by Lewis Shiner
«That only Marco has. Or I suppose I should say ‘had.’» If she was expecting a reaction from Bonaventura, she was disappointed. She shook her head and said, «I would have to get the number of the lock from our records and have the locksmith make a new key.»
He apparently believed her. He raised a hand, fingers pointed up, and tapped the thumb against the fingertips. One of the uniforms took off his backpack, rummaged around, and came up with a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters the length of his forearm. He stepped up and cut the cable and then took a step back, ready for the next assignment.
Bonaventura tugged at the center drawer of the desk. «I don’t suppose you have the key for this either?»
Isabel shook her head again. Bahadur told me he’d never seen her so frustrated before. She looked like she might start to cry.
Bonaventura held out his hand and the uniform went into the backpack for a small pry bar. The lock offered no more resistance than Isabel had. He didn’t find much in any of the drawers: a candy bar, some loose change, pens, printouts, a few recordable CDs. They all went into the boxes.
«Anything else?» Isabel asked.
«Not today.»
«You don’t want to talk to anyone? You don’t want to take statements from the people who knew him?»
Bonaventura straightened up and looked into her face. «Do you wish to make a statement?»
Isabel was the first to look away. «No. But I need a receipt for everything you take out of here.»
«I will send you one,» Bonaventura said. He put Suarez’s laptop under his arm, made the fingers-up gesture with his hand again, and the two uniforms followed him out, carrying the boxes on their shoulders.
*
I asked Bahadur if we would ever see the computer again.
“Not a chance,” he said.
He was telling me the story while we ate sack lunches in the “cafeteria,” a disused meeting room with worn carpet, a long, dark table whose top veneer was coming loose, a matching microwave, and a half-sized refrigerator.
“The Buenos Aires police department is famous for corruption. Even if this guy Bonaventura is clean, that laptop will disappear out of the property room inside a week. You know what those things are worth down here. I was just surprised by all the bullying, given the history.”
“What history?”
Bahadur seemed embarrassed. “Well, you know. Universal has always gone to bed with the government.”
“I think you mean ‘been in bed with.’ Come on, Bahadur, you don’t have to be coy with me.”
“Don’t I? Even liberal people of good faith sometimes have surprising loyalty to their countries.”
“I don’t feel especially loyal right now. We’re bogged down in a war nobody wanted, the rich are looting the country, and nobody seems to care about anything but a thinner TV and a longer SUV.”
“The looting is nothing new, yes?” Bahadur said. “It was big business from the US that helped finance the dictatorship here. Companies like Ford and ITT and Universal Systems.”
“Why would they risk that kind of bad publicity?”
“There wasn’t any bad publicity. They were helping to fight communists. At least that was the public version. The real story is that Peron had nationalized everything, so the government still had all these tremendous resources. The deal they made was that the junta would privatize the country’s wealth and sell it off to foreign investment. In return the World Bank and International Monetary Fund would loan the government more money than they could ever hope to repay. Putting the country into permanent debt and destroying the economy for all time, while giving them all the money and weapons they needed to wage their war on liberals.”
“How come nobody knows this?”
“Everybody knows it. At least everyone here. I guess if people in the US don’t, it’s because they don’t want to.”
Bahadur looked at his Tupperware dish of rice and dal. “Sometimes I just want to go home. But home is no better now. We’ve been colonized again, this time by big business.”
*
I waited until late Saturday afternoon to call Elena, a feat of superhuman patience. I’d spent Friday night watching an Argentine movie on DVD and much of the day Saturday in grocery shopping and cleaning the tiny apartment. I dropped off my dirty clothes at the laundry around the corner—the idea of self-service had never taken hold in a country where labor was so cheap—and then went back to the apartment and made the call.
I got her answering machine. Every answering machine in Buenos Aires that I had ever talked to had the same software and the same prerecorded woman’s voice. It was one of the mysteries of the city I doubted I would ever solve.
«Hi, it’s Beto, from El Beso on Thursday. I was thinking about going to Confitería Ideal tonight. If you’re interested, give me a call.» I left my cell number, added, «Un beso—chau,» and hung up.
I’d done well, I thought. Short, to the point, very casual. My hands didn’t start to shake until I put the phone down.
*
The milonga started at 10:30, leaving me empty hours to fill. I called Sam, who was out. I walked down Humberto Primo, dodging the barreling colectivos on every side street, to Plaza Dorrego, where the big flea market would be the next day. Don Güicho would be there, as he had been every Sunday for ten years, dancing with Brisa between the stalls full of old books and clothes and jewelry and coins. There would be mimes and puppeteers, young tango orquestas and old tango dancers passing the hat, artisans with silver and macramé spread on blankets. Lauren had spent all day there every Sunday we were in Buenos Aires.
It seemed to me then that I was kidding myself, chasing a thirty-year-old. What did I have in common with Elena besides tango? What possible interest could she have in me? It was desperation talking, the emptiness of being alone in all these places that were saturated with memories of Lauren.
I turned right on Calle Defensa, crossed the eight lanes of Avenida San Juan, and walked under the elevated expressway. Two blocks later I was in Parque Lezama. Grass was in short supply in Buenos Aires and I’d made a habit of going there when Lauren was at the flea market. I always brought a book and rarely managed to read.
Artisans had set up booths in the high ground around the monument to Pedro de Mendoza, a statue and massive white marble slab commemorating the site of the founding of Buenos Aires in 1536. A band played hardcore in the amphitheater where the park sloped steeply downhill toward the river, and vendors pushed carts full of ice cream around the paths. Kids played futbol with their fathers, lovers kissed on blankets under the trees, and an old man put handfuls of kibble through the chain link fence that surrounded a cat sanctuary in this city of dogs. After rain on and off all week, the sky was finally clear. It was hot in the last of the sun, cold in the shade, and I opted for the heat.
My phone rang and I nearly jumped off the bench.
«¿Hola?»
«Hi, is this Beto?»
I knew her voice immediately, hushed and musical, always seeming on the verge of laughter.
«Hi, Elena, how are you doing?»
«¡Barbaro! I’m going dancing tonight. That always makes me happy.»
«Sounds like fun. Going anyplace special?»
«I heard La Ideal was the place to be tonight.»
«I believe you heard correctly.» I closed my eyes and jumped. «Would you be interested in some dinner first?»
«Oh, Beto, I’m sorry, no, I can’t. But I’ll see you there. Save me a tanda, okay?»
«For you, I might manage to save two.»
«Perfecto. See you later—chau.»
«Chau, Elena.»
I switched off the phone and watched two teenage girls—closer to Elena’s age than Elena was to mine—walk by, arm in arm. I breathed in and out, tasting dust and trampled grass and distant cigarette smoke.
I never liked roller coaster rides and this one was already making me sick—and excited and dizzy and afraid.
*
&nbs
p; La Confitería Ideal is near el Obelisco and the Universal offices, in the heart of the microcentro. The downstairs is still a functioning confectioner’s with tiny wooden tables. Porteños love their sweets and it’s hard to go more than a few blocks without seeing a pastry shop or a heladeria with designer ice cream. Upstairs at La Ideal there’s a milonga nearly every afternoon and night. The place draws tourists and serious dancers alike and is probably the most beautiful tango setting in the city: lofty ceilings, stone columns, ornate chandeliers, carved mahogany paneling ten feet high. Everything gleams there, including the marble floor.
I arrived at 10:50. I was dressed very milonguero viejo in a white shirt, no tie, and a dark jacket and trousers. I had prepared myself emotionally in case Elena was not there, but still felt let down when I didn’t see her. I spent a couple of tandas at my table, getting the lay of the land—who was hooked up and not interested in dancing with strangers, who was visiting royalty from some tango show, who was just there to watch.
Then a nice Di Sarli tanda came up and I connected with an older, heavy-ish woman that I liked because I had seen her mouthing the words to the songs as she danced with her eyes closed. The way Elena did, I couldn’t help thinking.
I sat out a tanda of milongas, the faster and more rhythmic cousin of the tango, because it was too early to sweat through my jacket. Then I landed a beautiful red-haired woman from Germany, very swank in a long, cream-colored gown that showed a great deal of cleavage. She was overly athletic, but she made me look good and even as I was starting to enjoy myself, a part of me thought, this would be a great time for Elena to walk in.
Which she proceeded to do, during the second song. She was by herself, dispelling another worry that had been eating at me, and dressed dramatically in a black leotard and a long black skirt slit halfway up her thighs. I hadn’t realized until then how tense I’d been. I felt my shoulders come down and my embrace relax into a more natural circle, and my partner said, “Ahh.”
I caught Elena’s eyes once as I danced, long enough to trade smiles with her as she put on her shoes. I led a leg wrap at the end of the last song of the tanda and my German rewarded me by throwing her leg all the way up around my waist, only the second time that had ever happened to me. I took it as a good omen.
“Danke schön,” I said as we exchanged a ritual kiss on the cheek, using up nearly my entire German vocabulary. She ran back to her table, eager for her next conquest, and I returned to mine. I was directly across the long, narrow floor from Elena and as soon as the next tanda started—by Miguel Caló, a great romantic orquesta—I looked up. She was already watching me, and she smiled mischievously and arched one eyebrow and nodded toward the floor.
Her small defiance of tradition charmed me, like everything else about her. I thought then that the night was already perfect and I would ask no more of it than this.
I myself stuck to the rules and took the long way around the perimeter of the floor to meet her. She flowed into my arms for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was freshly scrubbed, perfumed, and oiled, smelling of honey and citrus and vanilla.
«You look very handsome tonight, Beto. Muy porteño.»
«And you,» I said, «look like a goddess.» Spanish is the language of inflated compliments and she would not have to know that I meant it.
The DJ played four Caló tangos, including the heart-rending “Que falta que me hacés,” how much I need you, which she sang as we danced. The connection was as phenomenal for me as it had been before, if not better. She gave me the sense that the instant she began to dance, all the laughter and mischief went away and she opened herself to a darkness and longing and passion so powerful that it took complete control of her body, so much so that at the end of the song she needed those clinging seconds to recover.
Clearly she was not completely unconscious, because she was now anticipating the moves that had tripped her up on Thursday, adding adornments instead of merely following, reading me and reacting to me with a sensitivity that undoubtedly went beyond the dance floor.
The cortina was Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” I felt like an accident victim, called back from my rush toward the white light to find myself on an operating table.
When the gifts were handed out, the one I got was stubbornness. It had gotten me through a computer science degree despite a lack of math skills, kept me in my basement workshop late into the night sanding away my mistakes, pushed my stiff, ungainly body onto the dance floor until it finally began to exhibit a little grace. And it kept me smiling and casual as I led Elena to her table, because I believed that was my best shot with her.
«Don’t forget,» she said. «You promised me another tanda.»
«How could I forget a goddess?» I said, and kissed her hand before I made myself turn and walk away.
The place was filling up. There were probably a hundred people in the room, and the dance floor was as crowded as a rush hour subway car. When I first started to learn, the packed floors in Buenos Aires had frustrated me nearly to tears—to stand in one place for so long, searching for things to occupy your partner, then having to move instantly when space opened up, all while keeping some semblance of connection to the music, was beyond me. Dance is a language and I didn’t have the vocabulary. Over the years I had learned to relish the challenge. A few bumps and kicks were inevitable and there were always reckless drivers to avoid, but the crowds helped create the whole out-of-body experience.
I threw myself into the middle of it, making a brave show to Elena that I didn’t need her, for close to an hour. Then a new tanda opened with Pugliesi’s “Gallo ciego,” and as I started to look for her she was turning to look for me.
Pugliesi is deeply revered in Bueno Aires, as much for his defiance of authority as for his complex and romantic tangos. I didn’t know how much of the emotion I felt was mine alone and how much was Elena’s and how much came from the dozens of bodies wedged in around us, but there was enough of it to reach the twenty-foot ceilings and burst out the windows into the cool spring night.
Between tangos we hardly talked—a smile, a «qué lindo,» a remark about the crowd or the heat, and then more dancing. I knew the music well, still I listened with fierce attention to every note, trying to slow time, to free my body to experience Elena without my brain getting in the way.
*
Afterward I took her to her table. I had been through a dozen lines in my head and rejected them all. Be cool, I told myself.
She said, «Come sit with me a minute, can you?»
«Of course.»
I held her chair for her, worked my way to the other side of the table, and squeezed into the other seat.
«So, tell me, is Beto short for Roberto?»
It was a common nickname, also short for Alberto, Humberto, and others. I told her yes and gave her a business card, writing my land line number and email on the back.
She asked what it was like to dance tango in the States and I told her about the comparative wealth of teachers and milongas in North Carolina. «The problem is most people want to learn show tango, with the ganchos and high kicks. People mostly dance in open embrace. And there’s no place like this.» I waved one hand at the room. «In the United States everything is new. There’s no history, everything’s made to fall apart.»
«In school, my friends talked about the ‘Yankee imperialists,’ and now all of them want to go there, where the economy is better.»
«Not so much better now,» I said. «Since 2000, everything has been going downhill. We’re having a, what’s the word, recession they say in English, and no one will admit it.»
«The government lies here too, about unemployment and crime and cost of living, but here we all take the lies for granted.»
Something in the words stung her and she was quiet for a few seconds. I took the opportunity and said, «I’ve been meaning to ask you. The other day, when I saw you at Universal, what were you doing there?»
The smile fell off her face so suddenly, it w
as like I’d caused her physical pain.
«Look, I’m sorry, that was rude,» I said. «Please forgive me, it’s not any of my business.»
She still didn’t say anything.
«Elena?»
«Beto,» she said at last. She picked up my hand from the table and studied it. «I could lie to you, but I’m not going to do that, for reasons that I will tell you one day, maybe one day soon. And I can’t tell you why I was at your company right now either, though I will someday. Is that okay?» She looked into my face. «You don’t want lies, do you?»
I told her no, of course not, even as I was thinking that there were any number of lies she could tell me that I would love to hear.
«Good,» she said. The smile came back, not entirely without effort, but still dazzling. «So are you here in Buenos Aires by yourself?»
It seemed too good to be true, first the implied promise of “I will someday,” and now she had opened up our personal lives for inspection. «Yes. I’m separated. It happened three months ago.»
«I’m sorry, Beto, that’s so sad. How long were you married?»
«Nineteen years.»
«Were you happy?»
«More or less. Yes, I think so. It was her decision, not mine. And you? Can I ask you…?»
«If I have a boyfriend? It’s okay, you can ask, and the answer is no, no one special, not right now.»
She still had hold of my hand.
I knew so little about her, I didn’t know where to start. «You don’t seem to care about your job,» I said. «What is it you really want to do? If you could do anything.»
She smiled, for real this time. «I think I would like to be very rich. Not to own things, I don’t need anything but a few tango clothes and a place to sleep. And books, lots of books. I would like to not worry about money and just do what I wanted. I would like to learn Arabic and Chinese and take dance classes and see other countries. Uruguay doesn’t count.» Montevideo, on the other side of the Rio de la Plata, was a popular day trip. «I would like to do good for others too, don’t misunderstand. To help animals and the cartoneros and political prisoners. What a waste to have to work when there is so much to do. But you, you like your job, I think.»