Blood Sisters_ Vampire Stories by Women - Paula Guran Page 0,209

cigarette of the morning.

“Your friends like to tango,” she said. “If we dance, they’ll take an interest.”

“Why here?” My voice drove unseen birds from the trees.

Cole pursed her hard, American mouth, redder than any red on God’s earth, around her cigarette. I hated her, I thought. I hated her rigidity.

“It’s reverse psychology, Father,” she said. “If you can dance here, you’ll be able to dance anywhere—even in front of your friends.”

“Don’t call them that!” I said. I approached her, clenching my fists in front of me. “They are no friends of mine, señora. They took her. Right under those flags. She stood right there—”

Abruptly, the ball of anger melted in my throat. Heat swept through me, wrapping aching coils about my heart. I dashed towards the place where Maria had stood, not knowing if the sickness that surged within me was bile or tears.

Then I was on my knees, the stones hurting even through my clumsy padding of flesh. I placed a hand against the stones, thinking perhaps this would be like touching her, across the years. Only stone met my fingertips. Cupped over my mouth, my other hand felt the watery release of an old man’s tears.

“Well,” Cole said behind me. “That’s one hurdle down.”

“Cabezazo, right?”

We stood across from each other, on either side of the courtyard, my back to the café, hers to the bordering trees.

“Yes,” I said, no longer resisting her. Whether through age or expenditure of grief, I felt oddly detached from this. She wanted me to teach her the tango so she could impress the vampires. What else was there to do on a Wednesday afternoon?

“The cabezazo,” I said, continuing the lesson “is the moment when the man and woman first make eye contact.”

“Across a smoky room.” She hoisted her cigarette. “Then what?”

“We approach one another. Only professionals really trouble with this part anymore. The laymen go right to the embrace.”

“Let’s do it right,” she said. She sauntered towards me, holding her cigarette in her right hand, her wrist at a ninety-degree angle.

“No,” I said. “No, no, no.”

“What?” She smiled insolently. “Do we need to hire an accordion?”

A wave of anger disrupted my apathy. I hadn’t felt angry in a long time and now I realized I had missed it: missed feeling anything, whatever the cause. When my blood stirred I did not shy away from it. The señora wanted a dance, did she? Father Peña could oblige her.

I stepped into anger.

“First,” I said, drawing close enough to hiss the word in her face, “only whores carry this.” I knocked the cigarette away with the back of my hand. Señora Cole began to protest but I drew her into the starting position: my offending hand in the small of her back, my other hand joined to hers above our waists.

“Hold on to me,” I ordered. “No. Only our upper bodies touch. You lean into me and I guide you, like so.” Her chest was flat and hard, but her back felt good beneath my hand. I showed her the basic step. In tango, the man leads, the woman must always be on the point of resistance. My left foot went forward while her right went back: el paseo.

“Keep your upper body erect and pressed to mine,” I said. “Our hearts always touch but never our feet. This is the Argentine Tango, señora.”

She learned quickly, incorporating her desire to pull away into the dance. We progressed to la cuinta, the rocking step, and la chasse: the chase.

“Now,” I told her, “backwards eights!” and she complied. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. Slow, slow, quick, quick. After an hour I could smell my own musk and her clean, soapy perfume. She wanted to keep going, her face flushed, two honest points of red pricking her cheek.

“And, salida,” I said, at last. I needed a drink of water. More gin. A beer.

Abruptly she fell into me, the tension in her neck relaxing, her strong, thin arms coming about my stoutness.

“Thank you, Father,” she said. Her fingernails caught the short hairs at the back of my neck. “I knew you’d help me. You still dance like a young man.”

“A young man is what they will want,” I said. My anger had faded. My heart beat now with a strange peacefulness. “I don’t know why you think I can bring you closer to them. They thrive on youth and beauty—you must know this if you’ve been close enough to see them dance.”

“I’ve seen them,” she said. “It isn’t the youth they