[Tango-L] Tango in Toulouse--Part 7

[randy cook]

Tango in Toulouse--Part 7
Le Bikini Ramonville
Sunday, July 5, 2009
12:30 AM

The fashion show and performances are over.  The DJ is at work again.  Robert has gone off and found someone to dance with.  I smile at Christine.

"Voulez vous danser?"

"Yes, of course!"

I take her hand and lead her down from the catwalk.  We separate momentarily in the crowd, reunite on the dance floor.  Embracing her, I find she is a perfect fit.  This dance is going to be really good!  Now, if the choice were mine, what would I play for us?   I'm thinking it would be Di Sarli, something smooth and elegant to warm up with. Or maybe some Calo...

But no!  My God!  The DJ rudely chooses a milonga, and a fast one at that!   What a way to begin!  Can we manage this?

As if in answer to my question, I remember Christine's teacher in the exhibition tonight.  Heavyset and balding, he wasn't as pretty as some of the others.  Nonetheless, he was the one professeur de tango in Toulouse who danced like they do in Buenos Aires.  How?  By leading from the belly.  Hmm... I may lack the belly, but I can lead as if I had one, n'est ce pas?   And so we begin...

"Usually, when I dance milonga, I step all over the man's feet," says Christine, when the dance is done.  "Not with you, though."

"You know," I confide, "when the woman steps on the man's feet, the fault, the..." I search for the word in French, "faute is usually in the lead."

Christine likes this idea very much.  We dance another.  I throw in some "traspie."  She follows easily.  Pas de probleme!  And though the floor craft at Le Bikini is as bad tonight as it was on Thursday--people careening off each other like billiard balls--I find that Christine and I are quickly entering into a dimension where collisions don't happen, where the music carries us like kayaks in a flood, effortlessly slipping around every obstacle, sailing on unscathed.  Eventually, we even get some Di Sarli and some Calo!

Stazo Mayor comes back on the stage.  During their previous set, Christine and I were looking down on them from the catwalk.  Now we're looking up.  The stage is quite high, and the dance floor rather dark.  I feel like we are in one of those religious illustrations on the altar of Saint Cecile in Albi, where the souls in limbo are drowning in a dark pool and appealing to the angels on high.  Angels with bandoneons instead of harps... DJ music is all well and good, but there is nothing like the power, the presence of a live orchestra.

"Music hath the power to tame wild beasts..."  I note the drape of Christine's burgundy dress over her smooth brown shoulder, the dark cascade of her hair, and around us the blue light of the rock club lighting system.  The rest is pure motion.  I have no other thoughts in my head..  

When it seems we've been dancing together for an unpardonably long time, I ask, "Have you had enough?  Do you want to stop?"

"No," she says.  "Please!"

So we finish out the set.

I dance with other women later.  My senses seem sharper than normal.  The dimension I inhabited with Christine doesn't just disappear, but continues for the rest of the evening.  Then it is really late. Janet and Robert are probably anxious to leave.  I look for a place to change back into my street shoes, and find Christine in one of the chairs not far from the catwalk where I met her.  She's got on her street shoes and is holding her dance shoes in a bag in her lap.

"Comment ca va?  How is it going?"

She invites me to sit down with her, but seems very quiet.  Then she asks, "Will you be at the despedida tomorrow afternoon?  Actually, this is already dimanche, Sunday, so I suppose I should say this afternoon."

"I'm afraid not.  My friends and I are going back to Limoges later this morning.  This is our last tango in Toulouse."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

She doesn't say anything else for a while.  I don't know if she is waiting for me to say something, or if she is just tired.  Anyone who dances tango knows this moment.  You meet someone on the dance floor who feels just right.  Then you ask, where do we go from here?  Usually, the wisest answer is "nowhere."  Tango doesn't translate well into normal life (whatever that is). 

I think of the nine time zones that separate us.  What are we going to do?  Write each other emotional emails about Piaget?  We certainly aren't going to be dancing very often.  So I say nothing.

Finally Christine gets up and takes my hand.  "Perhaps we will dance again next year."  We embrace one last time-- this time not for dancing, but to say goodbye.  Our despedida.  

When she is gone, I look for Robert and Janet.



Copyright 2009 by Randy Cook