La Fea and El Gordo

Across the high counter of the coffee bar, La Fea hands me a cup every morning. Her teeth make her smile crooked, and her glasses are thick. Her wit is quick, and she makes the early hour a pleasure. Handsome men look only at the coffee cup she offers, and they move swiftly away before she finishes speaking. She doesn't come from behind the counter and bribes others to clean the tables for her.

On this day she is alone, and when I enter she is skittering around the tables, grabbing cups, wiping furiously, running as though the floor is hot and it burns her feet. She dumps the stained cups and sticky spoons into a bin and returns to the cover of the counter. I see her secret, and I smile. Her spine is curved, and from the side she is a question mark.

She is perfect.

She looks at me and bites her lip. Her eyes are wide, and she hopes there is no pity in my eyes.

'Come to the milonga tonight,' I say, and she shakes her head quickly and hands me my paper cup of coffee.

'Come,' I say, and there is something in my voice that makes her look up. 'I know something you don't know.' She blinks once and I see the intake of breath. 'I know something you don't know.'

***

The milonga is full of the usual people. El Gordo sits in the corner as he always does. Kind and generous, a tango with him is always surprising. But women don't like to dance with him, and he spends many evenings like this, behind a table, looking with longing at the floor and the darting feet of the tangueros.

Then, Canaro's orchestra begins, and Tita Merello's voice speaks to us from 1954. Se dice de mí plays, and I see La Fea come through the door, lost, alone. I take her hand and lead her to El Gordo, who stands to greet her, and a light comes to both of them.

'I don't know ...' she protests, but El Gordo leads her to the dance floor.

'You don't have to know,' he says. 'I know.' And he takes her in an embrace that is magical.

El Gordo is short and fat as a pumpkin, and La Fea's curved body fits into his like the missing piece of a puzzle.

La fealdad que dios me dio

mucha mujer me la envidió.

The homeliness that God gave me

Many women have envied me.

And as they sweep their way through the line of dance, turning, twisting, their faces catch the light. How have I missed La Fea's beauty? El Gordo's sensuality?