La Viruta and Sueño Porteño

I can’t bear that I’m already half way through my trip to Buenos Aires. It’s 04:00 and I’m too excited to sleep having had the best evening ever. Yes, he is gorgeous, dances like a pro, has the manners of a prince and I can feel myself turning into a flying fish, as I speak.

I started my evening very early today because I was in Palermo and thought I might as well hang out at La Viruta, where I was expecting to meet Lili much later. I spent three hours in lessons there, first tango, then rock and when Lili arrived, I led her. Up to that point I had a wonderful dance partner from Valparaiso, who asked if I’d like to sit at his table for the milonga, but Lili was going on to another milonga I’d never been to before, so I left with her, instead. I hope I get to see José again, next week.

When we first walked into Sueño Porteño, it was full to bursting. The car park was full and we had to queue for a space and even the stairs leading up to the milonga were crowded with people in fancy dress either leaving or arriving and there was not a single free chair to be had. I felt annoyed with myself for having made a bad decision, leaving La Viruta, which I was enjoying so much.

Lili was confident we would soon get to sit and she was right. We joined a table with two men, both of whom asked me to dance as soon as I got my shoes on. I barely got to sit all evening, being constantly in demand, and Bety, when she arrived, remarked on this. I said I wondered why and she said,

‘It’s because you look so young.’

Friends, eh! Three of my partners were excellent, but I had many good partners and a few of them were rather amorous. Now, in England, I might have found this trying, but here it is done with so much charm, it is difficult to feel anything more than mildly amused and even flattered. I had a few offers of phone numbers, but the one I loved the best, the princely one, asked me to join him at a milonga on Riobamba on Saturday,

‘And if you do, you’ll make me the happiest man in the world.’

He was dressed like a mafioso. He looked rather, in fact, like a young Robert de Niro. He was dressed in a beautifully cut, dark suit with a golden lapel pin. As I got up to join him on the dance floor, another man aproached me and when I indicated the man I was about to dance with, he said,

‘Ah you’re dancing with Napoleon.’

So, obviously, I thought he was called Napoleon.

I remembered my first ever milonga in Buenos Aires, which was a Friday night at Canning, when I had been flattered to bits that so many brilliant dancers kept asking to dance with me and subsequently discovering that many of them were teachers, looking for business. I asked him whether he was a teacher, but no, he said, he wasn’t. When the tanda ended, I was so overcome with pleasure, I spontaneously took his hand in both of mine and kissed it. Clearly, I am turning into a man and all this leading is rewiring my brain. I felt like an idiot, but he immediately did it back to me and said something beautiful about the pleasure of dancing with me and walked me all the way back to my chair, unlike many who leave you wishing you had your compass, miles from your table. When I told Lili he was called Napoleon, she threw back her head and laughed and said no, he had come dressed as Napoleon the week before.

He said his name was Luis B. He asked for me again a couple of times and when I left with Lili and Bety, he came down after us to the car park to say good bye and to remind me about the Saturday milonga. Part of me feels this is exciting, part of me feels this is distracting. Will I feel compelled to spend two hours getting ready to go out when I could be improving my tango at the Men’s Technique class?