Precious Center

La Porteña stops in elegant suspension, her weight on her delicate left foot. Her partner knows how to take his time. He is testing her weight with feathery touches as Libertad Lamarque cries out over the decades that crying over the harshness of bought love has created such songs ... such songs ....

And Tristezas de la calle Correntes goes down into painful intimacy.

Triste. ¡Si,
porque sueñas!

You are sad because you dream

And as the last note dies away, and the dancers settle into that quick stillness just before they break apart, a woman screams, and La Porteña lies on the worn wooden floor of the milonga.

Friends fold in like a night flower protecting its precious center. Ice is on the wrists, caresses on her pale cheek. Eyes flutter, her hand is to her forehead, and she opens her mouth, but only her partner can hear her whisper. He shakes his head slowly, but she implores him with a finger to his lip. He undoes the straps on her shoes, her favorite shoes, the black dense suede whose sparkles catch the dim light and make her feet flash.

He lifts her, and as they leave, he drops the shoes into the box of waste near the door. La Porteña's face is hidden in the shoulder of her partner, and they are gone into the lonely night. Her feet are bare, and she disappears into the darkness.

She thought the headaches would allow her this one pleasure, the first in months.

I take the shoes out of the garbage and brush off the bits of paper that have clung to them.

They still sparkle; they still love the light. They are still warm from the foot of La Porteña. She will need these again one day, and I will have them to give her.