Excerpt: It Takes One To Flamenco - a collection

It Takes One To Flamenco
She wears shoes in a shade of violet so old she can't find polish for it anymore. Pale leather shows beneath the scuffs of a thousand tangos. They're comfortable, much more so than the orthotic supported flats she usually wears around her patients. The tango shoes, however, are for the tango, and so after her partner died, fifteen years ago, she never wore them until today. Once, she wore them when she danced the tango with another in the in the solitude of a crowded ballroom. Today, she wears them when she dances the flamenco alone for an audience.

Is it blasphemy, to wear her tango shoes for the flamenco?

She turns on the ball of her foot, draws her feet together with a click of her heel, and snaps her fingers. She'd started with castanets, but they were too startling for Mrs. Hetly, with her weak heart. But once the ebony castanets were put away, Mrs. Hetly and the other patients watched raptly as their doctor danced for them.

"And that's how it's done," she says. "Let's try some rhythms. One, two, three, four, five six—" She leads them in clapping. The result is an undisciplined cacophany, not the machine gun strictness required for the dance, but the patients are enthusiastic. That’s what she wanted--the flamenco will teach them joy, and the tango balance. Focus creases the brows of even the eternally distracted Mr. Henderson. His gnarled white hands shake with Parkinson's as he brings them together.

She will teach them how to dance.

Flamenco

When she, Luisa, was fifteen years old and still in her home neighborhood in Seville, Senor Bécquer, who owned the local tavern, died. At the funeral, she fussed and fretted because the neighbor’s grandson was there. He was getting to be tall, and the way he teased her on their walks home from school made her flush. He didn’t tease any of the other girls like he teased her.

She couldn’t stand beside him during the funeral mass, but when the group reconvened in the dead man’s tavern, she made a point to brush her shoulder against his whenever she could. She brought him a glass of manzanilla.

He didn’t smile as he took it from her hands. He didn’t even thank her. His lips trembled, and he held the cup aloft. “My grandfather was a great man," he said.

Embarrassment flooded her. She was interrupting his grief--she’d made him hate her. But before she could stammer an apology, the music started up. The ferocious strumming of a guitar, and the twisted wail of a woman’s voice. Senora Bécquer danced the flamenco to the pounding claps of her loved ones. She was a squat, fat woman, who was always sweating when Luisa stopped by the tavern to buy beer for her father and uncles, and she usually scolded Luisa for wearing too short a dress.

When possible, Luisa avoided Senora Bécquer. Today, however, the old woman mesmerized her. The Senora held her skirts above her knees and exposed her bony ankles and dimpled knees as she danced. She pounded the floor and shook her skirt. Every stamp that echoed with the clapping crowd shook Luisa’s heart. The Senora sang, tears pouring from her closed eyes to stream through the wrinkled channels of her ancient face. Her voice danced in the tunnels of Luisa’s heart and rustled banners of grief Luisa hadn’t even known were there.

The Senora danced alone, and the crowd encouraged her solitude. You are alone now, they seemed to say, but we’ll be here for you when you open your eyes.

In the magical space of the flamenco, Luisa saw all the things that made Senora Bécquer grotesque --her funny chicken legs, her sweating brow and swinging jowls--and the flamenco made them beautiful.