Oscar Hijuelos - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Nestor’s signature was more plainly and carefully written, almost in a nervous child’s hand, as if he had taken a long time just to get his reduced, humble letters down right. He tended to sit quietly, smiling when jokes were made, nodding seriously when ordering or looking over the menu. And he tried hard to get along with everybody. He was polite to the waitress and to his fellow musicians. Courteous, almost frightened of being corrected about his table manners, even when his older brother grabbed across the table at the tostones platter and devoured everything hungrily, talking with his mouth full, and on not just one occasion indelicately belching in the midst of a laugh that enlarged his eyeballs and brought tears to his eyes: a man dedicated to himself, always taking more than his share: five pork chops, two plates of rice and beans, a plate of yuca, all drowned in salt and lemon and garlic. A bandleader’s share, she was sure. No wonder the glamorous pretty-boy singer was getting a big belly and jowls! On top of that, after filling his belly, he decided to ignore everyone else at the table, and spent all his time flirting with and sweet-talking Ana María. Dios mío, how typical was his voracious wolfishness…

Nestor was more reserved, which suited her fine. And he was attentive to her, pulling out her chair from the table for her, holding doors, and making sure that she had everything she wanted. Would you like some plátanos? Some chicken? Pork chops? Treating her as if she was as important as any of the musicians… She liked him, found him a refined kind of man, the kind of poetic soul who would write songs of love. She was nervous, but, right then and there, she decided that she would let him do as he pleased with her. There was something she found immensely appealing about his solemn demeanor, his passivity, his pain.

Later, Cesar dropped Manny off on 135th Street, where he lived, and borrowing his car, drove the two sisters home to the Bronx, a perilous journey during which the girls gripped their seats in terror because he kept veering into the curb, especially while going uptown on the West Side Highway: sparks flew from the hubcaps as he went zooming past all the other vehicles, honking his horn and driving like a drunk even when he wasn’t. But he got them both home in one piece and waited in the car while Nestor escorted Delores and Ana María to their apartment. Delorita would remember wishing he would at least give her a nice deep kiss, with a little bit of tongue, but he seemed so retiring and polite that she went to bed that night wondering, Is there something wrong with me? And wondering if she should have been the one to pull him close to her and slip her tongue inside his mouth.

They started going out. They would meet on those nights when the Mambo Kings weren’t playing, eat some Chinese food, and then head downtown to catch a film, visit friends, or step out to a ballroom. Delorita would talk about the books she’d read and the rich man for whom she worked—“He’s nice, but he’s so rich he’s unhappy”—and he would listen quietly, never having much of his own to say. He always seemed preoccupied about something, but he never talked about it. A man you were in love with should have a lot to say, she used to think to herself, but there was someone beautiful in there, inside that broad chest… Although he never said very much, she was certain that he would slowly open up. Slowly he did, speaking about his upbringing in Cuba and how he sometimes wished he’d never left his farm — he was better suited for a simple farmer’s life, he used to say.

“I’m not the adventurer, like my older brother. No, sirree, I was happy to sit out on the porch at night watching the stars and living tranquilito, tranquilito, but I wasn’t destined for that life, I was destined to come here to New York.”

At first she used to believe that his pain was an ordinary homesickness for the rural countryside and that much simpler life. She always thought he smelled of the Cuban countryside, and that he had not one foul bone in his body.

But the poor man — she figured that some terrible things had happened to him when he was a kid. He had told her that he was sick enough as a child in Cuba to have the priest perform the last rites over him at least twice. “I can remember a priest dressed in a purple cloak, praying over me. Candles and oil rubbed on my forehead. And my mother in a corner, weeping.”

And once on a sunny day, the day he wrenched open her heart, when they had gone for a walk in Riverside Park, he told her, “Look how beautiful it is today, huh?”

“Yes, it is, my love.”

“But do you know something, as beautiful as this is, I feel as if it doesn’t belong to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I sometimes feel like a ghost, tú sabes, as if I’m not really part of this world.”

“No! Bobo! You’re very much a part of this world.”

Then they went to sit on a nice grassy hill. They’d brought a little lunch of ham and cheese with mayonnaise on seeded rolls, and cold beers. Children were playing softball in a field, and pretty college girls in Bermuda shorts and white tennis shoes were spread out here and there on blankets, studying their books. The sun up in the sky, a buzz of insects in the air, boats and barges passing on the Hudson River. Two honeybees floating over a cluster of dandelions like a young couple in love looking over a house. Then a tling-tling, a Good Humor ice-cream man in his squat white truck. Nestor walked over and came back with two icicle pops, his strawberry, hers orange, and they ate them, runny with sweet liquid, and then lay back. She was so happy because it was a beautiful day and they were in love, but Nestor?

He had shut his eyes and suddenly trembled. Not a physical trembling, but a shudder in his spirit. It was so strong she felt it entering her like a fume out of a gas stove.

“Oh, Nestor, why are you that way?” And she kissed him, saying, “Sit up here, beside me, mi corazón. ”

And he started weeping.

“Delores… a man doesn’t weep. Forgive me.”

And even though his face was all twisted up, he put a stop to it and regained his composure.

“I just get so tired sometimes,” he told her.

“Of what?”

“Just tired.”

She didn’t know what to do. She took hold of his right hand and kissed it.

“It’s just that I don’t feel long for this world sometimes.”

Then he wouldn’t say another word about it, and they went for a walk. The day ended happily with the two of them watching an Abbott and Costello double feature over at the Nemo movie theater on Broadway. Afterwards they ate pizza, and by then she had fallen in love.

She must have been lovestruck, must have looked at him with such fawning eyes, because after they’d been going out for about two months, and were kissing in the foyer of her hallway, he said to her, “You know, Delorita, I wish you wouldn’t look at me that way. I’m not the saint you think I am.”

And just like that he pulled her close, embracing her and forcing her to sigh with the inward shove between her legs of the burning mule bone inside his trousers.

“You see, Delorita,” he was saying, “I’ve wanted to respect you, but now… I can’t even sleep at nights, I’m so filled up with thoughts of you… And there’s something else, I haven’t said a word or showed my feelings because I’m a cautious man, but, Delorita”—and he shocked her, taking her hand and pulling it down over the front of his trousers—“can’t you see what a state I’m in?”

They kissed for a long time, until she said, “Let’s go into the apartment. Ana María’s out and won’t be back until late.”