Dark Tangos Read online

  «You think he works for your father.»

  «Yes. I don’t think he would ever hurt me. But I think my father is watching me, through that man. And I don’t want my father’s eyes on me anymore, not even secondhand.»

  «What about the police?»

  «I don’t know what the police are like in your country, but here the police do what men like my father tell them. People like me, we try not to attract their attention.»

  She turned to me, arms still folded. «So you see, I have all these things I can’t talk about. And what I want most of all is to forget them, to be some other person completely. That’s what tango gives me.»

  «I understand,» I said. «If you ever want to tell me the rest, I want to hear it.»

  «I know you think that, Beto. But there are things you don’t want to know. Please believe me.»

  We had passed completely through the square, oblivious to the booths and the people around us. I turned her left onto Defensa, where the high end antique stores were open all afternoon and the performers had staked out their small territories.

  Elena stopped and held up her hand. «Listen!»

  I heard only the noise of a hundred rapid-fire conversations in Spanish and the voice of the puppeteer next to me, whose drunken marionette clung to a miniature lamppost.

  «Come on,» she said, and pulled me by the hand through the crowd, walking fast. Then I heard it too, the creak of the bandoneón and cry of the violin.

  Orquesta Tipica Imperial had set up against one of the metal-shuttered storefronts in the middle of the next block. They’d rolled an upright piano onto the street and they had a cello, double bass, two violins, and three bandoneones. They were part of the new breed of tango orchestras, kids in T-shirts and blue jeans, some with long hair and beards. One of the violinists and one of the bandoneonistas were women. The tango they played was in the classic style, but was new to me.

  Elena dropped her purse and baseball cap in front of the female bandoneonista and opened herself to me. I took my time, happy just to look at her, to feel the first touch of her body, to smell her hair, to let my left hand dance out the length of her right arm.

  I had never danced on cobblestones before. Calle Defensa is the real thing, paved in big, rounded, slick stones, and we were both in sneakers, making it hard to pivot. Elena seemed not to care. In Argentina, the word for cobblestone is adoquín, and they use it to refer to the quality of dance that you can acquire only in Buenos Aires—to say «tiene adoquín» is to give the highest compliment for the authenticity of someone’s tango. Elena had it.

  They played for twenty minutes. We inspired a few other couples to join us and the band applauded us all. I felt the happiness inside me, filling my entire body, and at the same time I felt like something subtle had changed between us.

  I knew that I lived too much inside my own head. Dancing was supposed to be my way out of that. Still I managed to find a trace of sadness in that perfect moment. I felt like her opening up to me had frightened her, made her self-conscious in a way she hadn’t been before. The height of happiness is the start of the decline.

  I call it the Sunday Effect. Sunday was a day off for me, just like Saturday, except that it felt different, tarnished, because I could feel Monday coming.

  Tango is all about the light in the darkness and the darkness in the light. And so we danced.

  *

  The band began to pack up. We threw money in the open violin case and Elena reclaimed her hat and purse. Unwilling to let the afternoon end, I convinced her to let me buy her lunch at one of my favorite restaurants there on Defensa. She had a glass of wine. Over feta ravioli we finally got to some of the conversation that would normally have happened earlier. I had to be careful with my questions, especially about family and childhood. I mostly let her choose the way.

  She was an only child, like me. She’d grown up with a lot of time to herself and escaped into books, like I had. She still loved to read, especially Jorge Amado and Isabel Allende. She’d studied business in college because her father was paying for it, while taking as many literature courses as she could. She loved cats and dogs both, but didn’t have room for either where she lived.

  She loved old buildings, old tangos, old clothes, old movies.

  She’d had lovers, not many, because she needed to feel more than physical attraction. She said again that there was no one in her life right now.

  There was a silence after that.

  We spent an hour and a half over lunch and as we left she said, «Beto. I should go home now. I have work tomorrow.»

  Climbing back up Humberto Primo, I told her about the Sunday Effect. Yes, she said, she knew exactly what I was talking about.

  We stopped in front of my building. «Can you come in for a few minutes?» I asked. My heart was pounding. I worried that she could see me tremble.

  «I wouldn’t mind a glass of water,» she said. «The wine has gone to my head a little.»

  I let her in and we climbed the curved concrete stairs to the first floor. She pretended not to notice the trouble I had working the key to my apartment.

  The place was tiny. A closet-sized kitchen on the right as we came in, a living room with a dining room table against one wall, then a short hallway that led to the bedroom. The floor was yellow parquet, polished to a high gloss. That was what had finally sold me on the place, knowing that I could practice tango there.

  «Beto, it’s lovely,» she said. She put her hat and purse and sunglasses on the table.

  «Thanks. Let me get your water.»

  When I came out of the kitchen, she was standing by the bookshelf. «Cortázar, Sabato, Casares—and Galeano,» she said. «Very nice.»

  «That’s more of a wish list, not what I’ve actually read. I still read slowly in Spanish, especially when there’s a lot of idioms.» I handed her the water and she took a long drink. Her eyes were closed. I reached up slowly and let my fingers trail down her cheek.

  She opened her eyes and smiled. She looked for somewhere to put the glass and there was only the dining room table. She walked to it and set the glass down and then stood there, both hands on the table.

  I went to her and touched her shoulder. She turned and the smile was gone and instead she had the other look, the intense tango look. Very slowly I reached for her and took her in my arms and kissed her.

  It had been nineteen years since I had kissed anyone other than Lauren that way. I couldn’t remember the last time Lauren and I had kissed like that, if ever. Elena was trembling and her breath was ragged. I was shaking too.

  I led her to the couch and sat next to her and kissed her again. She didn’t resist me or pursue me, she followed my lead as she did on the dance floor, eagerly, passionately.

  I didn’t rush her and I didn’t back away. Gradually the kisses got more urgent. I put my hands under her shirt so that I could feel her skin. I ran my hands over her back and hesitated with my hands on the clasp of her bra. She laughed and reached behind her and unfastened it. I raised her shirt and lifted her bra and kissed her breasts. They filled my hands perfectly and her skin was warm and fragrant. I felt delirious. Her fingers were in my hair and she was kissing the top of my head, both of us breathing hard.

  I lifted my face and looked into her incredibly dark eyes. «Elena…» I said.

  She looked back at me and it was like she was searching for something. There was a question on her face and suddenly it was a much bigger question than the one I was asking, and infinitely sadder, and then it was like watching a piece of glass fall from my hands to shatter against the floor.

  «Elena?»

  She was crying.

  She stood up and refastened her bra and brushed at her shirt.

  «Elena, what’s wrong?»

  «I made a mistake, Beto, a really terrible mistake.»

  «Elena, I’m sorry if I—»

  «No, not you. Nothing you did.» She knelt on the couch and kissed me fiercely, one hand on my neck, the way she’d he
ld me at El Beso, the first time. «This was my fault. I can’t let you get involved with this business. It is so much worse than you can possibly imagine.»

  «What business?»

  She pulled back and gathered her things from the table. I got up and started toward her and she held out one hand to push me away. «No, Beto, please. I’m begging you now. Please don’t call me, don’t look for me.»

  «This is crazy. How can I just let you walk away?»

  Her eyes went cold. There was something like contempt in her voice when she said, «You can’t understand this, Beto. You don’t have the history.»

  «At least tell me what this is about.»

  «I can’t do that.» She opened the apartment door and stood in the hallway, looking at her feet, holding herself as if she were cold. «Can you let me out?»

  I nodded numbly. There was no dramatic storming out of an apartment building in San Telmo, where everything was double locked, needing keys inside and out.

  I heard her footsteps running down the stairs and I went after her, leaving my apartment door standing open. By the time I got downstairs, she was across the lobby and standing by the front door, crying, holding my handkerchief to her face. I couldn’t think of the magical thing to say that would stop her and turn her around, open her up and make her talk to me.

  I put my key in the lock and turned it and she pushed past me onto to the sidewalk. «Goodbye, Beto,» she said, and ran across the street, a taxi honking at her as she disappeared around the corner.

  *

  I went back upstairs. The apartment was now utterly desolate.

  Her half-finished glass of water was still on the table. I drank the rest of it and ran my tongue around the edge where her lips had been.

  I went to the bathroom and washed my face. “She’s crazy,” I said to the mirror. “She’s absolutely right. You can’t handle this. Let her go.”

  I had never wanted anyone so much in my life.

  I sat on the couch and replayed everything that had happened since we walked in the apartment. Then I replayed the entire day. Then I went back to the first time I saw her at Universal and went through it all again.

  Then it was just the highlights, bits and pieces of conversation, moments. Mostly the feel of her, the smell of her, the taste of her.

  I used up an hour that way, time enough for her to get home. I called and left a message that said, «Elena, don’t leave me hanging like this. Please, just call me and tell me what’s going on.»

  I tried to read, tried to eat a little. The sun went down. I called again. At 8:30 I walked back to Plaza Dorrego in the pathetic hope that she might show up for Don Güicho’s milonga. Or maybe hoping to feel the ghost of her presence still in the square.

  I found Don Güicho setting up his ancient, patched-together sound system, into which he had plugged his new iPod. He jiggled a wire, a few seconds of scratchy tango blared through the speakers, then there was silence again.

  Brisa watched from the sidelines. «Hola, Beto, did your friend have to go?» She read something in my face and said, «Oh, Beto, did she hurt you? What happened?»

  Don Güicho did something and suddenly there was music. A single violin, infinitely sad, mocking me.

  «I don’t know what happened,» I said. «We danced a few times, I thought we really liked each other. Then…» I opened my empty hands.

  Brisa hugged me. «These young girls are so shallow. I should know!» She laughed at herself and said, «Come on, dance with me a little, while the old man finishes with his toys.»

  The dance floor was a thin canvas sheet that Don Güicho unrolled for his Sunday performances. The Buenos Aires dancers didn’t care that it was not a particularly good surface. I changed into my dance shoes and Brisa led me onto the floor. Though I was touched by her concern, having her in my arms only reminded me of what I was missing. The first song ended immediately and the next was Miguel Caló, “Qué falta que me hacés.” I was on the verge of tears. Even with Brisa covering for me, my dancing was an embarrassment. We were the first couple on the floor, I was with Don Güicho’s partner and I was practically stumbling. At the end Brisa thanked me and said, «Poor Beto, it’ll be okay.»

  I retreated to where Don Güicho was pouring hot water into a yerba mate cup made from a carved gourd. He offered me a sip and I declined it, as I did Saverio’s coffee.

  «So who is this woman?» he asked. «She looked familiar.»

  «I met her at El Beso. She goes to a lot of milongas.»

  «Her name is Elena, you said?»

  «Elena Maria Lacunza.» I was nearly 50 years old. I thought I was long past that kind of hurt.

  «Lacunza. That name is familiar. Not from tango, though, from something else.»

  I shrugged.

  «Beto, you should do as Brisa says. Tango is the remedy for what you’re feeling now. The tangos oscuros, the dark tangos, they understand how you feel.»

  «I don’t think so. I tried dancing just now and I was terrible.»

  «Are you the teacher now? Do you think I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? Dance.»

  He turned away. I looked past him and recognized one of the women from his Sexto Kultural class, a short, tough girl named Patricia. I caught her eye, gave her the cabeceo, and we met at the edge of the floor.

  I gave it my best shot. The crowd was full of older couples, tourists, cliques. I sat out a lot of tandas. But when I thought about going back to my empty apartment, I started searching the crowd for someone who would meet my eyes. My dancing, eventually, got better. My partners were polite, some of them even kind. I felt like I was dancing through quicksand.

  *

  I managed to sleep, on and off, until 5:30. I lay in darkness for 15 minutes, then called Elena, hoping to catch her off guard. She didn’t answer and I didn’t leave another message.

  At work I nodded off a few times during the day, split second lapses of consciousness that made my body jerk and left me with muddled dream images superimposed on reality. I left early and stopped by my apartment to change clothes, in the futile hope that she might have come by and left a note. Then I started looking.

  My first stop was the Monday practica at the Club Deportivo Villa Malcolm far out on Corrientes. No one there recognized Elena’s name or description. I stayed and danced a while, remembering how intimidated I’d been my first time there with Lauren, surrounded by teachers and professional performers, despairing that I could ever learn.

  At ten, dizzy with fatigue, I wandered out and found some fruit and bread at a market, then took a cab to Salon Canning, where the milonga started at 11:00. The building is located in an innocuous, tree-lined residential neighborhood. Inside, the main room is like an airplane hangar, the music that night echoing hollowly because of the sparse crowds.

  It was a city full of slender, beautiful, dark-haired women and my heart stopped two or three times as the host led me to a table in the men’s section. I stayed until two, dancing a few tandas here and there, until exhaustion overwhelmed me and I took a cab back to San Telmo for a few hours of restless sleep.

  *

  Tuesday was the same. After an endless, numb day in front of the computer, I called Elena from my apartment, then immediately called again, hoping for a busy signal, any sign of life. I forced myself to eat a little before I took to the streets.

  I was obsessed with the idea that if I found her, she would not refuse to dance with me. And that once we danced, everything would be all right. Magical thinking, crazy thinking, but the only thinking I had.

  El Beso first, because they started at 9:00. After 11, I walked to Porteño y Bailarin, a block away on the other side of Corrientes, a famous milonga with two tiny dance floors and its own regular clientele. I stayed less than half an hour, long enough to convince myself she wasn’t there.

  *

  Wednesday at lunch I took Linea B of the Subte to the Abasto Mall. An exit on the north side of the station led down a hallway and into the lower level
of stores. It was cleaner than anyplace else I’d been in the city, shining and perfume-scented. It was like walking through a secret passageway into the suburban US, a world of bright plastic and chrome and glass. The difference was the customers in Buenos Aires were better dressed and vastly more fit.

  I found New Diqui on the directory. I took some deep breaths as I walked counterclockwise past the shops full of leather and electronics and dresses. The place was in a cluster of shoe stores, most of them selling women’s shoes, a couple of others with the latest oddball designs from Nike and Converse. I brushed my fingers through my hair, straightened my jacket, and went in.

  A woman with blonde hair and black roots was helping a customer. A woman my age with cat-eye glasses was behind the counter near the register.

  I had worked up an elaborate story about being there the week before with my wife, then I heard Elena in my head saying, «I hate liars.»

  I said hello to the woman in the glasses and asked how she was and said, «There’s a woman who works here, I think her name is Elena. She was very kind to me last week. I wondered if she was working today.»

  «Not today, I’m afraid.»

  «Is something wrong?»

  She sighed. «I may as well tell you. She doesn’t work here anymore.»

  «Oh.» I felt my shoulders slump.

  «She quit on Monday. All very sudden, I must say.»

  «I hope there’s nothing wrong. She seemed very nice.»

  «She was nice. Everyone loved her, customers, management, the other salesgirls. She was the best employee I’ve ever had. And she called and quit over the phone, didn’t even do it in person.»

  «Well,» I said. «Maybe she’ll change her mind.»

  «We can hope, can’t we?»

  *

  I called Bahadur and told him I needed the rest of the afternoon off.

  “You sound terrible,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

  I told him I wasn’t feeling well, which was certainly true, and he told me to get some rest.