The Casanova Embrace (11 page)

The woman's scent preceded her presence, the light smell of
gardenias. Her voice was soft. He suddenly remembered Isabella, which only
served to frighten him further as the image of that night outside his father's
study flashed through his mind.

"Your friend is beyond immediate hope," the woman
said gently. "He is obviously ignorant of his body. Liquor is not an
aphrodisiac."

She seemed so knowledgeable, strong, confident. He felt
intimidation now, although she seemed softer somehow than the hard arrogant
woman at the bar. She moved her body closer toward him. The gardenia scent grew
stronger.

"It is amazing how ignorant men are about women,"
she said. He wondered whether she felt his presence, since she did not wait for
a response. "He could not bear the fact that he could not move me."

"Who?" he whispered, his throat tight.

"Juan." She sighed. "I did admire him
greatly. Of course, I told him that I loved him, which was a lie. I could have
lied about the other. But he did not move me, and I finally told him that and
he left. Just like that. I was at the beach today and he simply upped and
left."

"He was your lover?"

"In a manner of speaking. But he could not bear the
truth." She paused. "And yet it was not his fault. He was not the
first. No man has moved me, not one, and, believe me, I have had many lovers."

"You seem so young." He was finding his courage
now, the implication clear.

"I am twenty-two." She turned toward him and
smiled. "My name is Elena, Elena Mendoza." She put out her hand and
giggled like a girl much younger.

"I am Eduardo Palmero."

"I am not a prostitute in the traditional sense,"
she said. "But when one is desperate and there are fools.... "She
paused. "He is a fool, you know." She jerked a thumb toward the room.
"He is quite taken with himself, too much with himself to ever really move
a woman."

"They seem to go mad for him."

"There is more than what meets the eye," she
sighed, looking up into the sky. "What a lovely night." Her hand
reached down and covered his as if the need to touch a stranger's flesh seemed
important. The feel of her made him shiver and he felt his loins react, the
blood surging.

"I doubt if I will ever find a man who moves me,"
she said, squeezing his hand. "Perhaps it is me. Sometimes I am convinced
it is me."

"You are lovely," he said, his throat
constricting. He felt the heat of a deep flush.

"You are very kind to say that, especially since there
is really no need."

"I mean it."

She squeezed his hand.

"I know," she said.

"It is not easy to be a woman in this society,"
she said. Apparently she had given the matter a great deal of thought. He
caught the spark of her intelligence, the political implication, and felt
himself drawing closer to her.

"It comes from generations of thinking of us as
chattel, as a commodity for their instant gratification." She chuckled.
"I hate men. Yet, I forgive them. Can you understand that?"

"Yes," he lied, admitting his confusion to
himself. He had only a partial understanding.

"This thing with Juan. It is not the first time it has
happened."

"Perhaps you're too honest."

"Perhaps."

"And what will happen when you find a man that moves
you?" He was feeling courage now. The soft gardenia, salt-tinged scent of
the night air, the faint rhythm of the surf, the nearness of her flesh goaded
his manhood. He felt the throbbing of a compelling erection. He looked at her.
Her kimono had opened and he could see the nipples on the white globes of her
breasts. His breath seemed to catch and the enunciation of words became
difficult.

"I will follow him everywhere. To hell and back,"
she said firmly. "I will have need for only one man then."

"And if he betrays you?"

"Well then.... "she hesitated, searching in her
mind. "Then I will kill him...."

He shivered, feeling the strength of her conviction. She
pressed his hand.

"There is nothing on earth I would not do for a man
that moves me. But he must be only my man. I would be faithful to him until
death. I do not seek the embrace of a Casanova. He must be mine, and mine
alone.... "Her voice drifted into silence. "I am talking
nonsense," she said.

"You would do anything for him. Anything?" He was
confused, since he had not yet tasted the power of it.

"Of course," she said, responding again.

"And would the same be true of a man? If a woman moved
him?"

"I cannot say. I'm only a woman." But the thought
must have lingered in her mind. "I would be perfectly willing to direct a
docile slave. Perfectly willing. Unfortunately it has not happened." She
turned to him and smiled. "And you. Would you take advantage of such
power?"

He shrugged. "Why not?" It was so far from the
realm of his experience, he could afford to be cavalier. After a pause he said,
"But how do I find it?"

"Search for it," she said turning toward him,
opening her kimono further. He looked downward to the thatch of dark hair
between her legs. She watched his eyes.

"Fish the waters," she said. "Someone will
bite the hook." He felt the awkwardness of his innocence. "And you,
my benefactor. Let us see who moves who." A hardness had begun to seep
back into her, which he noted indifferently. His desire was overwhelming him.

"I've never been with a woman before," he
blurted, feeling his helplessness. Somehow he trusted her with this secret. She
moved a hand down to his crotch, caressing his erection.

"Well, there doesn't seem to be a physical
problem," she said, unzipping his pants and holding the hard flesh in her
hand.

"Do you think I can move you?" he gasped, his
breath shortening. He felt an exquisite lightness as her fingers touched him,
then a consuming sense of urgency as concentrated pleasure engulfed him and a
sound gurgled in his throat.

"I am ashamed," he said, after he had recovered
himself. She cradled his head in her arms and moved his mouth to her breast.

"Never be ashamed of your pleasure," she said.
"It is a gift. I envy you."

"But I have failed...."

"Shh." She caressed his head and he sucked her
nipple in some vague memory of his infancy. He felt the security of it, the
warmth of her flesh, the odd comfort of her caress.

"You are beautiful," he whispered.

"You are also beautiful," she said, stretching
out on the divan, helping him remove his clothes. He felt the flood of his
manhood begin again.

"You see. Life is renewable."

He felt tears run down his cheeks, the scent of her filling
him with a joy he had never known. Then her hand was guiding him and he was
enveloped by her. It is paradise, he thought, as all the hurts of his life were
suddenly being sucked out of him. Her body moved under him, tantalizing.

"I love you," he said, feeling his body overflow
again, the delicious, mounting, unbearable pleasure, the release of all that
had ever pained him. "I love you," he said again, hoping that he
might hear her respond. But her breath barely moved against his cheek and he
knew that he had not moved her.

"And if I had moved you," he asked later as they sat
quietly on the divan looking into the blackness of the sea.

"Then I would follow you forever, even to the edges of
hell."

Dobbs put down the file and shook himself, as if the
physical act might loosen his momentary fixation on Elena Mendoza. So they had
really wanted to know this man, Eduardo Allesandro Palmero, to crawl inside his
soul. It was something he knew that he, Dobbs, also wanted. And it annoyed him.
Somehow it seemed unprofessional. The soul, after all, should be a private
place, hidden, buried from all prying eyes. Even his.

Frederika Millspaugh unwrapped the plastic covering of her
tuna fish sandwich, unlocking the strong, pungent fishy odor. The Amtrak New
York to Washington train had just left the Philadelphia station and was gaining
momentum, heading southward toward Wilmington when she remembered the sandwich,
which she had thrust into her handbag on her way out of Harold's apartment. It
was nearly ten o'clock at night, and while she had made the snack as a hedge
against her later hunger, the condition arrived earlier than expected.

The odor made her feel conspicuous, slightly foolish, even
a little greedy. She knew that the man sitting next to her reading a book in
the Spanish language surely must be smelling it, offended but politely ignoring
it. Seeing him, as he had filed behind her into the train, she had a vague
premonition that she had somehow engaged his interest. But he had settled in as
the train left New York, opened the book and had moved little, apparently
absorbed by what he was reading, proving again her faulty perception. She had
paid little attention to him up till then, but now felt uncomfortable as she
looked at the white bread and the badly made sandwich. The lettuce had been
wilted to begin with and the sojourn in her warm pocketbook had increased its
disintegration. But the observation did not turn off her hunger. She actually
felt her stomach yearn for it, making embarrassing noises, which the man surely
must have heard. After all, you can't not smell or not listen, she thought.

"Would you like a half a tuna fish sandwich?" she
asked him. He turned slowly from the book, his silvery gray eyes briefly moving
over her face like a spotlight, then darting to the sandwich. He smiled,
showing white teeth.

"You might as well share in the feast."

He slapped the book shut, seemed to look at her with some
interest, which secretly flattered her. His eyes had, from the first moment,
already captured her interest.

"Why not?" he said. She could detect the
carefully practiced English pronunciation that masked his obviously Latino
background.

She handed him one half of the sandwich, which he took
between long, delicate, tapering fingers. He had well-cared-for hands, she
noted, conscious of her own cracked nails.

"The train is a little boring at night," she
said. "All I see when I look out the window is my own face."

"Even in the daylight the view is not inspiring."
His language was precise, unquestionably studied. "I mean the landscape,
not the face." There was an air of courtliness about him, she thought. A
phony, she decided, in her habit of deprecation. She was quick to label people
by the amount of sincerity she imagined them to have.

"You seem to be greatly absorbed in that book,"
she said perfunctorily, hiding her distrust. It was an annoying defense
mechanism, this compulsive putdown. But she had learned it was safer that way.
Better to be surprised by people's goodness.

"Yes. It is absorbing. Written by Pablo Neruda, the
great Chilean author."

Chile, she thought, remembering. Allende. A few years ago
it might have prompted a passionate reaction, perhaps even violence. But that
was another Frederika, the revolutionary Frederika. She could barely remember
that other person.

"You're a Chilean," she said, vaguely interested.
That was another aspect of her latest incarnation. She could be only vaguely
interested. Her juices, like the tides, had ebbed. It was the way Harold had
put it, and despite her protestations, he was exactly right.

"Nothing seems to turn you on any more,
Frederika," Harold had told her over drinks in that kitschy little place
on Sixty-eighth Street around the corner from his apartment. She sipped a beer,
watching the singles rat race taking place around the bar with mild contempt.

"Maybe I've felt it all. Maybe there is nothing left
to feel."

All weekend she had wallowed in self-pity, but even that
condition lacked any real engagement.

"Accept, Frederika. Accept."

She watched Harold's face, the once straggly beard scraped
clean along the cheeks and chin, although the thick mustache was still there,
well trimmed, with only the hint of a droop at either end. He wore wire-rimmed
goggles now. The little grannies were discarded, and the hair, once down to the
shoulders, was clipped neatly with the ear lobes showing. He wore one of those
tapered imitation leather shirts, split down to mid chest, with a big shiny
gold medallion hanging from his neck. He was acting Playboy macho and it was
more amusing than sad.

He even fucked differently, she had thought, with a kind of
practiced cerebral technique, which was also amusing, but offered little in the
way of sensual delights. But that was another matter. Even getting laid had
become a bore, which was one reason she rarely dated anymore. Actually, after
the curiosity had passed, it had always been a bore, a kind of heatless
submission.

"I'm a burnt-out case," she said with mock
cheerfulness.

"At twenty-eight?"

"Twenty-nine."

He was an editor at H. K. Books now and they had attended a
cocktail party at the apartment of another editor, which was the excuse for the
weekend in the first place. Everyone seemed very into money and
"things," although they were the first to admit, almost
apologetically, she thought, that most of what they published was "pure
shit" but that was what the public wanted.

"It's over, Frederika," Harold said. He put a
hand over hers and squeezed it.

"Over?"

"The way we were."

"Christ, Harold. That's the title of a movie."

"Jeez, you're right." He felt embarrassed,
shrugged and tossed off his neat Chivas, about which he had made such a fuss
with the waiter.

"If only you can stop being the voice of my
conscience," he said. He had been the most radical of them all. She had
met him briefly at Berkeley, then later when they went with Mailer to the
Pentagon. She smiled, remembering that she had once been his "woman"
and they had spent most of their time in crash pads and sleeping bags. Who were
those people, she wondered. Last night, lying next to him, not sleeping, she
had smelled the real Harold. Apparently the musk had worn off and the pores of
his body had cleared and the smell of the old Harold had come again into her
nostrils, masculine-sweaty, and the memory of it had made her eyes mist with
sadness. Gone. It was all gone.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

He ordered another round.

"It's over," he said again. He looked at her and
she could see his hazel eyes behind the glasses, a bit frightened, but clear,
with that unmistakable quick intelligence which people recognized as a sign of
leadership. "The moving finger writes. Hell, we changed the fucking world,
Frederika."

"Big deal."

"They're starting to write books about us. We're
becoming legendary romantic figures. We did it and it's over." His cheeks
began to flush. Little red circles like dabs of rouge appeared on his cheekbones.
"For everything there is a season."

"My God, Harold."

"There's truth in it, Frederika."

"First a movie title. Then the Bible."

"Well, we're no longer a subculture."

"Mainliners, eh?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact. We're getting into
leadership positions. We're going to run the whole goddamned country."

"No shit." She was being deliberately deprecating
again, resuming her pose. He put his hands up and shook his head.

"You can't leave it alone. You can't forget it. Still
got to live like it was in the sixties. Come on, Freddie." He hadn't
called her that for years. "Phase out. You got to come down off the
mountain."

He was, of course, absolutely right. But she was caught in
limbo now, treading water. She had tried, really tried. The magic word had been
relevance then, and even when she entered Georgetown Law School it had seemed,
at first, like a new beginning. Most of her classmates were still part of it,
or so it seemed. But whatever it was that had moved her then had disappeared
and she had dropped out.

Even now, waiting on tables in Clyde's Omelet Room, where
the tips were pretty good, she would see some of her old Georgetown classmates.
They were lawyers now. Into money, as they told her, or so she imagined that
they told her. They seemed like shadows, apparitions now, barely perceptible as
people. Like her mother and father living in that fancy condominium in San
Diego, hustling to fill up their leisure, somehow getting through the day with
tennis and shopping and gossip, then rushing to make the scene at the happy
hour in the private condominium club.

"Maybe you should see a shrink?"

"I've been there, Harold," she said tossing off
her beer. Her stomach felt bloated. "I've been everywhere," she
sighed.

"Oh, come off that tired-of-it-all shit, Freddie. You're
even beginning to look the part." He must have known that his words had
bit deep. Despite all, her vanity had not been crushed. By some fluke, she had
maintained her looks without even trying. None of the previous abuse had
shattered them. The bad food, the pot, the occasional pills, uppers, downers,
speed, LSD. The lack of sleep. The sleeping around. Recently she had caught
herself trying to remember all the men she had gone to bed with. She could
barely remember their faces, although she could recollect some odd shaped
penises.

"You're still beautiful, Freddie," he said
gently. "I don't mean it that way."

He hadn't. She knew that. When she had taken off her plaid
shirt and faded jeans, she had stood before him for a moment, displaying her
nakedness. It seemed the best moment of the weekend and it had happened when
she had just arrived, like giving her a ticket of admission.

"Jeez, Freddie. You still look like a young kid."

Actually she hadn't been laid for nearly six months and had
barely paid attention to her body. She liked what he had said, had enjoyed that
first touching, as if it were the harbinger of more to come. But it was all
illusion and it had quickly gone sour. She consciously manipulated his body to
make him come quickly. Which he did. She felt nothing, wondering if he had
really felt pleasure. The image fled quickly, dissolved by the voice of the man
beside her.

"I am a Chilean," the voice said. He turned
toward her and bit into the sandwich. Then he put up one finger as he waited
for the dryness to dissolve.

"It's a bit dry," she said. "We should have
something to drink with it. Feel like a cup of coffee?"

He stood up. He was tall, and waiting for her to move into
the aisle, he let her pass and they walked in the direction of the snack bar. She
felt him watching her. Then he quickly stepped ahead of her to open the door
between the cars. At that range she could smell his breath, slightly fishy. His
hand had looked strong as it gripped the door handle. At that moment the train
lurched slightly and she touched his arm, feeling the hardness of his taut
muscle. At the snack bar, he ordered two coffees, which were served in
styrofoam cups. They leaned against a little counter opposite the snack bar.
She could see his face now, although it seemed slightly hidden behind the mist
of steam from the hot coffee.

"You're a long way from home," she said, oddly
observing her own curiosity.

"Five thousand miles, to be exact."

"That's further than it is to Europe."

"And to some parts of Asia."

"What the hell are you doing so far from home?"

He smiled, not joyously. There was a hint of deprecation.

"I'm not here by choice."

"I see," she said. Sipping his coffee, he seemed
to be withdrawing from her. She barely read the newspapers these days and Chile
was remote.

"Were you in prison?" She had remembered
something about Chilean prisons, torture, juntas. Perhaps she had seen
references on the cover of some magazine. Politics were anathema now. A bore,
she had told herself. Earlier in her life she had been too greedy, and her
taste buds had become jaded, beyond sensation.

"Yes. As a matter of fact." The answer startled
her, drawing her interest. He finished his coffee and she followed him back to
their seats. He stood aside politely to let her through to the window side. She
continued to hold the coffee container. When he sat down he opened his book.

"Were they cruel?" Did she really care, she
wondered.

He closed the book.

"Cruel?" He watched her now, his eyes roaming
over her face, searching her.

"They tortured you?"

He grimaced, lines spreading in a frown across his
forehead.

"I try not to think about it."

"Is that possible?" She knew it was. Hadn't she
blotted out whole chunks of years from her memory, willed them out of her
thoughts whenever they tried to emerge?

"Not really," he said and she saw now that she
had broken the ice. He put the book beside him near the arm rest, a sign of his
engagement. She felt herself flush and knew that the pores had begun to open in
her armpits, as if her body had begun to thaw.

"I really don't know a damned thing about Chilean
politics," she said. Nor do I care, she wanted to add, but she liked the
sound of his voice, the way he inflected his speech with that preposterous
precision.

"Few Americans do," he responded. There was an
air of pedantry about him. Despite that, she wanted to hear more.

"So you were in prison?" She knew she had taken a
lucky shot, had inspired his interest. He nodded.

"I was in jail once," she said. "Overnight.
We all sang songs until our throats burned out."

"Where I was, there were no songs." He was
dipping deep into himself. She imagined his tongue was touching some exposed
nerve in his mouth.

"That bad?"

"It builds character." There was a brief sarcasm.
He was bottled up, she decided, on the verge of uncorking. She wondered how it
was to feel such anger and envied him for it.