Free The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

Because she knew well her uncle’s schedule in advance, it became difficult for Cesar to disappear for two or three days at a time, and this bothered him. So he developed the excuse of returning home to Las Piñas, where he would hole up with some country girl, resentful and angry over his situation. He would return from these sojourns maintaining a silence for a week at a time. He would walk through rooms muttering phrases like “Why have I allowed myself to become a captive,” and “What am I doing with my youth,” in clear earshot of Luisa. For a long time she did what she could to make him feel better . . . She would beg him to come around, and he would leave the house, her question “Why are you so cruel to me?” circling his head like a summer mosquito.
    One day in 1944, Luisa happily told Cesar that she was pregnant, as if the birth of a child later that year would shore up their crumbling marriage. They would turn up at Julián’s house for weekly meals, and as a family they seemed content. But then one night Julián, who was not made of sawdust and had heard about and seen the way this crooner was treating his niece, called Cesar out onto his balcony and as he looked into the distance over Santiago Bay said, “I feel very close to you, my boy, but no matter what, I expect you to treat my family with respect. And I’ll tell you now, if you don’t like what I’m saying, señor, you can walk out the door.”
    His sternness depressed Cesar. The man had been sick for a time with poor breathing and edema of the limbs and he was no longer playing much piano with the orchestra and preferred to conduct, halfheartedly waving a baton, from a chair. The man could hardly walk across a room (as the Mambo King could not now). It was as if Julián’s huge weight had crushed his lungs, his breathing was labored and he had trouble moving. And so the future Mambo King blamed Julián’s ill health for his temper.
    “What you hear isn’t true, Julián. I love Luisa with all my heart, I would never want things to go badly for her.”
    Julián rapped him on the shoulder and hugged him in his friendly way and his anger seemed to subside. This brush with him turned the Mambo King into a better husband for a time and he and Luisa passed through a period of happiness that revolved around a picture of future domestic bliss, with Cesar as dutiful bandleader-crooner-husband, and his wife and child(ren) waiting happily and lovingly at home for him. Yet, when he conceived of this tranquil scene, he saw himself pushing open the door of that house with a hard kick, the way his Papi used to; he saw himself shouting and angry and slapping his child’s face as he had been slapped, saw himself pacing in circles and cursing everyone around him, as did his father. He had thought that marrying into Julián’s family would inspire a mundane, normal happiness in him, but now he found himself regretting the whole business again. Not because he didn’t love Luisa, but because he felt that abuse and discontent boiled in his blood and he did not want to hurt her . . .
    And the pregnancy which made the act of love a too-delicate operation also troubled him. (Here he remembers the first time he made love to her. Her skin was white and her hips bony and her triangle of pubic hair wet at its center because of all their kisses. He was not a heavy man then, but he was twice as thick as she and he undid her virginity in one spurting thrust which led, through the succession of days, to many other thrusts: they did it so much her hipbones and buttocks were covered with black-and-blue marks and his thing, which never failed to rise, finally fainted dead away at three o’clock one Sunday afternoon, due to heat and exhaustion. But when he was in love with her, he loved the Luisa who was the key to her Uncle Julián García, the thin, pensive Luisa who was there for his pleasure and who never expected anything from him.) He found himself restless,