P.S. 1

P.S. 1

Salon Tango Mi Vida is buzzing when I walk in at 10:25 p.m.  Early, really, when you consider that the true maestros come well past midnight.  I have slipped away from the flat and taken a bus to the Teatro Colon.  Even the fast trot towards the Obelisco, as if to leave the hurtful words behind, have not shaken them off.  "I hate you! I can't wait to get away!"  They have followed me to my first and much-anticipated salon experience of the Tango, in its birthplace.  

I pay the 90 pesos at a table in the anteroom which serves as an informal ticket office.  Parting the red velvet curtains, I pause at the arched doorway that opens to the long hall, revealing cream-colored marble floors with red veins in them.  Strains from the soulful bandoneon lure me in.  

Despite my breaking heart, I am impressed by the eight rust-colored marble pillars that rise to meet the Art Deco ceiling.  A dozen low-hanging crystal chandeliers illuminate the dance hall with soft, yellow lights that cast a romantic, old-world look to the scene.  The music is hypnotic.  

Elegantly dressed men and women dance with cat-like grace in the middle, while others sit at small round tables arranged on the edges of the dance floor.  The milongueros stay on the sidelines waiting and watching with hooded eyes to gauge the level of the women whom they will ask for a dance; they will not waste their time on intermediate-level dancers.

I choose a table next to a woman in a blue beaded chiffon skirt and another in a red satin dress.  They turn away from me and peer over their fans coquettishly to catch the eye of a leader, hoping to garner an invitation to dance.  I am not surprised that they ignore me.  Haughtiness is the norm when vying for the attention of leaders.  In a salon, every follower is your competitor; no woman is your friend.

In fact, it felt as if no one was my friend at all.  Not Nina, nor my husband.  It was my fault for choosing Buenos Aires for a holiday, my fault that there were no peppers or hot sauce in restaurants, or that we could not make ourselves understood in a Spanish-speaking city and even my fault that it had rained.  

"Spending so much money on this holiday to be miserable!  Will you make up with Nina?  After all, this is a celebration before she goes off to college!  You aren't going to have her forever!" my husband had roared. 

What did he know about a mother-daughter relationship?  He didn’t have to play cook, maid, chauffeur, teacher, deal with disciplining or bear the brunt of her monthly mood-swings. He was Fun Daddy who came home from work and gave her kisses.  I feel my eyebrows knotting and remind myself not to frown or I won’t get asked to dance.

Across the crowded room I spot a cabaceo - an invitation made with a slight, questioning incline of the leader's head.  I nod my acceptance and the tall man in his 50s walks up to me.  He is dressed in black, his graying hair tied in a ponytail.  We step onto the dance floor and he holds his hand out to me, gaze intent.  I meet his raised left hand with my right.  With his right arm, he pulls me into a close embrace.

How my heart had swelled when I had held Nina in my embrace for the first time.  She had pursed her lips into a sort of questioning ooo like she was thinking about something deep and I swear she had smiled just after.  I didn't for a moment believe that it was a grimace caused by gas, as the nurse in the delivery room had told me.  Maybe not all infants smiled on their first day, but a mother knows her child's smile when she sees it!

"Lagrimitas de mi Corazon” is playing.  Tears from my Heart — how apt.  My heart is hurting much more than the tight, green suede high-heeled Tango shoes, bought earlier that afternoon in La Boca.  

"I’ll go out with who I like! Just coz you hate Nick doesn’t mean I’ll drop him! 

“Baby, I don’t hate Nick. Why would I hate anyone who loves my channa and rice?”

The humour was lost on Nina.

“Puke! I hate those garbanzo beans.  I love Nick.  I’m not having an arranged marriage like you, Mom!” 

That was a low blow.

But enough of these aggravating thoughts!  I am here to have a good time.  The leader is fantastic.  He leads me to do boleos and I concentrate on keeping my back kicks low as the hall is crowded.

“Nina, all I’m saying is, don’t make your college decision based on where he goes. You got admission to your dream college, for God’s sake!”

“All you people do is harp about college.  I fucking hate being Indian!  You want me to go to the East Coast because you want me to break up with Nick!  I hate you!  I can't wait to get away!"

The leader executes a barrida — a sweep — and invites me to play with his foot.  I can’t help thinking that kids nowadays don’t feel any love for their parents the way we did.  When was the last time Nina said “I love you” to me? I sweep the leader’s foot back with more force than I intend.  I smile an apology.  He pulls me close again and positions me for the volcada, a move intended to take me off my axis where he will drop me a bit before catching me. This requires trust.

"Amma, catch me!" Nina is three and comes flying at me from the top of the slides in the playground.  When did she stop trusting that I had her best intentions at heart?  

"I can't wait to get away!  Your ‘love’ is claustrophobic."  The words cut deeply.  All those years of tending lovingly to my child, the sacrifices made with love, hope and dreams amounted to nothing.  And now I was losing her.  A cold numbness clutched my heart, which felt smaller and shrivelled up.

Expertly, the leader is weaving us through other dancers, taking care not to bump into anyone.  I am now being led in a rock step.  I could do this forever.  The movement is soothing.

How Nina loved to be rocked to sleep.  And how well I had loved it.  When I sang her favorite lullaby "Sleep my baby softly rest, like a nestling in its nest" instead of being lulled to sleep she would sometimes sing along with me with a gusto that made my heart ache with tenderness.  Long after she had fallen asleep, I would still hold her, nuzzling against her soft head and ignoring the dishes in the sink that never got done.  The years had sneaked up quietly. 

There I go ruminating again!  Stop with the distractions!  I do not want to sully my first experience of the Tango in the arms of this very capable leader.  Now we are doing the molinete, windmills – I step side, back, side, forward around the leader, doing forward and back Figure 8s.  My black crepe skirt swishes and swirls around my calves.

One more!  One more! Nina had screamed as the whirling Merry-Go-Round came to a halt, clutching her pink cotton candy and refusing to get off.  We are on a pier in Llandudno, in Wales.  She throws the cotton candy when her father pulls her off the pink horse and sobs and sobs like she’ll hold this in her memory forever. 

I have spent the last few months crying unpredictably at the thought that my only child would be leaving for college.  What would I even have to say to my husband?  Perhaps the hate Nina feels for me will make her leaving less painful.  

The milonga closes with the traditional "La Cumparsita" at 3:00 a.m.  I hail a taxi relieved that I don't have to worry about travelling unescorted, at that time of the night.  I creep back into the second-floor flat and go to my bedroom.  When I turn in, I feel a rustle under my pillow.  A note says, "Nick broke up with me Amma. On Messenger!!! Something about long distance relationships blah blah blah.  P.S. 1: I don’t hate you.  P.S. 2:  I don’t hate your channa and rice. Teach me to cook when we go back?"

Tears spring forth — tears because her heart has been broken, because she was trying to handle this alone, because she called me “Amma” like she did until kindergarten — and because of P.S. 1.  I get up and pad down the hallway and peek into her bedroom.  The moonlight is falling gently on her relaxed face and a tenderness clutches my heart.  She still looks like she did when she was a baby. “Sleep my baby softly rest,” I whisper. 

Back in my room, I lay my head on the pillow.  My heart heavy but soothed, I cling to P.S. 1.  How long for this footnote to become the three magic words I longed to hear?  I wait for the dawn to break.