ADIOS IS NOT GOODBYE

Each step in life we take requires courage and commitment. When we go out there to meet the demons to be conquered, we need the armor of self-confidence.

Pablo sat in a room of the Hotel Nacional, worry furrowing deep lines in a sallow face otherwise smooth and olive-skinned. Fear drew deeper lines there too. With them came the niggling despair he wished he could shake off like last night's sleep. He had dreamed so long for this future. It could be his, but he wasn't sure or he wasn't ready for it. Or worst of all, he didn't deserve it.

 

In the throes of restive sleep he had battled with demons. Though he'd managed to lose them in the grey haze of nightmare streets, he knew too well they'd be waiting for him again tonight. Confiding these dreams to Miguel-- his friend, his brother, the good angel at his shoulder-- he watched Miguel smile. "You can leave this all behind, little brother," Miguel said. "Make this move and you'll be free again."

 

Outside the closed window, it was a hot early afternoon. Several floors below in the Mexican streets, he already heard their soft chatter. What if he failed them? What if he wasn't ready? What if-- how many "what ifs" could stall him here, he wondered. He dropped his eyes to his hands, trembling and hot. Could he run? No! Spanish pride would mock him forever. He thought of his paternal grandfather. Mi abuelo, he thought to himself. Ayuda mí! Help me, Grandfather! But old José Santiago had only recently "crossed over" to the land where the fearless lived forever. Pablo wished he could visit there now, learn from these fearless and get on with his life.

 

On the bed lay the sword, the knives. He placed them cautiously into the leather casing. Out there, louder now, voices chanted his name. A celebration song or dirge? He would learn that soon enough. If he could only take a lesson from some forgotten time in infancy when Doña Margherita held his tiny hands up in the air while he tried his first steps. "One at a time, Pablocito," his mother said, her joy coloring brightly the softness of her voice. "One step and then another step. First, slowly, then one day you will run in the fields with Miguel."

 

Finally he crossed himself perfunctorily, then from the dresser he lifted and kissed the framed photograph of his young wife. "Adiós, mi amor," he said.

 

Once an American tourist had spotted him at a sidewalk table of the Gordo Café and asked for his autograph. In the middle of his morning coffee, mid-sentence as he read the early edition of the newspaper opened before him, Pablo heard this young American in faltering Spanish ask for his name on the page of a small crumpled notepad. Without hesitation Pablo gave it. Smiling, he handed back the notepad, said "Adiós" to the boy's "Gracias." Adiós. Not "goodbye" but "Go with God."

 

He had wished that for the American who stood staring while Pablo wrote the flourish of his name. He was wishing it now to the ones he loved. He was wishing it for himself because with fame he knew wisdom was not close behind. If he lived long enough perhaps. If today, this very afternoon, he could conquer and not be conquered. He would live or he would die. Hadn't life always been that simple? he thought.

 

The worst he could do was decide to do nothing. Somehow he owed it to them all-- that long ancestral line of spirits who preceded him, his living family that believed in him, centuries of unborn Santiago souls waiting somewhere in the pre-natal wings who would remember Pablo Santiago long after the crowds would have forgotten him.

 

When Miguel's knock on the door hammered away his reverie, he steeled himself and opened it. A peace had settled inside him; he felt braver than he had felt in a long time.

 

"You are ready?" asked his brother.

 

Pablo let his lip curl at the corner-- it was an expression Miguel remembered little Pablo wore so often as a little boy when he knew what he wanted was what he'd get. "Am I ready? That," said Pablo, "is a question for my opponent." Miguel held the door for him. "We shall see who throws whom, my friend," said Pablo. He swung the leather casing over his shoulder and went down to meet the bull.

 

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