The Dance Teacher – Part 1: One Two Three

"You are counting," said Ernesto.

"Of course I'm counting. One, two, three—"

"Stop. You are doing arithmetic. This is dancing."

Carol stopped, red-faced. She was sixty, a recently divorced American from Ohio, standing in a sunny studio in Havana in borrowed shoes. Behind the tall windows, a street vendor sang about peanuts. Ceiling fans turned lazily. A crumbling portrait of Celia Cruz smiled from the wall.

Ernesto was sixty-four, silver-haired, with a pronounced limp and an elegant, upright posture. He had taught salsa and son in this room for thirty years. His eyes were warm and amused.

"I'm too old for this," she said.

"You are the youngest person here."

"I'm not."

"You are the only one who is afraid." He held out his hand. "Come. Not the steps. Just the walk."

They walked. Slowly, in a circle, hand in hand, to the music of a distant radio. He did not count. He swayed gently, and after a while she found herself swaying too.

"Yes," he said. "That."

"That's it?"

"That's the whole thing. The rest is decoration."

For two weeks she danced with him every morning. She learned to feel the rhythm in her hips, not her head. She learned that Ernesto's limp, from an old accident, never touched his timing. She learned that he cooked, that he had lost his wife nine years earlier, that he sang under his breath when he thought no one was listening.

"Can I ask you something?" said Carol, at the end of a lesson, sweating happily.

"Yes."

"Why do you keep teaching?"

"Because people come in carrying something heavy," said Ernesto, "and they leave lighter."

"Green?" she said, an impulse.

"Green," said Ernesto, delighted. "Very green. Tomorrow we turn."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Turn.