Free The Gods of Tango by Carolina de Robertis

put me back on that steamship and send me sailing off to nowhere.
    “Please,” she said. “I’m listening.”
    There was so much Arturo wanted to tell her, more than he could ever put into words, because he did not trust words the way he trusted silence. He rarely spoke of his own life, had never been asked, by anyone, to forge a narrative from the raw material of his lived days. But now, tonight, hereshe was right in front of him, his friend’s cousin, his friend’s bride, this young woman with an expression on her face like a cornered cat, and he had to talk, had to give her the whole full-bodied story, wanted in fact to pour it directly into her mind, as no language in the world was built to do—the whole of it, the luminous with the horrible. No doubt he’d fail. But he had to try. He owed it to Dante, and he even hoped against hope that he could free himself of the nightmares in which Dante appeared to him, mangled and ardent, if only he could sit across from this girl and find a way to turn a lived experience into speech.
    He began with the ship from Italy, where he first met Dante. They were both seventeen and both ambitious, two traits that were enough to turn them into friends. They spent long hours playing cards, complaining about the food, chafing with boredom, and looking out over the water dreaming of their new life in América. At least, that’s what Arturo dreamed of. He couldn’t have said what exactly went through Dante’s mind. Dante had a confidence to him, a kind of swagger, that was uncommon in emigrants his age. It was even more surprising considering that Dante had nobody in Buenos Aires and would be staying at the Hotel de Inmigrantes when he arrived, while Arturo had a distant relative, Carlo, who’d promised a place to stay and help finding work. Only later, when their friendship ran deep, would Arturo suspect that Dante’s outer confidence was a story he shouted to the world—with his stride, his strong voice, his eyebrows arched with I’ve-seen-all-of-this-before—so that he himself could hear it and begin to believe it was true.
    On one of those slow afternoons, Dante told Arturo about the girl he was going to marry. Her name is Leda, he said.
    She’s from your village?
    She’s my cousin, she grew up next door. She’s going to wait for me. He said it with the satisfaction of a man prepared to work a long hard day and go home in the evening to bread still hot from the oven.
    Arturo looked out over the endless water. It was almost evening, and the sun hung wearily in the sky, its reflection broken over the waves. Hewondered what the sun felt at this time of day, whether, in its descent, it longed to stay suspended—a hopeless struggle against gravity—or to sink away in sweet relief. He tried to picture this girl Leda. She appeared before him, beautiful and pure, with flowers in her hair, dipping her cupped hands into a river. Breasts visible at her neckline as she knelt. He envied Dante his certainty. He’d heard about the lack of immigrant women in Buenos Aires, and despaired of ever finding himself a wife, but there was no one back home to send for. He had girl-cousins, but none would wait for him, except perhaps Giulia, who was too silly to be taken seriously; he couldn’t picture her cooking a family meal without burning the pots, let alone surviving whatever the New World held in store.
    Maybe, Arturo said, you have a sister you could bring over for me. Do you have any sisters?
    No, Dante said sharply.
    Arturo felt his face grow hot. I was joking, he said, though this was not quite true. I’m sorry.
    One is married, said Dante. The other is dead.
    The silence between them grew thickly knotted, and Arturo felt the dead sister slide through the space between them, or, rather, he felt her absence, like a gauzy fabric with the power to suffocate. She must have died young; there was more to the story; he would not ever ask again. They gazed out over the long and darkening