DANCING WITH THE DIAPERS*
by ronaldo duran**
HAPPY is the one who's never felt a twinge of jealousy for the famous, for those whose faces are plastered all over the TV, playing the entertainment game.
by ronaldo duran**
HAPPY is the one who's never felt a twinge of jealousy for the famous, for those whose faces are plastered all over the TV, playing the entertainment game.
THE games are legion. Soccer, soap operas and music are the most popular ones. The leftovers are journalists, politicians, economists, union leaders, and even gynecologists. As for writers, they have their place, albeit minor.
WHOEVER has a face that's recognized by millions of Brazilians has a certain special something. That's what the public thinks, anyway, even though such a thought has never entered the mind of the famous person.
WHAT young girl, thrilled by the shimmy and shake of a famous dancer, hasn't dreamed that if her hips were just a bit more sexy she could be just as famous?
THE fever to imitate our idols is as old as the hills.
AGES ago, heads of tribes, kings and queens were imitated. Nowadays, the mass media has given us a new crop of idols.
WHO has never fought, hit, been hit, suffered or thrilled for their favorite team? Who has never cried or felt their soul take off when they hear a great singer? Or wanted to be a star’s shoes? Or fallen for an actor?
IT'S a hard task to explain the phenomenon of idolatry. For some, the reason is the apparently easy life an idol leads. For others, it's the attitude some famous people have that they admire.
THIS story is about the second reason.
DO you remember Madonna’s success in the 1980s? It was a benchmark. Her style influenced the rhythm of many dancers who went on to become professionals. High and low impact dance. The rhythm of the Queen of American pop affected even Brazilian dance schools.
IN 1987, many young people pushed back the tables and chairs to clear a space to dance as soon as they heard the blonde singer. What local radio station could avoid Madonna's contagious sound? Even TV channels were showing her video clips.
TÂNIA Paliza Tallini, at age 16, was one of those anonymous dancers. From the state of Santa Catarina, she still lived in Lages, the city where she was born. She'd moved, but only out of her old neighborhood to the new downtown area. She's been living with her parents in an apartment for the past ten years. Her childhood had been spent in her grandparents’ home in the oldest part of the city. All you had to do was look at the architectural style of the neighboring houses to tell. Like most of the others, their house had a backyard big enough to have an orange tree and an avocado tree among other non-fruit-bearing trees, and a vegetable garden with vegetables that went straight from the garden to the pot. The children used the space to play, to run freely. Sheer joy, everything was just right -- even Grandma's curses when they stepped on her plants.
TÂNIA preferred to spend most of her time at her grandparents’ house. Why there instead of her well-located and more comfortable apartment? Simple: the apartment was too small.
THE second daughter of Mrs. Paliza, young Miss Tallini felt too cramped in the apartment to do what she liked best: dancing to Madonna's music. At her grandmother’s house at least there was an empty room. It had belonged to her uncle who had gone to the countryside of São Paulo to try his luck as a stonemason more than ten years before.
GRANDMOTHER was always busy with her sewing. Despite her pension, help from her children and her husband’s salary, she hadn't given up this pastime. It was a way of making herself useful. She also enjoyed preparing special lunches on Sunday.
DONA Evangelista knew better than anyone why her granddaughter preferred her humble home. Years before, the little girl had charmed everyone with her love of dancing. Dona Evangelista, at the time, had been filled with emotion knowing that her own grandmother had been a first class dancer. In Seville, who other than the Palizas would bailar por toda la noche, ah, yes, dance all night long? For her, her granddaughter had inherited great-great-grandmother's irresistible and enchanting talent for the dance. It was a pity that here in Brazil the women of the family had lost their love for the dance in the daily routine of immigrants. The planting and harvesting of corn and potatoes didn't even leave them time for a restful siesta after lunch.
GRANDMOTHER let her do what she wanted, and so Tânia felt inspired to go there for a good many years. But it's a pity that all things come to an end. All it took was for her to turn seventeen, and her years of peace came to an end. It was time to decide on a promising career or a good marriage – both if possible.
GIVING in to her natural maternal concern over her children's future, Tânia's mother Vânia wanted a decision from her daughter. Her oldest child had studied chemistry in Joinville. The youngest one, Helena, had won a scholarship to college in the United States, starting the following year. Dona Paliza's boss, wife of a wealthy farmer, had helped her out. Her husband had important contacts in Texas. Helena had her good points. She was studious and had learned to type, answer the telephone and take messages. She was the couple’s junior secretary.
TÂNIA was the one who was stuck. She demonstrated an uncommon laziness for studying, even though she'd never been held back at school. Afraid of her parents, she thought it was better never to fail an academic year. Her grades were reasonable. She was good at pretending. But inside, she hated biology, Portuguese and everything else that demanded concentration that she was unwilling to give.
DANCING, dancing and more dancing was what she liked.
CERTAIN regional habits, even with globalization and the tyranny of TV, somehow manage to survive. The young people from the Santa Catarina countryside rarely have access to all the freedom available in large cities.
HER passion for dancing was indulged only at home. At dances and parties, Tânia felt a little awkward. She hated showing off. It was a strange feeling, considering how much she enjoyed dancing. But her dislike of showing off had its reasons. When she loosened up and let herself dance freely a few times, some idiots teased her and made wisecracks. That's why she held back. She would dance the regular way in front of these ignorant people, and save the special way for when she was alone.
PREJUDICE had followed her from a tender age up to the middle of her thirteenth year, when she finally risked dancing in front of her parents and relatives.
_ LOOK at that girl! She jumps around like a billy goat, said one of her aunts.
_ A chicken with its head cut off, joked an older cousin.
_ IF you ask me, continued the aunt, I think you should keep an eye on her...this is the kind of thing that takes our children from us. You have to keep your eyes open, she repeated, adding a few more alarming warnings.
HER parents kept quiet.
_ CAN you imagine how it would be if she decided to make a living at that some day? she jabbed.
_ NOT a chance! Over my dead body! No daughter of mine will get involved in that kind of thing, bellowed her father.
_ THE world is lost today, my friend, and these big-city fads have already ruined a lot of people. After they go off half-cocked, not even a Saint can save them.
_ GOD help us, said an old lady, crossing herself.
_ IT’S the parents’ fault, just give them a good whipping and everything will be all right, the father ruminated.
AFTER that, Tânia's parents changed radically in the way they treated her. When they saw her dancing, they'd ask her to do something, anything: wash the dishes, sew, go with her mother to the butcher. And if there wasn't anything to do, they would make something up. They wanted to tear her away from that idle life. Disco music vanished from the house and AM radio took over whenever her parents were at home.
THE daughters were financially dependent on their father, so he believed he had every right to stop them from buying that awful modern music.
TÂNIA felt cornered. God-fearing and very obedient to her parents, she would do just about anything to avoid disappointing them. She started going to her grandmother’s house.
THREE months later she met a nice boy, Joe Rinkis, who was twenty-one. His kind words and warm glance were what made him different. Joe was a truck driver. He worked with his father, and they made deliveries to cities in Santa Catarina, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. Joe and Mr. Rinkis became fond of Tânia’s father. The feeling was mutual.
AFTER dating Joe for a year, Tânia, who disliked studying intensely, went through moments of desperation. She dreamed of running away from home, going to Joinville, Florianópolis or Curitiba. She would look for a place to study, perfect her technique and make a living as a dancer. Although she liked Joe, she would not hesitate to leave him if she had to, if he didn't want to go with her.
BUT obedience to her parents stopped her from doing anything so drastic. Her grandmother fell ill and passed away. Five months later her grandfather followed his wife, beckoned by his solitude.
_THEY'D lived together for more than fifty years. The man was a child… with his companion gone, he lost his will to live.
SUCH phases justified her grandfather’s sudden passing.
AFTER the pain of her grandparents' loss had passed, Tânia realized that she had lost her dancing space. Day-to-day life in the apartment was becoming more and more unbearable. Her parents were traditional, nevertheless they were far from the type who wanted their grown sons and daughters tied to their apron strings.
MARRIAGE to Joe seemed like a quick solution. The boy’s father would arrange a simple but comfortable house.
SOME months after the wedding, contractions in Tânia's womb announced the birth of a child.
TÂNIA felt fulfilled as a mother. She sincerely liked her husband. But she felt frustrated by not having a career when she compared herself to her older sister, the only one in the family to graduate from college, or the youngest one, away in the United States for two years.
JOE, already the owner of his own truck, spent on the average one or two weeks on the road, without showing his face at home.
THE doctor encouraged Tânia to exercise after the birth of her baby.
_ IT helps a lot.
BUT what exercise? She only liked dancing.
PARTLY because of her husband’s absence and partly because of the stress of bringing up a small son, she picked up her old habit of listening to music in the living room. Joe had bought her a stereo.
FOR the first time, she had Madonna’s album all to herself. She listened to it for hours. Listened and danced. And how she danced! She was so excited. It was hard for the neighbors not to notice the beautiful body the housewife-dancer had kept. A little later, she became a mother for the second time.
OFTEN people passing by the red-painted gates would be surprised. They would stare at the enthusiastic figure, less than 22 years old, dancing with the diapers as she hung them on the clothesline.
SOME of them thought she was crazy. But others realized that happiness had found a true home in her.
* Novelist, he writes for newspaper each week.
Contact: ronaldo@ronaldoduran.com
** Translated by American journalist Amy Duncan from the original text in Portuguese "DANÇANDO COM AS FRALDAS".
