Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance Read Online Free PDF Page B

haven’t fallen in love by the end of the dance you haven’t danced the tango.’
    â€˜One dance?’ I said. Even by Rosa’s standards this was extravagant. ‘One dance might only be three minutes.’
    â€˜Or shorter.’
    â€˜Or longer.’
    â€˜Yes. Possibly. Of course, as the case may be.’
    â€˜Three minutes to fall in love?’
    I was feeling more secure in my employment these days so I didn’t try to hide my scepticism.
    â€˜This is a fact,’ she said.
    â€˜Oh, a fact. So you can prove it? After all a fact is…’
    â€˜I know what a fact is, Lionel. And I know it to be true because it has happened.’
    â€˜To you?’
    â€˜No,’ she said carefully. ‘Not to me…’
    She pursed her lips, ready to say more but some other thought intruded and had a cautioning effect. Her attention shifted to Table 14. Her expression changed to annoyance. ‘Lionel, is that a dinner plate I see left out?’
    Mr Hecht had been Rosa’s idea. For no reason other than to show my independence I felt I had to seek out another teacher.
    Harry Singer, a cyclist and retired greengrocer, gave lessons in a studio above an Indian restaurant. Harry worked with another, younger teacher, a foreigner, Frederico, who took the more seasoned dancers.
    Whereas Mr Hecht was precise in his movements and description, Harry was like the elderly shopkeeper he had once been dashing back and forth between the shelves and his counter. ‘Okay. We’ll try this…Watch…’ His hands pawed the air for a partner. He wasn’t good at remembering names, but if he stared long enough and looked flustered in the right direction, sooner or later a woman would detach herself from Frederico’s group and drag herself up the leper’s end of the hall.
    â€˜Right. I want you to do this. Like this. Walk behind me.’
    I became the third dancer, the shadow at the grocer’s back, tracing out his steps, his bony head looking back over his shoulder, correcting me. ‘Like this,’ he’d say. In this copy-me style of Harry’s I learned the gancha where the woman flicks her heel inside your forward-thrust leg. Harry had a warning: ‘Some don’t like it. Personally I don’t mind, so long as she doesn’t use my trousers to wipe her shoes.’ This remark produced a nervous twitter.
    Harry also introduced a rock ‘n’ roll spin, a move of his own, and nothing to do with tango, as I discovered. He demonstrated with Diane, a short blonde woman with a wonderfully reassuring voice and manner. ‘I can’t believe this is your first time,’ she said. Of course I had lied. And once, as I spun her inside the arc of my arm, she actually applauded. ‘Good. Very good. I’ll dance with you any time.’ Harry wasn’t happy, though. His arms were folded. His face hung disapprovingly. ‘That last spin,’ he said, ‘it happened too far away. Keep your hand flat against the back and let them spin around it.’ He and Diane demonstrated and Harry’s hand rode around her back, waist, round to the front. He winked. ‘Once you’ve got them there you don’t let them get away.’
    I tried to introduce the move to Rosa, and as I went to spin her I felt her resist. From the half turn where we had stalled she gave me a look of incomprehension. ‘What is this? What is this you are trying to do?’ It was as though I’d made an improper suggestion. She picked my hand off her.
    I didn’t want to mention the retired grocer’s lessons. I didn’t want her to think I had been elsewhere, ‘behind her back’, or that I didn’t have confidence in her judgment or Hecht as a dance instructor.
    She looked at me suspiciously.
    â€˜Just improvising,’ I said.
    â€˜You may improvise. Sure, that is the tango. But perhaps wait until you’ve learnt the steps.