Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home (15 page)

“Nothing, really. Our mutual friend made him move to the other end of the table so he could chat with him. So I’m trying figure out where he goes and how to meet up with him again.”

Peter spotted a gay tanguero and went over to ask him to dance. As I watched him, I felt a little sad because I realized that one day I would lose my dance buddies. It seemed inevitable. I knew these Friday nights would end: Claire and Peter and Allen, they’d find love interests and move on. There must be a term for that in the tango — melancholy from the inevitable passing of pleasure. Or feeling left in the dust.

“La Cumparsita” signaled the end of the evening, but we wanted to stay in the warm, dark room, muddling around in the oxbow while the river of activity flowed by outside. Slowly we changed shoes and went out into the New York nightlife; some events were waning and others just getting started. Cell phones snapped shut with a “Fuck you,” and anxious men shuffled in
long lines as they waited in the cold, hoping to enter a club where they’d heard models hang out. We passed among them, slightly smug in the knowledge that what they were seeking — the intimacy, the drama, the drugged feeling of falling in love — we had found. Even if just for a night, for a song, it would do for now. We stopped at a corner before heading in our separate directions.

“I used to live right over there,” Peter said. “I can’t believe I gave up that rent-controlled apartment. But I didn’t think this city would get so expensive. Now I have to share a studio with a woman who sells flower essences,” he said. “And she has two cats.”

“That sounds cozy,” I said.

He grimaced. “Way, way too cozy.”

“Brooklyn is not that bad,” Claire said. “You’d probably have better luck over there.”

But Peter is one of those people who would rather, well, share a studio with a roommate and her pets than live in Brooklyn.

“I’m tired of this city,” he answered. “The expense, the cold.”

“It’s not easy,” I said. “That’s true.”

Claire and I parted from Allen and Peter in a quick exchange of kisses on cheeks before we went into the subway and waited for our train.

“I’m always hungry after a milonga, but I don’t want to eat so late,” I said.

“Bananas are good,” Claire responded. “They have potassium and replenish your muscles.”

She put a hand on a post and stretched her calves. I pointed one leg outward, subtly stretching it, then etched small circles with it, an embellishment termed a
lapiz
, or pencil.

“I wish everybody danced,” Claire said. “Then, during lunch breaks, we’d all go out and tango under the trees.”

“Embrace with total strangers, every day,” I said. “You’d really get to know the best of a person.”

“I feel like I’m starting to become friendlier with strangers,” Claire said. “And even more affectionate with people I know.”

“I think dancing helps us become more compassionate,” I said.

The train roared into the station, and Claire sighed. “I love tango so much,” she said. “You’re so lucky you’re going to Buenos Aires soon. Maybe you’ll meet a handsome tanguero there.”

I laughed. “I’m totally against any romance unless it lasts about three minutes and involves ochos.”

But sometimes romance finds you in the most unlikely places.

I
WANDERED ALONG
the crooked, cobblestone streets of downtown Buenos Aires, jostled by the crowds on the narrow sidewalks and dodging the speeding cars. From this cityscape I searched for something the tango promised: a lessening of the grief, a segue from lost love into acceptance. In the full light of day it was business as usual for the Argentineans, but like a shadow, tango was always there; I passed by stores that sold dancing shoes and cafés where the occasional tango melody floated to the sidewalk. There’s a term,
mufarse
, in the local dialect of Lunfardo, that carries the cadences and nuances of longing. (I had learned this term via Robert Farris Thompson and his book
Tango: The Art History of Love
.) Mufarse is the melancholic pleasure that comes from surviving the shock of heartbreak; it’s relief that the worst has passed. This was the object of my search.

Though it seems unlikely anyone could find mufarse in a shopping mall, that’s exactly where I went: through the labyrinth of stores and up elevators, following the nods and pointing fingers of security guards, until I found the famed Academia del Tango, marked by a phrase from tango composer Enrique Santos Discépolo scrawled across the wall: “
El tango es un pensamiento triste que hasta se puede bailar.
” (The tango is a sad thought that you can dance.)

I entered the dance studio, where light beamed through tall glass windows, laminating the wood floors with a glossy sheen. Most of the students were women, but one of them told me this was unusual. The teacher, Augusto, seemed cheerful and enthusiastic. He had a round face, giving him a youthful appearance, which he countered by wearing thick-framed glasses. His posture and graceful, confident gestures made him handsome.

“Yesterday the class was all men,” Augusto said. “But that doesn’t matter. We will still have an excellent class, I assure you.”

He demonstrated a
boleo
, whipping his leg energetically across himself, first in back, then in front of the leg that held his weight. He broke it down: “Cross your legs, knees are touching. Then let the free leg swing up, circle around behind you, and bring it in front of you.”

I loved watching the boleo. It reminded me of a cat flicking its tail in warning.

Augusto watched us try it, then shook his head. “No, not yet. You don’t have it,” he exclaimed. “Let’s try it with partners.”

One of the few men led me, first on my right leg, then on my
left. It didn’t feel as poetic as it looked. I worried about damage to my knees as I swung them around. The follower is supposed to just let go and let her leg whip in response to the will of the leader.

“The boleo is an act of regret,” Augusto told the class. “The leader is sending the follower away, but then in an instant he changes his mind and pulls her back to him. That moment is the boleo.”

Sometimes the control given leaders bothered me, but at other times I liked their shouldering more of the responsibility when I was learning new steps.
Boleo
comes from the Spanish verb
bolear
, “to throw,” but the movement is more like whipping.

After the lesson, I made my way through the crowds flowing down the narrow sidewalks of the city center, then broke away from the pedestrians to go to an afternoon milonga at the most famous tango hall in Buenos Aires, La Confitería Ideal. Built in the early 1900s, it had twenty-foot ceilings both up- and downstairs, marble columns, and dark wood paneling. The hall was slightly smoky, the walls, floors, columns distressed and patinaed. It was a perfect tango venue. A waiter, who looked as old as the building and had the stiff demeanor of a butler, pointed me up the marble staircase that wrapped around a wrought-iron elevator. The clientele at the afternoon milonga was a group of retirees and a sprinkling of tourists. A woman insisted on seating me at a table just to the side of the dance floor.

I ordered a
café cortado
, an espresso with a dollop of frothed milk on top. A classic tango played, and I thought about my exhusband
and grew melancholy. He was supposed to be here with me. We were supposed to go to the wedding together, take this trip together. Maybe the trip could have saved our marriage. I played over some of our conversations in my head and wondered if I had made mistakes. What if instead of saying, “I’m divorcing you,” I had said, “Come home and let’s work this out?” Maybe I was scared of his response. But what if I had said that? And what if he had come home? I wouldn’t be sitting here alone right now. Big tears started slipping down my cheeks. I swabbed them with a coarse napkin and looked around the room.

The hostess had seated all the women in this section, while the men chatted among themselves at the tables near the head of the dance floor. I quickly learned why. At some milongas in Buenos Aires, men do not approach women to ask them to dance; rather, they sit across the room from them and make eye contact. If the woman does not avert her eyes, the man nods slightly, almost imperceptibly. If the woman nods back, then he approaches her table, or both stand and meet on the dance floor. The head motion, the subtle agreement, is known as a
cabeceo
, from the Spanish word for “head,”
cabeza
. The verb
cabecer
means to move one’s head, as if to nod; its noun form,
cabeceo
, is a tango invitation. The men are known as
cabeceros
. The cabeceo saves men from being rejected publicly, and it allows women to refuse gracefully.

Though a good solution, it did present a few problems. I encountered a man who seemed to stare at me, but he never made a gesture. I would catch his gaze, expectant, but the nod never
came. At those times cabeceo seemed more like a staring match than an invitation. Was I missing the nod?

The cabeceros all seemed to have a repertoire of four to six dance moves they used over and over. They danced classic tango, from the early days before the nuevo moves like volcadas or the modern boleo were taught in classes. I liked this — they would not make a move that scared or surprised me. (The boleo, for example, still scared me a little. I hadn’t been able to fully relax my leg and let it whip independently of my will.) If I didn’t know a step that these cabeceros led, they gently walked me through it.

One man kept bending his leg and trying to get me to kick my foot in the space, spurring the air with a gancho, but he seemed so unsteady on his feet, I worried that if I flicked my heel where he wanted, we would both end up on the floor. Truthfully, I didn’t fully understand what he was intending until he barked, “
Da me un ganchito!
” (Give me a little gancho!)

I flicked my foot with a slight jab. This seemed to satisfy him, and we danced on.

The afternoon at La Confitería Ideal had the clandestine feel of sitting in a bar during the day or making love on a weekday afternoon. Tango was an activity meant for nighttime, and only the most hardcore would cast away summer daylight hours here. The subtle agreements made with eyes and slight nods were mysterious, as if their coming together had been predetermined in another time and place.

After dancing with the cabeceos all afternoon, I left the dark,
beautiful coffee shop and walked narrow sidewalks still bustling with foot traffic. I passed along city squares where trees arched over the walkways. I looked up and saw the forked branches of a jacaranda tree, stark and severe against the early twilight sky. On the sidewalk lavender petals littered the ground like pastel graffiti.

Early the next morning I flipped open my tango map and made my way to a shopping district, then into a small back alleyway where I followed a sign that read C
OMME
I
L
F
AUT
. Inside the store, women perched on zebra-print love seats fumbled through piles of shoeboxes that spilled open onto the bloodred carpet. The jumble included all kinds of stilettos: red-heeled shoes with leopard print straps; bright turquoise ones with shiny silver straps across the toes; classic Chanel-style creamy beige with black swirls; rhinestone studs that shimmered as you moved them; black velvet with silver straps. The shoes were designed specifically for tango, with the heel aerodynamically angled for walking backward and, so dancers claim, the whole allowing for maximum foot articulation.

I sat down and told the saleswoman my size, adding, “Lowest heels possible, please.”

I was informed that a two-inch stiletto was as low as they go. I tried on a few styles, walking in front of the mirror, complaining that the leopardskin didn’t come in my size. I walked forward, pivoted, stepped backward, pushed my foot out to the side, rubbed it in a gentle circle against the floor, and brought it back in slowly. More women arrived, and I detected accents
from England, the United States, and the Netherlands as we commented on the shoes, and the boxes got stacked until they teetered and toppled. Lids flew, and the saleswomen ran back and forth. I stood in front of the mirror, checking myself out in a pair of emerald green heels, and muttered, “I’m not sure they’re practical.”

“Don’t even say that word,” a woman responded, and everyone laughed.

Women piled up three and four boxes at the register. One young woman had five.

“I’ve never seen her in the same pair of shoes twice,” her mother complained to the crowd.

“That’s an exaggeration,” the girl responded. “But I love these and they’re so reasonable here.”

After much consideration, I chose an elegant pair of two-inch black stilettos with a silver lamé strap. Not too showy, yet beautiful nevertheless, with the silver adding a hint of attitude. I noticed some of the women carrying Mimi Pinzón shopping bags: my next stop.

In Argentina I could live as if money didn’t matter, so instead of marching to a subway and figuring out transfers, I hailed a cab. My luxury was possible due to an economic crisis triggered in 2001. After the government stopped making payments on its crushing foreign debt, banking institutions refused to loan the country any more money. People fearing the worst began withdrawing large sums of money from their bank accounts, turning pesos into dollars, sending them abroad, and causing a
bank run. In order to stop this, the government imposed a limit on withdrawals. Economic activity froze, and street protests erupted around the country. The peso was devalued, creating hardships for the Argentineans but making the country cheap for foreigners. While the nation struggled to recover, Buenos Aires, the “Paris of the South,” became
the
place to visit.

When I found out Katherine and Marcus were getting married in Uruguay, I pitched a magazine article that explored tango as a new economy in Buenos Aires. Argentina hoped tourism would help it recover from what it called the crisis, and tango was at the forefront of the plan. Bed-and-breakfasts offered tango classes; new dance schools opened, listing group and private classes. Some young tangueros even accompanied out-of-towners to milongas — these taxi dancers promised a good night of dancing for a small fee. Buenos Aires had become an affordable Mecca for tango, and even those visiting for other reasons often caught the bug and went home and learned the dance. While the crisis caused hardship for the nation, it bolstered tango’s popularity in its birthplace, as well as internationally.