The Milonguita

Thunder reverberated, lightning flashed and rain lashed Buenos Aires, yesterday. I spent the wettest part of the day indoors, as you do, prodding at the housework, worrying the computer, eating steak and looking longingly at my bed. How cosy it is to experience a storm from under the duvet, but I resisted the urge because lots to do. Just got on with my day, remaining ecstatically tuned in to nature’s son et lumière outside. Typically, Buenos Aires has a fairly open style of architecture. Passages between street door and accommodation are frequently open to the sky, so when it rains, it can be like fording a small river. Here, the same is true of the passage between my room and the kitchen.

This building is built like a doughnut, around an empty space and each floor has internal balconies as well as external ones. I like that. Music and the aromas of cooking drift up and down the building and it can feel as if we’re all part of the same community, all together at the same party. Sunday is particularly good.

It was weathery intermittently throughout the day and night. I finally went out around 18:00, to meet my beloved Lili, the friend of a friend of a friend, who first helped me settle into life here and who has come to be a much loved fixture in my porteño life. Lili had recently returned from Chile and she showed me her holiday pics, which included shots of the three homes of Pablo Neruda. Now there’s a guy who knew how to live.

Then, we had home-made pizza and some rather fine wine. Lili said she was going out later to meet Bety at the Milonguita and would I like to come. There is only one right answer. I was, however, dressed in jeans and flipflops. I remembered I had a battered pair of Comme il faut in the suitcase Lili had been minding for me, but I didn’t have the key. Lili got out her toolbox.

The Milonguita is located in a large hall at the Centro Montañes in Jorge Newbery. The style is elegant simplicity : high ceilings, white walls, a few coloured spotlights, tables framing a slippery, stone dance floor with a broader bank of tables, interspersed with widow chairs, by the entrance. It was the eve of Bety’s birthday, so at midnight, we had champagne and then, I had a lucky ticket and won another bottle of champage. We’ll be having that tonight at another milonga, to toast Bety on her birthday.

One of my first dances, I made the mistake of being Mother Theresa to a certain gentleman I had already looked away from twice. Ladies, be warned! Follow your instincts. I had misgivings about responding the third time, but I thought I’d give him one tanda. After all, one of my New Year's resolutions was to be kind. It was torture. When I failed to respond to the non-existent lead, he’d say ‘No importa, no importa’ as if he was the one being magnanimous. Not only was he an appalling dancer, he neither looked nor smelled right. One good thing came out of it, though. Dancing with him enhanced my appreciation of all my other partners.

Two of the men I danced with last night recognised me from my previous visit: Alberto and someone else, whose name I have already forgotten. I’m beginning to feel like I belong here, already. An Italian I danced with last night was a fragrant, skilful bailarín. Mario. He is going to be at Gricel this evening and I look forward to dancing with him again.

We tore ourselves away from the Milonguita with reluctance for beauty sleep – Lili and Bety have to work on Monday. I took a cab home, exceptionally, because lumbered with a bulky suitcase. When I got in, the street door slammed behind me, with my keys still hanging in the lock, outside. I raced upstairs. It was 02.30, but still I pounded repeatedly on the doors of three of the flats owned by my landlady, praying that no passer-by would make off with my keys in the meantime. Eventually, Sergio got up and came to the rescue. He was very kind. And the keys were still swinging in the door, glinting in the moonlight. They looked like treasure and I kissed my keyfob, a lucky shamrock sealed into a heart, given to me with plenty of glove by my machalach.