Upstairs, Downstairs
Page 17
“Yes, but it was too big to carry on the plane. However, if I love you, then I guess I love your luggage as well, Anita-san.”
“My trunk thanks you right away. I’ll thank you later tonight…”
“Sir and Madam, I’ll thank you too, if you tell me where to go.” The taxi driver seems to be caught between amusement and exasperation.
“Oh sorry! Sorry, Piazza Benedetto Brin, in Garbatella.” Just pronouncing her old address makes Anita feel she’s in Rome, back home. She can’t wait to see her mother, Matteo, and her other friends from the complex, yet she’s surprised by a new feeling. She really misses London. After only one month there she feels that London is already part of her. She takes Mizuki’s hand and looks out of the window at the familiar streets of Rome.
*
The melancholy notes of Oblivion drift through the empty ballroom. The music circulates through chairs and tables to reach the dancers grouped in a corner. They’re nervous and excited. Their dancing shoes are no longer pristine – many months have passed since the first lesson. Women, proud and a little vain, check the ankle straps of their black tango shoes that go well with any colour dress. Men wear dark suits, with white shirts and solid coloured ties. They’re joking amongst themselves to hide their apprehension. Tonight, for the first time, there will be an audience to judge them.
Maestro Gonzales knows he has to encourage and warm up his dance students. This particular group have pleased him. They were talented, serious and full of enthusiasm. “Ladies and Gentlemen, come on! Just a few minutes to warm up and then we’ll start. Stay calm. As I said before, this is not a competition. We’re here to have fun!”
The couples pair up and begin to dance in a circle. Gonzales watches them attentively. Slowly the tension and anxiety begin to dissipate.
“Perfect. Here we go! Now go backstage, and when I clap my hands, make your entrance. Ladies, keep your hands on your partner’s arm… ok? Carla, please behave… Sergio, remember to stay on the right. Giovanna, wonderful hairstyle! Hurry up, guys, the audience is arriving…”
The crowd of friends and family enter laughing and chatting, but they too are excited. They are the daughters, sons, siblings, friends, and husbands – who hadn’t wanted to take those tango lessons. Now, when they see their wives in the arms of strange men, they’ll regret not having been brave enough. Everybody tries to get the front row seats. Paolo, Rudy, Pina, and Carlo, with Francesca in his arms, create some fuss as they arrive and; using the baby as an excuse, they get the best seats. A waiter goes round to take orders for drinks. Twelve euros! “So expensive.” someone comments. “Yes, but so is the ballroom rental…” another replies.
Finally, the noise and commotion die down, and Maestro Gonzales comes on to the stage. “I’m so pleased to have you all here tonight for the end of the year performance.”
Round of applause.
“I want to tell you that this has been a good year. It’s not often I have a group of beginners so motivated and passionate. Tango is a difficult dance, full of mystery and magic. It’s also a strict discipline, almost a philosophy… but let’s begin!” He claps his hands. “Enjoy!”
The dancers begin to enter amongst applause and enthusiastic whistling. Giovanna and Matteo are the third couple to appear. Their fixed smiles fade when they see the group from their complex sitting before them in the first row.
“Oh my god! How did they know?” Giovanna whispers in Matteo’s ear.
“How should I know? Did you tell anyone?”
“Are you crazy? Of course not… and what do we do now?”
“Don’t worry. These are our friends. It’s nice really that they’ve come.”
“Maybe, but I feel my legs shaking…”
“You’re very beautiful tonight, my love. Isn’t that enough?”
Giovanna looks him in the eye. Yes, it’s enough.
The warm and sensual music of the Santa Maria tango envelops them and seems to unleash the dancers’ bodies. Their legs begin to draw arabesques on the polished wood parquet while the audience fall silent.
The tenants of a humble complex in Garbatella, owners of a tiny, urban vegetable garden, are astounded, openmouthed.
Giovanna and Matteo are the most beautiful of all the couples. He is elegant, with fluid, self-assured movements. She’s gorgeous. Pina can’t help but notice how elegant her hair looks done up in a bun. And that dress is divine! Giovanna wears a simple, heavy ivory silk dress, with four deep slits that allow her slender legs to fly freely around. Pina whispers in Carlo’s ear, “She’s almost as beautiful as Jennifer Lopez in that film with Richard Gere, do you remember it?”
But Carlo doesn’t answer. He’s too taken by the dance and the dancers. He’s thinking, “I swear, tomorrow I’ll start a diet!”
*
Anita and Mizuki arrive as the applause for the first dance is dying down. The couples pause briefly before moving swiftly into the second piece.
They remain at the back so as not to disturb the audience.
“Oh my god, Mizuki, look at them! Do you see who I’m seeing? Mum and Matteo… I can’t believe it!”
“Sshhh!” Someone from the audience scolds them.
Anita can’t take her eyes off her mother. In slow motion in her mind she sees Giovanna sewing, cooking, cleaning the house, hoeing the orchard, asking her if she has done her homework… this new Giovanna is someone she doesn’t know. A woman who dances the tango passionately, intertwining her legs with Matteo’s, and who has the poise of a queen. She wipes away the tears that well up in her eyes with the back of her hand.
The piece ends amongst thunderous applause and screams: “Bravo, bravo, bravo!”
While the dancers, visibly moved, prepare themselves for the next piece, Anita spots their friends. She takes Mizuki’s hand and they wade through the audience to reach them.
Pina welcomes them. “Finally, you’ve arrived! We were beginning to worry… sit down, we’ve saved seats for you.”
At the sound of the first notes, Giovanna panics and grabs Matteo’s arm. “Anita! Anita is here… with Mizuki. Matteo, I cannot do this…”
“Giovanna, it’s fine! Stop it and just dance.”
And they do, immersed in the music, to the absolute silence of an entranced audience.
“This is Flor de Lino tango,” Mizuki whispers.
“What?” Anita asks, “how do you know?”
Mizuki doesn’t answer but there’s a strange, dreamy expression on his face.
At the end of the song, Maestro Gonzales returns to the stage. “Ladies and Gentlemen, your participation and enthusiasm really means a lot to us. Tonight our dancers achieved their very best because of you. The fact that so many of you have come here tonight has really a difference.” Then, looking at Mizuki in the front row, he adds, “I see that among us there is someone from a distant land. Sir, are you Japanese?” Mizuki nods. “It’s an honour to have you here tonight. It might be a surprise for many of you, but Japan has a very established tango scene. The only non-South American dancers who won world championships in 2009 were a Japanese couple – this shows the level of tango there. A round of applause, please!”
The Garbatella’s friends and the dancers to applaud with enthusiasm, followed by the rest of the audience, who are now curiously stretching their necks to see who Gonzales is addressing.
Mizuki stands up and bows slightly.
“If you are, like so many of your fellow countrymen, a tango lover, we would be honoured to have you…”
Maestro Gonzales himself is surprised by Mizuki’s response. He steps forward, and with a smile he says, “With great pleasure.” Amongst the enthusiastic screams, more appropriate for a wild soccer game than tango, Mizuki steps in front of Giovanna, kisses her hand, and turning towards a puzzled Matteo Spina, he asks, “If I may?” Matteo nods and joins the other stunned tenants.
The first to recover from the shock is Pina. She turns towards Anita, who looks like someone who has just seen
a ghost, whispering, “Anita, to be really honest, your Mizuki is very hot!”
What happens afterwards will remain imprinted in the memory of Garbatella’s tenants for a long time to come. In fact, every time the story is told, new details will be added, until it becomes almost an urban legend.
Mizuki tells Giovanna in a low voice to relax and abandon herself to the music. After the first few steps to the strains of Libertango, he leads her – as a real tanghero – in unexplored moves. The silk dress dances around her legs, revealing her shapely and still youthful body. Giovanna follows his steps and she feels like a butterfly. She believes she’s flying, and she does fly in her high heels, proud of herself and of the man who loves Anita. For the first time in her life she enjoys showing herself off without self-consciousness. It’s as if a part of her has been suppressed for too long and now has finally found its way to freedom.
Matteo only has eyes for her. The woman he has always loved is like a chrysalis, who’s transforming herself into someone unexpected at the passionate rhythm of a tango.
Paolo, Rudy, Pina and Carlo are enchanted and deeply moved. Anita has goosebumps. She looks at Mizuki dancing, sinuous and handsome. She never loved him more…
Anita, entranced, doesn’t even realise when the notes of Libertango end. Maestro Gonzales invites everybody to come and join the dancers on the floor. Applause, hugs, kisses, and jokes follow.
Mizuki seems radiant. When the emotion and the noise die down, Anita sits next to him.
“How many things about you do I still have to discover?”
“Nothing.”
“Alright! Then you must teach me… you’re not getting away with it!”
“We’ll have all the time in the world when we’re back in London.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
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Acknowledgements
A special thanks to our editor, Alessandra Penna. After this adventure with us, and being the actress in our book-trailer, you could be also the film director! Without your fundamental work of orchestration, writing this novel wouldn’t have been possible.
Thanks to Anna Premoli and Carmen Prestia for reading the first chapters. Your observations have been very important to us.
Thanks to Alessandra Minervini, first reader and first judge, without knowing that we were eight writers! You will see that some of your advice has been followed.
Thank you from our heart, Giulia Fiore Coltellacci, for your intelligence and sensibility. Your punctual suggestions made this book better.
Thanks to Antonella Pappalardo, for her attention and care. You discovered details that our eyes – after too many readings – couldn’t catch any more. Your work has been valuable.
Thanks to everybody that participated in the realisation of the book-trailer. A special thanks to Andrea Maccarini, artisan of movie making, and to Maurizio Fulli, the lighting magician.
Thank you, Fulvia Lorenzetti. Your voice in the trailer is sweet, just like that of our protagonist, Anita.
Thanks to Massimiliano Baroni for not only supplying the water, but most of all for his fun company.
Thanks to the great Vincenzo Visciano, who allowed us to separate him from his double bass with his admirable elegance.
And of course thanks to our editor who followed us in this adventure.
A special thanks to our friend, Patrizia Altieri, who was involved in the first part of this project.
About Olivia Hart
OLIVIA HART is a collective group of authors who met five years ago on a writing course and then could no longer do without each other's company. They decided to write a novel that would bind them forever.
ALICE AVELLA writes because she is always lost in Wonderland. She is an employee at the city hall in Rome and also has worked in the movie industry.
FABRIZIO FRANCESCHINI is a worker by necessity and a writer by passion. In his life he has read and written many things. After this adventure he doesn’t have any specific projects for the future, but he likes to look at the glass half full.
GUIDO FRARE lives in Rome. He avoids contradictions in order to fully enjoy them.
ANNA FROSALI began to write when she stopped working. From the thriller genre she went on to romance. She sees life in colours: the colours of the countries she has visited, the colours of the fabrics she likes to sew, and the colours of the book covers that crowd her bookshelves.
TIZIANA ISONI was born in Rome, but half of her genes are from Sardinia. She became a bit French with Erasmus. She studied Sciences, but with her creative imagination, since childhood she has transformed her perceptions into little poems. She works full time in computer science, looking for the free time to write.
LUCA PALLINI has experienced skiing, canoeing, trekking, and Cuban drums… before discovering writing. He had never imagined waking up one day with a published novel! He works in the computer science sector, and he is always looking for something to discover, learn, and maybe create.
MAURIZIO POMPEI a gentle soul and curmudgeon, who effortlessly went from Roman archeological sites, that he studies with investigative methods, to thrillers. He is a collector of miniature soldiers and builds dioramas. He wrote a book of poems and one of short stories.
ANTONIETTA SCIAMMARELLA, having put belly dancing behind her, looks for new, unexplored goals. After she breaks into a house of secret loves, they won’t be secret any more.
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Addictive Fiction
First published in Italy in 2017 by Newton Compton
First published in the UK in 2017 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Olivia Hart, 2017
The moral right of Olivia Hart to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781788540094
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