The Thieving Harpist

Languid red shoes with an embrace of webbing, soft black suede shoes with insistent stilettos, shoes like spiders' webs, shoes like love ... nothing is satisfying the woman. The patient shopgirl, who knows the size and shape of a foot with just a glance, endures the woman's sharp tongue and lets a smile play about her mouth.

'You have nothing,' the woman complains and throws a brown shoe to the floor and kicks the box so that it overturns. "Nothing!' She goes to a place inside her where she and her angry thoughts keep company. I've seen her many times at milongas, and she is beautiful. But as beautiful as she is, men do not ask her to dance much. Her dancing leads to love, but her love leads to nothing, and men can only break their hearts once.

The stereo in the back of the shop skips onto the next song, and El gordo triste makes the woman's mouth tighten.

'A sad fat man,' she translates. Her voice is scornful, and the shopgirl and I look at each other. The woman does not know that in the gangster dialect of Buenos Aires, the title means a man who is not the affectionate creature he seems on the outside.

'I've been saving one shoe for last,' says the shopgirl.

'Hummph,' says the woman. 'I knew it.'

The shopgirl kneels at the woman's feet and unwraps the shoes with care. They are made of a meltingly supple black leather. The stitching is exquisite, and the straps wrap and fold like an embrace. I know before she tries them, they will be perfect.
'This is the Arpista style,' says the shopgirl, and I wonder that she can contain herself.

'Harpist. Pista,' says the woman, tasting the word. 'Arpista. It means one who plays the harp. One who pulls the strings and makes them dance. Pista. It means step.' The meanings bring her pleasure, and it shines from her face. The shoes are perfect, and even she is satisfied, at last. 'My feet will be quick in these.'

As she leaves, she takes the tension in the air of the little shop with her, and the shopgirl and I are left with our thoughts.

Arpista in lunfardo means pickpocket, a petty thief who steals on the run the trinkets, the joy, in someone else's pocket.