Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [102]
During intermission the beautifully dressed people filled the halls outside and gulped down little plastic flutes of wine as fast as they could. The sound of three thousand voices all talking at once in a big enclosed space was perhaps the most beautiful music of all. That was always true, but on this night there was a lot of Spanish being spoken, so it was even more true than usual. A bouncing glossolalia. This was how the apostles had sounded when the tongues of fire had descended on them, all trying to express directly in scat singing the epiphany of the world’s glory. One of Piazzolla’s bandoneon lines even seemed to bounce through the talk. No doubt one appeal of that thin nasal tone was how human it sounded, like the voice of a lover with a cold.
And all the faces. Edgardo was on the balcony with his elbows resting on the railing, looking down at the crowd below, all the hair so perfect, the raven blaze of light on glossy black tresses, the colorful clothes, the strong faces so full of the character of Latin America. This was what they looked like, they had nothing to be ashamed of in this world, where indeed could you find handsomer faces.
His friend Umberto stood down there near the door, holding two wine flutes. When he looked up and met Edgardo’s eye, Edgardo raised his chin in acknowledgment. Umberto jerked his head a fraction to the side, indicating a meeting; Edgardo nodded once.
In the second half the band was kept in view throughout the dances, and Edgardo was happier. Now the black curtain was his own eyelids, he could close them and ignore the dancers who were in any case making their limitations known, and only listen to the Piazzolla. The second half had four songs by Astor out of the eight, same as the first; this was typical in tango shows passing through the States on tour, sticking to the maestro to be sure of blowing away the audiences. In one case a touring troupe’s leader had had some kind of a problem with Piazzolla, perhaps political in nature but probably mainly personal, the maestro could be withering, and so to avoid printing Piazzolla’s name even though he was playing his music, this leader had printed no composers’ names at all in the program book, a maneuver which had made Edgardo furious, although he had wanted to hear the music too much to able to walk out on the performance, because the band had been excellent, with four bandoneonists to re-create the effect Astor had made by himself. A better band even than on this night, though these young people were good, especially the young woman sawing away at her bass, amazing what a difference that made. And they were going to finish with the “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” a suite of four pieces, one for each season, on the model of Vivaldi.
These were among Piazzolla’s masterpieces, and Edgardo loved them all. Through all the years in Washington he had played the one that was appropriate to the season in the southern hemisphere, over and over, to keep himself properly oriented, or rather australized. Thus when Phil Chase had won the election he had been playing “Primavera Porteño” at high volume, because it was November, spring in Buenos Aires, and also perhaps on that night it marked a different kind of spring in the American political world, a much-needed birth of a new dispensation. Piazzolla had captured perfectly that magical budding sensation of springtime, the whole world quick with life and dancing.
Now it was baking summer in the world capital, a dry sauna with the rain gone, and at home he was playing “Invierno Porteño” to express the chill raw world to the south, and now the band was doing a very creditable job of it themselves, even the bandoneon player, who seemed suddenly possessed. And in the coda the pianist plinked the final falling trios of single notes in a perfect little ritard. Could be a lover walking away forever; could be the end of winter and thus the passing of another precious year. The two dancers sank to the floor in a knot—very nice, but not Edgardo’s image of it. He