The Casanova Embrace (37 page)

That night she slept in the spare room, hovering on the
edge of wakefulness, her mind dwelling on things of the past, her girlhood in
Paris, her school days, her father's face. She sought tranquillity there,
finding it in the recall of her mother's touch. She felt her mother's hand
braiding her long hair. The process was long and she patiently enjoyed it, each
braid tightly made, with that gentle touch, and the soft, velvet voice. Mama!

"My beautiful Marie," her mother's voice said.
"There is great joy in being a woman, a beautiful woman. The world will be
at your feet." One could face the world with such a thought, a mother's
assurance. But she had also said, "You will see. Nothing will disappoint
you." It was, of course, the ultimate lie, handed down the generations by
mothers braiding the silken hair of beautiful daughters. She could see her
mother's face in the reflection of the glass and the fullness of her own adolescent
breasts, the nipples pink against the cream of her flesh.

She awoke with a start. The house was quiet. She ran
downstairs in her nightgown. There was a note from Claude among the unwashed
breakfast dishes.

"Have fed the children. We will talk later."

It was nearly ten. She rushed through her shower, dressed
quickly, and without makeup ran into the car and drove quickly to Eduardo's
apartment. It was only in the elevator that she focused on the reality of last
night's meeting. She knocked at his apartment. The door opened quickly and he
drew her in, clasping her in his strong arms, enveloping her.

"Eduardo." It was warm here. It was safe here.

"You're shivering."

"Hold me tight, my darling. Please hold me." She
could not seem to chase the chill.

"Are you ill?"

She didn't answer, lifting her face, finding his lips,
lingering over the proferred tongue, her hand drifting to his hardening
manhood, the mystery unfolding again. She knelt, undid his pants, watched him,
feeling the tears come as she kissed him. Then, at that moment, the idea of his
control over her gripped her and she felt a sudden urge to kill it inside of
her, to disengage. She drew him to the bed. I must feel nothing, nothing, she
told herself, willing it as she inserted him, feeling his body rise within her,
filling her. Nothing must touch me. I must kill him now, the idea of him.

But the will, her will, diminished as he lingered briefly
and she knew instantly that it was hopeless, a vain wish. The waves came,
crashing inside of her again, and despite her conscious will to kill it, the
pleasure rolled over her again and again. Can it be the same with them, she
wondered, waiting for it to begin again.

"Why you?" she said later, as she lay quietly in
his arms. They had been the first words she had uttered.

"Why you?" she said again. "Do you
understand it, Eduardo?"

"No."

"Do others react this way?" The cunning seemed so
pointless. But she persisted. "Other women?"

"I don't think about it," he said. She watched
him, tracing the lines of a frown on his forehead.

"How will I ever live without you?" She sighed.

"We endure," he said quietly. "The game of
life is to endure. To survive."

"Then you are letting me go?" she said, surprised
that there was no panic in her voice.

"What can I do?"

"It's a pity," she said.

"What?"

"That you are not a woman." It seemed a joke. She
caressed his penis. "No, you're definitely not a woman. How could any of
us expect you to understand?"

"Understand what?"

"The meaning."

"Meaning?"

He seemed so dense, so beyond understanding. He is an
innocent, she decided. And he must be destroyed for his innocence.

"And you think you will succeed?" she asked.

"One day, perhaps." He had, after all, never been
certain.

"And did I help? Was I of any service?"

"Of course. You were instrumental."

"And my reward for that?"

"That is the shame of it. There is no reward."

"I had you. That was reward enough."

He turned toward her, kissed her deeply.

"I hadn't intended to be cruel," he said after he
released her, standing up, looking at her, his nude body silhouetted against
the window. He is going to tell me now, she thought, to admit his duplicity,
his betrayal of us. But he simply stood there, unable or unwilling to be
articulate.

"I craved for you to feel as I feel," she said
finally when it was apparent that he would remain silent. "You will always
be my man, Eduardo." And I, she wondered, sensing a measure of bitterness,
will I always be your woman? It was futile to expect more. She got out of bed,
began to put on her clothes. Her fingers shook. Perhaps the end of the world
will occur right now, at this moment.

"I ask only that you accept me. Not judge me."
His voice seemed to plead with her, as if he understood what she knew. "I
think I am an aberration of time and place.... "His voice trailed off.

"Who is Miranda?" she asked suddenly. He moved
backward, as if the word were a blow, his eyes frightened. She saw him swallow
deeply and his chest seemed to labor to breathe.

"We are all her, I suppose," she said finally,
reaching for her clothes. He had not heard. Perhaps he had ceased to listen.

Fully dressed, she turned to look at him, a last look. He
had moved slightly, and his body was no longer a silhouette, but visibly naked
in all its detail, muscular and slender, its grace inescapable as he stood light
on his feet, a sculpted male. Beautiful, she thought, he is beautiful. And
wanting to remember him in just that way she let herself out the door and
walked quickly through the corridor to the elevator. She was surprised that she
was dry-eyed, relaxed, breathing easy.

Anne had been sitting stiffly in the wing chair in the
parlor, waiting for Frederika's call. It was still dark, although she could see
the first light changes of the coming dawn through the white curtains. The
telephone rang twice, then stopped, the prearranged signal. She got up, put on
her trenchcoat, and walked the deserted street toward Wisconsin Avenue, moving
northward toward Calvert Street. A policeman standing in a doorway, sheltered
from the wind, looked at her curiously. She stared him down with an arrogant
glance and moved on, turning on Calvert Street, hearing the click of her heels
on the pavement.

In the quickly growing light, she saw the patch of park,
the row of benches, the line of leafless trees. Stopping, she leaned against
one of them and waited, listening for footsteps, wondering if she had been the
first to arrive.

"Anne." It was Frederika's voice, a low whisper
behind her. Turning, she saw Frederika emerge from the back of a tree. Her lips
trembled, although the cold was not that severe. Anne came closer.

"I have it," Frederika said.

"Where?"

She pointed to a package, wrapped in brown paper, lying on
the ground. It looked innocent, makeshift, the twine knotted in a crude
fashion.

"So small?"

"It is quite lethal. I have been assured of
that." She looked at her watch. "It is set for 8:45 precisely."

"He is to meet me at the Riggs branch at exactly 8:50,
as we agreed," Anne said.

They listened. An automobile's door clicked shut. Then,
clearly, the sound of a woman's tread began. Looking toward the sound, they saw
Marie moving quickly. Anne stepped out of the shadows to direct her. Marie was
red-eyed, her hair awry, her face luminescently pale, almost transparent. A
network of blue veins crawled beneath her skin's surface.

"I'm sorry. There was a scene."

"You weren't followed?" Frederika asked.

"No." She hesitated. "I merely said I would
end it today, irrevocably. It was all so banal."

"You admitted it? You told your husband?"
Frederika looked at her incredulously.

"I said it was brief. I said I would end it now. And
that I would be home to see the children off. All very domestic. And quite
silly. But it was expected. It is part of the role of the contrite cheat."

"Does he suspect Eduardo?" Frederika probed.

"How could he?"

Frederika shrugged. Anne watched their faces in the
quickening light, wondering if her own reflected the same fear. She was
surprisingly calm, although when she looked at the package on the ground, she
felt a stab of sadness.

"There it is." Frederika pointed to it.

"So small?"

"Believe me. It will make a big bang. The person who
made it is an expert."

"It is not traceable?" Marie asked.

"I told you. The man is an expert."

Marie shivered visibly. "Do you think.... "she
began.

Anne supplied the unsaid words. "If only I could hate
him," she said quietly.

"I don't think I can do it," Marie said, her
voice cracking. "I am not conditioned to this. I don't think I can do
it."

"You think we're conditioned to it?" Frederika
said gently, touching Marie's shoulder.

"He said he was an aberration," Marie said.
"An aberration of time and place."

"What did he mean?" Frederika asked.

"He was searching for your understanding," Anne
said, her insight certain. "He was telling you he is different from other
men."

"He is," Marie said pugnaciously. "We all
know that."

"What does it matter?" Anne said. "What he
is changes nothing."

"No.... "Marie said hesitantly. "I suppose
you're right." Her shoulders dropped and her skin seemed to hang on her
face, the aging process begun. "I feel like I'm about to go to
prison," she said. "Without Eduardo life will be a prison."

"Don't you think you're so unique," Frederika
said. "Do you think I can bear the thought of going through life without
him?"

"Better half a loaf then," Anne said. She knew she
was mocking them and herself. She wondered what they would carry in their
memories, and felt her own resolve heighten. There is no other way, she told
herself. And yet the plan had never been that definite. The act had been
running on its own impetus. Frederika had agreed to find the bomb. She had
assured them it would be simple to retrace old contacts, to find a person with
this expertise. Terrorism had been institutionalized, and since money was of
little consequence to Anne, the means were simple. The bomb had cost fifty
thousand dollars. Frederika had merely handed over the bills to a bodiless hand
in Baltimore and a voice had instructed her as to the timing device so that it
would detonate according to plan. And Anne had, with a casualness that seemed
so out of touch with the knowledge of herself, simply made the appointment to
pick up the gold in the vaults of the Riggs branch on Dupont Circle. Marie had
agreed to put the bomb in the back seat of his car. And they had decided that
the moment of impact should take place as close as possible to the Chilean
Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. Simple steps. Simple devices. Hardly a
conspiracy. So simple.

"And if we are caught?" Frederika had raised the
question, but it had been on their minds.

"So we are caught," Anne said. What did it matter
now?

"They are all quite stupid," Frederika had
pointed out. "They will think it is the work of his enemies. The
DINA."

"Instincts," Anne had said. "What are our
instincts? We have all been betrayed by them."

They had parted then. It had been a brief meeting, casual.
Three ladies meeting in a park in mid-afternoon, amid the baby carriages and
the nannies and the young mothers gossiping on the benches. All so innocent. So
pedestrian.

"If there are any second thoughts.... "Frederika
asked now. Morning activity had begun in the area. They heard a car's horn
honk, footsteps on the pavement. People were on their way to work. The city was
rising.

"I don't have any," Marie insisted, now
straightening, but the skin on her face remained slack. "I wish I could
accept it as reality, but I can't."

Anne felt her own sense of impending emptiness, as if she
were feeling the last grains of sand passing through the hourglass of herself.
In a way the end of her life was coming as well. Perhaps the other women felt
that, too. She could, she hoped, relive the moments with Eduardo, and perhaps
that might sustain her in her remaining years. But she was already seeking ways
to wash him out of her mind, to grip herself anew. The others were younger.
They might find it easier, or harder, since there was statistically at least
more time left to them. What had this man done to them? she wondered. Perhaps
they should let him live, let him spread his joy. That was what it was, after
all. Joy! But the thought of him being with other women was too unbearable to
contemplate. It was the point of the exercise.

As she stood there in the chill, she felt the cast of her
mind fix itself, like cement, and she was able to observe the two younger women
from what seemed like a new perspective. It was passion reversed, forced in
upon itself, that made it necessary to attack the life of Eduardo. Was it
really only revenge? She wondered if she could touch the nub of hatred in her.
What were they all but betrayed lovers? He deserved to die for disturbing what
might have been tranquillity and acceptance.

"When you pick that up, Marie," Frederika was
saying, "there will be no turning back. I am the only one who has seen a
diagram on the method of unmantling it. Then it was destroyed. So you see there
is no turning back." She repeated the phrase almost as if she was asking
them to stop her. Marie began to fidget with her fingers as she watched the
innocent brown-bagged package lying harmlessly on the faded grass.

It had been decided that Marie would put it in the back
seat of his car. After all, she knew the geography, had been in the car.

"But only once," she had protested.

"Someone has to do it," Frederika said.
"After all, I have done my part."

"And I will do mine," Anne said.

"Will it be swift?" Marie asked, still holding
back from reaching for the package.

"As swift as possible. I have been assured of
that," Frederika said.

"No pain?"

"What pain could there be in a millisecond?"

Marie wondered if it had occurred to either of them what
was in her mind now. Suppose both of them could be eliminated? Would she then
have a clear field. Possess Eduardo? Could such captivity be sustained, she
wondered, dismissing the thought. It was impossible. The gloom of dawn
disappeared and the edge of the sun showed its brightness over a distant point
on the horizon, rising from between two large buildings.

"Well." It was Frederika's voice. She was looking
at her watch. Then her eyes lifted and a look passed between the women. Anne
saw the determination that lay there, in each of them.

"He has made me feel unclean," Frederika said,
the words ejaculated like the dying croak of an animal gasping for breath. Then
Marie moved, slowly, determined, and lifted the package from the ground.

"Bastard!" Marie cried, and Anne knew it was the
most malignant curse that might be uttered. The sound of it congealed her own
resolve.

"He is far from an innocent," Anne whispered,
knowing it was the truth of it, or at least, what she wished would be the
truth. And with him, Miranda would also die.

"I never want to see either of you again," Marie
said. It was a mere hiss now. She held the package close to her breast as if it
might be some casual purchase. "I will give him your message." She
bared her teeth in a heatless smile, then turned and walked away, the sound of
her heels on the pavement lingering in the air long after she had turned the
corner. Frederika continued to look into the distance, then turning, rubbed the
flats of her palms together, a gesture of completion.

"That's that," she said.

"No remorse? No guilt?"

"Not that much." Frederika held up her thumb and
forefinger, the space between them narrow, illustrating the meager measure.

No love? Anne asked herself, but she could not bring the
answer to her consciousness. There would still be some pain left for her. She
had, after all, to confirm the meeting with him, to hear the last sound of his
voice.

"If I see you on the street," Frederika said,
"I will turn away. If you ever call me, I will hang up. As far as I'm
concerned, you don't exist." The words came quick, practiced, and the eyes
were misted, but it might have been from the cold. There was no requirement for
answering. It was, indeed, over.

Anne was alone in the park now, standing under a leafless
tree. A door slammed. A car horn honked. It seemed so ordinary. Why am I here,
she wondered, briefly disoriented. Then she started to walk. It wasn't until
she had reached her own street that she fully regained her sense of place.

The telephone rang at precisely seven, the agreed-upon
time. He was quite precise when it came to these matters.

"It is all ready," she said, when he had
acknowledged his identity.

"Then we will meet at 8:50 in front of the bank."

"Precisely," Anne said, looking at her watch.
"What does your watch say?"

"Seven-thirty exactly."

"Yes," she confirmed.

"And I will see you tomorrow." He had not changed
the pitch of his voice, and for the first time, she sensed its coldness, the
calculation that lay beneath.

"Of course, Eduardo." She wondered if it mattered
anymore. It is ended, she told herself. But when he had hung up, she seemed to
amend the idea in her mind.

It was only after the sounds of Bach filled the house and
her body muscles struggled to achieve the perfection of her exercises that she
realized contentedly how far back she had put him in her mind.