There are tangos that beguile you with their elegance and focus. There are tangos that slither up beside you on a bar stool in Buenos Aires, and steal your money and your dignity, dripping in silk and deception. There are tangos that rescue you from loneliness, wrap you in firelight and tenderness. There are tangos for a cold winter’s night, when the moon is full. This is one such tango. 

London was full of dance studios, all of them competing for a clientele that would showcase the studio on the international market as a place of elegance, style and dance techniques that set the stage on fire.  Generally, most London dance studios were full of middle aged, overweight people fondly remembering that they had once loved to dance before jobs, children and life got in the way. Some were romantics, hoping for a second chance at love. Occasionally, there would a handful of students who dreamed of a career in ballroom dance and dedicated hours weekly to dance classes, practices and matching steps to the beat of Cal Pozo tunes or Music to Foxtrot By.  

Georgo did what he did each morning when he came to the studio to begin the day’s teaching.  He unlocked the door, switched on the lights and adjusted the temperature dials. In the first hour of the teaching day, when the studio was still private and silent, he indulged his passion for tango music.  Within moments, the sinuous sirens call of tango de la muerte filled the air, transporting him to a Buenos Aires that existed only in the imagination of tango dancers the world over.  The city was moody, dipped in sepia tones,  dripping stories of brutality, lost loves, seductions and duels,  each street carrying the scent of desperation , all culminating in the bruised, wounded music of the tango masters.  Tango as a stiletto knife, a woman’s spiked heel, blood on the floor of a down-town bar as the midnight hour closed in.  

Georgio laid down the day’s lesson plans, replaced the Tango De la Muerte with a mellow ballroom style version of salsa music and opened the studio door to the first private student of the day.   She entered quickly, a little shy, stamping ice and slush into the warm studio. Just behind her two of the female dance teachers came in, chatting animatedly and already swaying to the salsa beat.  The rest of the day passed in a blur of students, lessons, ballroom music. He snatched a few moments to drink coffee and gobble down half a sandwich as the long afternoon stretched into evening.  

It was almost time for the group salsa class when a piercing scream cut through the air.  The scream continued for long minutes, a shrill harsh intrusion into the soft music and warmth of the studio.  Georgio and one of the male teachers ran towards the back of the studio to where the scream had started.  His head was aching, he hated loud sounds.   Near the back of the studio, two narrow French doors opened into a tiny stairwell that led up into a parking lot.   Normally the doors were kept locked, but now they stood open.  A pool of melting snow and ice seeped onto the floor. Mixed in with the snow was dirt and what looked like a red liquid. 

Georgio stood back while Sami, the Foxtrot teacher, knelt down and ran a hand over the discoloured slush and snow.  It came away red and damp.  Sami peered reluctantly around the doors and immediately turned white, his face twisted in horror.  Georgio stepped behind the French doors and almost stood directly on the body laying there.  

He looked down, his expensive dance shoes covered in blood and snow.  The body of a man lay curved around the bottom of the metal staircase, a widening pool of blood all around him. Georgio bent down to look closer.  The man appeared to have a large chest wound but it was not clear how he had gotten it, why he was laying outside the dance studio or who he was.  Distantly, Georgio heard Sami ushering the students towards the front of the studio, salsa music still playing jauntily.  He paused uncertain what to do next.  

Someone in the studio must have phoned the police. They arrived within minutes and took charge of the studio.  Two officers questioned the students and teachers, while a forensic technician examined the body and stairwell.  As soon as they were given permission to leave, all the students and several of the teachers rushed outwards into the London night, glad to leave behind the nastiness and grime of the day’s events.  Several students were hysterical.  An American dance student, on a visit to London, threatened to sue unless his money was refunded for the lost classes.  A Russian lawyer, taking ballroom lessons to impress his future wife, offered to escort several of the ladies to a nearby hotel bar for wine and commiseration.  The last of the students left in a huddle, with the Russian lawyer who was busy wrapping himself in a large scarf as he made his way out the door, bringing up the rear.  

Georgio was the last to leave the studio that night.  He had waited until the police finished and the body had been taken away.  The stairwell was still closed off with police tape.  Snow fell lightly over the parking lot and the street as he made his way along the road towards Baker Street tube station.  He was tired, over wrought and his body ached from a day of dance lessons. He sighed remembering not the discovery of the mysterious man but the student who couldn’t‘ learn Cross Body Lead, one of the easier salsa steps, no matter how many times he demonstrated it.  He was patient as a teacher, never blaming his students for their clumsiness or unease with the steps.  He had been a student once, a long time ago but he still remembered the shyness that new dancers had.  

He pulled his earphones on, the delicious sound of Tango de la Muerte flooding his ears and drowning out the noise of the traffic.  As soon as the music began, he returned to the first silent hours of the studio in the morning.  That was his favourite time of the day. It is was silent in the studio, so calm.  He used that hour to refine his knowledge of tango music, a passion he had acquired that long summer in Buenos Aires when he had spent every evening studying with the city’s best tango masters.  Georgio loved tango music more than any other sound in the world. It touched a part of his soul that was buried so deep he had not known it was there, not until he came across the small tango bar in the west of the city. It has been so late, well past midnight when he opened the door and was engulfed by the sultry, sweet sounds of Tango de la Muerte.  It was a version of Tango de la Muerte that he had never heard before in the ballroom world. This version was raw, almost too rough for his ears. He hated it at first, thought it was crude and coarse and unsuitable.  

Georgio stopped for a moment on the side of the street, his heart beating faster than normal as memories of that night flooded back. He had sat quietly by the side of the bar, watching the dancers but mostly mesmerised by the band as they played tango music he had never heard before. These were tangos that took no prisoners. They shattered the night like the howl of madness and fear and hunger.  It was close to dawn before he could move.  He had not danced once with any of the women there. He was an experienced ballroom professional and had been since he was a boy but he felt embarrassed by his lack of skill before these dancers. These dancers moved in ways he had never seen, to tangos he had never heard.  

He waited until the band was packing up.  He had noticed one of the musicians, a violin player, who stood apart from the others. He was more serious, intent on his instrument. He did not use his breaks to catch the eye of any of the women, or to chat to his colleagues. He sat quietly, gently polishing the violin with a white handkerchief between sets, adjusting the keys. Georgio must have been exhausted so close to dawn. He could have sworn he saw a flash of sparkling light a glittering blue-grey slice through the air as he approached the solitary musician.  Obviously, he was mistaken. 

The musician said nothing when Georgio complimented him on the music, merely starred patiently and waited. Uncertain what to do next, Georgio suggested that they have a drink at the bar. He wanted to know more about the music he had heard. He tried to explain that he had never heard a Tango de la Muerte like that before. The musician only starred at him, pausing for long moments as though reading some secret signs only he could see.  They talked for a long time then, drinking dark rich coffee with brown sugar as the morning light came through the windows. In daylight, the room looked different, ordinary. George tried to retrieve the memories of the sinuous dancers, the  intoxicating music, that smell of jasmine and despair and fierce hopefulness that had softened the faces of the dancers as they lost themselves in the tango music.  

He thought of the man who had been killed outside the dance studio.  He remembered it clearly. He had been a loud man, big and strong and absolutely certain that his strength was all he needed. He had sworn at George, using a combination of English and Argentinian Spanish that came out as a bark. He had been waiting for George when the studio closed. George was the last one there and had offered to lock up before he left.  He did not recognise the man until he started speaking. Then he knew for certain that this man was dangerous to him.  There was no question about it. 

The moon was so full, so bright on that icy winter night that George could see the man’s expressions clearly.  He opened his hand, palm up towards the moonlight. Something stirred deep inside him, and then all around him, the moonlight sparkled on the snow, along the edges of the metal stairs. There was complete silence except for the sounds of Tango de la Muerte. George felt it before he saw it. The arc of glittering light sliced through the air, a shimmering blue grey steel that unfolded out of the Tango de la Muerte and stretched towards the man, elongating further and further, following him around the stair well.  It was starving, intent on the sound of the man’s heartbeat.  It had been hungry for a long time and the moment it pierced the man’s skin, it tore through his ribs and towards his heart. That human heartbeat, pounding with fear and confusion, louder and louder, drew it like a beacon. It swallowed the sound of the heart beating, the rush of blood and rupturing of bone and flesh, the slight gasp as his life slipped away and he crumpled against the stairwell. 

George let it feed for a few moments and then he closed his hand, one finger at a time, starting with the smallest. The arc of light and sound began to fold inwards, the blue grey deeper and richer and more concentrated as it absorbed the sound of the heartbeat.  Satiated now, it withdrew as delicately as a fan closing, softer and softer until it returned deep into the Tango de la Muerte still playing in the empty studio. 

George carefully locked the door, leaving the man outside. Someone would find the body the next day. He no longer need concern himself with it. He plugged his earphones back into the tiny device on the shelf, shutting off the sounds of tango music.  He always knew what to do now. It had not always been like that, not until the night in Buenos Aires when he had first heard the violinist playing. That was the first time he had met another of the Guardians, this one older and wiser and able to tell him what he needed to know. There were not many of these Guardians of the Tango de la Meurte, those who knew and understood the secret hunger and need inside the music. They would listen for the sound of the heartbeat inside the music, and know that they were the ones responsible for keeping it alive. 

There are tangos that steal your heart on a cold winter’s night. This is one such tango.