City of Knives

by William Bayer

  "I love your eyes," he said.

  He didn't ask her name nor offer his. She liked that; it was of a piece with the adventure. She recalled reading a description of Argentine tango by a female English travel writer: "Danced properly it should be as passionate, yet as loveless as a one-night stand."

  But why necessarily loveless? she wondered, as she took her dark stranger in her arms.

  The best part of this will be the strangeness of it.

  He made love like an angel, she thought. Or perhaps a devil, so cunning was his technique. She adored his strong arms, tanned skin, silken smooth chest. She guessed he was twenty-five or twenty-six, but as much as she felt youthful joy in him, there was also, she sensed, something grave. Perhaps, she thought, it was this that made him such a fine dancer, for tango was a dance of joy and tragedy all at once.

  She felt caressed by his eyes, fiercely black, that seemed to paint her by their gazing. Often they sought out her own, met and locked. He told her again how much he loved her eyes. She whispered back how beautiful she found his.

  Her loins burned. She gave herself up to lust. He made her gasp, cry out, again and again. She caught him smiling one time when she did. She smiled back...then made him gasp.

  At first light she awoke to find him moving quietly about her bedroom, dressing, preparing to leave.

  "Must you go so soon?"

  He nodded. "My plane leaves in three hours."

  She studied him as he came to her, sat on the bed beside her, leaned down, brushed her lips with his.

  "You're fabulous. I'm intoxicated."

  "I wonder will we ever see each other again?" she asked.

  "I'm sure we will. Good dancers like us—all one of us has to do is go to a milonga, ask who's really good, and someone will point the other out."

  "Where?" she asked. "When?"

  He gazed at her. "In the fall."

  "It's fall now."

  "Here, yes. But down there it's spring."

  "Down there?"

  "Buenos Aires. I'll be there in the fall. If you come, we'll find one another. Let's leave it like that, that we'll meet in six months down there at the bottom of the world. What do you say?"

  She thought about it. It sounded almost too romantic. Still, she had a half-sabbatical coming up. She was so tired of fighting the academic wars: bitter colleagues, ironic grad students, tiresome lit-crit theory seminars and gender studies jargon.

  "Yes, let's leave it like that," she said. "I'll go there and if I don't find you," she smiled, "...then perhaps I'll find someone else."

  He grinned, kissed her again.

  "Don't worry. I'll find you," he said.

  And then he was gone.

  She fell back to sleep.

  When she woke up hours later, she thought about how dreamy the encounter had been.

  My one-night stand with Mr. DreamDance, she thought.

  Beth slept soundly till two p.m. When she woke up, famished, the sounds and smells of Buenos Aires rose to her from the street: honking horns; backfiring scooters; grinding gears of buses and trucks; the aromas of coffee, chorizo sausage and grilled beef. She made out street music, and voices, broadcast through loud speakers, employing the special chirping Argentine accent that was so different from the Castilian Spanish she'd studied and taught.

  She pulled the drapes. Light filled the room. Peering out the window she was pleased to see a sight she knew from guidebooks: the tip of the obelisk at the intersection of Avenida Corrientes and Avenida 9 de Julio, "Kilometer Zero," the center of B.A.

  When she descended to the lobby the desk man pointed out a red-haired, freckle-faced woman wearing a dark sleeveless scoop neck top and dark skirt, seated on a divan leafing through a magazine.

  "That's the girl I mentioned. She's from Chicago. Want to meet her?"

  Beth nodded. "Sure...."

  When Beth approached, the woman, who appeared to be about her age, looked up with a friendly smile.

  "Hi! Sandi Barnett." She put out her hand. "Jorge tells me you're a dancer."

  Beth smiled back. "He tells me you're one too."

  "Been down here six weeks. Leaving tomorrow. Tonight'll be my last night on the town. Want to hit some of the clubs together? Least I can do is show a newcomer around."

  Though a little startled by the quickness of this offer, Beth was happy to accept. When she told Sandi she was starving and was on her way out to find something to eat, Sandi offered to escort her.

  "I'm hungry too. Just got up myself. Such is the milonguera's life." She held up her bag. "Go upstairs, grab your tango shoes, and I'll take you someplace nice. Then we'll hit Confitería Ideal. Best Thursday afternoon milonga in town."

  As they walked along the crowded sidewalk, lined with bars and music stores, Sandi told her she'd awakened at just the proper time.

  "If you're down here to dance, you'll rarely get home before dawn. Then it's soak your feet in the tub, grab some sleep, wake up around two, grab lunch, then start the whole incredible cycle again."

  Sandi, Beth learned, was an attorney. She'd worked the last seven years as a Cooks County Assistant D.A. In two days she was due to start as a civil litigator at a private firm.

  "I planned it this way, a six week vacation, long enough to explore the

  B.A. tango scene, maybe get tango out of my system. What do you do back home?" Beth told her she taught Spanish and Latin American Literature at San Francisco State. "Sounds interesting.”

  “Actually, academia sucks," Beth said. "How 'bout law?" Sandi smiled. "Law sucks too. But at least you earn good money." After they crossed Avenida 9 de Julio, running to make the light, Beth was thrilled to spot the Casa Rosada at the far end of Avenida de Mayo. The pink facade glinted in the sun. Among so many large buildings it looked almost like a doll's house, she thought.

  "See the balcony on the left?" Sandi pointed it out as they approached. "That's where Evita used to holler at the mob. I felt a chill the first time I saw it. 'Don't cry for me, Argentina.' They're still crazy for her down here, you know."

  Sandi led the way into Tortoni, an old-world style café which Beth instantly adored: marble floor; tables set among dark square pillars; gruff elegantly attired waiters; gesticulating artistic types; an elderly Chinese couple sipping tea while staring past one another in silence. The walls were covered with mirrors, drawings, cartoons, photos of writers and opera singers, signed poems and pages from old librettos.

  "The most important thing to know about the local scene," Sandi told her, after they ordered tea and cakes, "is that most of the tangueros, the every-nighters, are a fairly sleazy bunch. They prey on women like us, affluent gringas. They're pretty, they dance like gods, but off the floor most are airheads. You'll meet some this afternoon, guys who literally live off the dance. Know the way the cute single guys at ski resorts claim to be 'ski instructors?' Well, down here they're all 'tango instructors.'" Sandi laughed. "They dance with you, flatter you, try every trick in the book to get you into bed. Their dream is to be taken gigolo-style up to the States. A lawyer friend of mine brought one home last year, kept him around like a pet. He never learned English. All he could do was dance and fuck. After four months she got bored with him and sent him back. He's still hanging around hoping to hustle another gringa. I'll point him out when we get to Ideal."

  Had her six weeks in B.A. made Sandi cynical? Sandi denied it when Beth asked.

  "I came down here without any illusions. I'd been knocking around the stateside tango scene since college. I love the dance, always wanted to immerse myself in it. Couple of times down here I thought 'Hey! I could do this forever!' But six weeks turned out to be enough. There's no way I could keep up the pace. Afternoon classes, early evening practicas, all night milongas, the dancing, gossip, fucking—it wears you out. You spend all your time with people who don't have anything else to talk about. It's just tango-tango-tango, which is great for a while, but then you start longing for a little intelligent dialogue. And it's tense here t
oo. People are desperate. Their savings have been wiped out. If they spot a politician walking around, they'll scream at him right on the street. Sometimes I've felt an almost pre-revolutionary fervor, but the tango people never talk about that. Nightlife's the only life they know." She looked at Beth. "How long're you planning to stay?"

  "I'm on half-sabbatical, so three to four months," Beth said.

  Sandi sighed. "If you can stick it out that long, you're a better milonguera than me."

  The moment Beth walked into the upstairs dance salon at Confitería Ideal, she felt at home. In a sense, she understood, she'd been here many times, for this was the salon in every tango movie she'd ever seen, every Buenos Aires tango dream she'd ever dreamt. Even the smell seemed right, she thought.

  The room was filled with dancing couples, young, elderly, middle-aged. No novices here and the dancing was far better than in North Beach. The walls were yellowing, paint on the columns was pealing, the marble floor was cracked, the ceiling fans revolved slowly, some not at all, and half the light bulbs were burned out. There were seedy looking men with the aroma of cigarette smoke in their suits, chic men with pomaded hair, tall thin women with predatory eyes. The DJ had a pointed beard; spotting Beth, he showed her a lewd smile. There was a chunk missing from the ceiling, and, Sandi warned her, a dangerous hole in the floor behind pillar number seven which had tripped up many a newcomer.

  They found a table at the far end of the hall, the women's end, Sandi explained. They pulled off their sneakers, slipped on their tango shoes, then sat back to watch.

  "You're wearing jeans," Sandi observed. "That's okay here. At least you've got the right shoes. You don't need tango shoes, of course, but the guys down here expect you to wear them. They also like their women in skirts. If you won't play the milonguera role, you won't get that many chances to dance."

  Sandi pointed out some of the regulars:

  "See that guy, the one with the deformed face? We call him 'The Beast.' The guy in the pigtail, white shirt, black pants—be careful of him. We call him 'The Claw.' There's Rodolfo, the guy I told you about, the one my lawyer friend took home. He's sweet, and a total dickhead. The girl he's dancing with, wearing the cropped top to show off her navel ring—she's from New York. I hate those faux snakeskin pants. She really oughta rethink those pants...."

  Beth saw a sexy woman with glossy skin and ruby-colored shoes dancing with a wild-haired guy who looked like Che Guevara.

  "She always wears those shoes. I call her 'Ms. Ruby Two-Shoes'," Sandi said. Then, pointing at a short plump girl: "I call her 'Ms. Candy-Ass'."

  There was a tall, proud looking, very straight-backed girl dancing with a much shorter guy. Sandi told Beth she'd partnered with him a couple of times.

  "He came up to my kneecaps, so I dreaded having to dance with him. You really gotta lean into the short guys. But he turned out to be terrific. He called me his 'little dumpling,' which, considering our relative sizes, was pretty funny. I think his name's Roberto...or something."

  As soon as the tanda was finished, Beth felt Sandi tense up. People were returning to their chairs, then engaging in eye contact so extreme that Beth couldn't help but smile. This was the famous Buenos Aires 'dance-of-the-eyes,' exchanges of stares and nods as dancers worked to line one another up for the next tanda.

  The stares were so total and emphatic, she observed, that if one were directed at her, it would be impossible to righteously ignore. The etiquette was complicated. Sandi explained that if a man asked her to dance with a stare and she stared back, then she was obligated to dance the full tanda with him. Leaving him between songs would be construed as an insult. Yet, Sandi confided, if the man was doing something obnoxious like trying to feel her up, she shouldn't hesitate to abandon him.

  "The sleaze doggies are used to it and everyone knows who they are. The gentlemen here don't do stuff like that. Since you're new, you'll probably get hit on by an asshole or two. If that happens, leave him right away. That way you send a message to the other assholes you won't take any of their shit."

  Even as she was speaking, Sandi was flirting with someone across the room. A tall balding man with a slight stoop smiled then started toward their table. His stoop and the way he held his head reminded Beth of Charles DeGaulle.

  "Arturo's a professor," Sandi whispered. "Very dignified. I'll tell him about you. He'll love it that you're a fellow academic." Then she stood and moved toward the floor.

  In a few seconds, all the chaos in the room—the staring, nodding, criss-crossing movement—coalesced. Just as the music started, order was restored and a hundred fifty couples began to move in a harmonious counter-clockwise circle.

  Alone now, Beth sat back again and watched. Already I love it here!

  She wanted her first Buenos Aires tango partner to be a person she'd remember, one with whom she might even achieve a tango high. Three tandas passed before she allowed a man to catch her eye. The one Sandi had called The Claw tried, but she ignored him. She also ignored Rodolfo "the dickhead," and a beady-eyed guy she took for one of the house "sleaze doggies."

  The one she finally accepted was a foreigner like herself, a jovial young black man from Francophone Africa who wore an Hawaiian style shirt and pantaloons. Observing him, she liked his style and that he danced with a different partner every time. When he gave her a beseeching stare, she met it full-on, then met his grin with one of her own. As she rose to join him, Sandi patted her lightly on her butt.

  "Yeah, go girl!" she urged.

  Jean-Pierre didn't provide Tango Magic, but he was a good dancer and partnered her well. The men at Ideal, she noticed, didn't lead hooks, so she danced in what she took to be the house style, leaning into a close embrace. After she and Jean-Pierre exchanged names, they barely spoke another word. When he guided her close to pillar number seven, she remembered Sandi's advice and carefully avoided sticking her heel into the infamous pit. As they swung past the trap, he laughed aloud as if he'd led her there as some kind of test.

  Almost as soon as she sat down, the stares started coming fast.

  "Now that they see you can dance, they all want a crack at you." Sandi chuckled. "Me I'm used goods. Be careful who you look at now," she warned. "If someone misunderstands and approaches, you're obligated to step out with him. To shake your head at that point is an even worse insult than abandoning a guy on the floor. Best you just look at me. I'll tell you if someone decent's interested."

  When Sandi told her the Professor-Who-Looked-Like-DeGaulle was heading their way, Beth turned and met his eyes.

  "Good choice! Arturo's a gent. Go on, have fun! I'm going to hit the Ladies. It stinks of incense and cat piss...but what're you going to do?"

  The Professor-Who-Looked-Like-DeGaulle danced in a courtly style reminiscent of the way people danced in Paris in the 1930s when Carlos Gardel held the City of Light in thrall and Argentine Tango was all the rage. At the end of the tanda, he walked her back to her table, bowed, smiled, and softly moved away.

  "Real old school, huh?" Sandi asked.

  "Definitely old school," Beth said. "How well do you know him?"

  Sandi shrugged. "He asked me out for coffee one time. That's code for 'wanna fuck?' When I accepted, he took me to his place which was definitely different, since most of these guys live in little fleabag rooms and therefore expect you to take them back to your hotel. The professor had a nice place, fancy antique furniture, lace doilies on the chair arms, old botanical etchings on the walls. Trouble was he was as old school in bed as he is on the floor. Nothing wrong with that if you like making love with a man who snuggles you while wearing socks and a sleeveless undershirt. Like it's too much trouble to 'git naked.'" Sandi laughed. "A little too old school for me."

  Beth danced with the guy who looked like Che Guevara and a man in a florescent green shirt. She danced again with Jean-Pierre, and also finally with an older gent with slicked back white hair whom she thought of as "Monsieur Gallant" and with whom she exchanged not a single word, n
ot even an exchange of names.

  She finally gave Rodolfo-the-dickhead a whirl. She took pity on him as he looked so hurt each time she declined his attempts to attract her. He turned out to be a superb partner, perhaps, she decided, the best one in the room. In his arms she understood why Sandi's friend had taken him home as a pet. But she recoiled when, even before the end of the tanda, he asked her if she'd like to have coffee.

  "No, gracias," she replied as sweetly as she could, to which he responded with a weak smile and slight tearing in his eyes to express the heartbreak engendered by her scorn.

  That slicky-boy's got TROUBLE written right on his forehead!

  Sitting down again, exhaustion hit her. Sandi picked up on it right away.

  "Hey, Beth your eyes are starting to go funny. It's the jet lag. Come on, I'll take you downstairs, put you in a cab."

  Sandi took her by the arm, led her down to the street, flagged down a taxi, told the driver to take her back to Residencia Europa.

  "My advice is try and get some sleep. I'll ring your room around eleven. If you're up for it, we'll eat, then hit the clubs."

  "Oh, I'll be up for it," Beth promised.

  In the cab, closing her eyes, she thought: This is what I came for. I wouldn't miss this for the world!

  Sandi told her to dress up, so Beth put on a sleeveless dark spaghetti-strap top that showed most of her back, a short dark skirt and fishnet stockings to cover her exposed legs. Sandi wore a clingy blue and green floral dress with slit skirt that went well with her red hair and exposed the entire upper portion of her freckled chest.

  "Hey, I think we look great!" Sandi said when, after dinner, they checked themselves in the restaurant mirror. "Even if we're still wearing sneakers."