What We Become Read Free Page A

heart hasn’t beaten this fast for centuries.

    The woman danced well, Max Costa realized. Easily and with a certain boldness. She followed him confidently when he tested her ability with a more complicated, inventive sidestep that a less nimble woman would have stumbled over. He guessed that she was about twenty-five. Tall and slender, with long arms, slim wrists, and legs that seemed to go on forever beneath her dark taffeta dress with violet overtones, cut low at the back. Thanks to the high heels she was wearing, which set off her gown, her serene face with its well-defined features was on a level with his. She wore her ash-blond hair crimped according to the prevailing fashion that season, and cut in a short bob that exposed her neck. As she danced, she kept her eyes fixed on a point above the shoulder of her partner’s tailcoat, where her left hand adorned with a wedding ring was resting. Their eyes had not met since he’d approached with a polite bow, offering to lead her in one of the slow waltzes they called aBoston. Hers were the color of liquid honey, almost translucent, enhanced by a perfect application of mascara (no more than was necessary, the same as with her lipstick) beneath the fine arc of her plucked eyebrows. She was nothing like the other women Max had accompanied that evening in the ballroom: middle-aged ladies reeking of musky perfumes such as lily and patchouli, or awkward young girls dressed in light-colored dresses with skirts below the knee, who bit their lips as they struggled to keep in step, blushed when he placed a hand on their waist or clapped to a hupa-hupa. And so, for the first time that evening, the ballroom dancer on the Cap Polonio began to enjoy his job.
    Their eyes didn’t meet again until the Boston (called “What I’ll Do”) was over and the orchestra launched into a rendering of the tango “A media luz.” They had stood there facing each other for a moment in the middle of the half-empty dance floor. At the first bars, realizing she wasn’t intending to return to her table (where a man in a tuxedo, doubtless her husband, had just sat down), he opened his arms wide, and the woman instantly responded, impassive as before. She placed her left hand on his shoulder, extended her right arm slowly, and they began moving across the dance floor ( gliding was the word, Max thought), her eyes once more gazing past the ballroom dancer without looking at him, even as she shadowed his movements with surprising precision, his slow, sure rhythm, while, for his part, he endeavored to maintain the proper distance, their bodies touching just enough to perform the figures.
    â€œWas that all right?” he asked after a difficult figure eight, which the woman had followed effortlessly.
    At this she finally afforded him a fleeting glance. Possibly even the semblance of a smile, which faded instantly.
    â€œPerfect.”
    In recent years, the tango, originally Argentinian but brought into vogue in Paris by the Apache dances, had been all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic. And so the floor was soon filled withcouples twirling more or less gracefully, linking steps, embraces, and releases, which, depending on the dancers’ ability, could be anywhere from passable to grotesque. Max’s partner, however, responded with ease to the most complex moves, adapting to the traditional, obvious steps as well as to the occasional embellishments which, increasingly sure of his companion, he would improvise, always in that slow, restrained style, introducing breaks and delicate side steps, which she followed effortlessly, without missing a beat. It was obvious she too was enjoying moving to the music, from the smile she graced Max with each time they performed a difficult turn, and from her bright gaze that would occasionally stop staring into space and alight for a few seconds, contentedly, on the ballroom dancer.
    As they twirled around the dance floor, Max