Do You Dream of Lions?
By rail, "Elsa Palm" departs Paris for the Navarre Province and the capital city of Pamplona, famous for its Fiesta de San Firminius. Each year, thousands attend this festival where bulls run freely through ancient streets and gore idiotic young men sporting handkerchiefs.
In Fascist Spain, the thought of suspending the bullfighting season would be considered a national catastrophe, even during the course of Civil War.
Celebrating the end of another glorious season of blood and sand, the Nationalists throw a lavish feast honoring their noble superstars and the fearsome creatures they did battle with.
A sentinel of tanks and machine guns welcome invitees into the Governor's opulent mansion, but matadors and Nationalist Dignitaries aren't the only guests.
Discussing the latest in the venerable old bloodlines and thinking of nothing but bulls are breeders, butchers and other aficionados.
Elsa scans the well-heeled crowd of uniforms, medals, pearls and gowns then suddenly senses a faint warmness about the nape of her neck.
"Do you dream of lions?"
"Only when they sleep on the beach".
The anxious corespondent raises a lace fan to her lips and slowly turns to find…
Papa.
Who is none other than author, outdoorsman and war correspondent Ernest Miller Hemingway. The 38-year-old adventurer quietly leads the speechless agent to the ballroom floor. Cheek to cheek, Elsa vainly tries to compose herself as Papa details the moves of their tango and where it will take them. Ah, but the dance is short, interrupted by the pudgy poking finger of Werner Schlob.
"Kann ich Sie kurz sprechen, Fraulein?"
Schlob escorts Elsa over to a guarded corner of the hall crowed with hardened middle-aged men in
flawlessly braided uniforms. "Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to fraulein Elsa Palm."
After spending an hour or so with the Condor brass, Elsa withdraws to a balcony for some fresh air, but her arrival interrupts another's solitude.
Elsa turns back inside, "Entschuldigen Sie, dass ich unterbreuche." "There's no need to apologize, Fraulein", a voice replies in broken King's English.
"It's not my balcony."
"Do you know who I am, sir?" A guarded Elsa questions. The young officer only smiles, "Every man in this place knows who you are Miss Palm."
"Oberleutnant Wolfgang Krupp, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
The meticulously dressed, soft-spoken Lieutenant and feisty Brit spend the evening on the balcony. Elsa is drawn to Wolf's affable shyness, the hint of sadness in his voice and the fact that that he flies a Heinkel He 112 for the Condor Legion.
Escorted by Wolfgang, Elsa attends the season finale of the Pamplona bullfighting season. Someone takes her by the elbow. It is Hemingway, and the Republican-sympathizing scribe invites his young dance partner and her reluctant Prussian to his private box overlooking the ring. As the three take their seats in the front row, a mesmerized Elsa is soon lost in violent art of La Corrida.
"Aren't you in the wrong part of the country, Herr Hemingway?"
"I come for the bulls." An annoyed Papa responds.
"It seems more likely…" Wolfgang inquires, "that you come for the blood."
The Great War ambulance driver locks eyes with the young fighter pilot and never blinks.
"Maybe."
The crowd cheers as the matador drives in the first of several plumed lancets.
Hemingway shrewdly points out to Wolf the startling similarities between the ring and this war.
The opportunistic nations of the world view this war as they do the corrida - with obtrusive curiosity. It is as if they were watching a thrilling sporting event, but the bullfight is less sport than a tragedy. That tragedy, Hemingway points out, is the inevitable death of the bull… "The terrible almost prehistoric bull."
Much like Spain itself.
Another lancet and more cheers.
Papa's prophetic words grab Elsa's full attention. He had predicted this war, and the opportunistic vultures (not excluding himself) that would come to feed on its corpse.
There, cheering and jeering in the Pamplona arena and stalking the bull with more than their eyes are the French, Germans, Italians, British, Americans and Russians. "Russians?"
Hemingway nods in the direction of a group of boisterous and burly Soviet officers.
"You see, the bull is Spain."
"Ah, but so is the matador", Wolf sharply retorts.
"Nope, he's American. Name's Sidney Franklin, one of my best friends in the whole world…"
"And he's a Jew."
Franklin fatally runs the wounded bull through with his sword -- the dance is over.
Intoxicated with blood, the frenzied crowd of global spectators rise to their feet in feral applause and toss their hats into the arena.
Victoria Cross
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Coming Soon! Original Billy Tucci Shi Artwork
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