She showed me several of them that day. She had catalogued them by date and had stored them, singly, in protective manila envelopes. The letters themselves contained bits of family news and were written in very simple Spanish. Each was framed in cloth, pink, green, light blue, made playful by the lace that her mother had sewn to the cloth, by the colored thread that held the lace to the paper, by little tassels, cloth buttons, quilted little squares of velvet, gold brocade, bright cotton and silk, silver and white.
"The maid had to read them to me," Julietta told me, an admission that caused her mood to darken. "Because I couldn't understand the Spanish."
"Why haven't you ever learned Spanish?" I asked.
"I couldn't stand it! Spanish was my father's language, even though he spoke English to me. He spoke Spanish on the phone every day, doing business. It was like a gun or something. He was always so formally dressed, shirt and tie. Perfect. His hair combed, so handsome. And everything he said on the phone sounded so disapproving."
I read a few of the letters, translating out loud into English the news about the new bishop at the cathedral, about her mother's servant Locala, a Bolivian Indian woman who made such wonderful coffee, and Locala's sister Marisol who had six little children, all of whom prayed every Sunday for Julietta's soul.
Julietta nodded, joyful in her memories. When I looked up at her, she was seated in the sunlight coming in the window, in a chair for which she had done the needlepoint work on the chair back herself, a pair of dark red roses on an ebony background. William sat across from her, a saucer and cup of tea in his hands. He had heard this story many times before, it was obvious. But he listened in silence nonetheless, allowing Julietta her sorrow.
Earlier, she had handed the man at the Jewish remnant shop a twenty dollar bill, to pay for a selection of colorful remnants, a few pearlescent buttons, some red velvet tassels and a quite frayed but nonetheless somberly beautiful piece of blue Chinese silk. The man was in his seventies, wearing a wrinkled white shirt and black pants. His white beard was stained below his mouth with yellow. He wore a black yarmulke and he counted out the change from a drawer in the counter in a hurried manner. He had had to interrupt his cutting of a large piece of cloth with a pair of heavy scissors, and he appeared to resent the distraction. He put the items that Julietta had bought into a white plastic sack and handed it to her with her change, thanking her without looking at her.
Article comments
1 - Evie Abat
Really lovely stories that capture the feeling of tango.
2 - Christopher Rose
Terence, this is absolutely one of the best things I've read on Blogcritics, so thanks very much for that.
It's one of my secret desires to learn to dance the Tango, having started listening to Tango music some twenty or thirty years ago when I first heard Astor Piazzolla, but I doubt I have enough control of my body to learn the movements.
3 - Silver Surfer
Yeah, great stuff. Thanks for putting pen to paper (virtually, anyhow).
4 - Ashtoreth
This was a beautiful piece. I was actually listening to Tango music as I read it. (Pure coincidence.) Not only is it a portrait of Tango, it shows how this world is infused with the Madonna/Whore/Suffering Woman archetypes that are so much a part of both Catholicism and Latin/Mediterranean culture.
In the third cameo, one also sees the archetypal wall of death that a woman, especially a woman celebrated for her beauty and appeal to men perceives as she approaches the age of 40. It represents an existential extinguishing point. Not everyone gets through it intact.
I think that this element of 'running out of time', combined with the fact that Canaro, in selfishly and narcissistically insisting on hobbling the psyches of two women to act out his own Madonna/Whore complex, refused to vindicate her 'whoredom' to the pure state of 'wifedom'.
This effectively drove Ada to disassociative, mind splitting, self-annihilating madness, and a kind of death/punishment/female castration/transcendence cascade.
Given the context of her culture and religion, this entailed self-immolation and consignment to a nunnery, effectively sacrificing all that she was, loved and had achieved - all for a malignant narcissist, who probably took it as a badge of honor that he had driven a woman mad and to the convent for her pathological addiction with him, him, him. He sounds like quite the game player.
With such men, it's all about them.
Canaro sounds like so much Canard. Same can be said for the manipulative shrub and the pathological psychic BDSM he subjected his partner too.
The story of the first woman was a gem. They all were lovely cameos that haunt you. In each vignette, I felt I was there. Bravo.
5 - Terence Clarke
Hello Ashtoreth:
Thank you for your thoughts on my piece. There's a film about Ada Falcón that I think you'd find interesting. It's a feature-length documentary entitled "Yo no sé qué me han hecho tus ojos" ("I don't know what your eyes have done to me") by an Argentine film-maker named Sergio Wolf. He was fascinated by Ada's story, which is famous in Argentina. He interviewed many tango people in Buenos Aires who either had known Canaro and Ada personally, or who have a deep understanding of the tango scene in that country. And, best of all, he actually found Ada herself in the convent and was able to interview her before she died. The interview is extremely interesting, not least because she is extremely charming, humorous and quite willing to talk about Canaro and her music. Given the sadness of her story, I was surprised to find so much life still there. You may be able to find the film at NetFlix. I'm not sure. But I recommend it highly.
Best,
Terry Clarke
6 - Ashtoreth
Thank you for the information on the film, Terry. It sounds fascinating.
From your description of Ada at the end, maneuvering through the rigid constructs of her life and culture, she found what was her means of absolution (for all her 'sins') sacrifice, death, transformation and transcendence. She cast herself as a kind of Magdalene figure.
Life is a series of little deaths and transformations, some more violent or literal than others. She was a product of a very literalist, dogmatic culture.
You didn't see 'Canard' sending himself off to such a fate.
Still, as you touched upon, there is a bizarre reverence for the archetype of the suffering or defeated woman as somehow 'womanhood' in Latin culture. It is a male invention and women dutifully leap through the hoops, unfortunately to their demise. It is a part of their social conditioning and the archetypes of the culture.
It's sad. Even if Ada had left dancing, left Argentina, she did not have to lose herself the way she did. She could have gone to Europe or America, found another man, a man who truly saw her and loved her. Instead, she tangoed with a narcissist. When you do that, you always lose.
The pathological relationship has been described as a dance, or an addiction. To celebrate this in a macho culture necessarily ends up in the destruction of women.
I was listening to the wonderful sound track to the film, 'Tango'. It is a mediocre movie that makes one chuckle at the banal narcissism of the Latin men in it.
Also the way they underscore the old and hideous men 'the shrubs' of the world scoring fabulous women, supposedly endlessly dominant and virile and magnetic - even in their dotage is done to hilarious effect. It is overdone and forced down your throat to the point of camp.
Their wives are all presumably fossils at this point, and their mistresses in convents. ;)
The dance performances are extraordinary though, especially a woman I referred to as 'The Panther'. She has two main performances, one which opens the film.
In that dance scene the man ends the dance by stabbing his partner to death viscerally penetrating her abdomen like it is both weapon and penis, interchangeable as weapons to defeat the woman. (It is an act, but very convincing and disturbing, with knife and all.)
The male character soon after seeks to force himself sexually on the her to the point of rape. Not cool. This is all portrayed as jolly 'normal' for the Latin male.
Gee, the convent might look like a relaxing place in comparison, come to think of it. ;)
The idea of pathologically narcissistic men bent on controlling, murdering women (literally or figuratively) out of desire for sexual control and dominance plays itself out at the end of the story, but peters out for a ridiculous finale that is just maudlin.
The best things about the film are the dance choreography and the soundtrack. I highly recommend the soundtrack.
Which reminds me. The music has stopped... I need to start it again and get back to my painting. :)