The Casanova Embrace (27 page)

"We followed you in the skiff. We saw you sail into
the cove," her father said.

"We know about Biff Maloney," her mother said.

She swallowed hard and lowered her eyes.

"He's retarded," her mother said. "Did you
know that?"

"I suppose so." I will not cry, she told herself.

"Has anything happened?" her mother asked gently.
She could only vaguely sense her meaning. A great deal had happened. How could
she bear to lose him? He was the only thing in her world worth loving.

She moved her head from side to side, that sure of her
answer.

"Well, that's a relief."

"Tomorrow you're going to your grandmother's house in
the Adirondacks," her father said. She felt trapped, the sense of loss
overwhelming.

"Thank God, the other people don't know," he
sighed.

"What people?"

"Our friends," her mother replied. "You
would be the laughing stock."

He's beautiful, she wanted to say, and natural, and I love
him. She would never, ever, love anyone again.

The next day she went away. She did not cry, but the loss
was to plague her for most of her life. Nor did she ever go to Camden again.
What she felt for Biff was buried deep inside her. She hadn't felt it for
years, not until now.

Perhaps it was the fear of acknowledging that same
happiness that made her want to fully possess Eduardo Palmero. She could not
bear for him to leave her. Where did he go? What did he do? She wanted to ask,
but always fell short of finding the courage. She wondered, too, if it was the
money she had offered that made the essential difference in their relationship,
but she had wanted to show him how much he meant to her. If necessary, she
would have gladly given him her life.

Although she had offered him the use of the money, he had
said little about it. He would sometimes disappear for days, causing her deep
anxiety. She no longer went to the library, no longer exercised, no longer ate
sparingly. She began to neglect the house and would spend hours in front of the
window, waiting for him to come. Always when he arrived, she was reborn.

"I can't bear it when you are gone," she said. It
was the sense of parting that had triggered the memory of Biff Maloney. Could
Eduardo know what kind of suffering that could bring? Parting was not sweet
sorrow, she thought. It was agony. When he came to her after a few days'
absence, she would devour him with a hunger which she could not have believed
she was capable of. She wondered if he was merely submitting. Although he was
physically effective, she had the feeling that his mind was elsewhere.

"What is it?" she asked. He must have felt her
observation, acknowledging his thoughts.

"We are on the verge of great things, Anne," he
said softly.

"Great things?" She seemed puzzled by the
reference, then remembered what he was working on in the library. "The
manifesto."

"That and other things. We are starting to fight
back." She felt the pressure of his hand quicken on her head. "It
will not be easy, but we will do it."

It was confusing to her, still unclear. His presence was
all that mattered. She moved her hand along his thigh, felt the lump between
his legs, then the stirring in him and her own beginnings. She was Lazarus
arising, she told herself, feeling the passion smolder and begin inside her,
awakening her to all of life's possibilities and sensations, a rebirth of her
womanness. Deftly, she undid his pants and watched his erection, a staff of
power and strength, the sight of which gave her courage.

"You're beautiful, my darling. Beautiful." She
bent over him, kissing the long hardness, feeling the full delight of it and
his reactions. I am a woman, she told herself, repeating it. "You have
made me a woman, Eduardo, and brought me back to life again." She looked
up at him, saw into his eyes, the circles of gray and the speckled silver, a
flash of his internal sunlight. Remembering Biff, she wanted to see the mystery
of it again. She brought his hand to her breast and he caressed the nipple while
her body began to pulse. Caressing him rhythmically, she watched as his sexual
energy gathered, gained momentum, shuddered, and his seed overflowed
deliciously in front of her eyes and she erupted

"How beautiful, Eduardo. My Eduardo. How
beautiful."

He said nothing, and it was his silence that interested
her, since she wanted to know what he was thinking. She held him, peaceful now.

"Everything is in place," Eduardo said suddenly.
It seemed like an interruption between them. But she listened carefully.
Somewhere he had this other life, she knew.

"It has taken us months of planning." He lifted
an index finger, as if he might be a professor making a point. "They will
see how efficient we can be. You see, the main point has always ways been our
inefficiency," he sneered. "The Allende people are inefficient. They
are dreamers. Well, we will show them."

"Of course, darling." She listened, but with
little comprehension.

She turned toward him and kissed him deeply. "Why
can't we be together always?"

He did not answer.

"But why?" she pressed.

"Later," he said, after a long pause. She was
confused, but did not push for clarification.

Yet there was the hint of promise in his words, or was it
only in her reception of them? I must not press too hard, she vowed. In the
end, I will possess him, she assured herself.

"I understand, Eduardo. I truly understand." She
did not, of course. She watched him looking upward, his eyes glazed, as if they
were searching elsewhere.

"Would you really, Anne?" he asked quietly.

"Really what?"

"The money."

"Money?"

"What you said the other day?"

She hesitated, groping for the right answer. Did he have
any doubts? She reined her elation. So money could be the key, after all. She
had once been ashamed of her money, wondering how it continued to amass in odd
places all over the world. She only guessed that she had three million, since
she hadn't looked at the statements from her investment counselor for years.

"Did you really mean it, Anne?"

"Did you have any doubts?"

"It seemed incredible," he said quickly.
"Incredible. At first, it seemed like an insult. My pride...."

"Eduardo"--she moved the palm of her hand over
his bare chest--"it is the point of the exercise." Could he believe
that she could settle for anything less than total commitment of herself, of
her life, of her fortune? What price can one put on one's life, she wondered.

"I thought about it for a long time, Anne," he
said. "I could not understand. I try to analyze myself." For the
first time since she had seen him in the library, he looked different, as if
she were viewing him through a gauze lens. His features had softened and he
seemed like a boy. He lifted himself on one elbow and looked into her eyes.
"What is it you see? I don't understand. Am I so different?"

She had been trying to assemble her thoughts, gathering the
bits and pieces of meaning to herself, hoping she might find some way to
articulate the answer. She could sense that he wanted words now, that words
were important.

"I am forty-nine years old, Eduardo. Nothing."
No, I must amend that, she thought. What I say must be pristine, in perfect
pitch. "Little has ever moved me. I have had children. I have had a
husband. I have seen my parents die. My husband die. I have had the best of
wordly goods. But I have not felt a sense of life until I met you."

"But you seemed content."

"Controlled. I was under control. I had found a way to
survive."

"But why me?" He seemed troubled now. His eyes
moved downward over his body. "What is so special about me?"

It was the edge of the abyss, beyond words.

"It is primarily.... "He paused.

"That! And everything." They were the only words
she could muster. She had never, although she admitted this to herself for the
first time, wanted men. Not after Biff. She had welcomed Jack's impotence. Even
her affairs had had little physical meaning, except, perhaps, for her own peace
of mind in trying to prove her womanness, her desirability. But that, too, had
been hollow, without substance. It is all so mysterious, she thought. Then she
could see his features changing again, as if the lenses of her camera eye had
been replaced.

"And you would give me money?" he asked.

"I would give you anything. Anything." she said,
feeling a surge of happiness. "Anything," she repeated, her hand
caressing his genitals now. "You are beautiful," she said.

"Beautiful?" he paused. "You are seeing
something I do not comprehend."

"You don't understand?"

"No."

And me? she wanted to ask. How do you see me? An aging
woman. What is more undesirable than an aging woman?

"You think I'm a silly love-struck fool?" She was
sorry to have said it.

"No." Again she wanted to ask him. Do you love
me? How do you see me? But she held back, her courage faltering.

"I mean it, Eduardo. I will give you anything within
my power to give you." It was the sound of an old fairy tale, and she was
the queen ... or the witch.

"Then I must ask you."

She continued to caress him, feeling his eyes on her,
watchful. She waited. His sexuality lay dormant as his mind reacted.

"This thing cannot be done without money. It is
essential. It must be funded from a private source. In that way, our bargaining
power increases."

Gently, he put his hands on hers to freeze the caress.
"You see. If we take the money from the Cubans, our bargaining power
decreases. We lose essential control. Above all, we must not lose control. And
this is the essential difference. We are not interested in the brotherhood of
socialism. What we do must be indigenous to Chile. It must be completely
Chilean. That is the essential difference." He was becoming agitated.
"They, the Americans, think of this thing of Chile's as some worldwide
conspiracy, based on the export of the Soviets and their urge for hegemony, the
domination of the world, with Chile being the first phase of the domination of
the South American continent. What we want is for Chile alone. Only Chile. You
see. That is the point of the manifesto. Things will follow in their natural
course. Just as in Chile. Indigenous."

She listened, but absorbed little.

"How much do you need?"

"A quarter of a million."

Perhaps I should be hesitant in my answer, she told
herself, feeling suddenly an odd sense of power. Power over him. Like Biff. She
savored the discovered moment, time suspended, a new and greater sense of
herself than she had ever felt before.

"In gold Krugers," he said.

"Gold Krugers?"

"Coins. Each Kruger an ounce. A better exchange than
money."

"When do you want it?" She felt his anxiety now.
The frozen caress thawed. He removed his hand and she put her lips on his face,
letting them roam over his eyes, his nose, finding his lips, then after a long
kiss, his ear.

"Anything, my darling. Anything."

"I can't believe it," he whispered.

"Whatever is mine is yours, darling Eduardo."

"You see, Miranda," he said suddenly. The words
were clear.

"What?"

He sighed.

"It is nothing." He moved over her. She wanted to
ask him to explain, but she said nothing.

It was shame. Dobbs recognized the emotion, the same
secretive guiltridden feeling that he had when he reached behind the bookcase
in his own home to bring out that pornographic magazine he had once purchased
in a Washington bookstore. For days, he had worried that he had been spotted by
them, the watchers of the watchers, as they referred slyly to CIA internal
control. He had even fretted over whether or not he had erred in locking the
magazine in the trunk of his car. And when he got it into his house, slipped
between the pages of the evening paper, he had racked his mind for a good place
to hide it.

The bookcase in his study was, he was sure, an excellent
place, although he lived in fear that in a frenzy of inspired housecleaning his
wife would find it. Sometimes he hoped she would, evidence of his guilty
secret, the symbol of his vulnerability. It would prove his lack of impotence.
It would show her that there was still the old craving. How then could he
better tell her how she had killed it in him by her disinterest? Eduardo, you
sly bastard, he whispered, sure now of his presence in the room. How I envy you
your passion? That was the question which described the nub of his shame, his
personal shame.

His professional shame was that he could not have foreseen
what was emerging between Eduardo and the three women. Never mind that it had
aborted his carefully planned surveillance. He had been betrayed by himself.
That was why he was searching through these papers, the random words that
strung together to describe a life which he could not touch with his
understanding. It haunted him now. And he knew it would obsess him throughout
the rest of his dry, barren life. Why? Why had he been unable to foresee?

He reached for a file marked "Palmero-Valdivia."
He had seen it once, glanced over it with little interest or comprehension. Now
he opened its pages and began to study the transcript.

"Translated from the Araucanian dialect," the
line above the text read and under it was a brief history of the Araucanian
Indians. No matter how many of them were butchered by the conquistadors and by
later "liberators," they had never surrendered. They were the only
Indian tribe in the Americas that had never surrendered, the writer had pointed
out with, it seemed to Dobbs, unprofessional pride.

"And you first saw Palermo when he came to write a
story about your village?"

The old man had nodded. He was small and wizened, the interrogator
had pointed out. There apparently was an interpreter present, and the interview
seemed choppy.

"It was for the party magazine," the interrogator
added. "And your daughter first saw him then?"

The old man had nodded again. His face registered no expression.

"She was working for the mission," he said,
pointing to the mission wall, beyond which rose the ancient steeple of an old
Spanish church. "She was fourteen and somehow she had remained pure, a
virgin."

"How did you know this?"

"We knew."

"And she simply disappeared with him?"

"He said he wanted her." The old man turned his
eyes away, looking into the ground with guilt.

"What did he give you?"

The old man shrugged.

"How much?"

"Two hundred. It was more money than I had ever seen
at one time in all of my life."

"And he took her away?"

"Yes."

"And then?"

"She came back."

"And where is she now?"

The old man shrugged.

"I have money," the interrogator said. The old
man began to talk again.

Eduardo had expected his anger at Miranda, at himself, to
abate in Valdivia. Instead, it intensified, and although he threw himself into
his work with vigor and zealousness, he could not wipe it out. Perhaps it was
the anger that added the fire to his speeches to the dock workers, the farmers,
and factory hands and gave more bite to the articles he wrote for the party
paper. Allende and the other party functionaries sent him long letters of
commendation. He worked tirelessly, more out of fear that, if he should slow
down, he would be tormented by his memories of Miranda. He saw her face
everywhere, imagined her body, even as he copulated with the whores of
Valdivia.

Since he had not the constitution to drink heavily, he
found his escape only in women. Somehow it was the only way he could escape the
torment, as if he could lose himself in the imagined womb of Miranda.

"Say nothing," he would tell them. "I will
pay you double if you do not speak." They looked at him with thickly
made-up, startled eyes.

He had rented a small house in a decaying neighborhood not
far from the city's center and just a few blocks from the party headquarters.
Because it was so close, it became another meeting place for the party workers,
who swarmed over the house as if it were their own. Sometimes, if offered
drinks or food, they would stay long into the night. He hated to be alone. Yet
he was deliberately aloof, except when it came to party matters. Luckily, the
level of intensity among the party workers was high and their absorption in
these matters could sustain their interest.

Because he was wealthier than the others, he was treated
with exaggerated respect and he was able to deflect any attempts at intimacy,
especially by the women, many of them young students who formed the bulwark of
the party's support, after the workers.

It was not that he didn't want them. With all women now, he
could feel a sense of Miranda in them, but the prospect of intimacy,
communication, thwarted him. He preferred the whores. He could pay them to be
silent, to offer nothing but their bodies.

His father, he discovered from others who came to the city
on business, was so upset with him, his pride so offended, that one could not
mention Eduardo's name in his presence. He had even forbidden his mother and
sisters to communicate with him. This he had expected. Eduardo's betrayal had
been deep, and he was certain that Miranda, who played the role of abandoned
wife with great aplomb, had not helped the situation.

What did it matter, he told himself. Their lives were
fantasy-ridden, dissolute with greed. The curtain was swiftly coming down on
their way of life. It was tragic that they could not see it happening or,
fearing its demise, did nothing to stop it. In his mind, he could wipe out much
of his previous life. All except Miranda!

It was worse, surely far worse, than a physical affliction
to ache for her, to want her. And yet she would do her "duty." To
contemplate it made him ashamed of his manhood, his inability to control the
focus of his desire. It was with Uno that he discovered the depths of his
damnation.

He had seen her first in the mission, a child-woman not
much older than her wards, emaciated children who played in a dust bowl at the
far end of the mission wall. The old padre was showing him around the mission,
his myopic eyes squinting into the sun-drenched courtyard. Eduardo had come to
the village, a tiny hamlet wedged into the edge of the Cordillera about fifty
miles north of Valdivia, armed with a writing tablet and his camera and bent on
using the plight of the Araucanians as a symbol of the ultimate dehumanization
of the Chilean ruling class. The government had declared the Araucanians a kind
of protected endangered species, but that had done little to relieve their
extreme poverty.

"They are children," the old padre sighed as his
bent body labored to make the long hegira around the littered courtyard. It was
the fashionable epithet of the Church, whose power had always been on the side
of the oligarchs. Eduardo outwardly expressed sympathy with the old man's
opinions. The objective, of course, was to portray the opposite view. He was
beginning to learn the power of charm, dissembling to achieve a specific goal.

"The best they can look forward to is the kingdom of
heaven," the old man said. As he approached the spot where the children
were playing, they suddenly stopped and stood at attention. When he passed
before them, they each bowed and kissed his ring, while he blessed them with
the sign of the cross. Uno stood a few feet away, watching the spectacle
approvingly. It gave Eduardo a chance to view her, a doll-like creature,
barefoot, her skin the color of cocoa, hardly more than four and a half feet,
but well proportioned. Her eyes watched him briefly, then turned quickly away
as he concentrated his gaze on her. The ceremony over, she shepherded the
children back to the dustbowl, where she seemed to be administering some kind
of game with sticks and stones.

He continued to watch her as she moved. Considering her
shabby gray smock, tied at the waist, there was an odd grace to her walk, and
when she turned in a swift motion, her hair rustling as if a breeze had caught
it, he knew why he had observed her with such interest. She seemed a tiny, dark
replica of Miranda, a primitive doll carved from the petrified wood found
beyond the last timber-line of the Cordillera.

The old man had moved away, and it was only when he called
to Eduardo that he interrupted his concentration.

"I was curious about the game," Eduardo said, to
cover his embarrassment. But his thoughts were with the small child-woman.

"A simple game," the old padre said. "They
play it all their lives. They are the meek." he whispered. "The Son
of God has put them in our care."

Eduardo checked his temptation to enlighten. Nothing had
changed in this village for centuries.

"And do they still practice the old tribal
customs?" he asked gently.

The old man shrugged. It was a question he deigned not to
answer. A bell rang in the steeple and the children stopped their play and
straggled into the church. Again he had an opportunity to watch the girl as she
led the motley group toward them.

"May I take their picture?" Eduardo asked.

The old padre motioned to the girl, who came forward, her
head bowed. He spoke to her in an odd-sounding dialect. She responded with a
whispered word and lined the children against the sun-drenched wall, then
stepped away.

"And her, too," Eduardo said. He motioned to her
while the old man spoke to her.

He began to take their pictures, stepping closer as he
snapped, finally capturing her alone in the lens as he moved forward. She
seemed frightened, her lips tight, her eyes lowered.

"What is her name?"

The old padre mumbled her name. It sounded like Uno, but he
knew that was not correct. It will be Uno then, he told himself.

"Tell her to smile," Eduardo requested, wondering
how far he could go with the old man.

"She does not know what that means."

"Then tell her something funny that will make her
laugh."

"They do not laugh," the old man said, his
contempt showing now. Eduardo did not press the point, but snapped his
pictures, then put his camera back in its case. The old man waved the children
away and they continued their ragged march through a stone door, from which
came the smell of food.

"Why don't they laugh?" Eduardo asked, wondering
if the question would end his interview. The old man looked at him through his
myopic eyes.

"Would you laugh if you were them?" It seemed an
incongruous answer. He had expected something like, "It is God's
will." The walk had wearied the old man and he sat down on the steps at
the entrance of the broken-down stone church. He had hoped that the old padre
would be his interpreter. He wanted to visit in the village, to take pictures.
He had already shaped the story in his mind. There was enough squalor to
portray their plight.

"Is there someone in the village who also speaks
Spanish?" he asked the old man, who was beginning to drowse, oblivious to
the flies that swirled about his nose.

"Terrano," the padre said, pausing. "The
girl's father."

"Where is he?" He felt his palms begin to sweat.

The padre pointed in the direction of the village, a vague
gesture. The old man, he could tell, was growing bored with him.

He started to go. Then, hesitating, he halted, watching the
old man, the eyelids heavy with fatigue, the gray hairs sprouting on his face.
The image of the girl hung in his mind. Uno! Although he had long been an
atheist, he felt the sense of blasphemy in his thoughts about the girl, a
corruption in himself. It is Miranda, he assured himself. Part of her curse.

"Could you ask the girl to show me to her father?"
he said. He had already dipped his hand in his pocket and when the old man
opened his eyes he saw the money.

"And this contribution," Eduardo said, "for
your trouble." His hypocrisy was an obscenity.

The sight of the money revitalized the old man, confirming
Eduardo's cynicism. The padre clapped his hands a number of times in quick
succession. The girl appeared and the padre spoke to her in the strange
language. Without looking at him, the girl nodded and began to move away toward
the courtyard entrance.

"He is an old fox," the padre said to Eduardo.
"Keep an eye on your pockets." Then the aged eyes closed again, and
looking back as he reached the courtyard entrance, he saw the ancient head
reposing on the old man's chest.

Outside the mission, Eduardo followed the girl closely,
watching her swift, graceful movements, the easy swing of her girl-woman hips,
noting how well formed her legs were, tapered at the ankles, her feet not yet
swollen like those of the other Indian women. They came into a clearing, a clutter
of litter and rusting junk. The stink was abominable. A small, dark, muscular
man sat in the entrance of a makeshift shack with a corrugated tin roof. From
the interior of the shack came the cackling of women's voices in the strange
dialect. Barefoot children roamed about the clearing with scrawny dogs. When
they saw the girl, they clustered around her skirts, but she waved them away.

The dark man, his small body like rip cord except for a
slightly distended belly, watched the oncoming man without interest. His
daughter spoke to him and he looked up desultorily. The girl moved away and
squatted some distance from them. Eduardo's eyes followed her. It was only then
that he noted the man's engaging interest.