Heart of Tango (7 page)

We drank a few gins while waiting for the couple to arrive and the party to begin. We were already melting in the heat despite the flowering vine that shaded the courtyard. I'd never felt as alone, as lost, as out of place as I did the moment I saw her appear at the door, little more than a white blur against the light. I saw then with burning intensity that it was my destiny to show up too late, or at the wrong time, that it was my destiny to come in second, and that coming in second meant losing, just as surely as if I had come in last.

I put up with the party as best I could, blood pounding in my temples and my stomach tightening with a touch of nausea. She looked at me now and then and quickly averted her gaze, as if it burned.

Waltzes and milongas followed one after the other. The guests
ate cakes and pastries and drank cider from Galicia. I smoked, kept quiet and sipped my gin slowly so that I wouldn't look drunk to the happy people all around me.

Then came the first tango. Women squealed. Soon couples were dancing with painstaking cheer under the spreading vine, from light to shade, as if the sun were scattering golden coins over their poor Sunday clothes, turning them into better, nobler garments.

Don Joaquín leaned over Natalia to ask the groom something. The smiling groom shook his head again and again, as if politely declining. Finally the father rose and said a word to the musicians. After they finished playing the tango they took up a waltz. Natalia danced it with her father, under the red-headed German's satisfied gaze. The waltz ended, and she turned to walk to her seat. But Don Joaquín held her back by her hand. Standing in the middle of the dance floor he looked around at everyone and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the bride—my daughter Natalia here—has a fancy to dance the tango. I haven't got beyond the waltz and paso doble myself, while the groom, in his own words, has two left feet. Do we have a volunteer in the audience? Is there anyone in this select group who is a good tanguero?”

All eyes converged on me. The boys at my table started saying, almost shouting, that I was the best dancer in Buenos Aires, that I danced in cafés and theaters, and that Natalia couldn't be in better hands.

I stood up straight away. My fingers went to my neck to adjust
my scarf, but remembering that I was wearing a bow tie, I straightened my lapels instead. I glided toward them with my best dancer's step, holding out my hand to catch hers, which, despite the heat, felt cold.

Then the world vanished. When she rested her cold hand on my shoulder, when I felt her body against mine, everything disappeared: the noise, the sweaty faces, the smell of a hundred cheap soaps and perfumes, the presence of everything that was still there but not there. All that remained was the music and her body. The tango, her and me.

She danced like a goddess. It was like being tied to a kite held aloft by the evening wind, like flying over fields and streams in a world where time has ceased to exist. I should have died then and there, for I knew that life would never bring me anything to equal this. She would have closed my eyes with her white fingers, and I would have been happy forever.

But I did not die. The song ended, everyone applauded, and I pulled myself away from her body with a motion that wounded me like a knife stab. I felt around for the nearest table like a blind man. My hand closed on a flower. I offered it to her without a word. It was a carnation, blood-red, that smelled of paradise found and then lost again. She stuck it in her hair, under the orange-blossom garland, without ever taking her shining, feverish eyes off me.

What seemed to me like an eternity must have lasted barely a second, because people were still applauding and calling for us to
keep dancing, so we embraced again and danced another song, alone on the dance floor.

Before I could see how it had happened, Canaro was up on the bandstand with his boys. The next tango was one I used to dance with Grisela as a show-stopper. Natalia became a silk handkerchief against my body, a flame enveloping me, a wise flame that understood my movements and burned me a little bit with every step, with every turn. Our breathing grew labored and I let myself be led into a dark, smooth tunnel from which I could never emerge.

When I separated from her we were both trembling. Sweat streamed over my brows, blinding me. She pulled out a small handkerchief and made as if to dry my forehead, but only held it out without touching me. Then she turned to face the table where her father and her husband applauded. She dropped a graceful curtsy. A group of dolls moved in, surrounding her, hugging her, kissing her enthusiastically.

I had to dance with almost all of them so that no-one would think badly of Natalia. Around midafternoon I approached the group where she, her father and the groom sat, to say goodbye and thank them for the invitation.

“Thank you, Don Joaquín,” I said, shaking the old man's hand. “Congratulations,” I told the German, who offered me his enormous, rough paw. “You've won yourself a pearl, a dancer who'd be the envy of Paris.”

The man smiled with satisfaction. “You have made her very
happy with these tangos. I do not know how to dance. Thanks,
compadre
,” he replied in the accent of a dog that had learned to speak Spanish. He added in a whisper, squeezing my hand and not taking his eyes off me, “But remember, Natalia has a master now, and the tango is over, understood?”

“Madam,” I said, turning to Natalia and feeling as if I were being strangled by the throat and my voice was coming out hoarse, “it has been an honor.”

She extended her hand to me, after glancing at her father. I kissed it delicately, like a gentleman.

When I left soon Afterward, her eyes followed me among the guests. I felt those eyes throbbing restlessly behind my back, like thin, hot needles, constantly forcing me to turn toward her. At the door I looked back for the last time. I ran my thumb over my jacket pocket, from which the tip of her handkerchief peered out. I put all my love into that final glance, so that she would know it. I don't think I succeeded.

I
had to hold tight to the table's edge to keep from screaming. I bit my lips and suddenly I was sobbing like a fool, crying over some stranger with whom I would have gone to the ends of the earth if he had asked, despite my father, despite my new husband, despite all the women who were smiling at my tears, nodding and whispering among themselves.

“Darling, what's wrong?” Papá asked, holding my hand tenderly. “Are you also thinking of your mother?”

Feeling I was mean, cowardly, base, I nodded, lowering my gaze to keep from meeting his damp eyes.

Doña Melina saved me. She was suddenly behind my seat, squeezing my shoulders and getting me to stand up and accompany her to the ladies' room.

“I'm borrowing her for a moment, Don Joaquín, with your permission. This girl needs a bit of air and some fresh water on her face.”

With our arms around each other we entered the house and went into a large bathroom that was so cold compared with the
courtyard that a chill passed over me. My girlfriend's mother took off my garland and the carnation that Diego had given me, picked up a towel, wet it in the basin, and without a word began wiping it across my temples, my forehead, and the back of my neck, until I felt better.

“Be careful, Natalia,” she whispered quietly into my ear. “That man's dangerous.”

“What man?” I asked, feigning innocence because, much as it hurt, I wanted to speak only of him.

Doña Melina stood in front of me, held my chin, and forced me to look at her.

“From now on there cannot be any other man in your life but your husband, do you understand? There's no other way. Your husband, your home, your children when you have them. Be happy with that. Other women have less.”

“And him?” I asked in a very low voice, dying of shame.

“He has his own life. Far from you. This is nothing but a passing infatuation, Natalia, what they call a crush. He's a handsome boy and a good dancer. You're an innocent young thing, just hatched from your shell, like María Esther. Give it time and it will heal. Tomorrow everything will be different, you'll see.”

“Tomorrow I turn twenty.”

I was about to ask her for some advice for the night that would soon begin, when two of the three Italian girls came rushing in to find the bride, and that was the end of the conversation. We left the
bathroom together and Doña Melina only had time to whisper, “Come and see me tomorrow if you want to talk.”

In the courtyard some married couples were beginning to bid farewell even though it was still light out, and I was there for quite a stretch, shaking hands, kissing sweaty cheeks, being congratulated, feeling the constant presence of Rojo behind my back or at my side, the heat emanating from his enormous body, his hungry eyes craving me as if I were a cake in a bakery window.

“Children,” Papá said, coming up behind us and taking us both by the arms, “you can leave whenever you'd like. I'll stay here so long as anyone wants the party to continue, but you two must be tired, and tomorrow is a work day, so if you want to go . . .”

A look of complicity passed between them and Berstein turned to me.

“Shall we go, Natalia?”

I could have said no, but as Rojo didn't dance and we would have to go sooner or later, I agreed without a word and went to find Gina, who had brought a bag with my street clothes so that I wouldn't have to walk through the streets at this hour in my wedding dress.

We started saying goodbye to the guests, going from group to group, laughing at jokes that I didn't understand, thanking people for their presents and good wishes, until, after a long hug from my father, the two of us found ourselves alone in the street. El Rojo, dressed for the wedding in his best summer suit, and I in the
matching blue skirt and blouse that I had sewn for myself especially for today.

This was the first time I had been alone with Berstein, really alone, without Papá, without my girlfriends, without anyone else, and I didn't know what to do. He offered me his arm, and so, walking slowly and in silence, we walked toward Necochea, crossing paths with people who were heading for La Boca to have a good time, while my own eyes kept searching in every direction for a hint of his figure, though I knew he would be far away by now, drinking in some dive or playing cards or doing whatever it is that men do when they leave.

We reached home and it struck me as odd that Berstein should be the one taking out the key and opening the door, but now this was his house too, for he had given up the room that he had been renting to use now and then, whenever he was on dry land.

Our bedroom was now going to be the one that had belonged to Papá, who would move into my old room. My girlfriends had insisted on setting it up for my wedding night and refused to let me in to see it before we left for church, so, even though I was in my own house, everything looked odd and different, even the hall, which was the same as ever, dark and a bit sad despite being freshly cleaned.

“A drink?” Rojo proposed, entering the sitting room as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Yesterday I left a bottle of sweet wine and some pastries here, in case we were hungry.”

He poured two glasses without waiting for me to answer, and held out one for me with a nervous smile.

“To our love,” he toasted. We clinked glasses and I wondered what made him think that I loved him. As if he had read my thoughts, after draining his glass and waiting for me to take a sip from mine, he went on, “I know that I've never told you, in so many words, that I love you, Natalia, but, I mean, you must know that I do, and, well, now that we're married, I suppose that, you know, you must love me too, just a little bit at least, don't you?”

I think I blushed then, and to relieve my confusion I took another sip of my wine.

“What I said in the church is what I feel, Natalia. I'm going to love and protect you my whole life long. I'm going to be a good husband, I swear it.”

He must have taken my confusion for sheer timidity, because without waiting for me to speak he took the wine glass from my hand, set it on the dinner table, and hugged me tight, pressing his head against my neck. He smelled of manly sweat and tobacco smoke. I remember thinking that I'd have to get used to that smell, because from that moment forth it would be with me for the rest of my life.

“Come,” he said, picking me up in his arms and carrying me down the hall as if I weighed no more than a pillow.

The girls had decorated the bed with an ivory-colored lace bedspread we had brought from Spain, which they had sprinkled
with flower petals. Rojo was going to set me down, but I realized that if I lay on the bed then I would crush the flowers and stain the bedspread and my clothes, so I turned in his arms and explained my fear to him, and he let me down on the floor.

We removed the bedspread together. He stood there in his shirtsleeves, looking at me from the other side of the bed as if he didn't know what to do. The sweat stains under his arms nearly reached his waistband. Suddenly he was breathing hard, as if he had been exercising.

“I'm going to the bathroom,” I said, because I had to get out of there and be alone for a moment, but he smiled as if that were exactly what he had been waiting to hear.

I went out to the courtyard in the last blue light of day, took a deep breath, and looked at myself in the mirror that we had hung by the door. My hair was somewhat mussed, my cheeks were red, and my eyes shone as if I had a fever, but I found that I looked pretty, and that gave me a bit more confidence.

If it had been Diego waiting for me in the bedroom everything would have been easier. We would have danced for a while, even without any music, and then—and then, I suppose, the same thing would have happened. But it would have been different, very different.

T
hat night I didn't dance. I sent word to Grisela that I wasn't feeling well, and I shut myself up in my flat with two bottles of cane liquor. My plan was to get myself seriously drunk, sitting alone in my only armchair, the one I had bought from a Genoese family when they moved out of the tenement. I held one bottle in my hand and kept my stash of tobacco at my feet like a faithful dog. That was the longest night of my life. The demonic January heat shrouded me in its fetid breath. Voices that rose to my open window made we want to rush out and kill whoever it was who thought there was any reason in the universe for laughter. The world had never seemed so disgusting, so impoverished, so ugly. Closing my eyes, I saw Natalia's figure, dressed in white, like a lily pushing up through the filth of a rubbish dump that was fenced off, closed off to me, unreachable. Drink surged through my blood like fire, devouring without consuming me. I knew that all the water in the world wouldn't suffice to put out this blaze.