The Gods of Tango: A Novel

by Carolina de Robertis

  She kept this secret along with all the others.

  She played for herself.

  She played for no one.

  She played for América.

  El Sexteto Torres returned to Buenos Aires in March 1916 with a new fame along the edges of the tango world, which itself had continued to expand: new cabarets were opening, riding the wave of the dance’s growing popularity in the upper classes, competing to create the most lavish havens for the form.

  Their first job back in the city was at La China’s. Santiago was in a buoyant mood that night; he’d found a cabaret that wanted to hire them, and that told him to come back two days later to sign a contract. The news sent sparks through all the men. A cabaret would mean the other side of town, more pay, a vaulting leap from the ill repute of dance halls into the polished glamour of the Argentinean elite.

  At intermission, a young woman approached them in their cluster beside the stage. She wore a simple yellow dress, and her short black hair curled richly around her face. She was pretty in a plain way, easy to pass over in a crowd. You had to look close to see the delicacy of her features, the feline intensity of her eyes.

  She didn’t say anything at first, simply stood there and watched them until their conversation ebbed to silence and they turned her way. Roosters, Dante thought, ready to pounce, waiting to see whose prize she’d be.

  “You could use a singer,” the girl said.

  “Is that right?” Joaquín said, cigarette barely moving between his lips.

  “You should audition me.”

  Amato laughed, then Pedro, then the rest of them.

  “I mean it. I’m good. And I know a lot of tangos.”

  The men went silent as they saw her seriousness. They stared at each other, then settled on Santiago.

  “Women can’t sing tango,” Santiago said.

  “Of course they can,” said the girl. “And they do. Look at Linda Thelma. Pepita Avellaneda. Andrée Vivianne.”

  The men took a good look at her, slowly, toe to head. The girl did not blink. Behind her, two men were vying for the attentions of a dance hall girl who accepted a cigarette from one and a light from the other, her face a mask, just another night’s work.

  “What’s your name?” Santiago said.

  “Rosa.”

  “Well, Rosa. You’re right, some women do sing tango. But they can’t sing the entire repertoire, because most lyrics are from the men’s point of view. Their loves, their troubles. So the songs wouldn’t make any sense. I’m sorry.”

  The girl stood very still, her back straight. Dante marveled at her courage. If it had been her, standing there in a dress and lipstick, she might have turned and run the other way by now.

  “You haven’t heard me yet,” Rosa said.

  “We could find a private place for that,” Pedro said.

  She glared at him.

  “I’m sorry,” Santiago said, “but we’re not looking for a singer.”

  Rosa hovered for a moment, then turned and walked away.

  Dante watched her go. Delicious from behind.

  The other men were watching the same thing.

  “She had some nerve,” Pedro said.

  “She might be good for other things,” said El Loro.

  “She’s all right,” Joaquín drawled. “I’ve seen better.”

  “We all know that.”

  “Well, I’d do her.”

  “Loro, you’d do anything that moves.”

  The men laughed. El Loro blushed and pushed his hair away from his face. When it fell back over his eyes, he let it stay there.

  “Boys,” said Santiago, “three more minutes. Last chance for a piss or a drink.”

  Two days later, when Santiago went to sign the contract with the cabaret, the waiter who answered the service door didn’t let him in. The owner had signed on a rival orquesta, he said. Santiago protested that they’d promised him the job already, that his orquesta was better than those idiots and everybody knew it, until finally the waiter took pity on him and told him the truth: the owner had balked at the sound of the group’s name—not its formal name, El Sexteto Torres, but its underground, tip-of-the-tongue name, El Sexteto del Negro Torres. On hearing this, Santiago had stood for a moment in silence, then turned and walked back down the alley without another word.

  He told his men about it that night, behind the curtain at La China’s, in a dull monotone they’d never heard from him before.

  “Bastards,” said El Loro, and again Dante was struck by his indignation in the face of wrongdoing, the intensity of his voice.

  “We’ll make them sorry,” Joaquín said. He was tuning his bass in the far corner, and didn’t take his eyes off the strings.

  Amato slapped Santiago’s back in reassurance. “Something else will come through.”

  “I don’t want ‘something,’ ” Santiago said. “We’re better than just ‘something.’ ”

  Dante heard a catch in his voice that sounded like despair. Just a hint of it, but more than she could stand.

  “We’re the best,” she said forcefully, “thanks to you. One day everyone will know it but you can’t give up hope.”

  All the men stared at her, at him, Dante, the skinny kid who always watched conversations with eyes wide and mouth shut.

  Santiago blinked.

  “Well, Chico, listen to you,” El Loro said.

  “So the kid’s got something to say,” Amato said.

  Dante shrugged.

  Santiago was still staring at Dante, with a mix of pride and surprise. His mood seemed lifted. A warmth spread through her solar plexus at the thought that she’d helped.

  La China was glad to extend their contract. They were her pride, her special power, an emblematic offering in an ever-growing world of tango. Her hall had become what she’d most dreamed of it being: a fashionable underground destination for rich men who wanted to get away from their ladies, rather than take them out as they might do at a cabaret. Here at La China’s, they could dance the tango the way they most wanted to: not with the woman held at a modest arm’s length, but with her pulled in so close that their two torsos almost fused, so close that the scent of her hair could dominate his lungs and mind. They could slide into ganchos with abandon, not worrying about too much skirt to get lost in—the dancing girls at La China’s wore short dancing dresses of the kind upper-class ladies would rather die than wear—or the impropriety of tangling thighs. Best of all, with the right whispers into the girls’ ears, they could persuade their dance partners to continue the party off the dance floor, at a dingy hotel or in the back of their carriage while the driver sat quietly outside, holding the reins in the lamplit night.

  Sometimes, the musicians struck up romances with these dancing girls, though it was clear that they were not serious girlfriends, let alone future wives. You seduced her with sweet words and songs and flowers and saw how much you could get out of her for free or, at least, for the indirect cost of flowers, dinner, little gifts here and there. El Loro had a romance with a girl called Raquel with a mare’s build and black hair you could drown in. Dante watched them together with hunger, though not with envy, exactly, as you can’t envy the impossible, and romance was impossible for her. Until, one day, El Loro told Dante he’d caught the eye of Raquel’s friend.

  “Alma, you know the one, short? Great legs? Don’t tell me you didn’t know. She’s been trying to get your attention for days now.”

  Dante stared at him, blankly.

  Pedro laughed and wiped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, elbows at rest on his bandoneón. “If that girl were flirting with me like that, I’d have her in bed in seconds.”

  “Oh, please,” said El Loro. He was rubbing resin on his bow and swatted it through the air in a mock reprimand.

  “I could do it, you know.”

  “Without your own girl finding out?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well anyway, forget about it. Alma doesn’t want you. She’s only go
t eyes for Dante.”

  “No kidding?” Dante said.

  “Dante,” Pedro said, “you can really be an idiot sometimes.”

  “Hey, he can’t be too much of an idiot,” Amato cut in. “You’re not the one who’s about to bed that Alma.”

  “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.