The Hair Comb

I didn’t see it coming. Clinically, I inspect the blood smeared on my fingers. My partner Rubina is mortified and begins apologizing profusely; she tells me she will never do this again. I smile at her and tell her it’s alright, it’s nothing really; she doesn’t look convinced. I excuse myself and find the washroom. In the mirror, I peer morbidly at white teeth now no longer white. My tongue darts across the tiny tear on the inside of my cheek; there is no sting, only a dash of sanguine, on the day of my dance final.

Is it over yet?

My roommate Jake is laughing at me; I must look ridiculous. I am practicing on-the-spot spins on the smooth kitchen floor. My thighs ache from a midnight jog, from one spin too many. My eyes are trained on the teddy bear on the kitchen cabinet – a hand-drawn Christmas gift from my youngest sister. By focusing on a spot in my line of sight and returning to it after each three-sixty rotation, I should be able to maintain posture and balance. The bear blinks in and out of my vision as I whirl and whirl the world away…

Finally, I stagger to a stop; I am dizzy.

One, two, three… Five, six, seven… Always the same beat. The music quickens; it quickens me. There is no space to think, no time to procrastinate; I just listen and move. The flow of my body precedes and shapes my emotions. Move and be moved. There is a girl dancing with me and I do not know her name; I wish I do. There is no time for introductions, no space for chatter.

Something about her smile… Brown hair sways and swishes as she turns under my outstretched arm. While spinning, she crisply twists her neck and the bottom edge of her hair lifts itself as if suddenly weightless and brushes a trail of warmth across my cheek. I have to quench the immediate urge to touch my face; it tingles. I am distracted by her crooked smile. Does she notice?

I wonder what makes a good pairing on the dance floor. She gives I take, I give she takes; our flows meld harmoniously to form a pure, resonant note. This doesn’t happen often enough. I make extended eye contact. This also seldom occurs – physical intimacy in salsa is necessary, but the mind and body are easily and often disconnected. I read in her face the same recognition, the same quickening in spirit. The dance studio and the dancers around us recede into a distant halo, and though the music never stops, I hear more keenly the silence that permeates the space between us and binds us together. Her lips are curved in mysterious satisfaction and my steps are light. Her radiant smile carries me through the dance, this smile that is mine, mine alone.

The song ends. We part hands and I say thank you, because I say thank you to all my dance partners. We will dance again but not today. Today in the Wagner Dance Facility, I will dance with many others because the practice is to exchange partners and never get too comfortable with one. The rationale for social dancing in lessons is simple – you are more likely to expose your own weaknesses by having to dance with a variety of partners who respond differently to the same cues.

I remember when I first learned salsa. My world swelled to bursting with a myriad of new, vibrant colors. It’s seeing a new language through tinted lenses. The bright audacious colors are the energetic, eye-catching stunts that leave me gasping; the subtle hues are the nuances in hip gyration and finger placement that make even the simplest moves look ineffably graceful. I painted from this new-found palette of self-expression; I picked my colors without fear or favor.

I remember also that I was thrust into an alien culture of casual intimacy – the initial shock was at once liberating and disquieting. Like clockwork, I would dance with a stranger, part from her when the song ended and move on immediately to the next partner. The dance floor is my idea of a social anomaly because it provides a respectable setting where everyday touch-me-not constraints are relaxed. Fingers release, seek each other out and intertwine during turns; hips and bodies mold into one another vigorously; while in close-embrace position, my firm hand clasps her back to cue the next move. As a general rule, salsa is sensuous, not intentionally salacious. Yet this distinction is very fine and I wonder…

Sandra is lithe and endearingly nervous. The small of her back is pressed tightly against my right forearm. One. I grasp both her elbows and whirl her outward in a whip-like jerk that is necessarily forceful and almost violent. I imagine she would have kept on spinning, forever, across the blackened floor, if I do not check her. I check her. Five. With my right arm extended and my weight shifted to my left foot for balance, I pull her back in. She spins inward now, mesmerizing; I do not take my eyes off of her. Seven, I catch her. As her left hip meets my right, I soften the impact by kinking my body inward at the hip, so that she sinks into me snugly and the natural curve of her body delineates mine, as mine delineates hers. One. We are one. With her body resting on mine, I clasp her tightly, step out on my left foot and sink downwards. The right side of my body is rigid to support her full weight; my left knee feels the strain, and nearly buckles. We hold. Three. I shift her back to her feet. Five. We separate. It’s your move.

On paper, one of my favorite moves looks simple to perform. It is called, appropriately, the Hair Comb; I raise both her arms in a delicate arc that sweeps over and may lightly touch her hair. This move ends as I gently pin her hands to the back of her neck. If I were pressed to explain why I especially like the Hair Comb, I admit that it closely resembles the classic picture of a lover’s caress and a woman’s vulnerability. The illusion of a lover’s intimacy is potent, so potent that sometimes the spirit quickens and the illusion dissipates, but the intimacy lingers.

Strange.

It never starts out quite like that. Before the dance session begins, we file in, like nervous schoolchildren, making idle talk. Our instructor Maria begins a roll call and we respond obediently. The tremors begin, invisible to everybody else; I feel them. I walk to my favorite corner, set my bags down on the dull black floor, set myself down and retrieve my dance shoes – a black and white classic which I judiciously picked out of a brochure. The black shines with controlled exuberance; the white is pristine. A stubborn crease runs across the vamp of my shoe; it crinkles every time I stand on the ball of my feet. Soothingly I run my fingertips over scars that have suffered the occasional sharp collision. There, tiny flecks of black are missing if one knows where to look. It’s been more than a month since these shoes caught my eye on the brochure; they still look wonderful. I snuggle my feet in and I let my hands take over in a lacing routine that is as comforting as it is familiar. As I methodically pull out the loose loops and tighten the knots, I tie away my apprehension and the tremors subside. I hear Maria’s voice, and the first strains of a Merengue tune. One, two, one, two… I rise to my feet. The tremors are completely gone. I strut to the nearest high-heel and I ask her to dance.

To my bemusement, I find myself in a strange playground where the unspoken rules are bewildering, the air is tinged with a subdued eroticism and I am not sure what to make of it all. Every dance is an extended flirtation, every new partner a temporary obsession. On the dance-floor, I am brazen; off it, I am reticent. Sometimes the music leaves me behind, floundering. Or my hands, slippery with sweat, slip. Or in my inexperience, I twist my partner into knots. Then I imagine I must look like a damn fool. Other times, I complete a complicated movement with panache. Or I perform a simple Hair Comb with the right pressure on her fingers, so that the motion of her arm looks unhurried and graceful, as if she were really combing her hair in front of her mirror. Or I meet a special girl whose hands fit mine like a well-lined glove, whose smile captures my imagination. I feel breathless, charged, confident, sexy, awkward, mortified, ridiculous – and then it starts all over again.

Salsa is a continuous flux of tension. After one studies the basic steps and pairs up with a partner in the neutral position, one then learns about tension. While facing each other with hands clasped together, I maintain a constant, moderate pressure on her hands, and she on mine; our shoulders are connected together as if by a coiled spring. When I push, she feels it immediately and steps back; she pushes back and the flow of energy reverses direction. One communicates on the dance floor essentially through these quick exchanges of energy.

There is yet another kind of tension that flits across the periphery of my consciousness, rarely acknowledged. Nevertheless, its presence feels as tangible as any physical connection. It is this wicked pot that boils with irreconcilable emotions: my feelings of liberation and unease for stepping over everyday social boundaries. It is the implicit and mutual appraisal between dance partners for a different kind of partnership. It is the improbable possibility that the most fleeting of connections made on this unique playground can spark something deeper.

Two years ago. I am a beginner.

A popular salsa bar in Union Square, Singapore.

In the corner a deejay spins a mix of salsa, merengue and bachata to a lively crowd of over forty. The dance floor is so cramped that if I do not identify the song’s beat, grab a partner and claim a spot within ten seconds into each song, I will have to dance in the hallway where the lockers and unused shoes are located. I know this because the process takes me about ten seconds; I am a tad too familiar with the layout of this hallway. My hesitancy at the beginning of every song proves fatal; to my untrained ear, all Latin music begins in the same way – loud, frantic and incoherent. Then one must muster the nerve to approach a girl; I find myself at the bar sipping a drink to fortify myself.

Later that night.

One, two, three… Five, six, seven… Always the same beat. The music quickens; it quickens me. I am dancing with a girl once again. This time, the music is too quick and I resort to calling out the beat and ignoring the song altogether. This time, I know the girl’s name; she is my reason for being there, for learning salsa, for making a fool of myself.

Close embrace. Spin. Open break. Cross-body lead.

I wonder if she knows.

Hammerlock hold. Break out. Spin again. Faster. Faster.