This is the English translation of my short story Estreno.
Photo by David Hofmann on Unsplas
She peeks through the heavy curtain and sees the lights, hears the voices of the waiting audience. She is excited, this is her dream and tonight she is going to shine on stage. Before the show starts, while she is getting ready, a journalist has come to ask her questions.
When did you start to dance?, she says.
It’s a difficult question. Several memories come to her.
In the first, he dances with her. The turntable spins, the needle makes a sound as it rubs against the record, an endearing scratch. Una paloma blanca, by Ray Conniff, is playing. All the lights are off, except for the living room lights. He twirls, and lifts her up to the ceiling, and makes her laugh. After a while, she rests her head on his shoulder and finally falls asleep. Careful not to wake her, he carries her to the crib and tucks her in, but not too tightly. It is the warmth that wakes her up. He was the one who noticed. The baby can't tolerate the heat, even though the weather is relatively cold. Babies are not supposed to regulate temperature well, but she keeps being irritated by warm clothes, blankets; everything makes her cry, her only language for now.
He also discovered that dancing softly, with or without music, works. Better with. Or go for a ride in the car, although that's more uncomfortable in the middle of the night. Or take her out to the cold lawn, it's the quickest way to bring the temperature down and relieve her. But dancing is the best. Mom doesn't understand any of that and she is asleep. She doesn't get up at this hour, if she can help it. That's what he's there for. As for almost everything. The baby makes guttural noises that only he knows how to interpret. Her moods seem as clear to him as his own. There is a mysterious connection. It's not common back then for a dad to be so involved in child raising. They are both very young and she is their first baby.
She was too young to remember those midnight dances. However, as she gets older, it seems as if she remembers. Sometimes, the whole family gets together, it's a big family and they have parties where everyone loves to dance. The baby, and then the little girl, dances in daddy's arms and falls asleep next to the huge speakers despite the noise of the music that can be heard all over the block. At some point she is taken to her room. As she gets older she can dance on her own legs and everyone claps and smiles when they see her. She enjoys dancing and also being noticed. With family by her side she feels more solid.
Between her own memories and the stories she's been told a thousand times she can't unravel what's real, but in any case, the answer to the question is the same:
Since always, she says, as she stretches a reluctant lock of hair in front of the mirror.
The journalist smiles but insists, Sure, you always danced. Since you were a child, then? What kind of music did you like to dance?
She keeps remembering scenes. In this one, she meets her friend after school and they play together. Sometimes, they play at choreographing the popular songs of the moment. They both like this game and laugh out loud as they try to imitate the steps and gestures they have seen on TV. She also practices alone at home the steps of the dances she learns at school, because she doesn't want to make a mistake and get scolded, or worse, bullied. She is taught typical dances, rock and roll, twist, a little bit of everything. She has a hard time learning all the steps and shies away from the pressure. But it is liberating and beautiful when she is outside school, dancing alone or with her friends.
She tries to capture that feeling and put it into words. She says, "when I was a child I used to do choreographies with my friends, we danced and sang Las Flans and Menudo, we laughed a lot". She doesn't know how to explain it. The other smiles and nods enthusiastically; she remembers those groups too.
The first bell is ringing already in the theater, in a few minutes she should be going out. There is time for one more question, while they help her adjust the dress a little better. It's a beautiful dress.
The journalist walks with her as she tries to sneak in two hurried questions for her press release: Well, when did you decide that this was your thing, that you wanted to do this? Did you have doubts at any point?
Her memory is still running wild. It takes her back to the long-awaited moment of her first party with boys. The nerves of this day compare to those of that one, anticipation and excitement, mixed with fear of something going wrong. The guests are arriving, her friends, her cousins and several known and unknown kids. Before the party, she practiced with her father to learn the difficult salsa steps. She is now ready. They play music, the speakers are still huge and still blaring throughout the neighborhood. They play merengues and then the fantastic salsa of La Fania. No one has started to dance, the children are against a wall nervously watching, the girls sitting on the couch. She smiles at the children, encouraging. With the next merengue song, one perks up and asks her to dance, and others follow. Soon the dance floor is occupied by couples of awkward teenagers trying not to step on each other's toes and practicing turns and new dance steps.
She glows, her face is filled with pure happiness as she twirls and helps her partner not to make a mistake with the rhythm. She is totally present in the moment, the percussion of that Latin music, resonating with the beat of her heart, the melodies and lyrics that she will learn by heart over the hundreds of parties she will dance to with countless others.
Later she will teach her brother, her cousins and many friends to dance, because she has patience and her joy in dancing is contagious, so that everyone learns, even the most timid or uncoordinated. The only place where she has a difficult relationship with dancing is still at school.
Dancing can become a tense and nerve-wracking affair there; at times she convinces herself that she is no good at it. She doesn't understand why the teachers are so rigid and discouraging. They criticize her every move and make her feel anxious, as if she doesn't know how to dance. Sometimes she believes that her body is not made for it. There is a real risk of being convinced to give up and leave dancing for private spaces. These are the moments of doubt.
But instead, supported by her passion and her success with family and friends, she will decide that this is her life. She can't imagine living without dancing. Every time music plays in the street, on TV, her muscles want to move to the beat. She even becomes one of those people who dances in the supermarket to the catchy tunes playing as she pushes the cart through the aisles. She follows the rhythm with her knees or shoulders when she's sitting down.
All her best memories with the boyfriends she has had are dancing, especially salsa. Her best lifelong memories are dancing: learning the waltz for her 15th birthday party, choreographing polka or mambo with the whole family, finding the irrational abandon of electronic music or jumping with ska and rock in chaotic and energetic groups.
She tells the journalist, “well, I started to discover that during my teens and, sure, I had doubts, because my school was very castrating in those things, I was not considered one of the good dancers…”
The journalist raises her eyebrows in disbelief.
"...but anyway, dancing was the most perfect form of happiness, always, because of the relationship with others, because of the euphoria it produced, you know..."
An assistant approaches and tells her that they must cut the interview short, the lights have already gone out. She apologizes briefly, aware that there are no words to explain this whole story coherently to the other and that she will surely have to make something up to deliver her note, in which she will say something like:
“Thus, as an inescapable destiny, she will embark on the path that will lead her to this night, on this stage, when she is ready for her first performance. She knows that she has arrived with intention to this moment and cradled by her memories, as her father cradled her on hot nights, she enthusiastically sets out to dance with mind and body.”.
The curtain rises.