A few years ago, in a loyal writing of mine which at first was rejected by the publishers with usual enthusiasm, and later appeared on the authoritative "Tangueros Newsletter", a refined Bodoni type-Fabriano paper review I indulged in endow, direct, compile and trade at the street corners, i endorsed without reservation the Zevasco’s famous theory, according to which History is an act of faith. Who cares about the archives, the evidence, the archaeology, the statistics, the hermeneutics, the facts themselves: History concerns History, once and for all Art, pure Science.
The historian emphasizes the tones, vivifies, exalts and, at the same time, clears the ground of any shilly-shallying or scruple. The deafening disputes about the Carlos Gardel’s real nationality are then over. In the same way, and without losing a single Argentine, we’ve finally got back the polar icecap and its inalienable archipelago. On the other hand, the Tango’s lewd origin, which was always advocated by me the undersigned, is nowadays a fine-protected truth.
The avid readers of petite histoire will certainly appreciate the application of the Zevasco’s system also to the minor events, such as those that belong to life in slippers, as Rivero used to say, and fit well the construction of a favourable and heroic past. Supported in my belief and galvanized by the colleagues’ silent clapping, i intend to convoke from distant ages the heroes of a forgotten epos. I am pleased to see that some of them honourably persist on these glamorous stools sponsored by Cinzano, not yet passed away integrally.
The method’s versatility doesn’t invalidate my hunched cartographer’s accuracy; the year was: 1956; the date: March 27; the place: Mataderos and its outskirts, just in front of the Penitentiary; the weather: cloudless, dry, slight wind, 25 degrees (thermic feeling of 28); the circumstance: the opening in grand style of the Milonga Nacional, ex the Babel’s, ex the Best Opposite Tango Club; the protagonist: the "tout Buenos Aires" of the time. Even today, i can’t think to that happy night without raising to my feet, taking off my hat and pattering back and forth, as the sinister Menoral does in the Mariposa. Above our Glostora-pomaded hairdressings, the stars were twinkling in the Buenos Aires sky, and we, the Jeunesse Dorèe from Avellaneda, were vibrating in unison with the sprawling city. The Tango was running along in our Milonguero veins like the water in the occult pipes of the Municipal Waterworks: without any control. Every time the Ginastera Orchestra struck up for instance Cross-eyed Priest, for the Census Officer was a cinch: he sufficed to count how many men were enough to hold us back from the dance floor, and he knew the town’s exact population.
On that solemn day, we were more euphoric than a jaegers’ cooperative with some new stuff for their smelly little balls. Until then, the borders questions, as captious as the International Law promulgations, had prevented us from crossing the walls of the hermetic Tanguerìa Sur; beyond them, the unimaginable attractions related to the female factor - chez nous introuvable - were actually waiting for us.
The Executive Committee gathered at 4.30pm in special session and considered the risks concerning the expedition: it was obvious that the boys from Mataderos, at the sight of the last word in the firulete dancing with the girls of their exclusive use, wouldn’t have skimped on giving us a share in the loud martial arts they were divulgers of, and would have voted down any other option, including the optimistic rendez-vous promoted by us around a domestic bottle of Curdon Rouge, which brings together the milongueros worldwide more than the D’Arienzo’s Cumparsita.
Ernesto Caso Umano attracted the cheerful assembly’s attention on the noxiousness of such overhasty decision. This remark resulted vain and insulting: the Golden Young Men from Avellaneda snub all perils every day. As the Four Steps Laxative’s ad says: one spot more makes no difference to the leopard – we laughed. After a discussion as short as a skinflint’s telegram, we were all for the President’s belligerent motion.
In the same afternoon, we strengthened with several selected defections: Fatty Soriano chose to draw his homemade satisfactions off the Taunus Pastry Shop, while the Marshal, who always put before curiosity his personal safety, resigned in writing at 5pm sharp. Our chairman J. Sarmiento himself, who, like the Three Musketeers’ son, was born wearing a beard, abdicated in favour of a no-matter-what facial treatment that the Peluqueria Britanica had promised to him. And not even one hour was gone by that Tuñon, our cosmopolitan Speedy Gonzalez, anxious to breath deeply the suburb’s perfumes, hurried to reach the Ville Lumière by jet plane.
From a historical point of view, we often hold the Cleopatra’s nasal conformation responsible for the following course of events. In the same way i acknowledge that if Lugones, whose constant vulgarity never neglected the practice of the picturesque eccentricity, hadn’t insisted to wear that deplorable necktie at all costs - furthermore it was identical to mine - the quarrel and the elision wouldn’t have probably taken place.
Towards evening, we were rather touched by the devotion of Commendatore Zapato who propagated to Montevideo by the night boat with the admirable purpose of not depriving the almost forgotten Uruguayan Tango World Convention of our institutional presence.

Starting from this moment, my dear colleagues, the story will proceed through broken images at the same rate of a modern film’s director. Let me shot soon the leading actor for you: when it was striking midnight, in his trash can camouflage and more lonely than the Robinson Crusoe’s goat, a romantic milonguero from Avellaneda was looking into his position in front of the Nacional’s doors. This Marlowe’s modest disciple and Monsieur Guerlain’s new opponent was nobody else but, sì señor!, your smart reporter.
Soundless and elusive like Captain Nemo, i was working out a new strategy since the deceptive reality had apparently inflicted a standstill to me.
During the bus travel, i had hatched a plan in four points:

1. Entrance in the milonga, after the busy assimilation of a Tucuman Super Soup, which was the pride of El Puchero Misterioso Inn nearby

2. Authentication of the Academia Nacional del Tango membership card and its complimentary ticket, both coming from the Sarmiento’s unaware archives

3. Overwhelming supremacy of my new Babylonian Sequence in the Tango contest

4. Triumphal exit from the milonga

But, as Medicine Man forecast in his Scientific American’s column, the Supernal Gods always arrange otherwise for their affiliates’ schedule. Chance intervened to subvert the arbitrary order of the human alphabet and prevailed upon me to pass from point A straight to point D: once carefully examined by a professional unbeliever in metal toggles, my credentials turned out to be apocryphal.
Such indefeasible statement was instantly transformed into action by the convincing Monk Eastman (cfr. Universal History of Infamy) who had been hired by the wise new management in order to settle the controversies that should have eventually emerged among the chivalrous rascals from Mataderos: he kicked me out of the ballroom.
Even my most absent-minded listener should remember that many World War veterans used to say that, compared to certain suburban milongas, the conflict had been a pleasure cruise. And one glance or one word by Monk Eastman, not separated from his cartesian hammer blow, were indispensable to pacify the habitual criminals who were allowed to go about town like tycoons, thanks to the imperfections of our young Penal Code.
(to be continued)

© Juan Luis Borges

COVER            VERSIONE ITALIANA