Zachary Cardamone was in the dog-house again. His girlfriend, Nina Swarthmore, had dumped him for some tall, dark-haired guy she met at the college salsa club dance. It wasn’t his fault he was popular with the ladies; it was in his blood: he was Argentine and dancing came naturally to him. Half the time, he didn’t even know what he was doing. All he knew, if he raised his arm while moving to the music, the girls would do a turn. What was the big deal!
He caught sight of her leaving as the back door closed behind her and the stranger. Zach ran after them, down Nectarine Street. He didn’t know why he cared. She was out of his league but he liked her all the same. He could see the two racing down the cobblestone alleyway of old Philadelphia. He didn’t like the neighborhood and where they were heading made him nervous.
The pair disappeared down a dimly lit stairway and he followed. Halfway down the stairs, at ground level, he could see, through dirty window panes, a gathering of well-dressed people. He could hear tango music, the music he had been breast-fed as a descendent of Argentine immigrants. The room was not large and there were about twenty couples, all dancing together in two lanes of traffic, each going around the room counter-clockwise.
He could see Nina, already entwined in the embrace of the dance he recognized as tango. She looked out of place, he thought, with her thick, golden hair and her milky-white skin. All the other dancers were tanned, Spanish-looking. Most of the men were dressed in black: black shirts, black pants. The women wore tight, flimsy skirts, either black or ruby-red, with a slit in the side that allowed a leg to slip out and expose a seductive thigh.
There was another woman that appeared to be unlike the rest. Whereas a majority of the throng had long, thick black hair, even the men, her hair was chestnut-brown and short. She was dressed in a white shirt, unbuttoned to expose her ample bosom, and she wore blue jeans. Her sockless feet were adorned with periwinkle-blue high heels.
He completed his descent into the den and stood in the doorway. The music was interrupted by a strange melody, it lasted only thirty seconds before the tango music resumed. He couldn’t tell where the tunes emanated from but he recognized the recordings, they were the same ones his grandparents played on their old record player when he was a child. He remembered the songs were scratchy and tinny, just as they were now. Everyone stopped moving during the interruption but began again, once the tango music resumed.
Everyone, except the woman in the blue jeans, she broke away from her partner and turned to look him in the eye with a seductive stare. He felt compelled to go to her and walked over to her. He held up his hand as an invitation to dance and she slipped inside his frame, her left arm slung over his shoulder.
He looked for Nina and could see she was deeply immersed in the arms of her partner and seemed to be draped around him. The man moved his leg between hers and she slipped off of it like a silky scarf. Jealousy well-up inside him and he slid his arm around his partner’s waist. Her brown hair pushed into his right cheek and obscured his vision to the right. He could still see Nina with his left eye.
This woman smelled fragrant, like freshly picked spices, maybe rosemary and pine resin. Her scent reminded him of the woods. Her breasts pressed into his chest and he could feel her breathing. He walked to the music, not trying anything fancy, for he knew enough not to. This was Argentine Tango, the dance of his grandparents, he knew it was an insult to attempt movements beyond his skill level and he was capable of only one thing: walking to the rhythm. But that one thing was enough and he was able to maneuver around the room with his partner, successfully, and without bumping into anyone else.
For some strange reason, he felt scared. Maybe it was this voluptuous woman in his arms, maybe it was the vacant expressions on the faces of the other couples, or it could be the strange odor he noticed when he moved too close to the others. He tried to place the scent and thought back to his parents’ butcher shop and the stench of rotting meat.
“It’s the cortina,” his partner said, her voice breaking the silence and highlighting the fact that everyone had stopped dancing. He was so immersed in his thoughts, he had forgotten about the music. “It’s the cortina,” she repeated, somewhat miffed. “You do know ‘cortina’, don’t you?”
“No,” he replied.
“What do you know?” She asked and didn’t wait for an answer, “You know nothing! Who are you? What are you doing here? Come!”
She grabbed his arm and led him outside. He felt as if he’d been caught trespassing and offered no resistance. Outside, she sat him down on the steps, near the bottom of the window sill. He could see the throng inside, continuing without them.
“A cortina,” she began, “is that strange melody used to separate tandas. You don’t know tandas, do you?” It was a rhetorical question. “Are you familiar with tango, then?”
Stammering, he answered, “Yes, my grandparents….but I never….Nina.”
She cut him off. “You are not one of them, then. I thought so. The gringa, she is with you?”
“Yes, ahh, no,” he replied, “I guess not.” He glanced inside and could see Nina wrapping her leg around her tall, dark and handsome companion.
With a sigh, the woman in blue jeans introduced herself. “My name Angelina. This,” she pointed to the window and the people inside, “ is a milonga: a place where tango, and only tango, is danced. That piece of music, the cortina, is used to separate a group of songs, called a tanda. If you are at all familiar with Argentine Tango, then you must know, this is no ordinary group of milongueros, those who dance tango with a passion beyond reason.”
“I should have known you were not one them from your breath. It is too good.” She spoke as if she were thinking aloud. Then she continued, “Here, give me your hand.”
Sheepishly, he held is arm out to her. In a flash, she clipped a handcuff on it and he quickly realized the other end was clipped to the steel pole supporting the roof of the stairway.
“Relax, “ she commanded, “I’m not going to hurt you. I need to tell you, those are not human beings that you see in there. They are zombiesss!” The word ‘zombies’ came out of her mouth like a loud hiss.
At the word ‘zombies’, Zach’s eyes widened with horror, then disbelief. He looked at her sideways, studying her expression for a sign that she was joking. She was not.
Again, she continued to explain, “Your girlfriend…..”
“Nina, yes,” he said.
“I’m afraid she is not interested in you. She must be evil or they would not have chosen her. Once the song ends, she will be dead.”
Perplexed, his eyebrows narrowed deeply with concern, “What song? What are you talking about? What do you mean, ‘zombies’?” His voice grew louder with each question, until he was yelling at her! He was becoming frantic, hysterical, because of what he feared might happen, because he was handcuffed to this pole. He yanked at his chain furiously.
Calmly, she answered, “La Cumparsita, it is a tradition amongst those who danced tango in Argentina before it was outlawed in their own country. This song is always the last song of the last tanda of the night, for the Traditionalists. Those people in there, no, those THINGS in there, they follow all the old ways. Hear that,” she put her hand to her ear, “that is it, there, La Cumparsita! Now, they feast!”
When she finished speaking, a scream pierced the air, loud and long, and then suddenly silent. Zach’s face turned shock-white with horror as he heard the sound of flesh being torn, sinews snapping, bones breaking. It sounded like bears tearing into a carcass. He knew what it was but he couldn’t believe it. He pulled on the handcuffs, until his arms finally pulled the skin off his wrist and it slid free.
Angelina, astonished at this feat of terror, blocked him with her body, throwing her arms around him.
“Leave her go!” She cried, “They will eat you, too. They do not know what they are doing when they are like this. They won’t know you are not evil, that you don’t deserve to die….like….like this.”
A pair of ears came flying through the doorway and landed at the bottom of the stairyway.
“They don’t like the ears.” Angelina stated flatly, holding onto Zach with all her might. “I know, it is horrible.”
No comments:
Post a Comment