.

The artist sat up and wiped the blood from his face, rolling his head from side to side, and finally stood. Immediately he advanced toward his opponent and offered him his hand. The poet took it without hesitation and the scapular fell from his shirt as he got up. The Lombard took it in his hand and tilted it back and forth. I’ve seen something like this before, he said; what is it? A scapular. No, the image, what is the image made of? I don’t know, said the Spaniard; it comes from the New World. The artist looked at it for a moment longer and then let it go: Have you seen how it reflects the light? The poet didn’t understand the question. He tucked it back into his shirt.

The Lombard put his arm over the Spaniard’s shoulder and whispered in his ear: Do you remember why we’re playing; the professor told me it’s a duel, but he didn’t say why. The poet nodded. If he could have, he would have prolonged the feeling of his rival’s breath on his ear. He exhaled visibly, shaking off the artist on the pretext of rubbing his left shoulder, which hurt after the scramble of the race. He said: Wipe your face, it’s still bleeding. The Italian rubbed his cheek with his sleeve: black as it was and worn for who knows how many days, it showed nothing. If only we could take a break and have something to drink, he said; some wine with water. The Spaniard smiled. It would only make things worse. Seeing the movements of his opponent from up close, his face that of an ordinary man, not an animal adversary, his heart almost softened. Let’s finish this thing and be done with it, he said. The artist shrugged and crossed the court before the duke and the professor stretched the cord.

The night before, the Spaniards had come late from a brothel to the Tavern of the Bear, where they were staying. They were in excellent humor, their manhoods and bellies satisfied. Before retiring to their rooms, they had stopped in on the lower floor, by now in the silly state of those who have already had too much to drink.

The place was empty except for a gang of wastrels, who were drinking and taking up much more space than they needed and making much more noise than was normal even for a Roman drunken outing. The group consisted of six or seven layabouts, a young man with the air of a priest and an old man’s beard, and what looked like a soldier: a wiry man, dressed in black, with a pointed mustache and a beard in the French style. He was the only one wearing dagger and sword.

The Spaniards kept to themselves: they knew that half of Rome was on the side of France and had had enough of King Philip. Also, they were in the city fleeing from justice and had drunk and fucked enough that they had no more energy left to burn. They were relaxed. The Italians, on the other hand, gesticulated and roared with laughter.

It was Otero who had established contact with them, without quite meaning to. He had gotten up for a second flask of wine, and at the bar he had noticed the slightly hunched young man with the distinguished beard—plainly trustworthy—ordering a flask of grappa for his table. Otero asked in his meager Italian what it was, and the other man responded in easy Spanish that it was orujo. He asked the innkeeper for a cup and filled it, handing it to Otero with a smile. Try it, he said. Otero, who had drunk God knows how much orujo in his soldier’s life, took a sip and felt an enormous pleasure: when grappa is good, there is a near-irresistible burst of light in the hypothalamus. He asked to exchange his wine for a flask of the silky orujo he had tried, and brought it back to the table, saying a polite goodbye to the man who had treated him to a glass before he returned to his seat. They drank it quickly.

The Spaniards were exchanging some final nonsense before going up to bed on the floor above when the innkeeper arrived with two more jugs of grappa. One is on the house and the other is on the gentlemen over there, he said, setting them down so hard they sloshed. The duke and the poet looked at each other without saying anything: two bottles of grappa was a serious undertaking in the state they were in. Osuna thanked the innkeeper, filled his men’s cups, and raising the jug in the direction of the Italians he toasted them, and took a long swig. The gesture—one group of cavemen to another—was heartily cheered by the locals, who soon invited them to pull up a chair.

The poet was already bouncing the ball, eager more than anything for the match to be over, when the duke cried with an authority that he hadn’t displayed until this point in the match: Where are you going so fast? The poet turned to look at him, raising his eyebrows. His linesman beckoned him over to the gallery. The Italians didn’t miss their chance: they whistled. The artist scratched his head theatrically with his racket and his second rolled his eyes up toward the roof beams.

What the hell do you plan to do, asked the duke. Hold out, the poet replied; use the wall, wear him down. Fine, said the duke, and then added, jerking his right thumb at Otero’s men: They’re asking what you were talking about to that faggot at the changeover. The escorts snorted uncomfortably. I don’t remember asking a thing, said Barral. Well, then I’m asking, what did you talk about? We talked about the scapular, the heat, nothing. You have to beat him, you can’t give up; what I say goes here, and I say you have to win.

The poet rested his forehead on the railing. He shook his head a few times and then returned to the baseline. He shouted Tenez! and hit a miserable shot, which scarcely struck the roof before floating down to the other side of the court. The artist didn’t go after it. He watched it with a weary look, with impatience, with all the infinite scorn that a creature at once so savage and sophisticated could muster for a kid of nineteen, a Spaniard in the service of a ridiculous grandee, and shouted: Send me something real. Fifteen–love, shouted the duke, furious because he too had noticed the poet’s erection from the friction of the race: Love, one way or another.

He served again, more decisively, and the artist, before driving the ball back, asked in a repugnant voice: Fatto tutto, spagnolo? He swiveled his hips, moving with feminine cruelty. It wasn’t a great send-up, but it got a roar from the crowd—even the Spanish guards laughed. The poet took it short and put it in a corner. Thirty–love, shouted the duke. And addressing Otero: Would you laugh at your own mother, cocksucker? The mercenaries exchanged glances.

The third serve was diabolical. The artist reached it far from the baseline and hit a short return, setting the poet up for a slice. The Italian still managed to return it, but on the next stroke the ball dropped at the other end of the court and he didn’t have the will to chase it. When the duke cried Juego para Castilla, the poet’s face was full of thunder.