La Aventura throws her head back and laughs out loud in the middle of El choclo, and her partner lightly leads her in a delighted molinete, turning her quickly, her legs flashing.
And as Tita Merello sings ...
And as Tita Merello sings ...
y un ansia fiera en la manera de querer ...
a fierce longing in the manner of love ...
La Aventura smiles, and she lights the milonga. And as the song burns, burns, burns to an end in knives, cuts and the explosiveness of Buenos Aires of 1954, she stretches on the last note and comes to sit by me. She is chubby, she is in her 60s, and she is wearing a skirt of clinging black that is slit to the hip. Spaghetti straps hold up a see-through lace top. Skin under her arms shakes as she slaps her knees and laughs some more.
I think that she doesn't see herself, but hurting her feelings is beyond thought.
'Long sleeves take off years,' I comment.
La Aventura lets her smile freeze for a second, then slaps my knee hard and laughs out loud.
'Listen to the words of this song if you want to stay young,' she says. 'Take your life in both of your hands and shake the living daylights out of it.'
She crosses her legs, and the length of flesh shows white in the light of the milonga, and even in this light I can see the sparkle in her eye.
'I was going for the she-should-be-ashamed-of-herself-she's-dressing-too-young look,' she says. A handsome man sitting in front of a Campari nods his head at La Aventura, and she answers his unspoken request with a huge smile that is her invitation. 'So glad when a look really comes together.'
I was wrong. La Aventura is the one who truly sees herself. I was the one who thought mirrors and birthday cakes important.
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