The Casanova Embrace Read online

  But she did enjoy fantasizing about him, picturing him with his arms around her. Kissing her face. There was something terribly exotic about her imagining that he was kissing her face, little pecks at her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, her ears, then a long lingering kiss on her lips. Occasionally, she had caught herself staring into her mirror, mouth open, the image in front of her blurred, feeling wonderful.

  "You seem so preoccupied, darling," Claude said to her one evening when they were having dinner at home--a rare occasion. She felt it odd that he had noticed. It must really be showing, she thought, determined to be more guarded.

  "Not really," she said, feeling her sudden need for secrecy. "Perhaps I am coming down with a cold."

  It was while she was consciously being more guarded that Eduardo came back into her life, a disembodied voice on the telephone. It startled her, coming as it did in the middle of the day. Actually, she had heard the ring as a faraway intrusion in her mind as she lay on the bed taking an afternoon nap. Later, she would insist that it was déjà vu, that she knew it was he at the other end of the line.

  She was cranky when she reached for the receiver, feeling weights on her eyelids and a heaviness in her arms and legs, a frequent aftermath of her afternoon naps.

  "Mrs. LaFarge?" the voice enquired. It was deep and resonant with a touch of humor. Always, even in her memories of him, there was a touch of humor. The recognition quickly activated her adrenalin and she was fully alert in a moment.

  "Yes, this is Mrs. LaFarge."

  "I hope you will remember me. The Chilean fellow at the Roumanian do." He said "do" with a British lilt as if he were reading lines from a Noël Coward play.

  She hesitated deliberately. Was it merely coquettishness? Or fear? She felt a sudden flush of warmth and she actually looked into the mouthpiece as if she might see his face.

  "Of course," she answered. "The Chilean." She had wanted to add with the silver-gray eyes and white teeth. Her hands began to shake.

  "I never distrust first impressions," he said. There was no uncertainty. No wavering. He had been that sure of her from the beginning.

  "I have always been taught to beware of first impressions." She was conscious now of being deliberately flirtatious. It is delicious, she felt.

  "I thought perhaps we might have lunch."

  She thought for a moment. It was not the first time that men had called. Lunch? It was a euphemistic term for tryst, a delicate first probe. Her response had always been: I never have lunch with men. Sometimes she actually had told her husband about it, knowing he would be secretly flattered. But not always, although she had turned down all offers. She had hesitated too long.

  "I suppose you think it rather forward," he said. She wondered if his gray eyes looked innocent. Yes, she said in her mind.

  "Is there any particular reason?" she began. She marveled at her own ability to prolong the titillation.

  "Reason?" She pressed the earpiece closer. She could hear his breathing. "I suppose we must have a reason. All right then. I am seeking a French response to the Chilean question."

  She had wanted to say: And what is the Chilean question? The problem, she giggled inwardly, is what is the answer to the immediate Chilean question?

  "My husband would be far more knowledgeable." He must not think that I am easy, she told herself, shocked at the idea.

  "I am interested in the woman's viewpoint. This is something peculiar to Chileans. Our women are extremely important. They have attained much in Chile." He had suddenly become political. Was the moment slipping away?

  "Well, I suppose that is quite harmless," she said.

  "Why are you talking about harm?" he asked. But the message had already been delivered, sealed and dropped irretrievably in the slot.

  "All right," she said with finality. She had heard someone at the door. The children. Claude returning early.

  "Tomorrow?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "La Niçoise in Georgetown. Twelve o'clock."

  "Yes."

  "Wonderful." The word seemed sincere. She hung up, lay back, closed her eyes, picturing him again. Then it occurred to her that she had not said his name. Eduardo, she whispered. Eduardo Palmero. The door opened and her daughter burst into the room, rushing into her arms. She smelled of the outdoors, fresh and chilled.

  Expectation and anxiety made it impossible for her to function smoothly. She forced herself to keep her mind on the business of her life. The children. The meals. Her husband's problems. He was fond of long monologues about what was happening at the office, the imagined slights, the little successes and glories. He had a tendency to brag about his prowess as a manipulator of people and he reveled in his calculated moves.

  "I was born for intrigue," he would say, looking toward her for the expected supportive response. There was no end to his need for flattery. What a child, she thought, conscious now that she was already looking at him quite differently.

  "You are very clever, Claude," she told him, putting more into it than she had ever done before.

  "They are all jealous of my influence with the ambassador," he said, encouraged by her remarks. "The State Department calls me to get a reading before proceeding with him. Of course, I tell the ambassador and he is quite prepared to play the game."

  "I never have doubts about my Claude."

  "He is quite thick with Paris and he is talking more and more of pushing me for an ambassadorial post."

  "Soon?" she asked, with what she imagined was wifely innocence. Her heart began to beat heavily. Not yet, she thought.

  "Soon enough," he said testily. "The question is where. The right post. Someplace with contemporary importance. It is no good to be an ambassador to anywhere."

  "Of course, Claude." She reached and patted his sleeve as he lifted his wine glass in what seemed like a toast to himself.

  She managed to get through the night, spending nearly an hour in the bubble bath before going to bed. She could not bear the thought of Claude touching her and was thankful that he was asleep when she crawled in beside him. She lay stiffly, not daring to move, as if the slightest movement would acknowledge her presence and trigger his desire to make love. But nothing could still the agitation of her mind and she forced herself to recall events in her life to calm her anxieties and keep her thoughts from Eduardo Palmero.

  She remembered summers on the Riviera. Her parents had a summer home in St. Tropez and she and her girlfriends would spend their days on Tahiti Beach making sandcastles and teasing the beach attendant by hiding the beach pads behind the restaurant. The waters of the Mediterranean were deeply blue then. She recalled the restaurants along the quay, remembering each one as she walked past them observing the beautiful ladies and handsome men talking animatedly over their drinks. She had felt so unattractive then, gawky. She would stare at her reflection in the mirror for hours. "You will be beautiful one day," she assured her image, "and exquisite men will love you." The anticipation of all that would then fill her with joy.

  "Still at the mirror," her mother would admonish. "What do you see in there?"

  "Nothing," she would lie, guilty about her vanity, but reveling in the imaginary future. "Please, God, let me be beautiful," she said in her mind. That was long ago. Having grown up, she was not as certain that her prayers had been answered. Perhaps she looked beautiful, but she certainly had never felt beautiful.

  The next morning, after she had gotten the children ready for school, she went up to her room and began to dress. She had forced herself to be particularly attentive to them, even to Claude.

  "Wear the striped tie," she had said as he tied the knot in front of the mirror. Obediently, he loosened the knot and took the proffered striped one, reknotting it.

  "Better?" he asked.

  "Much."

  Then he had kissed her on both cheeks and left the house. Soon after, the maid came in and she could hear the whir of the vacuum in the living room.

  She could not still
her excitement and her fingers shook as she applied her makeup. Taking particular care with the process, she looked at her face from many angles, finally finishing the job in the natural light near the bedroom window where the sun streamed in on this clear winter's day. During the night's restlessness she had decided on her costume for the day, but changed her mind as she stood in the sunlight, choosing a tailored skirt and white blouse instead of the beige pantsuit.

  There was nothing special or symbolic about the choice, she told herself with a lack of conviction since the special cut of the blouse showed off her fine, still uplifted bosom, the nipples of which had been unaccountably hard all morning. Don't be such an innocent, she admonished her image in the mirror, seeing herself giggle like a young girl, enjoying the wickedness of it. There were other signs of involuntary sexual yearnings as well, but she put that out of her mind, concentrating instead on getting into her clothes, dabbing her perfume, patting her hair in a final survey of herself. She smiled into the glass, showing her even white teeth curling against the delicately rouged lips, wondering if others might think her as beautiful as she thought herself at that moment.

  It was not until she had headed the car in the direction of Georgetown that she began to think of consequences. Suppose someone sees her? "Saw Marie the other day at La Niçoise, Claude," someone might say, a sneer of malevolence behind the mask of innocence. "Very attractive fellow she was with." "A man?" Claude might say, but with exquisite blandness, revealing no less an annoyance than at a fly resting on his arm. But inside, he would begin to churn and she would pay the price in pouting and moodiness.

  "A perfectly innocent lunch," she could respond. "A wonderfully humorous fellow. You simply must meet him. He is planning a visit to Paris and was simply hungering for information. I told him to look up Mama and Papa."

  Stumbling across this cover story restored her confidence, although arriving in the restaurant she nervously scanned the room for familiar faces, noting with relief that he had ensconced himself in a far corner in the shadows. How ridiculous, she thought, as she moved toward him, realizing that that was the first place the gossip seekers would look.

  He stood up as she approached. He was actually taller than she remembered and his figure was slim and graceful in a well cut gray suit. He wore a tie with flecks of silver that matched his eyes. Reaching for her hand, he kissed it, but she was too nervous to respond with grace. Besides, her hand felt clammy and she was embarrassed.

  "So good of you to come," he said, moving behind her to slide her chair. He seemed so confident, his manners impeccable. He is well-born, she thought, a bit of snobbery that she had once despised in her mother.

  "And so good to see you again, Monsieur Palmero."

  "Such formality. I am Eduardo."

  "Yes, Eduardo." She hesitated. "And I am Marie."

  He bowed his head and smiled. The eyes crinkled merrily in the corners. The waiter came over.

  "Campari and soda," she said. He put up two fingers.

  "So," he said when the waiter had gone. "I have you to myself at last."

  "It is a small prize," she said, flattered, of course. She had always been modest, even deprecating, when confronted with effusiveness. Claude had remarked that she was fishing for compliments when she performed this little affectation. He was correct, of course. She felt Eduardo watching her and averted her eyes, looking at her fingers instead.

  "I have thought about you often, Marie. I hope you will forgive my forwardness, but I felt that I must see you again, if only to talk. I feel privileged that you have come." She felt an odd kinship with him as she caught the foreign inflection in his flawless English.

  Her eyes rested on his hands, the white skin and ridges of black hairs that covered them. Watching them, she felt a surge of electric excitement, wondering if the Campari she had just sipped had too quickly gone to her head.

  "I am always delighted to be in the company of an attractive man," she said, knowing it was her voice, but hardly recognizing the words as her own. She was flattering him.

  "Sometimes--" he said, eyelids flickering. There was a brief excess of moisture in his eyes, a glistening mist. "--I am assailed by an overpowering loneliness. They tell me it's the exile's syndrome and it attacks with great subtlety when one least expects it to occur. At that point, one feels entitled to a brief fling." He paused. "An innocent peccadillo. For a Latin," he assured her, "that means being with a beautiful woman."

  She smiled. This is all so contrived, she thought. Then why am I loving it? Because I am vulnerable, she decided.

  "You have no family?" she asked. The question reflected her own guilt.

  He lowered his eyes and looked about him with suspicion.

  "A wife and child in Santiago." She saw his lip quiver, more like a grimace than a sign of longing. Perhaps it was a subject too painful to broach. She remembered again Claude's admonishment. People of other languages and cultures react differently to emotions. She felt a sharp stab of jealousy and resisted the temptation to inquire further.

  "And do you like Washington?" she asked. It seemed a logical question.

  "It is necessary for me to be here." He laughed suddenly. "And I am easier for them to watch."

  "Them?"

  "The CIA. The DINA. Everyone watches everyone. It is a game."

  "And are they watching us now?" she asked, frightened but willing to be brave, feeling the sense of danger. Would Claude one day discover an account of this in some musty intelligence file?

  She looked about the restaurant at the other diners. He watched her and smiled.

  "We are having an innocent lunch." Reaching across the table, he placed his hand on hers, squeezing lightly. She looked into his eyes.

  "Absolutely."

  "Mostly," he said, pausing, cautious. "The anger sustains me. It can almost dispel loneliness."

  "Anger?" A nerve palpitated in his jaw. He gripped her hand.

  "We will destroy them one day." His eyes had narrowed. "We are assembling our weapons." A sense of danger thrilled her. She placed a hand on his.

  "It will all work out. You'll see," she said, the inanity of the remark galling, as if she might be talking to a child. She had not expected her own reaction. It had thrown her off guard and she was annoyed with herself.

  "We will make it happen." He drew in a deep breath, then watched her until, she assumed, the anger had drained. Then he smiled.

  "There. That is better."

  "What a beautiful gift you have given me," he said after a long pause.

  "A gift?"

  "The best gift of all."

  "I don't understand." She was being a coquette now. He was making love to her and she was reveling in the pleasure of it.

  "The gift of you. What could be more delicious? A sweet winter's day. The hint of culinary delights and a beautiful lady. My ecstasy is complete." He was surely mocking her with this stilted language, this contrived charm, she told herself. But it is irresistible, like something in an old-fashioned play.

  They chatted lightly, the waiter refilling their drinks. She was relaxing now, telling him in detail about her children, her life, although she admittedly left gaps when it came to her husband. In fact, she barely mentioned him. They ordered fish, sole, after an elaborate explanation from the waiter on the ingredients of the sauce, and a bottle of icy Chablis.

  "As cold as possible," he told the waiter. They continued to talk. She felt herself chattering away about her childhood and he hung on every word. What am I saying that is so important, she wondered, unable to stop herself from going on.

  "My father was, still is, a rather pompous-looking fellow, a doctor. He wears a pince-nez, but once he walked into the house he never took himself seriously. He was, is, a marvelous mimic, making fun of his patients and everybody he had met that day and we would laugh until our sides split." She was remembering her most joyous moments and sharing them, wondering suddenly why she had never really done so with Claude. He is a perfect stranger,
she thought, and I am telling him things I have not discussed in years. Finally, when the waiter had poured the last drop of wine she noticed that she had been doing most of the drinking. Surprisingly, she discovered that she didn't care. She was happy. She was alive. Then she felt his leg pressing against hers under the table, the touching an unabashed sexual signal. Vague stirrings were coming into focus. He seemed to sense them and his leg began to move rhythmically, stroking her. She could barely swallow.

  "You are a flower," he said.

  "I am a woman," she whispered. Again, she berated herself for her inanity. Her breath came swiftly now and her heartbeat was accelerating.

  The restaurant had begun to empty. He called for the check, paid it, and they stood up. She felt a brief dizziness at the sudden motion, but it passed quickly. Outside he took her hand. It seemed so natural.

  "Where is your car?" he asked.

  She had forgotten.

  "We will take mine."

  "Where are we going?" she asked, knowing it was a formality that needed no answer.

  She followed him across the street. He opened the door of his small car and she got into the front seat. Sliding in beside her, he took her in his arms, kissing her neck, drawing her face to his, pressing his lips lightly on hers, then suddenly with pressure. His lips felt soft, but strong and demanding, and his tongue darted into her mouth. She had no illusions about her body's demands, had known this would happen from the beginning. When he released her, he started the car and he drove silently toward Massachusetts Avenue. His hand held hers, tightly. It was a five-minute drive to his apartment. He found a parking space in the lot. Still holding her hand, he led her through the lobby. In the privacy of the elevator they embraced again and she felt the hardness in his pants and felt her voice screaming inside her. I am alive. I am alive. Later, she would not remember the first impression of his apartment, only that when the door closed behind them, the urgency of her sexuality made her tremble with pleasure. Her hands reached out to him, extensions of her nerve endings, groping for his flesh, the feel of it, the mysterious invisible pull of it, as if her body were in some magnetic field reacting to the beckoning of unseen forces.