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?

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

One 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 legitimate 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.”