On New year`s Eve, i travelled 660 km from North Bay Ontario (my home town) to Montreal. I simpy had to dance Tango. From my aunt's house in Montreal, I travelled to the Southern part of Montreal, for an evening of Tango on New Year's Eve. I have been to this dance club twice before, and did not know anyone there, as i do not know many people in Montreal.
At the beginning of the evening, there were many people in this dance club, and i danced with many women of all ages. The DJ was very sharp and controlled the mood of the crowd with good choices of Waltzes and Tangos. The New Year arrived without incident, and without any kisses or hugs for me. Nearer to 1:30 am, most of the inexperienced dancers left, and the dance floor opened up. I had spent the better part of the evening before this moment dancing with women i did not know and who did not understand that in dance, the man follows the woman. Because of this, i was not satisfied with the quality of my dancing on this evening.
I was resting briefly at the bar, drinking some water, when a stunning young lady suddenly appeared before me asking me to dance. This sort of event never happens to me. For some reason, i was suspicious that her friends, Begemot the cat and Mr Woland were not far, perhaps visiting Montreal on their way to Moscow.
As she asked for this dance, i found myself staring at her eyes. In these deep wells of emerald green water, i found myself unable to fix her age. Was she 32 or 22 years of age? Her hair seemed very long, yet was done up, held high on her head, framing a classic roman duchess face. She was tall yet, her height was equally difficult to estimate for two reasons. Her red tango shoes sported very high heels and her revealing open back black form fitting thigh high skirt made any attempt at one continuous glance from her feet to her head impossible without long mind curving pauses.
Normally, i never accept a dance from such women, yet in this case i made an exception.
On the dance floor, I approached her as a man does his lover, inviting her to dance closely and slowly. Perhaps i was too brusque, as at first, she met me with her body just as Jacob wrestling the Angel in Delacroix's painting in St-Sulpice. Yet as the music started, she developed her confidence in me and lessened the distance between man and woman, wrapping her arm lightly around my neck, when her axis and mine were one.
What a Tango dancer she was! She not only understood that man must follow woman, she insisted on it. She elevated my level of understanding of dancing and sensuality, simply by being female instead of modern woman. On a moving passage of a sensual violin laments, she would halt our movement, stare into my eyes and impose stillness.
In this eternity, as a painter, she would study me, and i felt naked to this moment and her judgement. As a painter she would glean the relections and proportions from my face. Just as the music demand we move again, this hold her eyes and body had on me would lessen, and we would fall prey to the rythm that is shared between a man and a woman, song after song. At the end of a timeless maelstrom, we held each other, this painter and i, both not moving, as if in pose.
Imagine, a man and a woman in deep embrace together, edge lighting only, a dark dance floor, many couple's silhouettes. Yet through his chest, his woman`s heart is felt on his. At his neck and ears, she breathes. In his mind, he is drowning in her scent. Her back bare, her skin and mine of white, our shadows and clothing of black as night, the background, dark shapes outlined, her long lines, red shoes, his careful cradle and sure shelter. Black white and red oil on canvas.
As the lights were being turned on for all to leave, a dilemma occurred in my mind: Would this moment of perfect understanding between two souls be ruined if I was to ask for her name? I actually fumbled for a formula and for some reason asked this Montreal inhabitant :'Kak vas zavout?' Just as i said this, i repeated the question in French as she could not possibly understand Russian.
She smiled and looked beyond my face and eyes and into me. From her stare, i began to understand that this moment together was unrecoverable. As she started speaking, it seemed to me that she was freeing herself that she needed to kill the moment in order to immortalize it, in order to paint it. As she spoke to me, i then awoke.
Suddenly, I was no longer on the dance floor holding her; I was standing at the bar, holding a glass of water. The young beauty had not disappeared; she had never existed. The dark tango music had played and was just finishing, but i had only imagined -fantasized really- about this elusive painter dancer. Or had i?
If i had been dreaming, why could I smell her hair, her breath, and her perfume; why could i feel her gaze, her heart, the small of her back, her breathing? If i am such a dreamer, why do i still remember all too slowly
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