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Excerpt
What We Become
IN NOVEMBER 1928, Armando de Troeye traveled to Buenos Aires to compose a tango. He could permit himself that luxury. At forty-three, the man who wrote "Nocturnes" and "Pasodoble for Don Quixote" was at the height of his fame, and all the Spanish illustrated magazines published a photograph of him, arm in arm with his beautiful wife aboard the Cap Polonio, an ocean liner of the Hamburg Südamerikanische company. The most glamorous picture appeared in the society pages of Blanco y Negro: in it the de Troeyes are on the first-class deck, he with a trench coat draped over his shoulders, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other holding a cigarette, as he smiles at the people on the quayside waving him off; and she, Mecha Inzunza de Troeye, wearing a fur coat and a stylish hat that sets off her eyes, which the caption writer described enthusiastically as "splendidly deep and sparkling."
That night, with the lights still twinkling on the distant coast, Armando de Troeye dressed for dinner. He was late in doing so, delayed by a slight but nagging headache. In the meantime, he insisted his wife go on ahead to the ship's ballroom and keep herself amused listening to the music. A meticulous fellow, de Troeye took his time filling the gold cigarette case he kept in the breast pocket of his tuxedo, and distributing among the other pockets some of the things he would need that evening: a gold fob watch, a cigarette lighter, two carefully folded white handkerchiefs, a pillbox for antacids, a crocodile-skin wallet containing calling cards, and a few low-denomination notes for tips. Afterward, he switched off the electric light, closed the door of the luxury cabin behind him, and attempted to sway with the gentle roll of the huge vessel as he walked across the thick carpet that muffled the distant thrum of engines propelling the ship through the Atlantic night.
Before crossing the threshold into the ballroom, as the headwaiter approached holding the dinner reservations list, de Troeye studied his own starched bib and cuffs and his shiny black shoes in the ornate foyer mirror. Evening dress always accentuated his elegant, slender appearance (he was of medium build, his face well-proportioned rather than attractive, enhanced by intelligent eyes, a trim mustache, and a mop of curly black hair with some prematurely gray streaks). For an instant, the composer's trained ear picked up the rhythm of the music the orchestra was playing: a slow, melancholy waltz. De Troeye smiled benevolently. The performance was merely passable. He slipped his left hand into his trouser pocket, and, responding to the headwaiter's greeting, followed him to the table he had reserved for the entire crossing in the most select part of the room. A few gazes followed him. An attractive woman with emerald earrings blinked in astonishment. People knew who he was. The orchestra was striking up another slow waltz as de Troeye sat down at the table, where a champagne cocktail stood untouched next to the fake, electric candle flame in a tulip glass shade. Among the couples swaying in time to the music on the dance floor, his young wife smiled at him. Mercedes Inzunza, who had arrived twenty minutes earlier, was dancing in the arms of a slim, handsome young fellow in evening dress: the ballroom dancer, whose job it was to entertain the unaccompanied ladies in first class or those whose companions did not dance. After returning her smile, de Troeye crossed his legs, and with a somewhat affected air plucked a cigarette from his gold case and lit it.
1
The Ballroom Dancer
THERE WAS A time when he and all his rivals had a shadow existence. And he was the best of them. He always kept flawless rhythm on a dance floor, and off it his hands were steady and agile, his lips poised with the appropriate remark, the perfect, witty one-liner. This made men like him and women admire him. In those days, in addition to the ballroom dances (tangos, fox-trots, Bostons) that helped him earn a living, he had mastered the art of verbal pyrotechnics and sketching melancholy landscapes with his silences. During many a long and fruitful year he had rarely missed his mark: it was rare for a wealthy woman of any age to resist his charms at one of the tea dances at a Palace, Ritz, or Excelsior Hotel; on a terrace on the Riviera; or in the first-class ballroom of a transatlantic liner. He had been the type of man one might come across in the morning in a café, wearing a tuxedo and inviting to breakfast the domestic staff from the house where he had attended a dance or a dinner the previous night. He possessed that talent, or that shrewdness. Moreover, at least once in his life, he was capable of betting everything he had on the table at a casino and traveling home by tramcar, cleaned out, whistling "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo," apparently unconcerned. Such was the elegance with which he could light a cigarette, knot a tie, or sport a pair of perfectly ironed shirt cuffs, that the police never dared arrest him, unless they actually caught him red-handed.
Excerpted from What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Copyright © 2016 by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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