The Milonga

The dense atmosphere filled with tobacco and humidity compressed the labored breathing of the dancers. The center of the tiny tavern of that River Plate town was a meeting point for the peasant classes at the end of their tortuous days. In it they indulged in card games, warm beer, politics and the constant enjoyment of a melancholic tango played by a bandoneon player and his decrepit guitarist with the voice of a lion.

The men, driven by the inevitable spell of the song Tomo y obligo , packed the dance floor. All exhausted, sad looking; giving off an inherited aura of dust, oil and mud. Tiago and Agustín, two twenty-something childhood friends and now work colleagues, made their way to the center of the room, avoiding the other couples of men and their overwhelmed footsteps. They assumed the tango posture, waited for the right hit and joined the rhythm in synchronization with the others. Agustín, as usual, took advantage of the moment to vent his work frustrations, cursing his idiot boss, protesting against his lifelong miserable salary and the indifference of the pompous classes of Buenos Aires towards them and their daily difficulties. Tiago calmed him down with the same comments as always, about how it was better to live in the country, that the city was nothing more than a chimera and that, above all, they had each other. Agustín squeezed her hand in a scolding manner. The other smiled mischievously and explained that it was impossible for them to be heard in that uproar of plaintive music and stomping of feet on boards. But Agustín was not amused, because those comments, if heard by the wrong person, could cost them their jobs, their families, their friends and even their lives.

The two exchanged glances and remembered their days of innocence: running through the dry grass, sipping the mate left by their parents in the kitchen and swimming naked at night in the cold lakes. At sixteen years old, Tiago confessed his love for her, whispering the secret of his entire life as they rode across the plain. Augustine, however, flatly refused all that. First because of fear of the world and the consequences, and then because of his unwavering stubbornness. And the thing is, how had it occurred to the kid to confess to him just like that, first, when he has always been the brave one? Finally, two years after blaming alcohol for every romantic misstep between them, he came clean with his feelings and embraced the truth for good.

Tiago approached Agustín's ear and, to calm him, he listed all the little things he loved about him, such as his protection disguised as stubbornness, the simplicity of his details on special days, or his nervous attention when he was a victim of colds. of winter. Agustín smiled sweetly, even letting out a high-pitched fifteen-year-old giggle, as if love was trying to escape from his lips. He then asked him to save his flattery for later, when they were not surrounded by couples of miners, ranchers, nomadic gauchos and the occasional Uruguayan navigator.

Tiago's slippery hand then found an opening under Agustín's work-stained shirt, allowing him to run down his back with snake-like curiosity. The cold of those calloused fingers prickled his spine and weakened his legs. They both uttered a fugitive, inaudible moan. They closed their eyes and accelerated the pace of their steps, disconnecting from the world, floating in an out-of-body ecstasy. Tiago asked him then, shaking uncontrollably: why couldn't the world let them be happy? Agustín held him tightly as he perceived the sad break in his voice. He rested his forehead on Tiago's and reminded him that, as the tango says, a macho man should not cry.

They opened their eyes, thus returning from the blessed kingdom of lovers. Nervously, they looked around, finding themselves alone in the center of the court, ignored by everyone, like two ghosts. And they had not realized that the music had stopped for several minutes. But it didn't matter if they were discovered still hugging each other in the sad silence of the tavern, because, in those times, tango was only a thing for men.