Comme Il Faut

I’m thinking of buying tango shoes. Tango shoes aren’t like any other shoes in this world-- and really, they don’t belong to this world.

The rules of taste are different in tango, different from the gray and black, corduroy and Gore-Tex thing we do in Seattle, different from the navy blue and olive green and brown New England sensibility I grew up with. My mother had ideas about taste, and a word for things that didn’t conform. “Garish,” she’d say with horror, and what she didn’t say spoke louder. “We would never do that. We are not like that.”

When I started kindergarten we went to my closet and she taught me to pick out my clothes. No stripes with plaids, no stripes with patterns; horizontal stripes make you look fat. Blue goes with everything, except another shade of blue. Hot pink and lime green are beneath our notice, and sequins are unspeakable.

But I’ve been going astray for years, to the point where I paint my toenails blood red and sometimes wear pink and lime green. And now I’ve taken up tango.

What I learned to think of as cheesy and over-the-top is here considered classic. Take the music. At first it reminded me of a boyfriend I used to have. Horny, flamboyant and very, very dramatic. He once got on his knees to apologize to me for some little thing, and this music seems willing to do that, too. You can write a whole love song in Spanish with just a few words. “Corazon,” which means “heart,” but stands in for any other part of the body. “Nunca,” “siempre,” and “cuando?” “Never,” “always,” and “when?” It’s overwrought and sweet, it reminds me of myself as a teenager, and I had trouble taking it seriously at first.

People do, though; people I respect. The brightest, most interesting people do tango, so I have to listen harder. I start to hear subtle rhythms, melodies woven together, layers and layers of them, and it’s your choice to pull out any strand and dance to it and then go back and choose a new one.

We women learn to walk backwards on our toes, heels never touching the ground. We lean forward into our lead and surge or pause when he does; we wrap our leg around his legs or our own, we pivot on one foot while sweeping the other around us on the floor. Molinetes, sacadas, calecitas… beautiful, enticing names.

And to do all this you need shoes. Shoes with open toes and three- to five-inch spiky heels. They have ankle straps and some have bows over the heel or sequins all over them, or they’re made of gold lame. My mother rolls in her grave.

Thing is, my adapted street shoes with the sturdy one-and-a-half inch heels aren’t working any more. First they were too sticky, so I covered them with duct tape, smooth side out. Duct tape on tango shoes. The tape wrinkled and got all gummy, so I had suede put on the soles. Now the suede’s gotten slick and I can’t trust my feet. So I’m thinking of buying real tango shoes.

*     *     *

I arrive at a milonga one night, and there they are. A whole table of used tango shoes laid out on a piece of red satin. Faded beauties, they are, like roses grown full and blowsy, starting to drop their petals. Or a middle-aged tanguera, thick around the middle and her skin sags a bit, but her eyes and her motions hold more passion than ever. And she’s comfortable, inviting. Like her, these shoes have grown better.

They all have blue post-its inside. Debbie, size six, seventy dollars. Barbara, size nine, fifty dollars. Hyla, size eight, fifty dollars. And look-- Jeannie, size eight, Free to Good Home.

Free to Good Home. Last time I held a puppy it came home with me, so I look the little black suede ones over from every angle before I touch them. Three-inch heels, not too high, all black, no sequins or bows. Free to Good Home. I stroke the suede and it’s soft. Real leather, broken in and friendly. Hmmm…

There’s another pair in the second row. They are also my size. And fifty bucks, which is a fourth of what tango shoes cost new. I don’t know, though. They’re not black. I’ve been trying to stick to black, hold my ground, not slide down the road to red sequins.

The heels are sharper than sharp, and at least three-and-half inches high. And plastic, shiny, they don’t match the upper. What, did they run out of leather?

The uppers look tan, but when I turn them they catch the light and sparkle. Actually, they’re paisley. Gold paisley stamped on top of tan leather. The straps are lighter, with remnants of gold coating. The toes are open, the uppers soft, even with all the gold.

“Those are good shoes,” says the woman next to me. “They’re specially balanced for walking backwards.”

The label says they’re from Buenos Aires, the center of the known tango universe. If you’re a real tango dancer, you’ve been to Buenos Aires.

But the brand name is French. “Comme Il Faut.” “As it Must Be.” In Seattle we think culture lives in Argentina, but there they think it’s in Europe. Always somewhere else.

In Buenos Aires the milongas begin at midnight and go ‘til dawn and beyond. They hold them in smoky bars, and people smoke and drink and get all slidey and smoky on the dance floor together, and the whole thing’s sensuous and gorgeous.

I ran across pictures in a magazine of a couple dancing by lamplight in a restaurant. The tables are pushed back, ceiling fans spinning. Their cheeks are wet with sweat, and they’re lost, there but not there, entwined in a tango embrace. I cut those pictures out and saved them.

I think I know why the Argentine economy is failing. Everyone’s too tired to work, they’ve all been up all night dancing. A whole nation of tired people, who only come back to life after midnight.

I haven’t been to Buenos Aires, and I wonder what a pair of shoes can confer. Will they put spring in my hips and lengthen my legs? Will they give me grace and flair?

They scare me, though, and I put them back on the table.

I go back to the simple black shoes. Slide my feet in, wrap the straps around my ankles, and stand up. I’m way up on my toes, yes, and that seems to be OK. The soles are cushioned, springy.

“Want to try them in a dance?”

It’s Jon, who dances with me ‘cause he likes me and he’s kind, not because I’m at his level. He’s got this funny little smile on his face; I can tell he’s been watching me.

The music starts and we move into it, and my feet are doing fine. We try a calecita, the move where I stand and pivot on one foot, sweeping my other foot around me as I go. It takes a good lead. If he misjudges my axis, I wobble. But he doesn’t, and my foot makes a perfect arc on the floor.

I swear the shoes are helping. How can a heel make that much difference, when it doesn’t even touch the floor? Is it the years of dancing on Jeannie’s feet?

Another song and they feel even better, a couple more and then a pause in the music. Jon bows slightly and thanks me. “Thank you,” means “Thank you,” and also, “Good-bye for now. Maybe we’ll dance again later.” Don’t say “Thank you,” if you’re not done dancing together.

It’s time to go find Jeannie. I’ve never spoken to her, she being one of the experienced dancers and I just a beginner. But the shoes propel me.

“I’m adopting your shoes,” I say. “Sweet little shoes. Thank you.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” she says. “They were some of my favorites.”

“Then why are you letting them go?”

She gets this glint in her eye. “The heels aren’t high enough. I don’t wear less than four-inch heels any more. It’s a sickness.”

I thank her again and move off, and find myself headed back to the shoe table.

I’m thinking. Thinking about choices, about my practical, sensible mother with her navy blue and olive green, and the saddle shoes she made me wear in kindergarten. I think of the Argentines, up all night in their smoky bars, of the woman in the picture, her sweaty cheek pressed against her partner’s. I think about Jeannie and Hyla and their shoes. I know I’ve watched them glide across the floor in these very shoes. Maybe they’ve got some mojo left in them.

I stash the black shoes in my dance bag, pick up the tan and gold paisley ones and strap myself in.