Evening Star Newspaper, March 10, 1935, Page 78

From UAVECITO, his slim beautiful body lounging in the one comfortable chair in the living wagon, watched his wife. He hated her. A hundred yards away the music for the night show sent out its tingling notes. Glanc- ing through the door at the rear of the wagon. Suavecito could see the flickering flare of the lights; he could hear the buzz of pleased excitement as the show got under way. “They like us here in Barcelona this season,’” his wife said. He did not answer. He was glad there was a crowd though tonight. It fitted in with his plan. His black eyes continued to look toward the wagon door. In the rising tide of light, he saw 2t last the small figure of Clarita. She seemed to dance into the glow, her large white horse beside her. Suavecito's heart thudded against his breast. With a swift movement like flying, Clarita sprang to the back of her white horse. She had told him, ‘‘This night when I pass your door perhaps, who knows? — I may be thinking of you, m: cielo.”” Remembering how she had said ‘‘mi cielo,”’ remem- bering again her loud sweet laugh, Suavecito drew his breath in sharply. Which had she meant — the laugh which said, 'l dare you" or the promise behind that soft “‘my darling"? His wife had finished pre- paring the olla to be eaten after the performance. He turned his black eyes on her as she set forth in readiness the tall flask of vino de gro- sella. With a strange, an awful excitement, Suavecito saw her take a pair of his silken tights and plunge them into a waiting bowl of suds. If it were not for her, he would have known long ago what Clarita meant. How could he go on not knowing? He flung his beautiful lithe | § body forward in the chair. His wife looked up. “Do not be restless,”” she told him. “There is much time. The bareback number has not even started.” That was all Clarita meant to her - - the bareback num- ber. Well that was as it should be. Suavecito went over his plans, coldly, meticulously. One beat too late — if when she sprang through the air toward him, he was just one second too late — He settled the silver spangles that encircled his waist. He could even see himself as he would be, quick- silver, running down to the ground to what had been his wife. He could hear the cries of the crowd: ‘“An accident! How horrible.” His Spanish eyes were cold as glass. They were both already dressed for the ring, though his wife wore an old woolen dressing gown over her tights and spangles. Her broad shoulders looked enormous. She was stocky, stocky and strong. All her life, first with her three brothers and small agile father, later with Suavecito, she had stretched, night after night, those strong arms far out- ward to catch the onslaught of the men that rushed toward her, men whom she caught in the vacuum of the air and clasped to safety and preserved from the plunging death that would have been theirs if she had been less strong, less sure — if she had been one beat too late. “Fuérza,” Suavecito called her, meaning something tough, something solid, powerful. Ever since she had loved him, she had yearned to have him call her something soft and gentle, something little and weak. The music that was the cue for Clarita drifted through the night. Suavecito’s eyes THIS WEEK Ihe March 10, 1975 FLYING "' RAPEZE Two Lives Hang on a Split Second —and the Drop of A Story of Love and Passion High Above the Tanbark ng Rose ‘By VIRGINIA DALE lUustration by Wallace Morgan He Was Thinking, “If I Swing One Second Too Late, I Will Be Rid of Her Forever’’ grew blacker. One beat too late — hundreds of times it had happened. He sat taut. His wife pressed the water carefully from the pink tights, draped them over a rack, flung the water from the basin out of the wagon door. Suavecito watched her, not wanting to. She settled the sequins of her head dress. Every- thing she did was with a beautiful precise rhythm. Her tranquil expectation that she would go on living drove him nearly mad. He stood up. “It is time we go, Suavecito,” she said. Now he could not possibly look at her. He told himself it was because he hated her so, because she stood between him and every- thing he wanted, everything he must have. He threw his long velvet cape around himself. “Wait, Suavecito.” He turned, suddenly cold with fear. ‘“What, Fuérza?" “This."” She was holding something out to him — a red rose. ‘A moménlo,” she pleaded. Her soft voice did not go with her powerful body. “A souvenir, my Suavecito. Tonight, it is seven years since we are married."” He stood staring at the rose, and then he snatched it from her and ran swiftly down the wagon steps. He knew of course that she was following him across the little field of trampled grass. He mashed the rose in his glittering girlde. The sky, he noticed, was a hot glazed blue above him. But he was cold. Then they were standing shoulder to shoulder at the entrance to the ring. Clarita on her large white horse galloped around once, twice. Then she rode off past them. A boy leaped for the bridle of the horse as she slipped to the ground, slim and young and desirable. Property men hustled with blouses plastered to their chests with sweat. Antonio, the Italian juggler, slapped cards down on an empty overturned wine cask, playing piquet with a gypsy. The buffoons had already tumbled into the ring to patch the time it took the men to secure, to test the trapeze. The Barcelonians wept with joy at the buffoons’ capers. It seemed to Suavecito it would never be time for him to run into that bright ring, his wife's hand in his. Though he did not turn, he could feel the bareback rider near him. His wife was between them. Though he did not move, he could feel himself straining over the body of his wife to Clarita. Then he was in the ring, bowing, turning. He could feel his lips stretch in a smile. He kissed his wife’'s hand — but that was just part of the act. Something inside him clanged, “Judas, Judas also used a kiss.”” Then he found himself going up, up, up the little steel ladder to his trapeze, music mounting to him., the faces of the crowd tilted like blank, round plates far below. He knew without looking that his wife had climbed her ladder, knew she was standing on the tiny felt-covered plat- form, as he was standing now on his. He knew without looking because in seven years her timing had always matched his to a second. Now, Suavecito told himself, he must stop thinking. His mind must be in space as his body was — as if the music impelled him, without taking thought, he was in space, suspended, and then feeling the. sure, the * expected clasp of his wife’'s hands as she caught him. Together they swung. With a terrific, powerful force she flung him back to his platform, safe and steady. With hands on his narrow hips, flat against his gleaming ™ girdle, Suavecito acknowledged the delighted “Bis! Bis, Bis!"' of the crowd's approval. With that routine done, there were three minutes to go before the exchange leap — two other figures to make — before the second when he would release his flying trapeze just one beat too late . . . He stood looking down. In America he'd ( Continued on Page 13 )