The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (26 page)

T
HEY WERE GOING TO PLAY A JOB
out in New Jersey. Cesar was standing before the living-room mirror, looping his tie into the shape of a crouching butterfly. As he started to brush back his slick hair, he noticed the window curtains wavering, and from down La Salle Street he heard fire sirens wailing. Then in the cool air he smelled smoke: in a building down the hill, a burning apartment and three little children screaming at the top of their lungs for help (black smoke swirling through the rooms, the floors growing hot from the fire raging underneath). Just out of the bathtub, Nestor went to the window, too. Then the whole family gathered by the windows to watch the brave firemen with their hooked pikes and fire hoses, balancing themselves on their high ladders. Glass melting, windows bursting from the heat, glass shattering on the street—people were everywhere watching this. The fire made the brothers nervous and they went into the kitchen and poured themselves a few drinks. Something about the screams, the billowing clouds of smoke. A night of smoke and crying in the air. A sadness filled the apartment; death was in the air, and they drank up two beers and two Scotches.

Cesar, with his thickset face, shrugged his shoulders and tried to forget about the whole business, and Nestor remembered certain principles of positive thinking, but through their minds echoed those children’s screams. The shadows along the walls were jagged, cutting up the light.

They got dressed and ready to go, black instrument cases by their sides. It was the usual parting, no different from any of the others. Cesar had his black guitar case and a small box filled with percussion instruments out in the hallway by the door. Nestor followed behind with his black trumpet case in hand, hat pulled low over his brow. With his look of intense sadness, he knelt down and called over Eugenio, entranced by the glow of the RCA television, for a goodbye kiss. (You can see that look on his face that time he appeared on the
I Love Lucy
show, and sometimes you can see that same Cuban melancholy breaking through Ricky Ricardo’s expressions, at once vulnerable and sensitive, the expression of a man who’d been through the mill and wanted no more pain in his life.) Eugenio kissed him goodbye and then hurried back to the television. He was watching
Superman.
And as Eugenio ran off, Nestor tried to hold on to him for one more kiss.

He had spoken to Delorita in the kitchen.
“Bueno,
” he said. “We’re going now.”

“When will you be back?”

“Well, you know it’s a coming-out party in New Jersey,
una fiesta de quince.
We’ll try to be back by five or six.”

She was smoking a cigarette and, exhaling softly through her nostrils, gave Nestor a desultory kiss. Leticia, who was standing beside her, sank back into the folds of her dress and apron. What could Delores do but nod “Yes.”

“Okay,
Mamá,
” Nestor said to her. “See you later.”

Later she would sit in the living room while the kids watched TV, happy to have the evening more or less to herself so that she could read and do as she liked, maybe take a nice long bath.

By eight o’clock in the morning she would be damning herself for not having shown him more love. She would watch the walls fall away and like a character in a novel move down the hall amid a swirl of shadows.

He was whistling—or that’s the way everybody would remember him—whistling “Beautiful María of My Soul.” Already he was fading away, though, his being compromised by memory, like a ghost. It was cool enough outside that the brothers stomped their feet on the ground and wisps of frosty air blew out their nostrils and mouths, the time of the year when some Christmas lights were still blinking in the windows, some still alive in that building. Survivors huddled in coats and blankets below, a spray of water falling in an arch in the glow of the black wrought-iron streetlamps. The moon over the rooftops, a mambo-singer moon with thin pencil-line mustache, stars shiny like glittering dots of gold lamé. They made their way down the stairs and stood for a time among the crowd watching the fire, waiting for Manny in his wood-paneled Studebaker station wagon. Cesar and Nestor would follow in the DeSoto. Breath from Nestor’s lungs, tail-pipe clouds of steam, black and swirling into the dark night. (Like the sky in Cuba from the porch, the Mambo King would reflect in the Hotel Splendour, the stars going on forever and forever.) An hour and a half later they were still thinking about the fire, how things go up in flames. They had arrived at their destination in New Jersey: a caravan of five cars had pulled up to the club, and from the car driven by Ramón the
“Jamón
” from Brooklyn, out came Vanna Vane, who had gotten a ride so that she’d have a chance to hang around with that “big lug of a guy,” Cesar.

The Mambo Kings set up inside the club, on a stage under a battery of red lights. Helium balloons everywhere bobbing softly against the ceiling. Half the room was cluttered with long tables and with relatives and friends of the girl of honor. Set against the wall opposite the horseshoe bar, a table of grandmothers in rhinestone brooches and with tiaras in their hair, each throwing back glasses of sangria and maintaining a strict watch on the goings-on of the younger couples in the crowd, slick
suavecitos
and their young girls, the teenagers at another table looking bored and anxious for the proceedings to begin. Two cooks carried in, as if on a stretcher, two large suckling pigs, their skin brown and crispy, and set them down on a long table that had been covered in a red cloth. Then out came more platters of food, followed by the crowning touch, a three-foot-high chocolate-éclair cake drenched with a honey glaze and topped with the number 15. The guy who was throwing the party was named López, and he handed Cesar a list of songs he wanted the band to play, numbers like
“Quiéreme Mucho,
” “Andalucía,” and the song of his courtship of his wife,
“Siempre en Mi Corazón.
”

And he added, “And can you play a little of that rock-’n’-roll for the
nenes?”

“
Seguro.
”

“And one more thing, that song you sang on television?”

“‘Beautiful María of My Soul’?”

“Yes, that one.”

In came Mr. Lopez’s daughter, wearing a five-layer silk dress with an old-fashioned hoop skirt and tottering on high heels, a procession of her girlfriends and aunts behind her. She carried a large bouquet of flowers, wore a crown on her head, and exuded, as she turned to look at the crowd, a blue nobility that was both haughty and grateful.

In green wrap-around sunglasses, Nestor stepped up to the microphone and, with head tilted back, raised his trumpet and began to play—for the last time in his life—the haunting melody of “Beautiful María.” Then, beside him, the fabulous Cesar Castillo pulled from his pocket a frilly perfume-scented handkerchief, and this he passed over his dampened brow. Eyes shut, Cesar waited for his pianist, Miguel Montoya, to finish his tremolo-pedal-choked introduction, and with his arms spread wide before him, face noble and grinning like a horse, he began to sing.

With that, Mr. López took hold of his daughter’s slender, white-gloved hand and led her out to the middle of the dance floor. Elegantly, he swung her in circles, eyes proud, a big smile on his face. The crowd applauded and converged upon father and daughter. Then everyone danced.

During the break, Nestor went off to lean up against a corner to watch the children attacking a
piñata,
fat with
caramelos,
toys, and coins; one by one, the children whacked the
piñata
with a stick, the hitting sounds taking him back to when he was a kid (and he would hear beatings in the other room, his older brother, Cesar, huddled in a corner, his arms held over him, to fend off their Papi). But these blindfolded children were happy, and a strong boy smashed open the
piñata,
and the children swarmed over the prizes. Eating noises, elderly voices lecturing the young, champagne bottles popping, and on the stage, different acts: a juggler from the local Knights of Columbus, cigarette smoke tearing into his eyes, spinning three torches into a pinwheel of light. Then there were the two little girls in their Shirley Temple hairdos and little red bows, tap-dancing across the stage. Then a comedian in a big red wig and bulbous fake nose presided over a raffle. The prizes were a box of Havana Partagas & Co. cigars, a case of pink champagne, a two-pound box of Schrafft’s chocolates, and many smaller prizes, enough for just about everyone to come away with something: ballpoint pens, compact kits, small purses, cigarette cases each stamped with “Congratulations, Carmencita López, Feb. 17, 1957.”

Miss Vanna Vane won a little seashell compact kit with a pop-up mirror, which she brought back to the table to show her man, Cesar. The Mambo King was drinking that night. Lately he had been that way at some jobs, just belting down a few glasses of booze every so often, when he could get to the bar or would join people at one of the tables. With his arm wrapped around Vanna Vane’s waist, he kissed her behind the ear and then took hold of her chair and pulled it close to him so that he could feel her warm thigh through her slitted skirt against his leg and the slightest pulse there. The pulse in its silent way saying, “Cesar, we’re going to have fun, and I’m going to show you how much I love you.”

She was a nice and affectionate woman, a great dancer who never gave Cesar a hard time except when it came to her looks. She had little complaints about what going out with him was doing to her figure. Cesar was always taking her to restaurants and parties and she’d end up eating all kinds of fattening things. She could tear through a platter of chicken and rice, another of crispy
tostones,
and follow up with a few bottles of beer, and yet the next day she would spend hours before a mirror sucking in her belly and later squeezed herself into a Maidenform girdle. That she’d get depressed about it astounded Cesar, who enjoyed her maturing plumpness and the way her body quivered. (He winces, remembering how, when she climbed on top of him, she would like him to squeeze her
nalgitas
really tight, each squeeze timed to when she’d taken all of him inside: and then she’d grind her hips and everything would feel creamy. Wince again: she’d spray atomizer perfume on her neck, cleavage, and in the damp center of her Lily of Paris panties. In the room in the Hotel Splendour, she performed private stripteases for him and wrapped his member up in her nylons and capped it with her panties. Wince again.)

Vanna sat between the brothers and then she jumped because she felt Cesar’s hand settling on her lap. She wriggled, but he left it there. Then, without saying a word or looking at her, he started rubbing her thigh. She wriggled some more, took another sip of her drink, and smiled again. Finally she whispered to Cesar, “Please, there are people here. Your brother’s right here.”

He sipped his drink and shrugged.

Nestor was sitting pensively watching people on the dance floor, the chaos of the tables, daydreaming. He’d been in a bad mood since earlier in the evening; it was as if he knew. While he was onstage and playing the solo to “Beautiful María,” a bad sensation had started in his kneecap and risen slowly, rib by rib, through his chest and neck before settling in his thoughts. It was the simple feeling that his desires somehow contradicted his purpose in his life, to write sad boleros, to lie sick in bed, to mourn long-past loves, to crave what he could never have.

Later in the evening, when their work was done, the musicians attended to the tedious business of packing up their instruments and waiting for their pay. Then they collected bags of leftover food and pastries. And Nestor stuffed his pockets to overflowing with
caramelos
and chewing gum, marbles and small toys. Cesar took a bottle of rum with him and collected Vanna and made his way out to his car.

“Brother,” he said to Nestor, “you drive.”

Nestor had taken his last piss, eaten his supper, played his last trumpet line. He had scratched his itchy nose, winced at an off-key note, taken his last swallow of rum and, unwrapping one of the cellophane candies, had tasted his last sweet. In the men’s room of the club, he had washed his face with cold water; he had inadvertently looked down Vanna Vane’s cleavage while reaching across the table to get a light from a candle. He had felt like calling Delores but changed his mind. While thinking about the principles of positive thinking, he had noticed a stain on the left lapel of his suit jacket. Before the mirror and looking himself over, he had imagined that his insides were filled with a thick dark fluid like octopus ink. He had felt himself lifting off the ground while leaning back during his trumpet solo, felt himself passing through a wall. While pissing, he had ached, thinking about Beautiful María naked in bed, ached with a lack of understanding about things.

He had almost swatted a fly but decided against it, the poor thing was half dead and clinging to the corner of the bathroom mirror, and had watched some machos arm-wrestling at a back table. He had examined the intricacies of a dime. He had blown his nose. Sweating because it was so hot in that club, and wanting to feel the cool night air on his face, he had opened the back door and looked up into the sky, which seemed to be hanging low to the earth, and identified a constellation, Cygnus. He had watched the snow falling behind the club and had noticed the way the snow collected on the lower branches of the tree and then fell softly off. He had wondered what it would be like to go walking off into an eternal distance. He had thought of the past as going on forever. He had wondered if there were angels, as his mother used to say there were. Remembering how she’d point up to the Milky Way and say, “Look at all the people there,” he daydreamed about a heaven dense with souls. He had been aware of the crucifix hanging around his neck and remembered the day his mother gave it to him. He was twelve years old and kneeling, trembling, at the altar railing to receive the Eucharist. And that night, years later, he had felt a slight pain behind his left ear. He had wished he had bought a spicy girlie magazine off the newsstand on 124th Street a few days before. He had remembered promising to take Eugenio and Leticia to the museum again to look at the dinosaur bones. He had remembered pressing up against Delores in the kitchen as she cooked over the stove. She was reading a book with cowboys on the cover. He had started to get an erection, three-quarters of the way up, and she had started to push herself into him from behind. Then the children came in, and his brother after them. And the steam pipes rattled and it sounded like people were trapped inside the pipes, rapping at them with knives and spoons. He had wondered about Jesus Christ, when He was up on the Cross, had wondered if Jesus, who could see everything in the world, past, present, and future, could see him walking across the club floor. He had remembered how much he loved to think about Jesus fishing in the Sea of Galilee. He had remembered to buy his sister-in-law, Ana María, twenty pounds of center-cut lamb chops from the meat-packing plant at a special bargain price. He had remembered the taste of his wife’s nipple. He had decided to lose a few pounds because his stomach was getting fat. He had thought about a melody he had been fooling around with. He had dreamed about undoing things, not his children, or his wife’s happiness, but of somehow going to Cuba again and into the arms of María. He had remembered thinking, Why do all these pains swirl around inside of me, when will all these pains end?