The Gods of Tango (30 page)

“Point taken. You win, Dante.”

“Come on, boys,” Santiago called through the curtain. “Intermission’s over.”

Dante went to the stage and took up her violin. Alma. Alma. Where was she now? The crowd was thick tonight, music and liquor already doing their work. No sign of her. She was a slight girl with rich black hair who danced like a mellifluous dream. She wore bright red lipstick and kohl around her eyes in an attempt to look more mature than her years, or perhaps to make up for her size, though it seemed to Dante that her size didn’t keep her from getting noticed: men flocked to her precisely because she was so small, a slim bird you could almost tuck into your pocket or cradle in your palm. She awakened a ferocity so pure it was almost tender. So it seemed, at least, to Dante. There were customers who arrived early to reserve her time, and she made them look large on the dance floor in comparison, yet weightless, caught up in her light, avian glide.

Was it true? Could it be? Was Alma thinking of her? And more important, was it possible to have a real girlfriend? Three years now of living as a man and the loneliness had become like a second skin, indistinguishable from her own essential self, an automatic cost of being alive. You live, you breathe, you are not caught, and in payment for this
vast gift you are alone. You look at girls and do not touch them—no one but Mamita, and even that is just a loosened bodice, a few minutes, little more—so as not to harm anyone. And anyway, brothel women kept their souls locked tight. It was not love. She knew that much. She didn’t know what love was, and without realizing it she’d given up on ever finding out.

Then she saw her: Alma: toward the back, in a gray-haired man’s arms, eyes closed, face solemn, as though she’d just taken communion and the holy bread were dissolving in her mouth as she danced.

To be with a girl who really wanted you. Who let you get close to her mind along with her body. And if it were Alma, that delicate girl, that lithe girl. To be near her, to—Dante’s fingers tripped over a note, Santiago tensed in front of her, she had to concentrate.

It took her a week to gather the strength to approach Alma, as she waited for the bathroom in the back hall. She opened with a stupid compliment. “You dance beautifully.”

Alma’s smile was almost mocking. Those red lips.

“Let’s go out sometime.” Dante meant for it to come out as a question, but now it was too late.

Alma studied her. “Why?”

“Because I want to be next to you.”

She laughed. Bright honey in that laugh.

“We could go dancing.”

“Dancing!”

Dante rarely danced, as she was always onstage, creating music for others. In fact this was how she preferred things; dancing felt dangerous, a test of her masculinity, and anyway she didn’t have to dance when she could experience the tango from the inside, by making the music itself. “If you like.”

“I’m here dancing every day.”

“Well, where would you like to go?”

“To the park. In the daytime.”

“Which park?”

“The one in Palermo.”

“Tomorrow?”

“You mean today?”

Dante was confused for a moment, then remembered it was three in the morning. “Yes. Today.”

The following afternoon, at three thirty, Dante arrived at the door of Alma’s home, a conventillo four blocks from hers. The front door was gray and worn, and Alma had her wait on the street until she was ready to emerge, which made Dante wonder about the state of her quarters, how many people shared her room. Then they set off across town, in a tram to the north side, to the park in Palermo. Sunshine glistened on the grass and winked on the smooth surface of the lake. Trees raised their arms over decadent shade. There was a park in San Telmo too, Parque Lezama, and Dante had wondered why Alma hadn’t wanted to go there, but now she understood. On Sundays, Lezama was crowded with innumerable rowdy bodies. Here, in Palermo, rich ladies guarded themselves with parasols and were trailed by maids who carried their things, while the gentlemen strutted in perfectly ironed suits, brandishing canes before their feet. The ladies and gentlemen glared at Alma and Dante, clearly interlopers from the tenements. Though not the only ones: there were families on benches, sharing a single loaf of bread; young couples escaping the crowded rooms of home to hold hands and stroll; a lone girl in a maid’s uniform gazing sadly at the water. And nobody was telling them to leave. You can glare all you like, Dante thought at the rich, this city is ours as well and there are more of us every day. She felt large in a manner that surprised her. It seemed that the city could belong to her, that she could one day belong inside it; that she could make a life here as an immigrant man, playing tango, eluding danger, and not die young, perhaps—radical thought—not even die alone. She felt a swelling in her chest, something warm and dangerous, akin to hope.

They chatted as they walked. She made Alma laugh, though in a
coy way, face at a slant. Flirting, thought Dante, this is called flirting. She’d seen the other men do it, charm a girl and keep her guessing at the same time. Alma was no stranger to this game. Every gesture of hers felt expert, even the modest ones, especially those. And yet there was a sparkle to her that felt sincere, and that reminded Dante of Palmira, with her whip-long eyelashes and bright smile. Of course, this girl was not as sheltered as Palmira. She’d seen some things. And done some. How many times? With how many men? Lust opened under Dante like a vast rip in the ground. She had to step carefully to keep her balance.

At dusk, they took the tram back to San Telmo and had beers and a grilled sandwich at a bar. After the north side, their neighborhood seemed at once shabby and familiar, welcoming and cramped, warm with voices, rank with garbage, devoid of trees. Soon it was time for both of them to go home and get ready for their night’s work. Dante walked Alma home, and on the walk Alma flashed her a look of annoyance, or disappointment. What was she, Dante, doing wrong? All day she’d tried to be respectful.

“You’re beautiful, Alma.”

“You think so?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“That I’m beautiful, or that you think so?”

“That I think so.”

“No. Not really.”

She felt like an idiot. She hadn’t been forward enough. How far would a real man have gone by now? She gathered her courage, stopped on the sidewalk, pulled Alma close, and kissed her. They stood in the shadows at the edge of an alley, and anyway no one tried to stop them, no one even slowed their walk, this was the big city after all and to each their own sin. The gutters smelled of horse piss and citrus rinds; in the distance, a motorcar droned and faded away. The kiss was gentle at first, a soft pulse between them. Dante hadn’t kissed anybody on the mouth since those nights in Italy under the olive tree. Did she kiss like a
woman? Taste like a woman? What did men’s mouths taste like? Alma’s mouth tasted like cigarettes and cognac and pure brutal life. Her tongue was plush and surprisingly strong. Her body stayed relaxed; she seemed to suspect nothing. Dante began to kiss her with more force, and Alma didn’t resist, she snaked her arms around Dante’s neck. Dante pulled her into the alley and pressed her against the damp stone wall, kept kissing her, a hand in Alma’s hair, against her scalp, her chest was heaving, she mewed softly. Dante kept one hand free and close to her own sex in case Alma made any attempts to touch her there, an unnecessary defense because Alma’s hands were still clasped at the nape of Dante’s neck, she hung from him and let herself melt, she was rocking softly against him and Dante knew exactly how that felt, the urge to rock and rock and press against something anything or else explode and so she put her thigh between Alma’s legs. Alma moaned. Not loudly but fiercely, a kind of hiss, so close to Dante’s ear that the sound drowned out the noise of the street.
Make her do that thing. Do it
. They were rocking against each other, Alma pinned to the wall and draped around Dante’s leg and were her feet still touching the ground? or was she floating? Alma suspended, Alma rubbing beautifully against Dante’s thigh and making rough unscripted sounds—
this too is tango, isn’t it
—until she drew in her breath as sharp as talons and fell limp in Dante’s arms.

Drunken voices, oblivious voices, the creak of wheels, the whinny of a tired horse pulling its owners home.

“You … Dante …”

“Alma.”

Her hand began to slide down Dante’s chest, toward his sex. Dante caught her hand, brought it to her lips, and kissed each finger.

“Don’t. You don’t have to do that.”

“All right,” Alma said, “I don’t have to.”

Her tone was coy, her hand tried to pull away and travel down again. Dante held it tighter. “Don’t,” she said again, more firmly.

Alma pulled back to stare at Dante, who resisted the urge to escape her gaze. Curiosity and suspicion and a slash of relief.

“You’re a very strange man.”

There was nothing to say to this, no place to begin.

The rest of the walk home was beautiful, lit by far too many stars.

At Alma’s door, they kissed again, more fiercely this time. After Alma went inside, Dante walked home, elated. Heat surged through her hands, her limbs, the bowl of her hips. She felt an overwhelming urge to press against Alma again, harder this time, with every centimeter of herself.

And then what?

The way Alma had looked at her, just before they kissed: that expectation. Men needed to take the lead, to know what to do. She had to prepare.

That night she went to work, and in the morning, instead of going home to sleep, she went directly to another dance hall, Lo de Amalia. Once inside, she had to wait twenty minutes until Mamita was free. The back room was close and stuffy and smelled of overripe vegetables and a thin veneer of lavender oil.

Mamita sat down on the bed and smiled at Dante. “Nice to see you, sweetheart.”

“You too.”

“What shall we do tonight?”

“I want to see it.”

“See what?”

Dante gestured.

“Oh, my God. You’ve been here how many times, and you haven’t been in there yet? What am I going to do with you, Dante?” She had her skirts hitched up in fistfuls, and she sat down on the bed and spread her legs. She was not wearing underwear. “Take a good look now.”

Mamita seemed amused and a little bored in a manner that loosened the ache in Dante’s chest. It had taken her three years to ask a woman to spread her legs, partly from her own shame and partly to protect women from her lust. But this woman, this Mamita, was not fragile: she was strong and vast, the mother of every poor lonely man in Buenos Aires, a role that kept her making a living at an age when other prostitutes had
disappeared from brothels and sometimes from the face of the earth. Nothing could break her or, at least, not this, a clumsy lusting boy. It was safe—she hoped it was safe—to look. Dante looked. It was nothing like what she’d imagined. She fell to her knees. Mamita laughed.

“Go on,” she said, not unkindly. “Touch it.”

Such warmth, such damp, such utter softness. And the scent of it: bay leaves and copper and fresh bitter dirt. Dante moved her fingers along the folds, exploring, staring, touching, bursting with amazement and desire, possessed by the smell of this woman’s secret place, her central place, this place that was the subject of endless songs and jokes and humiliations and warnings and blood feuds, and look at it, look at this, look at her, here, Mamita full of grace and yes you among women—and then Mamita let out a small moan.

“You liked that?”

“Mmmm.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What else do you like?”

“Whatever you like,
corazón
.”

“No.” Dante sat up. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Now, now, don’t get upset—”

“I want you to teach me.”

“Teach you what?”

“How to make you feel good.”

Mamita lifted herself up onto her elbows and studied Dante for a long time in the dim light. “Why?”

“I’ll pay extra.”

“Where would we start?”

“You tell me.”

“How experienced are you?”

Dante didn’t answer.

“Oh, child,” Mamita said.

“I’ll pay for the whole night.”

Mamita studied her. No part of her was laughing anymore. “You have that kind of money?”

“How much?”

“Seven pesos.”

“I’ve got four pesos and sixty cents. I can get you the rest on Thursday. Or I’ll give you what I’ve got and stay however long you let me.”

Mamita was silent for such a long time that Dante began to feel the cold enter her feet. “You’ve got a girl now, haven’t you?”

She almost nodded, but then shook her head.

“Not yet. You hope to have her. But right now you wouldn’t know what to do with her.”

Dante looked at the floor. Wood planks, scuffed and tired, worn down by all the things they’d seen.

“And you want to make her happy. Yes, you do.” And what Mamita did next shocked her: she reached out and stroked Dante’s face. “You’re a good boy,” she said. “Such a pretty little mouth.” Her hand gripped Dante’s face, thumb on one cheek, fingers on the other, so hard it seemed she might bore a hole right through the flesh. “Now put it to work.”

Dante surrendered to Mamita like a twig in an ocean storm.

You don’t know, when they start to call you Mamita, that the name will come to subsume all other names, that the name you were born with will drown in the great noise of your life, but that’s how it is in this city, Buenos Aires, it renames you, rebaptizes you for better or for worse. You don’t know any of this at first. You work because you have to, because your human body keeps insisting on a crust of bread and a place to sleep and another place to shit and some way to stay alive, even when your mind rails against it all and fantasizes about death as though it were one of those sweet desserts that flaunt themselves in the windows of fancy pastry shops like exuberant clouds you’ll never be able to touch. Just as
your mouth craves those pastries, your mind craves death. But not the body. No matter what happens, the stupid body wants to live. It insists on breath and food and so you live. And to live means to fuck, and to fuck means to open up your body to whoever shows up at the door and there is always someone at the door, always another hungry man in this city in which night has no beginning and no end. The men keep coming and coming and they—not you—are the ones who find Mamita inside you and start to call you that, present you with her name. They give it to you because they need it, because Mamita is what they want of you whether they know it or not: they are all boys inside still desperate for their mothers’ skirts—and so many of them are thousands of kilometers from their mothers and cannot abide this, can’t stand the thought that their mammas or muttis or ommis or mères are aging on a faraway continent and will die without ever seeing their sons again, that they, the sons, will never again touch their mothers’ hands or eat their stews or wear clothes their mothers mended with needles sharp enough to draw blood, these grown men lie awake and weep over this loss of their mothers, even the rough ones, especially the rough ones—so when they find a spark of their own mothers inside you they come groveling for it and can’t see or even call you anything else. You play along and let them have their games. You don’t realize that the games they play are changing you. The years pile up and one day you wake up and realize two things: first, that you have become Mamita and barely remember being anyone else; second, that, with the passing years, your odds of survival have slimmed and being Mamita just might save you, might allow you the miracle of a long career as a whore, continuing to work when all of your contemporaries have starved or disappeared or run off with evil men because there’s nowhere else to go. And so you stay. You last. You work. There is nothing left of your original self, the whore-self looms larger and there’s power inside her as long as you can stomach the cost. And you do stomach it. Your body is an empty cup they fill with whatever they want to. On your best days you are able to erase sensation,
to curl away from your own body while it is doing its job. Sometimes there is pain. More often there’s only irritation, like the feel of harmless cockroaches walking across your skin. Every once in a while, it’s true, there is pleasure here or there, but it is always an accident, a stray flash that ends as quickly as it began. Except for now, on this night, with the boy. Dante, he calls himself, though you suspect he, too, has other names he’s hiding behind the one on everybody’s lips. The tension with which he holds himself tells you he’s afraid, the way a thief on the run is afraid, though it’s hard to imagine this boy committing any serious crime. It doesn’t matter. He’s a child and he reminds you of your own boy, your gone boy, the one whose age you count as the seasons pass and whose face you try to imagine on sweltering days of restive sleep. You were fourteen when you conceived him, fifteen when he was born, and the men you worked for let the other whores stand around you in a circle as you labored, then gave you a few days to hold your little boy and give him milk—you gave him your milk and in the hardest times you say that to yourself over and over,
there’s that at least, he had my milk
—before the men who owned you took him away. After that you used the herbs the other girls did, every time you needed to, so you’d never have to say goodbye like that again. And every day you think of him and God may punish you for thinking of that boy of yours when young ones come to you but to hell with God, he’s the one who invented hell in the first place so how about he just go live there like the rest of us? The young boys tear at your heart because any one of them could be him, could be your own. Your child is a man now, eighteen and a half, more than old enough to visit whores and you hope that, wherever he is, he’s one of the gentler ones. This Dante, this boy now with you, he’s a gentle one all right, he wants to please you so he can please other girls and nobody’s paid for a whole night with you in eleven years and even then they certainly didn’t pay seven pesos, what an outrageous lie, poor naïve boy, you just want to crush his face between your thighs, you want to swallow him whole into your cunt all in one piece just the way your little boy came out of you, all
at once slipping whole through your cunt slow slow slow at first and then with shocking speed, out into the world, out into the light, he shot out of you and it’s the most radiant memory of your life, and now with this boy you want to do just the opposite, namely, swallow him out of the world and out of the light and right into the core of you, stealing him inside to where you can possess him forever—but you can’t. You don’t. Instead, you teach him. You are not patient. If he wants to learn he’d better flex his muscles. If he wants to learn he’d better get over any fear of his skull getting crushed between two thighs. If he wants to learn you can just put him to work for
you
, and let him pay
you
for it, because why not—? That’s right, little boy, do as you’re told, I’ll slap you if you get it wrong or if you miss the spot or use your teeth or stop paying attention. Get the rhythm right, the pressure. You pretty little boy. You say you want to make me feel good, you want to know how. How about you find my baby boy for me? no, you can’t? you young pretty boys don’t all have some secret telepathic bond to help me reach him through you? then you’d better work that tongue until all the words it’s ever spoken are wrung out of it, you’d better follow my instructions to the letter, you’d better stick fingers to make me feel good yes but also for your own sake, so you can have some kind of anchor when I burst, a yoke to this world so you don’t get flung into the next.