Beautiful Maria of My Soul (12 page)

They could go hardly anyplace, not even church, without hounds following them in packs. At the Sunday movie matinees they attended, not a few hours after he accompanied her to Mass, they always sat in the darkest corner of the highest balcony, where the fewest people lingered, and in a row above everybody else. Even then they kissed so much and so loudly that there was always someone to snap at them. “Be quiet!” and “Where is your shame?” Once, during a Barbara Stanwyck film with Mexican actors overdubbing the lines (films with Spanish subtitles were more difficult for her to comprehend, but she generally got the drift of the dramatic formulas and, if anything, learned a little English along the way), Nestor, off in his own little world of passion, couldn’t restrain himself any longer. Slumped down, with her eyes set on the screen, Maria, while luxuriating in the theater’s
aire condicionado
, absently fondled Nestor through his trousers, and with that whatever remained of his sense of saintly behavior gave way. Just like that, with the fingers of one hand deep inside her dress, the priestly Nestor Castillo pulled his thing out with the other—she could hear its struggle against the fabric, its scraping against his zipper’s teeth—and there it stood, silhouetted against the luminous on-screen visage of Stanwyck. Asking María for her forgiveness, as he always did, Nestor further begged her please, in the name of heaven, just to kiss him there, if only that one time. But in the balcony of the Payret? Sighing and hearing cries of
“puta”
and much worse coming from the
audience, she brought Nestor to climax, if only to watch the rest of the movie in peace.

Stupid, sinful, oh, what would Concha have thought? But she could not, for the life of her, get that
músico
out of her head. She felt him inside her for days after they had parted, and even years and years later, María, sitting around with her daughter watching television, sometimes flashed on the magnificence of his
pene
; longer than her forearm, thick as her wrist, it was a work of art, which both terrified her and made her smile. But was it love—did she ever feel such wonderful emotions? One thing María knew was that she liked being with Nestor: The reverence with which he looked at her, the way his sex went down in one moment and came back up the next, the ecstatic passage of his tongue lapping at her
papaya
, licking her until kingdom come—her body quivering and doubling over onto herself, her head shaking—she felt herself the object of his earthly worship. In the end, he was genteel and humble about the whole business, as if there was nothing special about him; and, best of all, he was careful in his treatment of María.

W
ith María working at night, save for when she had afternoon rehearsals, she never knew when Nestor might rush over from the Explorers’ Club during his lunch hour, which was usually sometime after three, and call up into her window. At first, she didn’t mind seeing him waiting below, among the market stalls, and introducing him as her new
novio
to her vendor friends. They’d go for walks, sometimes sit in the cool and dusty interior of the Mother of Mercy church, or in the cathedral, holding hands and praying. Sometimes they dallied in the Parque Central or visited the Havana zoo. He never had much money in his pockets, didn’t even own an automobile, but still he bought her little things—ice cream cones from the popular Coppelia’s parlor, mainly, or they’d sip rum and Cokes—Cuba Libres—in a bar, eat cheap meals in waterside fritter joints. As they passed by, men always checked her out, and fiercely so, but he didn’t seem to notice, and if he did, he just wasn’t like Ignacio, who’d never put up with that kind of thing. Nestor,
el pobre,
was just too good-natured for that. People liked him—old ladies, looking down from their balconies, with fans in their hands, were always nodding approvingly at the very nice looking young fellow with the dazzling
belleza
by his side. He seemed to know every street musician—
“Oye, Negro!”
he’d call out to some fellow playing his
tres
in a
placita
, “How are you doing?” And when he’d walk over to say hello, he’d introduce María as
“mi mujer,”
which always made her blush. He always did so with utter pride and, perhaps, disbelief that he could find himself with so glorious a beauty. Just to look at her, he’d say, filled his head with wonderful melodies.

On the weekends, they’d go to the beach and, after a nice swim, find a room for hire by the hour, Nestor never exceeding the limits of what he could afford. (But how delicious those hours were!) Monday nights, when her club closed, they’d sometimes roam the back alleys of the slums, where he’d seek out some of the finest street musicians in Havana, in the midst of drum and horn
descargas,
jam sessions. Those musicians were something else, and it was a joy for María to watch Nestor, blaring away rapturously on his trumpet, while those old-style
rumberos
in the crowd, some of the best dancers she’d ever see in her life, filled the alley with motion. The males, bone thin, jaunty, and dressed entirely in white, turned themselves into love-besotted roosters—the rumba was a courtship dance after all. They’d jerk their heads in and out as if wanting to peck the air before them, and flail their elbows behind them, like imaginary wings, their legs jutting up and down, and their steps taking all kinds of turns and backwards struts as if to scratch the dust behind them. The women emulated the movements of love-hectored hens, who didn’t want to be bothered, backing off at one moment and yet, after another, coming forward, heads nipping at the air, hips swerving, then torturing the roosters with the fanning of their skirts, as if to give them their scent. They always ended up dancing as one, a rapturous embracing and twirling taking place; such displays always left beautiful María, standing in the crowd, breathless until, unable to take it, she’d cut loose and, slipping off her shoes, dance one hell of a rumba herself.

And sometimes, late at night, they’d linger by the Malecón, and she’d listen to Nestor, without a practical bone in his body, dreamily play his trumpet for the seagulls, ever so oblivious, as María thought years later, to the world that would eat him alive. He’d tell her that he loved her. They’d kiss, drive themselves into a frenzy, and feel desperate for each other. Yes, all that was so wonderful, but you know what? For all the things they did together, and despite her soft spot for musicians, they never really seemed to have much to talk about: maybe falling in love is just that way, she had thought in those days.

DURING ONE OF THEIR AFTERNOON STROLLS, ALONG THE PRADO
, Nestor sat beside María on a bench and, under the shade of a laurel, took her gently by the hand.

“There’s something I want to say to you, María.” He was so timid he could barely bring himself to look into her eyes. “I…I…Nestor Castillo, want you to become my
prometida.
” And he reached into his pocket, producing a thin gold band. “My fiancée…and then my wife.”

He could barely breathe by then, she’d remember.

“
Pero,
Nestor.” She was touching his face. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes, with all my heart.”

“But why now,
mi querido
? Didn’t you tell me that you’re going to New York with your brother? What of that?”

He waved his hand in the air, as if being pestered by a bee.

“That is only a little bit true. It was true before I met you, María, but now, but now, I don’t know. My brother Cesar has got all these crazy ideas about New York, like it’s a paradise, where he thinks earning money will be easy, but the truth is, María, I really don’t want to leave
mi país, mi Cuba.
And”—he kissed her hand—“you are everything I’d ever want here.”

When María did not answer him, he went on. “We could go back east, to Oriente, to my family farm, to live there, away from all this. Or we could stay here in Havana. If I stay on at the Explorers’ Club, who knows what kind of job I might end up with there—maybe as a waiter. The boss likes me.”

That afternoon, María thought about everything Nestor had just said, every possible equation passing through her
guajira
mind. He had no real education, no reputation as a musician, and to live on a farm again was beyond her imaginings. She missed the simplicity of life in her
valle,
but not enough to return to the
campo.
That’s when a veil fell over her emotions, and María, a practical soul, could only think that with Nestor,
for all his handsomeness and the magnificence of his soul and body, she’d end up sharing a poor man’s life.

And so,
por fin,
that afternoon, she told him, “
Te amo,
Nestor—please don’t forget that—but you’ve asked me so suddenly that I need time to gather myself before giving you an answer.”

Leaving him that day, she already knew.

STILL, SHE FELT TORMENTED ABOUT NESTOR, AND SOME PART OF
her, the kindlier and less selfish María, wanted to stay with him. But hadn’t she already had enough sadness in her life? These were thoughts that came most strongly to her during one of the few nights they had actually spent sleeping side by side, in his friend’s
solar,
three in all. Nestor, after ravishing her, drifted off peacefully enough, María caressing his brow as if Nestor were an angel, until she too fell asleep. She was dreaming about seeing her sister, Teresita, in a field, picking flowers on a beautiful spring day, so happy that her sister seemed to be alive, the kind of dream that came to her as a pure joy, when Nestor awakened her, with yelps and cries. He sat up, his heart beating rapidly, his body trembling and covered in sweat, shadows, she would swear, swarming over his face. “What is it, Nestor?” she asked him, cradling him in her arms. “Tell me, Nestor.” He opened his eyes, looked away, as if ashamed of himself over such a display of fear, as any man could be, as if no real Cuban
macho
should ever tremble so in front of a woman. “It’s nothing,” he swore to her. “Nothing,
te juro.
”

But later that same night he awakened her again, and this time he told María about his dream, which always began as a pure memory: he was a boy again, of five, feverish and sick, on the brink of death, at his family’s farm out in Oriente. A priest stood over him, muttering some gibberish in Latin and rubbing holy oil upon his forehead; his
mamá, una santa,
by his bedside, wept, her face ravaged by grief; from the yard he could hear his
papi
sawing wood, hammering nails, for his coffin. Outside, his older brother Cesar, in his stately adolescence, peered in from a window that
faced his bed, smiling sadly. All those details, Nestor told María, were true. “You see, I was supposed to die, but I didn’t.” Of course, he was thankful for that, otherwise he would never have had the glorious pleasure of knowing her, of tasting her lips, of drowning in her body…. Still, he told her about other dreams. He’d find himself in a narrow and lightless tunnel, so confining that he could barely move, let alone breathe, and he would swear that if he as much swallowed a single gasp of air, he would die.

That’s when he told María that he just didn’t feel long for this world.

“I know it doesn’t make sense, María, but since I cheated death as a boy, I sometimes think that it’s following me, that something terrible is in the room and it’s only a matter of time and that…” His chest was heaving, and he could barely catch his breath, his brow covered with sweat. “…if I just breathe I’ll be swallowing poison and that poison is death—that’s what wakes me up.”

She covered his mouth with her hand, her naked body pressed against him.

“Please Nestor,” she told him, “stop thinking about such things, or you’ll make yourself sick.”

But he went on and on, about the purgatorial sufferings of his past. She wanted to take care of him then,
el pobre
, as she’d always wanted to take care of her sister and her
papito
. But at the same time, as much as she felt for Nestor, she had to wonder, Who will take care of me?

O
ne Sunday night she finally had the honor of meeting Cesar Castillo in one of those beachside dance bars in Marianao, a dingy, smoky, spilled-beer-and-lard-fried-fish-smelling place called El Oriente, its patrons, mostly black folks, tearing it up with rumbas. When she’d walked in, Nestor and his brother, in their linen slacks and guayaberas, were standing side by side on a narrow plywood stage with some five other musicians, playing, amongst them, double bass, a guitar, a
tres,
and several drums, in addition to Nestor’s trumpet. If María had a puzzled expression on her face as she made her way through the crowd, the men whistling and sucking air through their teeth at the sight of her in a juicily tight pair of watermelon pink slacks and matching blouse, it was because she had spent most of that very afternoon with Ignacio, her former man.

Just how did this happen?

(“Bueno, it was just one of those things,” María would later think.)

He had been driving through downtown Havana in his white Chevrolet when he saw María, ever unmistakable, strolling along Neptuno on her way back from church. Slowing up, he beeped at her, and wouldn’t you know it, Ignacio, one of those hard Cuban fellows willing to forgive and forget his own faults and transgressions, couldn’t have been more friendly or charming, asking María if she wanted a lift anywhere. She didn’t, but she got in beside him anyway, feeling a nostalgia—not for his abuses or even his money, but for his strength, as well as their “old times.”

In fact, just to see Ignacio again had somehow made her feel happy.

That Sunday morning was gloriously defined by a perfect sky, the ocean looking pristine, and breezes, smelling cleanly of both salt and tropic spices, blowing languidly in. In fact, it was so nice a day that Ignacio suggested they take a drive to the beaches east of the city. At first María told him she wasn’t interested, after all, she had
una cita
later in the evening—to finally see Nestor and his brother performing—but he promised they’d be away only a few hours.

Soon enough they were driving along the coast, the way they sometimes used to, and as they passed the marshes and mangrove swamps by the sea and came to an overlook, the gulf and sky brilliant before them, Ignacio, pulling over, heart in hand, made his confessions. Penitent, regretful, he told María that things between himself and the infamous Lola Sánchez were over.

“María, I don’t know what happened to me,” he said, “but whenever me and that woman were together, I was really thinking about you.” As for the way he had treated her the last time they’d been together, he claimed that the pressures of business and too much drinking had made his temper get out of hand. That’s why he had gone away from Havana for a time—to Miami and San Juan, where he had come to realize how much he missed her, “his little
guajira
.” And so he swore that he was a changed man and wouldn’t drink and treat her badly, if only she would come back to him.

“Because I want to be completely honest with you, María,” he told her, “I’m going to tell you everything.” It came down to this: “For years, I’ve made my living dishonestly…. There’s not a warehouse in the harbor that I haven’t broken into with my men, or a ship along the Ward Line and E & O wharves where I haven’t found my merchandise. Or a policeman that I haven’t taken care of,” he went on and rubbed one of his medallions. “But I’m giving all that up, María. Not out of any guilt—I’ve always offered all kinds of goods for the people at very affordable prices—there’s no shame in that, is there? God has obviously protected me…. Maybe he’s even blessed me, for reasons that only he knows…. Along the way I’ve saved more than enough money, María, to open a le
gitimate
negocio.
…And so I have my plans. There’s a commercial space over on Galiano that I’m going to rent, and I will fill it with the finest clothing from Europe and America. You, of course, can be a model in the photographs that I will put in that window.”

She looked at him, smiling a little sadly.

“Why clothing? you are wondering,” he said, driving on and turning the wheel of bright red leather. “Because Havana is booming these days, packed with tourists who have money in their pockets; the same ones who fill the clubs and brothels have wives they’ll have to please. It’ll be a fancy place. I’m planning to put a little bar in the back—so that my customers can have some drinks while they shop—and I think I’ll put in a lipstick counter too. And that’s just the beginning.” He sounded a little crazy, but at least he wasn’t pushing or slapping her around like he used to. “But above all, María, I want you to understand that I’m putting my life in proper order, and I want you to be a part of that order,
como mi mujer—
as my woman—if you will have me.” He placed his hand over his heart. “I swear I’m telling you the truth.”

María, in those moments, didn’t know what to think. For all those months with Nestor, Ignacio had continued to pay her rent—but why? And while she had enjoyed Nestor’s company, she had always wondered why Ignacio had not once contacted her at the club.

“
Ignacio, I have someone,
un joven,
close to my own age,” she finally told him. “He cares for me.”

“Oh, the trumpet player, yes?” He hardly blinked. “His name is Nestor Castillo, and he’s a two-bit musician who works in some nothing job as a lackey busboy at the Explorers’ Club near the Capitolio, doesn’t he? Lives with a relative in a flat off Solares Street near the harbor, number twenty-four, in fact. He leaves for his job about ten in the morning, and has his lunch break about three when he comes to see you, two or three times a week. Am I correct?”

“Ignacio, but how do you know?”

“I just know,” he said, María’s stomach going into knots. Then, before she could say a word, he added, “
Mi vida,
I wouldn’t be sitting here
if I didn’t think that you deserved better.” Then, “What you do with yourself and some nobody, who will give you nothing in life, is your own business. And so I’ll leave that decision to you and hope that you will come to your senses.”

That’s when Ignacio took out a roll of twenty-dollar bills, thick as Nestor’s
pinga,
and, unfurling a few, dropped them onto María’s lap. “For your
papito,
” he told her. Then he pulled her close and gave her a nice kiss on her neck, and because she felt such gratitude that Ignacio hadn’t yelled or insulted her, and it was such a fine day, María didn’t mind when he undid the white felt buttons of her blue church dress, the very one he’d bought for her at El Fin de Siglo, and began to fondle, then suckle her breasts.
“Ay, María,”
he told her, “if you only knew how much I’ve missed you.” She should have known better, but when he released the buckle of his belt, María, pulling back her hair, with resignation and detachment, took care of Ignacio the way she used to—why, she didn’t know.

“If you give me another chance, María,” he told her afterwards, “I promise that I will make you happy.”

Altogether, it was as if Ignacio had stepped out of a bolero about the possible ruination of another’s love.

That night, as she crossed the crowded dance floor to the bar, Nestor spotted María from the stage, his smile shooting across the room. By then several men had asked María to dance, and though she turned the first few away, this lanky
negrito,
who moved like a skulking burglar, pulled her out onto the floor, where, without even wanting to, she found herself putting on a show. That’s when Nestor, up on the little stage, pointed her out to his brother, and Cesar, scraping a
güiro
and in the midst of a few dance steps himself, seeing her for the first time, nodded wildly in approval. “So that’s your darling!”

From that moment on, Cesar and Nestor decided to put on a hell of a performance, the brothers harmonizing during the choruses, and then
Cesar stepping back and letting Nestor play his solos. They were a sight to see—each possessing deep-set and soulful, slightly melancholy eyes, the chiseled cheekbones, the cleft chins, the sensitive, well-formed mouths—two
buenmosos,
lady-killers—but with a difference. Whereas Nestor had a pristine handsomeness about him, an innocence and the pained expression of a saint, and moved modestly onstage, Cesar seemed to revel in a kind of sly majesty—his hair brilliantined to death, so that it crested like an ocean wave, his brow covered with sweat, a pencil-thin mustache in the manner of Gilbert Roland or Xavier Cugat (the fashion of the times) punctuating a visage that was anything but sincere—despite the way he poured his heart into his songs, whether
guaguancós, boleros,
or
rumba-tumbaos.

And María? She’d seen his type before, swaggering cocks of the walk, from
guajiro
to government functionary, who considered themselves God’s gifts to womankind, the sorts of men she encountered every day of her life, and did her best to avoid. But there Cesar stood, hamming it up on that little stage, while Nestor, occupied with the nuances of his mellifluous scales and melodies, could have not been more deferential, ever so happily allowing his brother the leading role, the way, María imagined, he did in life.

They performed a few of their own compositions; one of them was a lark of a song, no doubt written by Cesar, always at the edge of the stage between numbers sweet-talking any of the unattached women around. It was called “I Forgot It Was My Wedding Day!” and Nestor, strumming a guitar, launched into a romantic bolero that she was fairly certain he had written about her, even if he did not use her name. That song’s title was a bit over her head; Nestor introduced it as
“¿Si la vida es sueño, qué es el amor?”
Or, “If Life Is a Dream, Then What Is Love?” The heart of the tune was about how some fellow with nothing particularly special going on in his life meets a woman who delights him so much that he is convinced he must be dreaming, or else so much in love he can’t help but wonder if he is losing his common sense.

“Puede ser,”
the last lines went,
“este sueño es mi destino.”

“Could be that my dream is also my destiny.”

“To love that which I cannot really see.”

“A amar lo que no puedo ver.”

By the time the brothers had gotten to that particular composition, sometime past ten, any sad, tear-jerking bolero—the music of romantic lives—would have pleased the crowd, who, in any case, would have slow-danced to it all night long. Up onstage, Nestor was so sincere in his sentiments that by the last verses of that song he was wiping his eyes and brow with a handkerchief. His expression seemed haunted, a darkness passing over his face.

They’d been onstage for two hours straight; now, leaving the jukebox to take over, the musicians headed to a table in the back. Joining them, María, somewhat shocked by Ignacio’s sudden reappearance in her life, could not quite look Nestor in the eyes. But she greeted him with a kiss while Cesar, standing by his brother’s side and checking her out with X-ray vision, smiled and waited for the introduction.

“So you’re María?” then “Holy cow, Brother!” Cesar cried out, slapping Nestor’s back. “Does she have a sister?”
(Oh, but how María wished she had.)
Then he sat right down next to her, saying, “So you are the one, huh?” And though Cesar was the sort who would have done anything to get her into bed if it weren’t for the fact that she was with his brother, he behaved kindly towards her, as if he were her uncle, introducing the other musicians and making sure that she had anything she wanted to eat or drink. Then, while Nestor went off to the pestilential men’s room, Cesar, sticking little knives in María’s back, went on and on about how he had never seen his little brother so contented.

“Because you see, María,
mi hermanito
is a little too serious about life sometimes, and because of that he feels for all the
sufrimiento
in the world—which, as you know, there’s plenty of it and always will be.” His eyes were filled with nothing but pure appreciation. “But you have made him as happy as a little bird. I’ve never heard Nestor whistling so much in my life. You’ve turned him into a new man, and while there’s still a lot of
sadness in his heart—some
tipos
are just that way, and Nestor’s one of them—he’s now filled with more light, and if I may say so,
mi belleza,
that light has a name, and it’s yours: María.”

Oh, my lord, he was smooth.

Then he looked at her with the same expression that poor children get when they stare at people eating in fancy cafés. “I don’t know how you feel about my brother, but I will tell you this,” he said, pointing his finger at her, “be good to him, because that brother of mine is everything to me. Everything.”

As María sat back, Cesar, noting her air of distraction, changed the subject: “So, are you enjoying the music?”

“Oh yes,” she said, sincerely.

“Well, this group is something we put together just for tonight, this bar’s owner is an old friend—he comes from Holguín after all—but, even if it’s not a fancy place, you should know that we aren’t slackers. We’ve sat in and performed with some of the best-known bands in Havana, like the Melody Boys! But I’ve got my own ideas for us.” And he told her about the kinds of ambitions that left her feeling sad for that poor lost soul’s dreams. Sooner or later, he believed, they were going to make their mark in Havana, a city already overrun with thousands of first-rate singers and musicians, where music hummed through the walls like water through pipes.

“And if not in Havana,” he added, “then somewhere else!”

Of course, she already knew where that other place might be: New York City. Nestor, with a forlornness that was touching, had not so long before told her, while speaking about Cesar’s ambitions, “If we ever do leave Cuba, María, I want you to accompany me. Because if you don’t, I don’t think I’ll ever go.”

Even then María knew that she never would. It was hard enough to have left the
campo
for Havana, but to leave Cuba was the last thing to
enter her mind. She kept thinking about Nestor, however: if only he were a different sort—the sort to make her feel that she wouldn’t end up living like a pauper.