Oscar Hijuelos - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

A stone wall covered with bougainvillea, like the flower-covered walls of Cuba, and flowers everywhere. Inside the gate, a walkway to the large pink ranch-style house with a tin roof, a garden, a patio, and a swimming pool. Arched doorways and shuttered windows. Iron balconies on the second floor. And there was a front garden where hibiscus, chrysanthemums, and roses grew. Somehow I had expected to hear the I Love Lucy theme, but that place, outside of birdsong, the rustling of trees, and the sound of water running in a fountain, was utterly tranquil. Birds chirping everywhere, and a gardener in blue coveralls standing in the entranceway of the house, looking over the mail spread out on a table. He was a white-haired, slightly stooped man, thick around the middle, with a jowly face, a bundle of letters in one hand, a cigar in the other.

As I approached him, saying, “Hello?” he turned around, extended his hand, and said, “Desi Arnaz.”

When I shook his hand, I could feel his callused palms. His hands were mottled with age spots, his fingers nicotine-stained, and the face that had charmed millions looked much older, but when he smiled, the young Arnaz’s face revealed itself.

Immediately he said, “Ah, but you must be hungry. Would you like a sandwich? Or a steak?” Then: “Come with me.”

I followed Desi Arnaz down his hallway. On the walls, framed photographs of Arnaz with just about every major movie star and musician, from John Wayne to Xavier Cugat. And then there was a nice hand-colored glamour-girl photograph of Lucille Ball from when she was a model in the 1930s. Above a cabinet filled with old books, a framed map of Cuba, circa 1952, with more photographs. Among them that photograph of Cesar, Desi, and Nestor.

Then this, in a frame: I come here because I do not know when the Master will return. I pray because I do not know when the Master will want me to pray. I look into the light of heaven because I do not know when the Master will take the light away.

“I’m retired these days,” Mr. Arnaz said, leading me through the house. “Sometimes I’ll do a little television show, like Merv Griffin, but I mainly like to spend my time with my children or in my garden.”

When we had passed out of the house through another arched doorway, we reached a patio that looked out over Arnaz’s trees and terraced gardens. There were pear, apricot, and orange trees everywhere, a pond in which floated water lilies. Pinks and yellows and brilliant reds coming out of the ground and clustered in bushes. And beyond all this, the Pacific Ocean.

“… But I can’t complain. I love my flowers and little plants.”

He rang a bell and a Mexican woman came out of the house.

“Make some sandwiches and bring us some beer. Dos Equis, huh?”

Bowing, the maid backed out through a doorway.

“So, what can I do for you, my boy? What is it that you have there?”

“I brought something for you.”

They were just some of my uncle’s and father’s records from back when, Mambo King recordings. There were five of them, just some old 78s and a 33, “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.” Looking over the first of the records, he sucked in air through his teeth fiercely. On the cover of that record my father and uncle were posed together, playing a drum and blowing a trumpet for a pretty woman in a tight dress. Putting that aside, and nodding, he looked at the others.

“Your father and uncle. They were good fellows.” And: “Good songwriters.”

And he started to sing “Beautiful María of My Soul,” and although he couldn’t remember all the words, he filled in the missing phrases with humming.

“A good song filled with emotion and affection.”

Then he looked over the others. “Are you selling these?”

“No, because I want to give them to you.”

“Why, thank you, my boy.”

The maid brought in our sandwiches, nice thick roast beef, lettuce, and tomato, and mustard, on rye bread, and the beers. We ate quietly. Every now and then, Arnaz would look up at me through heavy-lidded eyes and smile.

“You know, hombre, ” Arnaz said, chewing. “I wish there was something I could do for you.” Then: “The saddest thing in life is when someone dies, don’t you think, chico?”

“What did you say?”

“I said, do you like California?”

“Yes.”

“It’s beautiful. I chose this climate here because it reminds me of Cuba. Here grow many of the same plants and flowers. You know, me and your father and uncle came from the same province, Oriente. I haven’t been back there in over twenty years. Could you have imagined what Fidel would have made of Desi Arnaz going back to Cuba? Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a shame. It’s a little like this.” He stretched and yawned.

“Tell you what we’ll do, boy. We’ll set you up in the guest room, and then I’ll show you around. Do you ride horses?”

“No.”

“A shame.” He winced, straightening up his back. “Do me a favor, boy, and give me a hand up.”

Arnaz reached out and I pulled him to his feet.

“Come on, I’ll show you my different gardens.”

Beyond the patio, down a few steps, was another stairway, and that led to another patio, bounded by a wall. A thick scent of flowers in the air.

“This garden is modeled after one of my favorite little plazas in Santiago. You came across it on your way to the harbor. I used to take my girls there.” And he winked. “Those days are long gone.

“And from this placita you could see all of Santiago Bay. At sunset the sky burned red, and that’s when, if you were lucky, you might steal a kiss. Or make like Cuban Pete. That’s one of the songs that made me famous.”

Nostalgically, Arnaz sang, “My name is Cuban Pete, I’m the King of the Rumba Beat!”

Then we both stood for a moment looking at how the Pacific seemed to go on forever and forever.

“One day, all this will either be gone or it will last forever. Which do you think?”

“About what?”

“The afterlife. I believe in it. You?”

I shrugged.

“Maybe there’s nothing. But I can remember when life felt like it would last forever. You’re a young man, you wouldn’t understand. You know what was beautiful, boy? When I was little and my mother would hold me in her arms.”

I wanted to fall on my knees and beg him to save me. I wanted to hold him tight and hear him say, “I love you,” just so I could show Arnaz that I really did appreciate love and just didn’t throw it back into people’s faces. Instead, I followed him back into the house.

“Now I have to take care of some telephone calls. But make yourself at home. The bar’s over there.”

Arnaz disappeared, and I walked over to the bar and fixed myself a drink. Through the big window, the brilliant blue California sky and the ocean.

Sitting in Desi Arnaz’s living room, I remembered the episode of the I Love Lucy show in which my father and uncle had once appeared, except it now seemed to be playing itself out right before me. I blinked my eyes and my father and uncle were sitting on the couch opposite me. Then I heard the rattle of coffee cups and utensils and Lucille Ball walked into the living room. She then served the brothers their coffee.

When I thought, Poppy, my father looked up at me and smiled sadly.

“I’m so happy to see you again.”

“And, son, I’m happy to see you.”

My uncle smiled, too.

That’s when Arnaz came in, but he wasn’t the white-haired gentleman with the jowlish face and kind, weary eyes who had led me around the grounds. It was the cocky, handsome Arnaz of youth.

“Gee, fellows,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again. How are things down in Cuba?”