What We Become by Arturo Pérez-Reverte Page A

to the ashtray.
    â€œI am no musician. I simply dance to make a living. I can’t tell a quaver from a crochet.”
    â€œEven so, I would like your opinion.”
    Max drew twice on his cigarette before replying.
    â€œI can only talk about what I know. What I remember . . . The same happened to the music as to the dance and the words. The early musicians were self-taught, they played little-known tunes, from piano scores or from memory. On the hoof, as they say in Argentina . . . like jazz musicians when they improvise, inventing as they go along.”
    â€œAnd what were the orchestras like?”
    Small, Max explained. Three or four musicians, the bandoneon providing the bass notes, simpler harmonies, faster paced. It was more about the way they played than the music itself. Gradually, those orchestras were replaced by more modern ensembles: piano instead of guitar solos, violin accompaniment, the drone of thesqueezebox. That made it easier for inexpert dancers, the new fans. Professional orchestras adapted overnight to the new tango.
    â€œAnd that is what we dance,” he concluded, slowly putting out his cigarette. “That’s what you hear in the ship’s ballroom and the respectable establishments of Buenos Aires.”
    Mecha Inzunza stubbed out her cigarette in the same ashtray as Max, three seconds later.
    â€œWhat happened to the other sort?” she asked, playing with the ivory cigarette holder. “The Old School Tango?”
    Not without some difficulty, Max took his eyes off her hands: slender, elegant, refined. Her gold wedding band glinted on the ring finger of her left hand. He looked up to find Armando de Troeye staring at him, expressionless.
    â€œIt still exists,” he replied. “On the fringes, though it’s increasingly rare. Depending on where it’s played, almost no one dances to it. It’s more difficult. Cruder.”
    He paused for a moment. The smile now playing on her lips was spontaneous. Suggestive.
    â€œA friend of mine once said there are tangos to cry for and tangos to die for. . . . The old-fashioned tangos belonged more to the second category.”
    Mecha Inzunza had propped her elbow on the table and was cupping her face in her hand. She appeared to be paying close attention.
    â€œSome people call it the Old School Tango,” Max explained. “To differentiate it from the new, modern tango.”
    â€œThat’s a good name,” the husband said. “Where does it come from?”
    His face was no longer expressionless. Yet again a friendly gesture, that of an attentive host. Max spread his hands as though to state the obvious.
    â€œI don’t know. The Old School was the title of an early tango. I couldn’t say for sure.”
    â€œAnd is it still . . . obscene?” she asked.
    Her tone was unemotional. Almost scientific. That of an entomologist investigating, for example, whether copulation between two beetles was obscene. Assuming, Max concluded, beetles copulated. Which, undoubtedly, they did.
    â€œThat depends where you go,” he replied.
    Armando de Troeye seemed delighted by the conversation.
    â€œWhat you’re telling us is fascinating,” he said. “Far more than you could imagine. And it changes some of the ideas I had about tango. I want to see it for myself . . . in its authentic surroundings.”
    Max frowned, cagily.
    â€œIt certainly isn’t played in any respectable venues. None that I know of.”
    â€œAre there authentic places in Buenos Aires?”
    â€œOne or two. But to call them unsuitable would be an understatement.” He looked at Mecha Inzunza. “They are dangerous places . . . inappropriate for a lady.”
    â€œDon’t worry about that,” she said with icy calm. “We’ve been to inappropriate places before.”

    It is late afternoon. The setting sun over Punta del Capo casts