“Bravo, girl! Bravo! You're ready for anything now!”

One thing she usually objected to, however, because she found it suspicious, was that on the nights when the partying at Tivoli lasted until dawn, blind Hipólito appeared in the bar at around four o'clock in the morning with the pretext of buying cigarettes or ordering drink that he then left untouched on the bar for hours, chatting on and on with Ravioli or the members of the band, ignoring the pleas of Jenaro, the boy who served as his guide and who could hardly stay awake due to the prolonged inaction and the lateness of the hour. Santa asked him point blank on one occasion, when she was particularly stimulated by the dancing and what she had drunk:

“Hipo, are you coming here to watch me? You know, I'd like it so much if someone took care of me like that …”

And the blind man, in a mocking tone, but squeezing her arm just above the elbow, answered her:

“Okay, how can a blind man be coming here to watch you? I come because I love this stuff, drinking, dancing, rowdy partying, I'm really into this stuff … right, Jenaro?” he added, interrogating the boy with at touch of the tip of his cane. But as the hands of avid partners pulled Santa back into the dancing and away from him, he added, whether in soliloquy or for the benefit of Jenaro, it is impossible to say:

“No I don't come to watch you, but to smell you and hear you and worship you, God help me …”

The matador, too, would put in an appearance in the wee hours of nights such as these, inevitably accompanied by a following of lesser toreros, who carried his sword or exercised other subordinate functions in the bullring, and, even at Tivoli Central called el Jarameño maestro, regarded him with singular awe, and served and obeyed him automatically.

The guys in pigtails had their own style, clean shaven, hat cocked to one side, pearls, coral, and rhinestones the size of garbanzos gleaming on the front of their embroidered shirts. They entered the place giving and receiving greetings, left and right, showing their teeth in rigid smiles, thumping the floor with their walking canes, many rings on their fingers, their pants tight, their boots shiny and black. Each sported a thick gold chain that sprouted from the vest pocket, swinging heavily and its emerald studs glinting in the raw, late-night incandescent lights. Their jackets were black and their eyes blacker, the expressive and passionate eyes of leisurely Arabs who live for women and weapons, horses and bulls.