Read Online The Gods of Tango by Carolina de Robertis - Free Book Online
Authors: Carolina de Robertis
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bullets. Was he selling them? Collecting them? Following some witch’s instructions to break a spell? He stood a few paces from her and her nostrils filled with garlic. She closed her eyes. The noises blurred around her. She felt a hand brush the back of her bare neck and jolted awake; don’t rest, don’t doze; Arturo was in front of her and seemed to have noticed nothing. Behind her faceless hordes of men. She could still feel the fingers on her nape, damp, crawling. She sat tense for the rest of the ride until the tram finally pulled to a stop where Arturo gestured for them to descend.
The street teemed with pedestrians and drawn carriages. The buildings seemed made of an odd combination of materials: wood and metal sheets and corrugated iron, slapped together and brightly painted: red, orange, yellow, blue, green. She smelled fresh-baked bread and horse piss and onions frying on a fire. An old man played a violin on the corner while, at his feet, a small boy rolled cigarettes with the concentration of a priest preparing bread for communion. The song had a vigor that belied the old man’s stony face; its melody rose and fell and refused to resolve, roving with a kind of desperate beauty that cut into Leda’s heart. What was this music?
She turned to Arturo, but he’d stepped ahead to ask the boy for help with the trunk. They lifted it together, Arturo working hard to make the task look effortless, to hide his exertion. They walked to the middle of the block and stopped in front of the worn red door of a building pressed against its neighbors, so that they looked like one long house. Judging by the distance between this set of doors and the next, her home seemed to have many rooms and two floors—two floors! For this Dante took so long to gather up the money! Why did he think they needed so much? He could have called her over earlier.
“Here we are,” Arturo said. “This red door.”
“You live nearby?” Leda said.
He looked surprised. “I live here. With you.”
She had mistaken his kindness. How could she have been so stupid. She thought quickly: he looked stronger than she was, but she was taller, she could outrun him, but she wouldn’t know which way to run.
He saw her expression and went red. “No, no—in another room. With my mother and sisters.”
The boy was watching keenly now. Leda tried to ignore his curiosity. “All of you, here? In this same house?”
“There are many of us here. Many families in one building. A conventillo . Dante didn’t explain?”
“No.” She had always imagined, even in the humblest incarnationsof her new life, that she and Dante would have a house to themselves. A private space at the end of the world, far from their own family, that was her dream, even if it were a one-room hut with a dirt floor like those occupied by the humblest citizens of Alazzano, the ones who cleaned the homes and stables of landowning families like her own. It had not occurred to her that the space would be immersed in the noise of other families, that their fellow immigrants would crowd into the same refuge. How naïve she had been. I do not know this place, not even from my dreaming, she thought as she followed Arturo and the boy through the front door.
They entered a dim foyer. Just beyond it, double doors let out into a long, open patio crammed with washing tubs, tables covered with fabric and other sewing supplies, dilapidated crates, laundry flapping on haphazard lines, women scrubbing and cutting and shelling and sewing and sweeping, and children, children everywhere, playing with wooden spoons, sharpening knives, mending ragged clothes, helping to scrub and cut and shell and sew and sweep, wiping snot from their grimy faces with their hands. They looked up and stared as she stepped into the glaring light.
“Leda!” a round-faced woman called out. She stood, wiped her hands on her skirt, and approached, arms open. She was stout and erect, with an edge of metal in her, like
The street teemed with pedestrians and drawn carriages. The buildings seemed made of an odd combination of materials: wood and metal sheets and corrugated iron, slapped together and brightly painted: red, orange, yellow, blue, green. She smelled fresh-baked bread and horse piss and onions frying on a fire. An old man played a violin on the corner while, at his feet, a small boy rolled cigarettes with the concentration of a priest preparing bread for communion. The song had a vigor that belied the old man’s stony face; its melody rose and fell and refused to resolve, roving with a kind of desperate beauty that cut into Leda’s heart. What was this music?
She turned to Arturo, but he’d stepped ahead to ask the boy for help with the trunk. They lifted it together, Arturo working hard to make the task look effortless, to hide his exertion. They walked to the middle of the block and stopped in front of the worn red door of a building pressed against its neighbors, so that they looked like one long house. Judging by the distance between this set of doors and the next, her home seemed to have many rooms and two floors—two floors! For this Dante took so long to gather up the money! Why did he think they needed so much? He could have called her over earlier.
“Here we are,” Arturo said. “This red door.”
“You live nearby?” Leda said.
He looked surprised. “I live here. With you.”
She had mistaken his kindness. How could she have been so stupid. She thought quickly: he looked stronger than she was, but she was taller, she could outrun him, but she wouldn’t know which way to run.
He saw her expression and went red. “No, no—in another room. With my mother and sisters.”
The boy was watching keenly now. Leda tried to ignore his curiosity. “All of you, here? In this same house?”
“There are many of us here. Many families in one building. A conventillo . Dante didn’t explain?”
“No.” She had always imagined, even in the humblest incarnationsof her new life, that she and Dante would have a house to themselves. A private space at the end of the world, far from their own family, that was her dream, even if it were a one-room hut with a dirt floor like those occupied by the humblest citizens of Alazzano, the ones who cleaned the homes and stables of landowning families like her own. It had not occurred to her that the space would be immersed in the noise of other families, that their fellow immigrants would crowd into the same refuge. How naïve she had been. I do not know this place, not even from my dreaming, she thought as she followed Arturo and the boy through the front door.
They entered a dim foyer. Just beyond it, double doors let out into a long, open patio crammed with washing tubs, tables covered with fabric and other sewing supplies, dilapidated crates, laundry flapping on haphazard lines, women scrubbing and cutting and shelling and sewing and sweeping, and children, children everywhere, playing with wooden spoons, sharpening knives, mending ragged clothes, helping to scrub and cut and shell and sew and sweep, wiping snot from their grimy faces with their hands. They looked up and stared as she stepped into the glaring light.
“Leda!” a round-faced woman called out. She stood, wiped her hands on her skirt, and approached, arms open. She was stout and erect, with an edge of metal in her, like
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