The Gods of Tango Read Online Free PDF

He seemed nervous; he tended to chatter more when he was nervous, a trait that had always grated on Leda, though now it simply made her see the boy in him. The delicate boy who sang to the chickens and cried for hours when first forced to slaughter them. He’d groomed his hair carefully this morning, the way he did for special occasions, dipping the comb in grape-seed oil and forming a perfect part. She tried not to think about never seeing him again. She tried not to think of her mother at the river, and was still pushing the image from her mind when the carriage arrived.
    And then they were all outside: Leda, her father, Tommaso, and the children, who’d been shaken out of their beds and gathered in a blurred,obedient mass to say goodbye, still wearing their crumpled party clothes from the night before. Together, the coachman and her father lifted the trunk up into the carriage. She kissed each of the boys, who understood nothing, and then Margherita, who clung to her neck as though it were the mast of a sinking ship. Tommaso kissed her and for once had nothing to say. Her father reached out his hand to help her up into the carriage. Still no sign of Mamma. How could she leave without kissing her mother goodbye? But she had no choice, Mamma had run away by her own will and if she went to look for her in the woods she might not find her in a whole day’s searching, might still be scaling hills riddled with undergrowth when the ship pulled out of Naples this evening. She had to leave. All the goodbye kissing was done, and Leda had her hand on the door of the carriage, already halfway in. Her father took her gently by the arm and helped her up, then entered and sat beside her. She looked down at Tommaso and the children through the window of the raised cabin. They looked very small.
    “Ciao, Leda!” the boys called. “ Ciao , good luck in América!”
    Their tone was light, jubilant. As though América were a village just past Naples.
    They waved at her as the coachman stirred the horses into motion. She waved back until they were out of sight.
    Her father held her hand. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. The hard clop of horses’ feet against cobblestones gave way to the soft thud of packed earth, which told her that they were out of the village now, no longer in Alazzano but on the dirt roads that led up toward Trinità and through it, until they widened into the long straight road northwest toward Naples. And Naples was closer with each hoofbeat. She wanted to watch the road change, but if she opened her eyes Papà would know she was awake and might try to talk to her. She couldn’t stand the thought of what he might say. So she kept her eyes closed and followed the contours of the land in her mind. The slopes and curves. The infinite shades of green. The rumble of the carriage lulling her intoa voluptuous cloud that held her suspended in its folds but she was not asleep, she was not dreaming, it was really true that she was now inside a carriage with her father as they rode a long band of golden dust through stark air toward a great void.
    She woke to the din of voices. She was leaning against her father and had left a trail of spit on his coat sleeve. He had not noticed; he was staring out the window at a crowded street. Naples. Her first time there. Every building was taller than she’d imagined possible. Here was a church whose façade seemed carved straight out of the imagination of crazed angels: tall arches, cherubs wailing at beheaded saints, balconies lined with decadent pillars. Here was a fountain filled with nymphs, their thin robes clinging to their breasts as they lilted toward the water, captured in stone, arrested in motion. And everywhere, people; the scent of horseshit and sweat and rotting melon rinds; men in hats and women with baskets and vendors with laden carts, all crowding the sidewalk with such force that she couldn’t understand how they wove past each other, how they knew where