The Casanova Embrace (4 page)

"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.

Who am I, she wondered, an errant thought that intruded, as
she actually got on her knees before him, unloosening his pants, kneeling
before his erection, like a supplicant before a shrine. You are beautiful, she
heard herself say, her eyes greedy for the sight of him as she kissed and
caressed his manhood, feeling his hands on her hair. She was growing shivery
with pleasure, the orgasmic urgency beginning, a sensation so rare in her life
that she cried out with pleasure, unable to control the sounds in her throat.

Then she was being half-lifted to the bed and she felt his
fingers undressing her, removing the pantyhose that she so ceremoniously had
put on just a few hours earlier. She lay back watching his body loom over her,
saw the depths of the silver flecks in the gray eyes, the wonderful smile. A
gift, she thought. It is my gift. And then she drew him inside of her as he
plunged, gently at first, sliding inward, filling her up with a largeness that
perhaps she had longed for, suffered for, wanted. The power of it, the pleasure
of it made her gasp as he lingered for a moment and she moved her body to meet
his, waited, drew back, returned again until he was moving into her with a
hardness that she knew had never touched her experience before. I am being born
again, her mind told her, as she began to tremble and shake, waves of pleasure
unfolding like some vast repetitive surf responding to the cosmic pull of the
moon. Inside of her, she felt his throbbing, the beat of his blood as it gained
strength, then hesitated, like the tremulous flight of a predatory bird who
glided, then moved downward toward its prey, an explosion of energy. She heard
some inchoate sound, felt his shudder and the receding surf, feeling the inner
spring of her body lose its tension, uncurl, search for silence and repose.

When she had recovered her sense of self, she wondered
whether he had watched her and was suddenly ashamed.

"Look what you have done to me," she said,
conscious now that her dress lay creased above her waist. He, too, was still
wearing his shirt, the tie still neatly knotted.

"I don't know myself," she said, despite her
disarray, feeling beautiful nestled in his arms, his hardness disappearing now,
her mind responding to the details of hygiene.

"You are wonderful," Eduardo said.

"It is you who are wonderful." She was determined
now to tell him. "I have never been moved like this. I swear. Never."
She watched his face. Then he turned away.

"I meant it," she said. She had expected him to
respond. But he said nothing, watching her, almost clinically. Had she moved
him? she wanted to ask.

"I want to stay here forever," she heard herself
say. I need this man, she told herself secretly. He was disengaging, now
standing up, immodest about his nakedness. She looked at his penis, a beautiful
gladiator in her imagery, glistening in repose, and she lifted her hand to
caress it.

"You are beautiful," she said again, rising to
kiss it. Then he moved away into another part of the apartment and she heard
water running. Lying there, she could not believe she was the same person who
had awakened in her bed that morning.

She looked about the apartment. It was sparsely furnished.
The double bed on which she lay was actually a mattress on a Harvard frame. A
bridge table piled high with papers, and books were everywhere, a forest of
odd-shaped columns. There were bookshelves along one wall, crudely made,
brackets stuck into the wall with shelving painted the dull white color of the
walls, which were barren of pictures. Beside the bed was a night table with a
reading lamp, and along the windowed wall, three piles of newspapers nearly
reached the ledge. She noted that some were written in Spanish, some English.
The blinds were slightly awry, furthering the transitory impression. It seemed
incongruous and she could not place the neat handsome man in such a tumultuous
environment. It was a cell, more like an animal's cage. On one of the chairs at
the bridge table was a grease-stained box which once had contained a pizza. She
noted, too, that no telephone was visible. She was so absorbed in her survey
that she did not see him return.

"The den of an exile," he said. His voice
startled her. Recalling her modesty, she stood up and primly patted her dress.
He had apparently showered and his curly hair had blackened with the dampness.
He looked younger.

"It needs a woman's touch," she said, suddenly
embarrassed as he stared at her. She saw her shoes, like stray bricks from a
ruin, on the carpetless wooden floor. Beside them, her pantyhose lay in a
crumpled heap. Gathering them up quickly, she went into the bathroom. It was
damp from his shower and the one towel on the rack was wet. A ring of dirt
circled the white porcelain sink, above which lay a thin sliver of soap from a
tiny bar, perhaps from some hotel. A single toothbrush, the bristles worn, lay
in the porcelain holder. In the mirror, she saw that her eyes had filled with
tears. Everything is changed, she thought. Her old life was dead. Removing her
dress, she washed with great fastidiousness, as if the careful cleansing might
erase the guilt that had begun to tug at her.