Sofia rubbed her arms, as though the memory of him was making her shiver.
‘He was in Buenos Aires for meetings. I was twenty-twoand had just left university, unsure what to do with my life. He was older – nearly thirty – and to me he had it all together. He knew how to talk to women, how to treat them, how to dress. How to becharming. He had come with his colleagues to watch an Argentine tango show at the bar at the end of my street. I was working there as a waitress, just to make some money while I decided what I actually wanted to do with my life.’
‘Who does know, at twenty-two?’ I said.
‘Gabriele,’ said Sofia, laughing softly. ‘He always knew.’
‘So that night, in Buenos Aires. How did the two of you get talking?’
Sofia’s eyes misted over as she thought back to that night, to the moment she first set eyes on Enzo.
‘He was so handsome, easily the best-looking man in the room. I could tell immediately that he was not a local – he was dressed too well, in his fancy shirt and expensive jeans and smart shoes. I was clearing his table when he struck up conversation with me in broken Spanish. His was so bad that eventually we swapped to English, which neither of us was perfect at, but my Italian was non-existent then, so we had little choice.’
I laughed, totally caught up in the story.
‘What did he say to you?’ I asked.
‘He wanted to know if I could dance the Argentine tango. If all Argentinian girls knew how to dance it. I said that, yes, it was in our blood. He asked me to show him a step or two.’
I rested my chin in the palm of my hand, totally enraptured by the romance of it all. What a place to meet: hot, sultry Argentina, tango music everywhere.
‘Could he dance?’ I asked.
Sofia threw her head back, letting out an infectious roar. It was the first time I’d seen her properly laugh.
‘He was terrible!’ she declared. ‘He wanted to learn theboleo, but he kept getting his legs all tangled up in mine. Eventually, I gave up teaching him the steps and simply tried to get him to connect to the rhythm of the music. Slowly, he began to understand the beat. Our hips were swaying together, we were looking into each other’s eyes as though nobody else could see us, not even my boss who wanted me to clear more tables.’
‘That’s so romantic,’ I said.
‘We have barely been apart since,’ said Sofia, her face falling again. ‘I went back to his hotel room that night and by morning we had declared that we never wanted to be separated again.’
Tears began to slide down her cheeks and I instantly regretted asking her so many questions when it was clearly still too upsetting for her.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have—’
‘Don’t be sorry. I want to talk about him. It makes me feel that he is still here with me. I wish that you could have met him, and since you can’t, I want to be able to tell you about him. Don’t mind me if I cry. We Argentinian women are very emotional.’
‘And the men?’ I asked, thinking of Gabriele, who was a mixture of Argentinian and Italian.
‘Not so much, as I’m sure you have noticed,’ said Sofia.
Gabriele chose that moment to appear in the doorway. He looked nervous at first, probably wondering what I’d done to his poor mother to make tears course down her cheeks and her face flush.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked, looking from one of us to the other.
Sofia patted the chair next to her.
‘Sit,’ she said. ‘I have just been telling Lira about your father. And about how I saw the two of you dance together and was blown away by what I saw.’
‘Really?’ said Gabriele, reluctantly taking a seat. ‘Were you watching us, Mama?’
‘A little,’ she admitted breezily.
Then she turned to me, taking both of my hands in hers.
‘I think you and I are going to be very good friends,’ she said. ‘I know you have your big dance career to pursue, and after seeing how perfectly you danced that rumba, I can understand that you have a talent that deserves to be nurtured and shown to other people for them to enjoy.’
I was so surprised I couldn’t find a way to answer.
