Read Online Heart of Tango by Elia Barceló - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elia Barceló
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at myself in the mirror that we had hung by the door. My hair was somewhat mussed, my cheeks were red, and my eyes shone as if I had a fever, but I found that I looked pretty, and that gave me a bit more confidence.
If it had been Diego waiting for me in the bedroom everything would have been easier. We would have danced for a while, even without any music, and thenâand then, I suppose, the same thing would have happened. But it would have been different, very different.
T hat night I didnât dance. I sent word to Grisela that I wasnât feeling well, and I shut myself up in my flat with two bottles of cane liquor. My plan was to get myself seriously drunk, sitting alone in my only armchair, the one I had bought from a Genoese family when they moved out of the tenement. I held one bottle in my hand and kept my stash of tobacco at my feet like a faithful dog. That was the longest night of my life. The demonic January heat shrouded me in its fetid breath. Voices that rose to my open window made we want to rush out and kill whoever it was who thought there was any reason in the universe for laughter. The world had never seemed so disgusting, so impoverished, so ugly. Closing my eyes, I saw Nataliaâs figure, dressed in white, like a lily pushing up through the filth of a rubbish dump that was fenced off, closed off to me, unreachable. Drink surged through my blood like fire, devouring without consuming me. I knew that all the water in the world wouldnât suffice to put out this blaze.
Picturing her naked, trembling, crushed under the weight ofthat Teutonic giant, who would be rubbing his coarse paws across her silken skin, I shuddered with revulsion, hatred, impotence. Impotence above all. What could I do? What could I, a nobody, do? A nobody to her. If she had at least given me some signal, if she had said she didnât want to get married, said she needed me to free her, I would have confronted the whole world with the dagger Iâve handled since I was a little boy growing up in the tenements. But she had said nothing, and my love gave me no rights but the right to burn, slowly, alone, thinking about her and what might have been.
D awn found me in the courtyard under the tree with yellow flowers, wrapped in a sheet that I had taken from the chest of drawers. Tears rolled down my cheeks each time I felt the shooting pain between my legs or that hot, swollen spot that was beating like a heart.
It disgusted me. Even though I had washed myself over and over again with cold water, taking care not to wake up Rojo or Papá, it disgusted me to feel that my body was no longer mine, that my stupid pride in thinking of myself as the perfect little lady had brought me to this, this new breaking day, this house that was not and never would be my house, this country on the other side of the sea.
Now I was a real woman. Now I had everything I had desired: a house, a wedding, a husband. What came next? Watching the years go by, having children, growing old, dying? If I didnât die of sorrow first. Lost in a land that wasnât mine, tied to a man I now knew was not the one I should be with. What was I supposed tothink about, now that I was married? What plans could I make when Rojo shipped off to sea and I stayed home with Papá to wait for his return? To wait? Wait for him to come back, after weeks or months had passed, so that he could do to me once more what he had just done?
It had been very nice at first, very sweet. He had cradled me in his arms as delicately as my father might have done. He had caressed my hair and cheeks, repeating my name very softly,
Natalia
,
Natalia
, again and again, like a prayer. I asked him what he wanted me to call him. He said Rojo or Berstein was O.K., either one, it made no difference to him.
âBut you must have a name, havenât you? The one the priest gave you when you were baptized? What your mother called you when you were little?â
âYes,â
If it had been Diego waiting for me in the bedroom everything would have been easier. We would have danced for a while, even without any music, and thenâand then, I suppose, the same thing would have happened. But it would have been different, very different.
T hat night I didnât dance. I sent word to Grisela that I wasnât feeling well, and I shut myself up in my flat with two bottles of cane liquor. My plan was to get myself seriously drunk, sitting alone in my only armchair, the one I had bought from a Genoese family when they moved out of the tenement. I held one bottle in my hand and kept my stash of tobacco at my feet like a faithful dog. That was the longest night of my life. The demonic January heat shrouded me in its fetid breath. Voices that rose to my open window made we want to rush out and kill whoever it was who thought there was any reason in the universe for laughter. The world had never seemed so disgusting, so impoverished, so ugly. Closing my eyes, I saw Nataliaâs figure, dressed in white, like a lily pushing up through the filth of a rubbish dump that was fenced off, closed off to me, unreachable. Drink surged through my blood like fire, devouring without consuming me. I knew that all the water in the world wouldnât suffice to put out this blaze.
Picturing her naked, trembling, crushed under the weight ofthat Teutonic giant, who would be rubbing his coarse paws across her silken skin, I shuddered with revulsion, hatred, impotence. Impotence above all. What could I do? What could I, a nobody, do? A nobody to her. If she had at least given me some signal, if she had said she didnât want to get married, said she needed me to free her, I would have confronted the whole world with the dagger Iâve handled since I was a little boy growing up in the tenements. But she had said nothing, and my love gave me no rights but the right to burn, slowly, alone, thinking about her and what might have been.
D awn found me in the courtyard under the tree with yellow flowers, wrapped in a sheet that I had taken from the chest of drawers. Tears rolled down my cheeks each time I felt the shooting pain between my legs or that hot, swollen spot that was beating like a heart.
It disgusted me. Even though I had washed myself over and over again with cold water, taking care not to wake up Rojo or Papá, it disgusted me to feel that my body was no longer mine, that my stupid pride in thinking of myself as the perfect little lady had brought me to this, this new breaking day, this house that was not and never would be my house, this country on the other side of the sea.
Now I was a real woman. Now I had everything I had desired: a house, a wedding, a husband. What came next? Watching the years go by, having children, growing old, dying? If I didnât die of sorrow first. Lost in a land that wasnât mine, tied to a man I now knew was not the one I should be with. What was I supposed tothink about, now that I was married? What plans could I make when Rojo shipped off to sea and I stayed home with Papá to wait for his return? To wait? Wait for him to come back, after weeks or months had passed, so that he could do to me once more what he had just done?
It had been very nice at first, very sweet. He had cradled me in his arms as delicately as my father might have done. He had caressed my hair and cheeks, repeating my name very softly,
Natalia
,
Natalia
, again and again, like a prayer. I asked him what he wanted me to call him. He said Rojo or Berstein was O.K., either one, it made no difference to him.
âBut you must have a name, havenât you? The one the priest gave you when you were baptized? What your mother called you when you were little?â
âYes,â
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