The Gods of Tango by Carolina de Robertis Read Free Book Online Page B

your uncle, he gave me that touch, his hands on my naked waist were the hands of a conjurer, he brought me back to life, I came to crave him as I crave the air. Everybody thought that it was good when I took the job there, helping him with his stores, let her contribute a little to her keep, they said, and anyway it’ll do her good to get out of the house. And they were right.
    But then the two. The horror of the two.
    She was almost at the front of the line. They were waving people through even faster now, she could see the Argentinean doctor looking in the mouth and ears of each man, putting his stethoscope to each heart to listen for what it carried from one continent to another, then removing it quickly, satisfied that, after three seconds, he’d heard enough. She prayed for a safe passage and for Bruno to make love to her that night and for God to hear the clamor of their bodies and in His infinite mercy send them a child. A son or daughter would redeem her life and give her proof of God’s forgiveness. If a child didn’t come it would be proof of His rage. Because her body knew how to conceive: this she knew without a doubt. One. Two. A shout of light inside her and the blood not flowing. The sachet of herbs from the cobbler’s wife was so bitter, so small. The tea from it stung her throat night after night—she brewed it when all her in-laws had gone to sleep—and then blood roared from her and the grocer was angry that she wouldn’t come to the back of his store for three weeks and wouldn’t tell him why. He thought she didn’t want him anymore. Am I too old for you? he said. He was not too old, his touch was ageless in its wanting, his sex always firm with joy and ready for heras it was not, he said, for his wife anymore. He had four children and he was her husband’s uncle; of course he would not want to know about the teas, the bleeding, and the deep-in-the-night tears for an innocent soul who could not could not come to earth because its destiny would be shattered from the start. And so she told him nothing, even when she returned to him and to their afternoons of pleasure so intense they made her glimpse the golden edges of the underworld. They always made love in perfect silence, attuned to the slightest noise from the shop. Silence gave their movements more ferocity. One afternoon they accidentally broke open the sack of flour that was beneath them, and because the grocer didn’t realize it he kept on thrusting and she sank and sank and sank into the whiteness. The second time Fausta went to the cobbler’s wife, a year after the first, the old woman looked at her with mournful disgust and said, Fausta, I do not give this cure to the same person twice.
    Please, said Fausta, you have to help me.
    You can die from this, you know.
    Please, please.
    You can’t go on this way.
    I won’t.
    Promise me.
    I promise, Fausta said without thinking.
    You know that I am not a gossip, said the cobbler’s wife. I’m the only woman in this whole city who can hold a secret. But if you break this promise and go back to that man, then I will tell two women, and by night all of Salerno will know.
    At that moment something inside of Fausta died. She was trapped. She had nowhere to run. If she did not make the promise she would give birth to a disgrace that would swallow her whole, as well as her husband, both of their families, and a new baby doomed to live forever in the shadow of its mother’s crime.
    There was more blood this time, and far more pain. She did not die. But it was the end of her life. She lay in bed for four days, despite hermother-in-law’s diatribe: you lazy girl, how sick can you really be, what about us? What about your job?
    I want to leave my job.
    You what?
    I want to leave the grocery store.
    But why on earth?
    I …
    Did you fight with my brother?
    … yes.
    Fausta, you can’t stop working. With all the food we put on the table for you? My brother can be harsh, but I will talk to