Last Tango on a Wintry Day

By
Carmen Ruggero

Nací como nace el peje
En el fondo de la mar;
Naides me puede quitar
Aquello que Dios me dio
Lo que al mundo truje yo
Del mundo lo he de llevar.

I was borne like a fish
Deep on the ocean bed;
No one can take from me
What was given to me by God.
All I brought into the world
From the world, I will take back.

*From the epic poem, “Martin Fierro” by José Hernández


It’s hard to tell how long I stood at that window, thinking and then not; fighting ambivalence – feelings I couldn’t let go. All I could do was gaze into the wintry downpour.

Four years had passed since the revolution ended Juan Perón’s regime. Times were sinister. Fear of dire consequences brought with it silence. Friends, lifelong neighbors; we all became invisible to one another.


My parents had made the decision to leave Argentina for North America – so far away and so different from everything I knew, I couldn’t even begin to grasp the concept. The reason for leaving was clear enough to me; I just couldn’t accept the finality of it. I would never see my family, again – Grandparents, cousins. I would never feel the warmth of their embrace or see them smiling at me. Never is a long time.


Our departure day was approaching. I rushed out of Grandmother’s house, where we were waiting out our final days, trying to beat the rain. I tied my scarf snugly around my neck as I ran, pulled my coat collar over my ears, and headed for the family home we were leaving behind still hoping – praying for a sign that this was all a nightmare from which I’d wake.


As I ran under the rain, I heard a voice call my name. It came from behind me and I turned.


“Don’t be naïve,”

it murmured through the wind.


It was my old friend Hector, standing across the street. I could see him through the rain; standing, hands tucked inside his pockets as always. But it couldn’t be … he was gone.


“Hector!” I screamed.
“Don’t be naïve,”

the voice repeated in a rasping whisper as his phantom image faded. “They’re all dead by now.”

“Stop it!”
“Run little girl…”

the breath of sound swept the back of my neck. “Run, innocent one.”

And I ran. I ran non-stop until I got to my old house. I jumped over flooded rain-gutters and mud puddles – often missing and splashing right into them, but I finally got there; out of breath, wet, muddy and cold. When I reached the front steps, I started to cry. I didn’t want to do that. No! I had promised myself not to do that. I took a moment to catch my breath and wipe my eyes before reaching for the door knob then slowly pushed the door open and as I set foot inside, an eerie chill ran up my spine. I felt our family presence as if our very essence clung to the empty rooms like ghosts. I could almost hear our voices echoing, the baby crying. There! There was my bed. Over in that corner – Mom’s sewing machine and over there… oh please! There was nothing left in the house.


I suddenly didn’t want to think any more; I was tired of thinking. All I wanted to do was say goodbye to the first sixteen years of my life. So I turned my back on the empty house and looked out the window to say just that.


Little yellow leaves dangled from gray, brittle branches and fluttered to the wind. They looked so frail – just hanging on, trying to avoid the inevitable. I watched them and felt my tenuous hold on my own brittle branch weaken and I let myself cry aloud as I watched the falling rain, wishing to meld into its pelting fury and to be washed away by it. My forehead was pressed to the glass and its coolness felt good.
I was scared and I didn’t want to think again about the past … or ever about the future.


It’s hard to tell how long I stood at that window, thinking and then not; fighting ambivalence – feelings I couldn’t let go. All I could do was gaze into the wintry downpour.

The revolution that ended Juan Perón’s regime in June 1955 had wreaked havoc in the country and the sunlight of our lives seemed eclipsed by a black moon. I was afraid to go to sleep at night. To describe my state as one of fear would be an understatement. Fear was what I felt watching Pinocchio being swallowed by the whale. But we were not fictional characters and this was no fairy tale. Real life meant being swallowed by terror.


For a while, we had considered ourselves lucky; my father lost only his job, while so many others lost their lives. But eventually, we learned luck had little to do with what happened. Someone, maybe needing to save his own skin, denounced my father as one of Eva Perón’s descamisados – a shirtless worker. My father was blacklisted and he would never work again; not in Argentina. And soon we found ourselves facing the beast of many terrible names: Secrecy, Seclusion, Shock, Starvation, and Death.


By 1956, my father had been out of work for a year. We often went to bed, hungry.
Mere survival became a game of callous indifference to others. Who else might have gone hungry that day, was not important – I was famished enough to hunt down pieces of dry bread left from breakfast, hide them, and wait until everyone had gone to sleep to sneak into the kitchen and eat them.


A rustling sound awoke me one night. It was a little sound like a mouse, midnight scurrying. I crept out of my room in the dark and barefooted so as not to be seen or heard. Slowly, I tiptoed through the house to the source of the sound in the kitchen.


My younger sister had discovered my hiding place and was eating my bread. I stood in a dark corner watching her shove it into her mouth and actually fought an urge to snatch the bread crusts from her little fingers. My face quivered as anger burned in inside me – and for one insane moment, I wished her dead. She was just a little girl.


It seemed the beast had taken us all and turned us into beasts of its own conception. I crept back to my bed.


Three filthy and hungry years went by until, in 1958, my father received an offer of work from a friend in North America. I knew little about America except that it wasn’t home. But a decision had to be made if we were to survive.


It was common for our winter rain to come to a sudden halt, as if some unseen power had turned off a tap. But that wasn’t the case on that day in June of 1959 when I stood facing the window, feeling the icy fingers of loneliness and anger grasp my heart. No, that storm seemed predestined by The Fates, to haunt my memory for a lifetime.


Back in 1953, before any of us ever dreamed of a revolution and our world in turmoil, I began to keep a diary – whimsical musings about people, faces; simple observations. I wrote about the wind, oak leaves and flowers and the colors of summer. But that wasn’t my first writing attempt. Not at all. I had started writing when I could barely even read. A sense of sheer freedom followed my discovery of syllables and vowels and consonants that came together to form words that could express my concepts and childish feelings.
The adventures of Susana and the Seahorse were my first attempts at fantasy. I had never seen a seahorse but Susana, my imaginary friend had, so I let her tell me about it, and from her came wonderful adventures; words and doodles combined.
Soon, those jotted, fractured thoughts assumed a pattern – one I eventually called “poetry”. By the age of eleven, Susana was all but forgotten, oak leaves and summer days were nothing but childish notions as I discovered the sounds and lyrics of the Arrabal slum quarter. Its Tango had triggered my muse.


Tango was the voice of Buenos Aires. And, though the question was not clearly formulated in my mind at the time, I began to search for that voice. Who were we, the Porteños? Where did we come from?


I learned that Tango was created in the 1880s by European immigrants. They settled in the city of Buenos Aires and its outskirts, and they were called Porteños because they lived in the port city. That was interesting, I thought; those who gave us the Tango were lonely strangers far away from their homes in Europe.


There were many accounts of how and where the Tango originated. One of them indicated that these strangers had found solace in drink and music and companionship in the city brothels. With guitars and accordions, they created the unique sound and rhythm of what later took the name Tango. To me, Tango symbolized romance. I understood the meaning of pinstriped double-breasted suits, black stockings and red lipstick quicker than lightning, though it would be a while before the rest of its meaning dawned on me. And so I began writing love poems to the most beautiful city in the world. Poems lost through time, too many moves, given little value by those who deemed them a girlish whim, and tossed aside. I wrote about the barrios and the giant sycamore branches that reached across and met above the cobblestone road, and couples kissing under a moonbeam to the sound of distant concertinas.


*Mi Buenos Aires querido. My beloved Buenos Aires,”

sang the old Tango maestro, Carlos Gardel. “On the day I should see you again, I’ll suffer no pain, nor will I forget…”

But on that day in June of 1959 when I stood watching the rainfall, to forget was what I most desired.


I pounded on the window, angry beyond belief to feel myself helpless in a web which, little by little, entangled me more tightly. I’d been stripped of my youth, my home, my security, and I could feel myself die as I watched the rain wash away my past. I wouldn’t be allowed to take with me to America anything but essentials. No souvenirs, no mementos – nothing to remind me of where or who I had been.


“It’s just paper,” my mother explained. “We don’t have room for everything.”
“They’re mine!”
“You’ll write others.”


They weren’t just papers. No! That was me inside those words, now being cast aside as trash. I stood in our empty house and mourned the self I would never be again.
But maybe there was a hidden gift amidst the pain; something I hadn’t seen back then.
“You’re lucky to leave …” I had heard it said repeatedly. To have been offered the chance of a fresh start when so many were quietly disappearing was, indeed, good. At that time, though, I questioned how lucky we really were. I saw us as closing the circle on our heritage by becoming the estranged ones ourselves. And what songs would come from us then? What rhymes would parallel the refugee rhythm of our heartbeat? What Tango would we dance?


The hidden gift, I eventually realized, was in not being able to stop thinking as I so much wanted to do that day or every day since, because those words I had to leave behind on crumpled, discarded paper and any future words lived inside my mind and no country, no revolution, no political system, not even death itself will destroy them.


It was June of 1955. Two by two, bombs were dropped by our own naval planes. Perón was history and so was our city as we’d known it. Economic problems, corruption and conflict with the powerful Roman Catholic Church contributed to the overthrow of Juan D. Perón. The revolution took place at the noon hour, leaving 350 dead, 2,000 wounded, and millions, like my own family and friends, in terror for their very lives.


The concept was beyond our reason. We kept wondering: How can this be happening to us? History had told us repeatedly that we, the people of Argentina, were born to freedom. That is how we had come to see ourselves. But we were also born to internal struggle which we didn’t think about too often during the years Perón was in power. We had settled into what was at best, a passing comfort. A fool’s paradise.


I remember hearing big words like Democracy – government of the people, by the people, for the people. But who were we, the people of Argentina? We, who at the beginning of every school day stood in formation facing our flag to mouth the words of our National Anthem:

Oíd mortales el grito sagrado:
Libertad! Libertad! Libertad!


Listen ye mortals to this our sacred cry:
Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

FREEDOM! And our bombs blasted our land. Freedom! And our blood was splattered. Buenos Aires was in a state of ruin and the country was in the hands of a military junta.
Our beloved city had crept into darkness and silence to die like a wounded deer and the scent of night-blooming jasmine had metamorphosed into the acrid stench of evil.
I was thirteen years old at the time of that revolution and, quickly exchanging innocence for a bitter maturity, began to understand. God, parents, and country had been our source of comfort and security. But the notion of country was sinking fast into oblivion, our parents were just as confused as we were and we had trusted everything to a God who now couldn’t be found.


TANGO! ¡Que me mordiste el alma!

Yes, the tango had bitten into my heart and soul. Tango was to life what reality was to death. Sensual innuendo aside, to me, a lover was one who loved. As lonely as adolescence can be, I had found an imaginary someone in the sultry lyrics of the tango and, once again, fantasy gifted me with the wings of Pegasus.


The table candles reflected amber warmth on happy faces. The man stood and took his lady’s hand – my hand. We walked to the dance floor. I wore a black silk dress with tiny, random splashes of red – tight at the waist. He wound his strong arm snugly around me. I surrendered to his embrace. Our cheeks came together. We took a moment to catch the beat and then began to dance, our feet gliding gracefully across the dance floor. He slid an arm behind me. I dipped and arched my back until my hair almost touched the floor, trusting his arm would catch me. He lifted me and held me close to him. We stayed in that embrace for a few seconds. The music started again, and we – they – danced one more time with a passion that suggested their last tango.

I met my first love at a neighborhood dance, just before the revolution broke out. Our family, and sometimes friends who came along, would go to the neighborhood milonga dance – kicking dust, as they say.


“Mom, may I wear lipstick, tonight?”
“No!”


Oh well, it was worth the try. At thirteen, boys wore suits and nicely starched shirts. The scent of aftershave made them enticing (though I didn’t believe they really shaved). Girls of the same age were not supposed to notice. I did. So why was I wearing a childish dress and a plain face? I wasn’t allowed to entice.


But it was the last dance before winter, and we were going to shake it. As usual, we traveled in packs; Fathers taking care of mothers and brothers taking care of sisters. We didn’t really need protection, though. We looked so darned plain; who would ever make a pass?


Our milonga took place at the family club, the Club Don Bosco, named after our town of St Juan Don Bosco. The dance floor was wall-to-wall red and white tile, surrounded by a six-foot wall. We had a starry sky for a ceiling and the night was scented by gardenias.
We settled together on our usual bench by the wall, where I sat and watched couples dance. I’d watch the curves, the slides, the strong arm around a slender waist, the bend, that sensual longing in the gaze, and lips that almost touched, but not quite – sometimes they did, I noticed.


I wasn’t allowed to dance the tango. It was considered inappropriate for a thirteen-year-old. I could waltz and sometimes fox-trot. And always with a relative or friend who would keep his arms straight and my absentee breasts at a safe distance.


So there I was, entertaining forbidden thoughts, when a boy my age approached me. His dark eyes were fixed on me as he walked across the dance floor. He smiled and asked me to dance. I shifted my gaze in my father’s direction. He nodded an approval. I stretched my lips and uttered a breathless yes.


We walked to the center of the dance floor where he turned to face me and stretched a very tense arm – only his fingertips touched my waist.


“I’ve seen you in school,” he said.
Oh my… oh… I had to remind myself to breathe. My heart pounded so hard, I was afraid he’d hear it. I wasn’t supposed to have noticed – how could I say: ‘I’ve seen you too’? I just couldn’t … I mean …
“I’ve seen you too,” I said.
We moved around the dance floor, not saying a word and avoiding eye contact. I felt silly. Toward the end of the waltz, he spoke again.
“My name is Sergio. We attend the same school … ah …”
“Yes, you said … ah …”
“Ah … are you allowed to go out?”
“Out… where?”
“Oh, maybe a movie or a walk in the park …”
“I don’t know; maybe if my parents met you … maybe.”
“I’d like to meet your parents,” he said.
TANGO!


It is also said that the name tango had come from the Latin: Tangere, which means touch. I was once more left to visualize the forbidden, whatever that was … but his name was Sergio.


It happened on an overcast afternoon in June of 1955. I was sitting on my front steps cuddling a book, when I lifted my gaze north to the Rio de la Plata, the Silver River. I followed its outline as it traveled toward Buenos Aires, to see a column of smoke billowing on the horizon. Then another, and then another …
“Mom!!!!”


The urgency of my tone brought my mother out of the house.

“Inside! Now! Quick!” My mother didn’t wait for me to get up from the steps. She grabbed me by an arm and dragged me inside where we huddled and watched the horror unfold from the kitchen window.

“What’s happening?” I whispered

“I don’t know.” Her voice quivered.

We gathered the other children and stayed together for what seemed like an eternity until we heard the bombing stop. We saw our neighbor, Franco, rushing home from the railroad station and we stepped outside. His clothes were blood spattered; his shoes covered with gore.


“What’s happening?” Mom asked him.

“They’re dropping bombs … in the city … they’re bombarding us!”

“Who? Who’s dropping bombs?” I asked.

“Let him talk,” Mom snapped.

“Our own naval planes … about thirty of them … they’re killing us … we are killing us!”


It had happened at noon and there were people out walking, shopping and, some, just getting back to work from their lunch hour. All of them were caught by surprise.


“It’s a blood bath.” Franco’s voice shook.


I ran into the house and hid behind the wall next to my bed, bracing my head against my knees, rocking back and forth, back and forth, struggling not to scream and trying to stop the terror taking hold. I wanted to erase that afternoon – set back the clock to another time – a happy time. This was a mistake; life had made a mistake and this wasn’t happening. Maybe I’d think about that day when I danced with Sergio or maybe before that; and I thought about my Tango image but somehow couldn’t hold on to it. The pinstripes in my mind cascaded in gray serpentine waves embracing, choking the dancing couple until they collapsed and bled to their death.


And they were dancing to the discordant sound of an old concertina under the cloudy sky, beneath the sycamores, on the old cobblestone road. He said he loved her – he loved me … Boom! And his words became distorted and the firm arm around my waist was severed. Blast! Everything around me seemed to come to a slow spin and growling like Satan’s carousel. Crash! And his dismembered body was scattered on the ground. I stretched my arms toward him and called for him and then another bomb dropped and I saw red! Red! Random red speckles on my black silk dress as I too fell to the ground.

“No, please! No!” I stood and looked through my bedroom window to the north. Bombs blasted at the distance. The silvery overcast sky got darker and darker until it became the color of hell.


Sangre corre por las calles de Buenos Aires

. Blood runs through the streets of Buenos Aires, screamed the early news headlines. But soon there were no more headlines. The radio news broadcasts were censored. Newspapers stopped circulating. At times, the airwaves would go silent.


We were being cut off – left to wonder and speculate. Little by little, we were secluded in silence to hear only the voices of horror reverberating within the confines of our minds.
We had to be careful what we said and to whom we said it, though it could have been a neighbor we had known and trusted for years, it was hard to know. What was acceptable yesterday could be subversive today.


“No!” My parents agreed. “We don’t even know who he is.”

“He wants to meet you.”

“No, I don’t want strangers in the house,” my father insisted.

“His name is Sergio.”

“I don’t care what he calls himself; I don’t want strangers in the house.”


And so I was not to have that trip to the movies or that walk in the park.
“My father said no,” I said to Sergio, apologetically.
“Maybe some other time,” he said, though we both knew there wouldn’t be another time.


It was all too much for a young one to fathom. Unable to change the course of events, I let my heart bleed into whimsical rhymes exchanging anger, fear and confusion for wild and hopeless dreams – I escaped into a reality of my own.


Observing the sun as it filtered through the oak leaves, I discovered the leaves turned yellow and so I wrote about how light changed the look of things – such a simple thought. But I also saw how darkness obliterated the leaf.


One evening on the following spring, my friend Rosa and I sat on my front steps talking when we noticed our friend Hector’s tall, slender figure turn quickly around the corner. His eyes darted nervously from Rosa’s face to mine and his lips were pale and stiff as he tried to smile. He buckled his long legs, sat next to us and whispered: “They came into our classroom – the soldiers came. They had weapons – took two of our classmates.”
Hector ran his fingers through his yellow hair and let his head hang low. “They told us not to move while they tore through everyone’s books and notes – quickly, as if they didn’t know what they were looking for. They finally found something … inside this guy’s satchel … a book … Martin Fierro by José Hernandez. They took him … asked him who was his closest friend … the poor guy was panicked … he pointed at someone and they took him too.”


When he finished his account, Hector got up quickly and started to walk away from us. He seemed lost.


“Will the students be let go?” I asked.


I can still see him standing there. He had tucked his hands inside his trouser pockets and his shirt bubbled behind him as it flapped to the breeze. He turned his head slowly toward me.


“Don’t be naïve, they’re dead by now.”


And I recalled the poem:

Naides me puede quitar
Aquello que Dios me dio

Lo que al mundo truje yo
Del mundo lo he de llevar.

No one can take from me
What was given to me by God

All I brought into the world
From the world I will take back.

That was the last time I saw Hector. No one knew where he’d gone; or if they knew, they weren’t saying. But his voice followed me that morning in June of 1959 as I ran through the pounding rain to my old empty house and I couldn’t make it go away. It spoke to me of a reality I didn’t want to hear.


Don’t be naïve … they’re dead … dead …

“Stop!” I yelled.

Go away little girl… they’re all gone… dead … run little girl, run…

And I ran until I got to my old house for that one final goodbye. Don’t be naïve … the voice spoke to me, again. I was barely sixteen – going on thirty-five – still considered too young to understand human passion, yet fully versed in death, fear and destruction. I pressed my hands to the glass and closed my eyes to block the rain and see the sun shine through the oak leaf in my fantasy in one last attempt to hold on; thinking, wishing … if I just didn’t turn around to face the empty house life could still go on as I had known it to be.

“Don’t be naïve, little girl,”

the voice whispered again.


And it’s hard to tell how long I stood at that window, thinking and then not; fighting ambivalence – feelings I couldn’t let go. All I could do was gaze into the wintry downpour.

THE END
Carmen Ruggero © 2009

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.10.2009

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