A Nod from Rodolfo

Precisely at 4, the band in the Plaza Mexico broke into the traditional Andalusian Skies, and the winter bullfighting season was on. In his box halfway up the ring's shady side, an erect, piercing-eyed old man in a broad-brimmed black hat glared about him. The wind was too strong for good bullfighting, he groused; the sun too bright. In their brilliantly colored capotes de paseo (parade capes), the toreros marched into the ring. "No elegance!" the old man harrumphed.

Despite his grumbling, Maestro Rodolfo Gaona, 62, was having a good time. To meet his complaint that the bulls had been puny lately, there was a new rule against bulls weighing less than 990 pounds. And the novillero (novice) he considered the season's most promising--blue-eyed Rafael Rodriguez--was making his debut that Sunday afternoon in the big time.

Among all the 50,000 people in the ring, nervous, 23-year-old Rafael Rodriguez wanted most the approval of Rodolfo Gaona. His nod would add thousands of pesos to the matador's earnings. But approval, if it came, would be only a milder-than-usual insult. Who had a better right to be critical? The old man was the greatest bullfighter Mexico ever produced, and one of the greatest in the world's history.

To Mexicans, Gaona is more than that. He is the dark-skinned Indian boy who 41 years ago brought even haughty Spaniards roaring to their feet when he fought on the same program with the great Juan Belmonte and Jose ("Joselito") Gomez y Ortega. Race-proud Spaniards called him El Indio, made him fight harder than the others for the reward of ears and tail.

After Gaona married Carmen Moragas, one of the most beautiful women of the Spanish stage, resentful aficionados pelted him with cushions and bottles. He swore never to fight in Madrid again. Dark-eyed Carmen soon left him to become the great & good friend of Alfonso XIII, but Mexican legend has since reversed the story: it was the Indian boy who got the king's girl.

Retired from the ring since 1925, Gaona now spends much of his time managing his Mexico City real-estate holdings and listening to the wild flamenco music of the Spanish gypsies, on which he has made himself an authority. Each year he follows the bullfighting season from Spain to Mexico, and like many another oldtimer rates the past over the present. Growls Gaona: "In my day the bulls were so smart that they spoke English."

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