The farmer's daughter

In this strange world where we want to be misled and we want to misunderstand, I tell you a story.

I take your hands in mine and raising them to my lips, kiss them softly. As the music plays, its Latin rhythm coaxing us into dancing, I pull you towards me. Your black dress twirls as you give in to my gentle touches directing your body with the music. 

We dance in the courtyard of an ornate high-ceilinged marble building with multiple tall arched windowed doors on all sides. The sun is low on the horizon and its rays light up the clumps of tall grasses that grow in the marsh surrounding the building. In the easterly warm wind, a sprinkling of brightly coloured flowers wave on stems tall enough to peek above the grasses. At one end of the courtyard are the now rusted metal statues of a man and woman frozen in a dance, her body arched backwards as his body leans onto hers to kiss her neck, their arms enveloping each other.

"Did I tell you?" I ask, as I pull you into an embrace within the dance.

"Tell me what?" you respond, looking up at me, the warmth of the dying sun reflecting in your eyes.

I lead you in and out of my embrace as we dance in the bright white light spilling out of the building onto the brick courtyard.

"That we are in the middle of nowhere, Argentina. That on a moonless rainy night long long ago on the road that runs parallel to the overhead electric transmission lines in the distance, the road that you can barely see from here, a general's car broke down. He walked towards the only light he could see and when he knocked on the ramshackle house, the farmer's daughter opened the door. It was love at first sight. The general married her and took her away to the city. But in time he had this beautiful building built for them to dance in when they came back here."

"Is this true or are you just making it up?" you ask, smiling as we grind gently against each other in the recurring transient moments of closeness within the dance.

I smile back at you, hands reaching to caress your lips ever so briefly just as you twirl out of my reach in the dance. 

"Their children put in the statues here as a memorial to them when they died. Rumour has it that when the sun is low on the horizon and the easterly winds are just right, the statues come alive and you can see them dancing here in the courtyard in the light that spills out of the windowed doors. She wears a black dress and anyone who has ever seen them says she looks lovely in his arms."

You rest your face against mine as we sway together. 

"That on dark and rainy nights you can see the farmer's daughter using the telescope on the upper floor balcony to look for the headlights of the general's car."

"How beautiful and sad" you say. 

In the light of the low sun, I lean into you arching your body backwards to kiss your neck, our arms enveloping one another.