El cantor de tango (The Tango Singer) Book

Buenos Aires, 2001
Labyrinths. Labyrinths are mentioned 37 times in this novel, and 5 times in one paragraph towards the end. Into this labyrinthine story walks Bruno Cadogan. It is shortly before the fall of the Twin Towers in New York City that he arrives in Buenos Aires to work on "a dissertation on Jorge Luis Borges' essays on the origins of the tango". Borges apparently asserted that the only true tangos were those composed prior to 1910. The focus of Bruno's visit is to meet and listen to Julio Martel, a tango singer of extraordinary talent, and reputedly even better than the legendary Carlos Gardel. "When Martel imitated Gardel, he was Gardel, she said. When he strove to be himself, he was better." By sheer chance and good luck Bruno manages to secure a room in the very house on Garay Street which features in The Aleph by Borges. And sure enough, there is the nineteen step staircase mentioned in Borges's story.

What follows is a clever, winding and twisting tale about trying to find not only the elusive Martel, but also the aleph. "That night I had the impression that Martel could be in two or three places at once, or in none. I also thought he might not exist at all and was just one more of the city's many fables." "Martel's plans were as hard to fathom as those of a cat." Martel is frequently compared to a cat. Martel pops up in unexpected places and sings about Argentina's past, his own past and present, as well as of individual tragedies and betrayals. His voice range astounds: "Sabadell and I were surprised, Alcira told me, when he burst out singing in the car, in a baritone voice, a verse from Return that reflected, or at least to me seemed to reflect, his conflict with time: I'm afraid of the showdown / with the past that returns / of confronting my life. Stranger still was that he repeated the melody in F, in a deep bass voice and then, almost without a breath, he sang it as a tenor. I'd never heard him switch his voice from one register to another, because Martel was a natural tenor, and he never played with his voice this way again, at least not in front of me."

And Buenos Aires? "The language of Buenos Aires shifted so quickly that the words appeared first and then reality arrived, and the words carried on when reality had already left." It is a city where nothing is as it seems, a city which can be the most beautiful in the world, a labyrinth (yes, that word again!) where Bruno can lose himself or find himself lost. He loses track of his writing and he loses track of himself. He soon loses himself in a suburb where "The houses were side by side, with no spaces in between, but the architects had devised a way to make straight lines look curved, or vice versa." "I had the sensation that, the more I walked, the more the sidewalk lengthened, as if I were moving on an endless ribbon." Bruno discovers that both time and place have a certain elasticity here. But it is also a time and a place where the mood is changing, because this was the height of the severe financial crisis (Bruno has to queue for hours to draw on his Fulbright Scholarship funds, and each amount is limited by law) and by late November serious unrest develops and as a result the country experiences several changes in government.

Does Bruno find the aleph? More importantly, does he find Estéfano Caccace also known as Julio Martel? Does he get to hear that voice? Now that would be telling... what I can tell you is that it is a magical tale full of musical and literary allusions. Although it is not flawless (perhaps the word 'labyrinth is used once too often?) it is as exciting as the tango itself, as well as mentally stimulating.

"'The Aleph,' I said, is a short story by Borges. And also, according to the story, it's a point in space that contains all points, the story of the universe in a single place and a single instant." I shall now have to read The Aleph, shan't I?

Recommended particularly for those who love the works of Jorge Luis Borges and/or singer songwriter Carlos Gardel.