Berlin Tango

We walked down the stairs leading to the dancefloor. When we got there we went into a close embrace, Sonja notching her head in mine. I could feel her weight, she was all there, not some limp dishrag in your arms. I bided my time, letting the music wash over us, then I took that first step. It felt good. She was completely present. I did a cradle then rocked into the second step. Yes this felt very good. By now it was a full dancefloor, and maybe it was the crush, but that's when the intimacy began, just a certain moment when all barriers fell away. We didn't dance worth a damn. At least not me. And my dancing was poor since I wasn't thinking steps. They say you shouldn't think steps, that thinking's a liability, but they never tell you that you can first stop thinking steps after you've trained them three times a week for the past five years. Before Picasso could forget everything he'd learned and become Picasso he first had to learn to draw. To dance anything remotely resembling tango, I had to focus on steps, and I wasn't focused on steps. I was focused on us, on her breasts jammed against my chest, on her supple waist, her smooth hand in mine, on the shared space where our faces met, on her sour breath, from the beer and wine, though I breathed it gratefully . . .

Kevin McAleer was born in Santa Monica, California, received his doctorate in history from U. C. San Diego, and now lives as a writer and translator in Berlin. Notable among his books are the epic poem ERROL FLYNN: AN EPIC LIFE (PalmArtPress 2018), which eminent film critic Rex Reed praised as "a daring adventure in biographical refurbishment," and the historical monograph DUELING: THE CULT OF HONOR IN FIN-DE-SIÈCLE GERMANY (Princeton Legacy Library 2014), a social portrait of duelists in Imperial Germany which The Wall Street Journal commended as "vivid and appalling" and the Encyclopaedia Britannica acclaimed one of its "Books of the Year."