Le Chemin du Tango

The gloom seems to be lifting somewhat. Not to be trusted, seeing as the dreaded month of November is drawing near and the mere thought of the cold and the darkness to come makes me shudder; but I am doing my best to concentrate on the brighter aspects of this whole unfortunate affair called winter, such as la fondue savoyarde and roasted chestnuts (which reminds me that marrons glacés will soon be appearing in the shops and I mustn´t miss them!), ice-skating and maybe some skiing - although I find that dancing tango addictively makes me worry a tad too much about the safety of my limbs, which somehow takes the fun out of skiing, especially if you revel in a suicidal skiing style like I do:(
There will also be tango, and that´s a huge consolation these days. I think I´ll go to El Corte to dance the weekend away, and maybe to other places with tango-crazed crowds; I find that lately I tend to dance with the same people all the time, my favourite dancers, plus a stranger every now and then, and while this keeps me very happy and prevents most unnecessary frustrations I sometimes long for more variety and the excitement of discovering a new partner.
I have been looking at various festivals and my heart leapt when I saw who was going to be in Istanbul in November - it´s a dream team, really - and then I almost let out a loud wail when I realized that I couldn´t make it that weekend, for obligations familiales, so to speak.
Damn.

A couple of days ago I was at a milonga, standing at the bar. And there was this bloke, a teacher and a fairly good dancer, of some international renown. He wasn´t entirely sober - but then, he rarely is. Anyway, at one point, after some staring, he says ´Princess, wanna dance with me?´ Not the kind of invitation that would be difficult to turn down; but I was curious. I had never danced with him, and though I don´t particularly like his style, I still wanted to try it out. We went to the dancefloor, embraced, and started dancing. After a couple of steps, he murmured
´You can dance!´ sounding flustered. I refrained from any comments, but I could feel his increasing bewilderment. After the second tango, he stared at me and said ´You dance really well!´ but not in the usual flattering way people say this. He was flabbergasted. I lost my patience, and said ´Yeah, so what? Did you think I couldn´t dance?´
´I did. Not this well, anyway´ (looking at me as though I were an apparition).
´Why did you want to dance with me, then?´ said I, getting a bit annoyed by this silly conversation. But his answer was disarming - it was so matter-of-fact and sincere:
´Because you´re very pretty.´
I rolled my eyes again - this time at him - but I almost laughed. Though it certainly did not increase my esteem for the man, I preferred this frank and straightforward admission to any silly piropo he might have come up with.
Besides, we were even - after all, I wanted to dance with a hot shot and he wanted to dance with a pretty girl, I wonder what´s worse.
C´est le tango...