The Casanova Embrace (3 page)

"I can't imagine what I was thinking."

But she knew what she was thinking since she carried in her
head always the graceful image of Eduardo Palmero, probing the message that he
carried in his gray eyes with their flashes of silver. At times, when she was
not pursuing some task, his image would become more animated as if he were
calling to her from somewhere inside her brain. I am thirty-five years old, she
would tell herself, not some dumb teen-aged ninny. I am a woman of the world,
she assured herself, although secretly she knew that she had remained an
innocent. Claude LaFarge had not been her childhood sweetheart. Actually, she
had considered herself quite experienced with men by the time she had met him.
She was a student at the Sorbonne, living with her parents in their big house
on Rue de Lyon. Her father was a prosperous surgeon. Her mother was totally
devoted to him. They entertained frequently and lavishly and it was at one of
their soirees that she had met Claude, a rising young diplomat with the foreign
office in Paris. Even then he was intense, totally immersed in political
matters, but in those days she had been attracted by that and, of course, he
had, by every standard of class and position, the impeccable credentials for a
perfect match.

They had been married in the Cathedral of Notre Dame and
spent their honeymoon in Marrakesh. Quickly, she rationalized the trauma of her
sexual indifference. Her mother had hinted of it. Satisfy your man, she had
confided. What more was there? Actually, she enjoyed being the wife of a
diplomat, enjoyed living in foreign places, enjoyed her children. She enjoyed a
happy marriage, she told herself. Claude was not indifferent and she sensed he
was faithful and honorable.

If there were secrets they were those special ones that
mates normally kept from each other, glossed over, sometimes forgotten, rarely
violated. Sensible people forgave them silently. Nor had she ever dared confess
them to the priests when she was still religious. She could not tell him, for
example, that her cousin Michel, thick-witted and dull, was the first male she
had seen in full sexual excitement. To this day, Michel might have felt that he
had seduced her, but she knew that it had been she who had been the aggressor,
her curiosity that had gotten him into that state. She had even let him put it
part way into her and had watched; his eyes were closed when he had his climax
and she was fascinated by the sight. Nor would she dare to tell him about the
other young men at school whom she had learned to satisfy by masturbation and
sometimes orally. In those days, the guilt had been deep, although the pleasure
to herself illusive. Actually, her hymen had been ruptured by Pierre Damon, an intern
who worked for her father, in the back seat of his car, but it had--like all
the other experiences--been relegated to secrecy. Looking back, as she
sometimes did, she concluded it was nothing, hardly worth the expense of
energy. Actually, as time passed, the secret memories took on an unreality,
events that had never really happened, and she hardly thought about them, going
for years without consciously remembering.

Now she was remembering every detail and it annoyed her.
This is not being me, she told herself. But what, after all, was "being
me." Is this all, she wondered, reviewing her life with Claude and her
children. And yet, it seemed so pedestrian a position to be in, a stereotype of
the yearning, dissatisfied women in those American magazines geared to attract
readers from those searching for "fulfillment." Am I like them? she
wondered. A Frenchwoman was supposed to be different. She refused to let
herself be depressed by such thoughts. Then why was she longing for another
glimpse of Eduardo Palmero, and why was she experiencing physical signs of such
longing? She would nervously survey the crowd at social events, at
supermarkets, at restaurants. And when she walked the streets her eyes were
always fastened on the people on both sides of the street, looking for him. She
had even looked up his name in the telephone books of the District of Columbia,
Virginia and Maryland. It was not listed.

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.