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.”