Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home (3 page)

I was pretty certain that Claire and Allen hadn’t told me their full reasons either.

We discussed leading versus following as we mixed lime, fresh mint, and bean sprouts in with our noodles.

“You have more to worry about as a leader,” Claire said. “I don’t envy them.”

“Yeah, but we have to adapt to all the different styles of leaders,” I said. “When I was learning salsa, any guy from backwater Venezuela was one hundred percent convinced he was dancing salsa correctly, while the next guy from Puerto Rico had entirely different steps.”

“I think the leader gets to interpret more,” Allen said. “But he has to be bolder — pay attention to lots of things at once so he doesn’t slam his partner into other people. And he has to ask women to dance.”

“I run my own interior design business where I make all the decisions, shoulder all the responsibility,” Claire said. “I love the thought of not having to be in charge on the dance floor. Following is a relief.”

With this, we ventured into territory usually not broached early on among dance pupils — our day jobs.

“I used to teach literature and writing to college students, but I’ve had enough writing assignments to quit for a while. So I’m home alone at my computer during the day,” I said. “I like the social engagement at night.”

Allen eventually told us that he worked at a financial institution as a computer technician.

“So do you get irritated at people who call you in a panic, only to find out when you arrive that they forgot to turn on their computers?” I asked him.

“Well, it is nice to finally get a little respect from the brokers,” he answered.

We finished the meal and made our way back to the studio,
weaving between the pedestrians and vendors’ carts that filled the streets, passing breath mints between us.

Anytime there was a break — in conversation, dance lessons, something to focus on — the dread returned: the feeling like someone had died. I missed my husband. Not the man I was divorcing, but the man I married. The one who met me at the subway station at night and walked me home. Who carried my bike up the stairs for me. Right after our wedding, we had argued over what color linoleum tiles we should put on the kitchen floor. I wanted bright blue, he want a more subdued color. We finally agreed on light green. He laid the tiles and I helped by scraping up the excess glue. He stood and surveyed his work while I was still scrubbing on my hands and knees; either he was admiring his handiwork or my butt in the air, or both. He grabbed me around the waist and we made love on the kitchen floor.

But something changed. His interest in the house ended. He was too tired to go out dancing, and for his out-of-town trips, he departed at all hours of the night. He assured me it was just business.

I thought about the last time my husband and I had made love, the day before I found out about his girlfriend. It was uninspired. His cheeks were unshaven and burned my face. I had trouble falling asleep that night — his body was always hot, but that night it felt toxic, and whenever I bumped against him I jolted awake. I knew something was wrong, but I told myself it was his job.

Then I learned. The next night the computer made an odd mewling, like a barn door opening; he had received an instant message on his e-mail account. I opened it.

“
Loquita, tu es el amor de mi corazon
,” he had written to her. Little crazy one, you are the love of my heart.

“
Tu es un loquito. Te extrano un monton
,” she had written back. You’re the little crazy one. I miss you a ton.

At that moment I felt utter calm. I had known something was wrong. Now I knew what.

He was on the road, working, so I called him.

“How did you get my password?” he said.

“That’s the least of your concerns. I’m divorcing you,” I said. “I’m throwing your shit out and I’m divorcing you.”

“Don’t throw my stuff out,” he said.

I considered this. Since he was out of town, it wouldn’t have had much of a dramatic effect. Basically, my neighbors would have had to walk over his clothes for a week. So I agreed to give his things to a friend.

“Don’t divorce me,” he said. I hung up and called two of my girlfriends who lived in the neighborhood. They came over with bottles of wine. While we emptied them we emptied his clothes from the armoire, pulling shirts and pants from hangers and wadding them into balls. He loved his clothes and took fastidious care of them, washing his tennis shoes by hand once a week, hanging his pants just so. Underwear, socks, and shoes we jumbled and crammed into corners of a huge canvas bag. Once it was full, my friends and I shoved, kicked, and heaved it down
the stairs. A neighbor poked his head out of his apartment and asked what was going on.

“Oh, nothing,” I said.

He didn’t seem convinced, but after looking at the three of us, tipsy and wild-eyed, he knew enough to go back into his apartment.

After the drama subsided, I lay on the couch and watched car lights flicker across the walls of my apartment until I fell asleep. I woke up at sunrise. I couldn’t quit thinking about how the past few months with my husband had been a lie. The future I had imagined and hoped for — a child, a house — had been shattered. I sank into an abyss between lies of the past and the pain and disappointment that lay ahead of me. Stretched out on the couch, I thought about what I would do. I had liked being married. I’d felt at peace. I didn’t think my husband was my soul mate — I loved him and he was there and willing and I was ready. I thought depth in our relationship would develop over time. I loved the idea of sharing my life with another person. Now I needed a plan, a goal, something to replace this loss and emptiness I felt. My husband and I had planned to attend our friends’ wedding. Katherine and Marcus lived in New York but would have their wedding in Uruguay, where Marcus grew up. We were supposed to be flying into Buenos Aires. We had mentioned taking tango lessons. Now alone, I would learn tango and travel there without him. My first stop had been the South Street Seaport, and, convinced I wanted to learn it, I only had three months before Buenos Aires. I made sure that I registered
for classes that were followed by a practica, which is a few hours of free dance practice that studios offer their students.

Back at the studio, to prepare for the practica after our first lesson, Dario arranged metal folding chairs in a line against a wall. Afternoon light angled through the tall windows, and dust motes floated in the sun’s rays. People sat in the chairs to change their shoes; a few stood in front of the mirrored wall and stretched, while some couples had already taken to the floor and were waiting for the music to begin.

“This is a practica,” Dario announced. “Here you can give suggestions and gently correct each other. Never do this at a milonga. In tango, you dance close to your partner, so it’s important you are clean and well showered. And leaders, get to know the followers level, where she is and what she’s capable of, before trying to kick
ganchos
over her head.” He demonstrated, whipping a leg behind him and up into the air. Everyone laughed.

When the music started, Allen and Claire paired up first and I sat and watched. Couples danced in harmony, but also with gestures indicating rebellion, regret, then resolution. They kicked between each other’s legs, and sometimes pressed their torsos tightly against each other but then pushed apart; they didn’t so much reflect each other as create a rippling back and forth, like underwater motion. Strains from the bandoneón and violin scratched out yearning, and the music swelled around the dancers as they passed through the sunlight that spilled onto the polished wood floor.

It was my turn to practice with Allen, who was a clear, good
lead. He held a fearless gaze. I stared right back at him, fighting a slight smile. We worked on our basic, adding the woman’s crossover. When he indicated with a twist of his chest, I slid my foot back until it crossed in front of my planted foot. Then both the leader and the follower shift weight. He walked forward as I moved back, and we sidestepped into resolution.

Allen’s signal to cross in the basic salida was an obvious, almost dramatic gesture and it was easy to read it. As leaders became more advanced, though, the gesture to basic crossover becomes so subtle as to be almost imperceptible; you have to read the intention itself rather than the gesture. So while I loved the safety of dancing with Allen, I knew I would have to branch out in order to learn all the different ways this lead was signaled. But, for now, we held each other at arm’s length until I relinquished him to other followers and took a seat.

“Mi Noche Triste” (My Sad Night), sung by Carlos Gardel, played. “
De noche cuando me acuesto / no puedo cerrar la puerta / porque dejandola abierta / me hago ilusion que volves
.” (At night when I go to bed / I can’t close the door / because by leaving it open / I make believe that you’re coming back.)

Written by Pascual Contursi, this song has no closure to grief, nothing upbeat. It’s a lament about lost loves and innocence shattered and an initiation into the world of traitors. In 1917 “Mi Noche Triste” became the first recorded tango, and Gardel became its voice. He sang with conviction, creating an emotional landscape of such volatility that people were known to weep upon hearing him. With this song, the tango changed. It was
no longer simply bawdy and full of sexual innuendos. It would no longer be happy.

Next, Dario played a song that seemed to tap directly into my own sadness. The woman’s voice was so haunting, it expanded the sense of loss as if it were a space that let you wander around inside, like an empty museum at nighttime. It was “Nefeli’s Tango,” by the Greek diva Haris Alexiou. I had no idea what she was saying, but from the mournful way she sang, I imagined the lyrics meant something like “My heart has been broken, so I’m going to blind myself and wander in the desert and ponder the misery that is life.”

The song filled the studio, and the couples echoed the emotion. Marcel, my acquaintance who had insisted I dance with him at the South Street Seaport, showed up at the practica with his girlfriend, a pretty, slender brunette. At one point he stepped back and let her full weight fall against him. Her free leg extended and swept the empty space; it looked as though she was searching for him with her foot, then trying to find something to grasp onto. The move was so sad, so filled with longing, that I decided I just had to learn it. I watched another couple: The man looked Irish, with ruddy skin, pale blue eyes, a strong jaw and thick neck and was leading an elderly woman around the floor in a tight embrace. They danced quickly, athletically; she swung a leg up, returned it, keeping up with his pace. He wore a bandana around his head, and his casual T-shirt and jeans made him look like a construction worker before a shift.

Marcel interrupted my staring by asking me to dance. He
held me in open embrace, as I needed to watch our feet. Close embrace was still too terrifying, like being instantly blinded.

“Use gravity,” Marcel said. “Push into the ground with your legs so I know what foot your weight is on.” I tried this and we danced a little, but it must have felt like pushing lead around. “But be light with your upper body,” he said.

I sighed and he laughed. “You’ll get it.”

We practiced the basic, pausing in front of the mirror so I could see my steps.

“Don’t anticipate,” he said as he walked in a smooth, steady gait. Then Marcel introduced me to the Irish man and pretty much forced him to dance with me.

“I’m a beginner,” I explained.

“It’s okay,” he said.

I tucked my arm around his shoulder and felt his chest press against mine. He smelled vaguely like he was sweating out last night’s booze. He pulled me into close embrace and hit a fast pace, stepping on half notes. I let my legs follow his on the pauses. I didn’t have time to count, but I was doing it, flaring a leg forward, swinging it backward the way I had seen the other dancers do it. I didn’t have time to be scared. My mind cleared and my body just responded. It was exhilarating.

It’s said that randomness creates addiction; that if something is reliable, you don’t feel as attached to it. That’s why gambling is addictive. And why dancing is, too. The social nature of having multiple partners means that sometimes the dance feels stiff and awkward, but the ones that are good feel so good they fuse into
your memory, and the possibility of repeating the experience keeps you coming back for more.

When the music stopped, I recognized a young hipster from my neighborhood. Wearing flame-retardant plaid retro slacks and a vintage mustard-yellow shirt, he brought a bit of trendy Brooklyn into the room. He was also a terrific dancer, with original steps and enough confidence to switch up the rhythms. Claire and I stood at the wall and noticed his facial expressions: lips pursed, eyebrows lifted, not smiling, not frowning, just focused.

“It’s almost like he’s playing a musical instrument,” Claire said.

“Only with his feet,” I answered.

The Hipster stopped dancing, and he and I chatted about people we knew from our neighborhood. The last time I had seen him, he had just sold his business as a headhunter for tech companies and was going to spend time reading and writing.

“No, never wrote much,” he said. “Instead I started dancing tango seven nights a week.”

“Every night?” I asked him.

“Yep,” he answered. “You’ll see.”

Then, out of charity, he invited me to dance. But rather than walk the basic, he moved me around the floor quickly and forced me to practice shifting my weight. He’d switch his weight to one side, and I’d have to follow and change my weight to the other foot. It was tough, but I appreciated what he was teaching me. The steps are the easy part in tango; the technique, the embrace,
finding the weight shift, keeping balanced on one leg — these are the hard things.

Afterward he suggested I take private lessons. “One private class with Robert T. is worth ten group classes. And if you go to his place in Queens, it’s half price.”

“How do I find him?” I asked.

“Google ‘close embrace,’” he said.