Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home Read online

  “Enter the ground,” Dario shouted out at us. “Push into the ground. Let your hips fall as you walk.” We followed his movements, stepping side to side, back and forth, feet brushing the ground.

  He then instructed us to find a partner and form a large circle. We practiced the very basic element of reading our partner’s shift in weight and trying to synchronize with it — not embracing yet, but holding each other at arm’s length in what’s known as a practice hold.

  “Men, use the follower’s energy. You are not dancing alone. This is not about the ego, it is about your partner,” Dario said, standing in the center of our circle. “And followers, don’t be passive. He needs to feel your energy to lead.”

  Between the large windows that opened onto Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan and the mirrors that flanked us on the other side, the room felt too bright, too exposed for such closeness to another person. This kind of proximity needed the cover of night, but we were revealed in positions of strange intimacy: Our fumbling was just as visible to any bemused passersby as if we’d been dogs caught coupling on the street.

  Dario explained that the basic step is the salida, which literally means “exit,” or “way out,” but also has a lesser-known meaning of opening an activity to someone; it can mean an opportunity. He put on a slow tango for us and clapped out the steady four-count beat as we stepped around in a circle, the men walking forward, the women backward. Every few minutes we rotated and changed partners. Each leader had a different feel. The easiest to follow had an unwavering stride, others moved with a slight bounce, and some hesitated, questioning themselves, an insecurity that made it difficult to match their pace. The gaze of my partners made me uneasy. I noted the color of their eyes with a searching usually reserved for the very beginning of a romance: watery blue with charcoal flecks, bark brown around black pupils, murky green with gold irises.

  One man held my gaze with an intensity that felt like a challenge, so I stared back into his unflinching amber eyes. Because he looked so much younger than I was — I guessed his age at early or mid-twenties — I interpreted his stare to mean that he was learning not to fear women, rather than as anything that involved me personally. His curly hair was just a shade or two shy of auburn, and he had the complexion of a redhead, with smooth, almost pale peach skin. He was turning out to be the class whiz kid.

  “Who knows why we push the ground?” Dario asked the class. “Allen knows the answer.”

  “To use gravity in assisting our balance.”

  “Eso es,” Dario yelled. “Very good, Allen.” Dario started the music again, scrutinizing and correcting us as we walked: “No, push your energy out. Feel it in your center and have it radiate out from you. Push down with your feet. Stretch your head up. Relax your shoulders.”

  He tapped out the beat as he tried to explain the salida to us. “Feet together. Everybody inhale — always remember to breathe — now, leaders right foot backward. Left foot to the side,” he instructed. “Okay, followers stay with them.”

  The salida followed a basic eight count. Tango music evolved from the 4/4 upbeat, cheerful milonga, which is not only the name of a social dance where people tango but is also a lively type of music and dance related to tango. While some scholars claim the milonga beat is derived from music of the African Congo, others say it is from an ancient Spanish song with Arabic influence, from the Moorish stretch in Andalusia. The Cuban sailors disembarked in Buenos Aires with another dance and music, the habanera, which layered another, slower rhythm over the 4/4. The habanera is a derivative of the French contredanse, which was brought to Cuba by French plantation owners fleeing the slave rebellion in what is now Haiti. Then opera arrived via Italian immigrants along with Germans toting the bulky, accordionlike bandoneón; the gauchos, or cowboys of the pampas, came to town with their folk music and foot-stomping syncopation. At the ports of Buenos Aires, tango evolved with each group of new arrivals.

  Even as the music became more complicated, the lyrics stayed ribald, chronicling sexual conquests, championing dancing skills and unfettered bravado. These early comedic bards had not yet lost their innocence and knew nothing of a broken heart. That would come later, with Carlos Gardel.

  We continued walking in a circle, and Dario instructed us. “Enter the woman,” he said, “Enter her space — keep your chests together.” He then shouted, “Beautiful Moment. Right now, this is the Be-U-Ti-Ful Moment! This is where your energies mix and you feel tango. Do you feel tango?”

  Here, you twist at the waist and your chests are still together. During this synchronized torque, your centers of balance, or axes, mingle, and for an instant you share the same intimate universe.

  Right then, the leader moved into my space and for a moment our legs moved at different angles, but our chests stayed connected and the effect was sublime. In that quick transition, that moment just before I conceded my axis to the leader, I felt something I had been craving my entire life. I had always thought of tango as a verb, as in “you are tangoing.” But Dario described it as a noun, a state of being. It was the most basic of intimacies, and I started to feel tango as a swelling of pleasure that started in my chest and spread through me.

  Then my partner and I realigned. Our legs, feet, and chests moved back to parallel and we faced each other once again. The final step of the eight-count basic is the “resolution.” Like an exhale, the leader merely slides to the side and the follower does the same. The salida, the beginning and end, the exit and the opportunity, start all over again.

  When class ended and we emptied into the hall to change out of our dance shoes, I realized that for one hour I had not felt bad, and it wasn’t just the absence of pain. Since finding out about my husband’s affair, I had felt like I had been poisoned and was slowly dying. But during class I had experienced a simple happiness, a reprieve from the weight of grief.

  I sat down next to a woman named Claire. Her kind, sparkling brown eyes were early indicators of her easy friendliness. While unstrapping my basic black, practical, chunky-heeled dancing shoes, I commented to her, “One lesson a week isn’t enough. I’m learning too slowly.”

  “I want to dance tango every night until I’m exhausted,” she said. She tucked one black dance shoe into a cotton bag and then pulled off the other. “Until I just drop.”

  “I think we’re going to be friends,” I said.

  In fact, Allen, the class whiz, Claire, and I went out to lunch, as we all planned to return to the studio in an hour for the afternoon practica. We found a little Vietnamese restaurant in nearby Chinatown, settled around a Formica table, and sipped tea. I still couldn’t really eat (my stomach had been a cluster of knots since my husband left, about two weeks earlier), but I stirred the noodles around in the bowl of soup I had ordered and inhaled its steam. Since our common interest was tango, we talked about what attracted us to it.

  “I loved that documentary with the kids dancing, Mad, Hot Ballroom,” Claire said. “So I signed up for ballroom dancing — the classic five. But one night I saw an Argentine tango class, and I went and asked if I could switch and start tango lessons right away. I just knew it was for me.”

  Allen went next. “I like the music. I think that’s what attracted me.”

  “I’m going to a wedding in Montevideo in December,” I volunteered, “and I’m meeting friends in Buenos Aires a week beforehand. I figured it would be more fun if I knew some tango.” I didn’t tell them the whole truth: that time passed for me in a haze. Constantly lost, I made wrong turns and mistakenly drove over toll bridges with no cash on me. I sat stony faced, pulled to the side while the cops shook their heads and wrote out tickets. I couldn’t eat — I rarely felt hungry, and I didn’t have the mental capacity to organize myself in a grocery store. I slept on the couch, avoiding our bed, and wore the same jeans and T-shirt almost every day. It was a struggle to pull myself together to work at my computer — and I really needed to work. Between writing out a big check to my divorce lawyer and my monthly ex
penses having doubled overnight, I had to write and sell articles. But I just couldn’t think straight. My world was filled only with bruising memories, raw, bottomless aches, and disbelief that my life had become so uncertain. Every once in a while I called my husband and screamed at him like a person with Tourette’s. If I happened to be in public when the impulse hit, other people backed away from me, very slowly.

  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.”