Cesare shook his head silently, still smiling.
“They could not understand,” she continued quickly, “how I could live in this country eight years without money and without working. They said if I did not have a job or a source of income they would deport me on the grounds of moral turpitude.”
Cesare put down the towel. “And what did you tell them?”
“What else could I tell them?” She shrugged. “I told them I was working for you. They did not believe it when I told them that I did not need a job in order to live. Cesare, would you give me a job?”
Cesare looked down at her. “I don’t know.” He smiled. “What can you do? You can’t take dictation, you can’t type. What will I use you for?”
She rose from the chair and turned toward him. She still held the towel precariously in front of her. Her eyes looked into his. “You are in the automobile business, no?”
Cesare nodded.
She moved very close to him. “There must be something I can do. I once owned a Rolls Royce.”
He began to laugh. He held out his arms to her and she came into them and he kissed her. “All right, we’ll see what we can do.”
“You will, Cesare?” Her voice was excited. “You’re wonderful!” She put her hands up to stroke his cheek. “I won’t be any trouble to you, Cesare. I promise. I only have to work long enough to get a social security number, I think they call it. That’s all they need to convince them that I’m legitimate.”
His arms tightened around her. “You’re legitimate all right.” He laughed. “You can always tell them I knew your parents.”
She glanced up at him quickly to see if there were any hidden meanings in his words but his eyes were laughing. Something caught in her throat and for the first time in a long while, even as he kissed her, she thought of her parents.
She remembered the expression on her father’s face the night he opened the door of her bedroom and saw them all in bed together. Her mother. Herself. And the rich American.
13
Her mother was English and only seventeen when she had married the dashing young Rumanian, Baron de Bronczki. The tabloids at the time had called it a storybook romance. Less than a year later Ileana had been born, there had been a revolution and the storybook was ended. Life has a way of dealing with romance.
Actually she never had much of a chance to know her parents while she was a child. She had a vague idea that her mother had been a very beautiful girl and her father a very handsome man, but she had spent most of her life in schools away from them.
First there had been that school in England. She had gone there when she was almost five years old when the war had begun. Her father had gone into the British Army and her mother was wrapped up in the wartime social frenzy and had no time for her.
Then when the war was over they had moved to Paris and she had been sent to a school in Switzerland. The excuse then was that her father, almost a cripple now from his wounds, would be too occupied with his struggle to regain his lands and former wealth to let them settle permanently in any one place. It never occurred to her to question her mother on her feelings about it. Her mother was always too busy with her friends and social activities. Besides there was something about her mother that made Ileana feel too awkward and out of place to dare speak with her.
Ileana was almost fourteen then and the school in Switzerland was different from the one in England. In England the emphasis had been on the academic, in Switzerland the emphasis was on the social. The school was filled with rich young ladies who had been sent from England and America to have superimposed on their youthful freshness a finishing polish that was available nowhere else in the world. Ileana learned to ski and swim and ride. She also learned how to dress and dance and make small talk.
When Ileana was sixteen, she had already begun to fulfill the promise of her beauty. Her complexion and eyes were English, her figure and grace came from her father. And right across the lake from her school was a similar school for young men. Close contact was kept between the two schools for they needed each other to complement their work.
There had been an outing that summer when she turned sixteen. Her partner had been a tall dark young man who was heir to some throne in the Middle East. He had a long name that no one could remember so they called him Ab, short for Abdul. He was a year older than she, and darkly aquiline, blue-eyed and handsome. Their canoe had taken them to a small island away from the others and now they lay, stretched out in their swimming suits on the sand, soaking up the bright midday sun.
He rolled over on his side and looked at her for a moment. She looked into his eyes and smiled. His face was serious, then he leaned over and kissed her.
She closed her eyes and put an arm up around his shoulder and held him closely to her. She felt good. The sand and the sun and the warmth of his mouth. She felt him open the straps of her thin bathing suit, then his fingers on her naked breast. A pleasurable excitement began to grow inside her. A bubble of happy laughter rose into her throat.
He raised his head and looked at her, still serious. The young strong breasts and awakened nipples. Slowly he traced them with his fingers and kissed them.
She smiled at him. “I like that,” she said softly.
His eyes were unwinking as he looked at her. “You’re still a virgin?”
She couldn’t tell whether he was making a statement or asking her. She nodded silently.
“Why?” he asked her. “Has it something to do with your religion?”
“No,” she answered. “I don’t know why.”
“They call you ‘the cold one’ in my school,” he said. “None of the others in your class are virgins.”
“That’s silly,” she said. She could feel her heart beginning to pound inside her.
He stared at her for another moment. “I think, then, it’s about time, don’t you?”
She nodded silently.
He got to his feet. “I will be right back,” he said and walked down to the canoe.
She watched him go down the beach to the water’s edge and reach into the canoe. She put her hands up under her bathing suit and pushed it down her legs and kicked it off. The sun felt good on her body. She turned her head to see what he was doing.
He had taken something from the pocket of his trousers and was walking up the beach toward her. He stopped when he saw her. He held something in his hand.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He opened his hand so that she could see what he held in it. “So you won’t become pregnant,” he answered.
“Oh,” she said, without surprise. Everything had been very carefully explained to them in school. It was part of the curriculum, one of the important finishing touches so their young ladies would be completely equipped to venture forth in the world. She turned her face away as he slipped out of his trunks.
He knelt in the sand beside her and she turned back to him. She stared at him for a moment. Her voice filled with wonder. “You’re beautiful,” she said reaching for him. “Beautiful and strong. I never knew a man could be so beautiful.”
“Men are naturally more beautiful than women,” he said matter-of-factly. He bent to kiss her. “But you’re very beautiful too.”
She pulled him closer to her, a sudden demanding fever leaping in her veins. Unexplainably she began to tremble.
He raised his head, thinking she might be frightened. “I’ll try not to hurt you,” he said.
“You won’t hurt me,” she said hoarsely, aware now and knowing of the capacity for delight within her. “I’m strong too!”
And she was. Much stronger than she thought. It took a doctor in Lausanne to complete her defloration on the surgical table.
***
She was eighteen when she appeared at the door of the de Bronczki apartment in Paris. Her education had been as complete as any girl in the school and in many ways she had surpassed most of the students because she was more beautiful and her capacities were greater. She pres
sed the bell and waited for the door to open.
Her mother opened the door and looked at her without recognition. “Yes?” she asked, in the tone of voice she kept for servants and inferiors.
Ileana half smiled to herself. She didn’t expect much more from her mother. “Hello, Mother,” she said in Rumanian.
A look of surprise came over her mother’s face. “It’s you,” she said in a shocked voice.
“That’s right, Mother,” Ileana said. “May I come in?”
Flustered, her mother stepped back from the door. “We didn’t expect you until next week.”
Ileana picked up her suitcase and walked into the apartment. “I sent you a telegram last week.” She asked, “Didn’t you get it?”
Her mother closed the door. “The telegram. Oh, yes,” she said vaguely. “Your father did mention something about it before he left on a business trip.”
For the first time Ileana felt a sense of disappointment. “Daddy’s away?”
“He’ll be back in a few days,” her mother said quickly. “Something came up with his estate claims.” For the first time she really looked at Ileana. “Why, you’re taller than I am,” she said in surprise.
“I’m all grown up, Mother,” she said, “I’m not a little child anymore.”
Her mother’s voice grew petulant. “For God’s sake, Ileana, speak French instead of that horrible language. You know I never could understand it.”
“Of course, Mother,” Ileana replied in French.
“That’s better,” her mother said. “Now let me take a look at you.”
Ileana stood very still while her mother walked around her slowly. She felt like a horse on the auction block.
“Aren’t you dressed rather too old for your years, dear?” her mother asked.
“I’m eighteen, Mother. What did you expect me to wear? A middy blouse and skirt?”
“Don’t be fresh, Ileana. I’m trying hard enough to get used to the idea of having a grown-up daughter. Why I don’t look that much older than you that we can’t be mistaken for sisters.”
Ileana looked at her mother. In some ways, she was right. Somehow she had managed to keep an air of youthfulness about her. She didn’t look her thirty-six years. “Yes, Mother,” she said quietly.
“And stop calling me ‘Mother,’” the older woman snapped. “It’s old-fashioned anyway. If you must call me something call me by name. Or better still ‘Dearest,’ as your father does. Everyone calls me that now.”
“Yes, Moth—Dearest,” Ileana said.
Her mother smiled. “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? Come, let me show you your room.”
Ileana followed her mother down the long corridor to a small room on the far side of the kitchen. No one had to tell her it was a servant’s room. The furnishings did that very clearly.
“It will be quite nice when we fix it up,” Dearest said. She looked up at Ileana. Ileana’s face was impassive. “What’s the matter?” she asked sharply. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s small,” Ileana said. Her closet at school seemed larger than this.
“Well, you’ll have to make do with it,” Dearest snapped. “Your father isn’t one of the wealthiest men in the world, you know. And it’s difficult enough to manage on the money we have as it is.”
She started to leave the room and at that moment the doorbell rang. She stopped, then turned back to Ileana, a startled expression on her face. “Oh, I almost forgot. I have a cocktail date with an American friend of ours. Be a dear, will you, and get the door for me. Tell him I’ll be ready in a moment.”
She hurried back through the corridor, Ileana following her. At the door to her room, Dearest stopped and looked at Ileana. “And do me another favor, darling. Don’t introduce yourself as my daughter this time. Tell him you’re my sister and down for a visit. I don’t feel quite up to involved explanations just now.”
Dearest shut her door quickly before Ileana could answer. Ileana walked down the hall and through the living room slowly. She didn’t need anyone to draw a diagram for her. The school in Switzerland was very thorough.
When her father came home the following week, Ileana was shocked at the change in his appearance. The once tall figure was bent and stiff with the pain from his almost immobilized legs. He moved slowly with his canes and dropped into his wheelchair as soon as he was inside the door. He looked at her and smiled as she knelt beside him. He reached out his hand and drew her toward him.
“Ileana,” he said. “I’m glad you’re home at last.”
In spite of his infirmity, the Baron had to spend a great deal of time away from home. There was the matter of his estate to be settled, a negotiation was pending with the present regime that would allow some sort of compensation for their losses to the former holders of property. Return was impossible for now the country was firmly in the Soviet bloc.
During the times her father was away, Ileana busied herself with friends. She kept out of the apartment as much as possible and very often used the back door when she heard voices in the living room.
It was more than a year later that she received a letter from a school friend inviting her to spend the summer with them in Monte Carlo. The Baron was away again and she hurried to her mother’s room with the letter. Excitedly, she gave the letter to her mother.
She spoke while her mother was reading the letter. “It will be so wonderful, just to get away from Paris in the blistering heat. The beach and the water. I just can’t wait!”
Dearest folded the letter and put it down on the table. “You can’t go,” she said. “We can’t afford it.”
“I can’t?” Ileana’s voice was incredulous. “But I won’t need any money. I’ll be their guest.”
Dearest looked up at her. “You’ll need clothes,” she said. “You can’t go looking like a ragpicker.”
“I have clothes,” Ileana flared up. “Everything I had from school still looks good on me.”
“But the styles have changed and they’re dated,” Dearest said. “And everyone will know you couldn’t afford a proper wardrobe. Drop her a note and explain that unfortunately you’ve made other arrangements. You can use my stationery if you like.”
“Save your crested stationery!” Ileana said, close to tears. “I have my own.” She stamped out of the room.
While she was still in the corridor, the front doorbell rang. Dearest’s voice floated after her. “Get the front door for me, darling. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Clenching her teeth, Ileana went to the front door. It was another one of Dearest’s American friends. He was already slightly drunk. Ileana introduced herself as Dearest’s sister.
He came into the apartment and sat down on the couch. He looked up at her. “The Baroness never told me she had such a beautiful sister.”
Ileana laughed at his typically American attempt at gallantry. “My sister never told me she had such an attractive friend.”
He laughed, pleased with himself. “It’s too bad I have to go back home tonight. Otherwise we might have become better acquainted.”
Dearest’s voice came from the doorway. “You have to return, John? Oh, I’m so sorry.”
She came into the room and John struggled to his feet. “I was called back,” he said sadly. “An emergency in the factory.”
“That is too bad,” Dearest said, taking his hand.
“It is too bad,” he said earnestly, looking into her eyes. “Three times we had cocktails and dinner together and each time I said to myself it would be the next time. And now I have to go back and there will never be a next time.”
“You will come back to Paris,” Dearest said.
“Yes,” he answered. “But who knows when?” He sat down on the couch again. He looked up at Dearest. “I stopped in the bar downstairs and had three whiskies before I came up.”
Dearest laughed, her false tinkling laughter that Ileana knew so well. “What on earth for?” she asked.
His face became very serious.
“I have something very important to ask you.”
Dearest looked at Ileana. “Will you get some ice from the fridge, darling? John likes lots of ice with his whisky.”
Ileana turned and left the room. She pulled the ice cubes from the tray and put them into a small serving bowl. When she came back into the room, John and her mother were both silent. She began to place the bowl on the small coffee table in front of the couch when she saw the pile of bills stacked on it. It was American money.
She glanced at John quickly. He didn’t speak. He still held his wallet in his hand. She looked at her mother questioningly.
John saw the look. He spoke to Dearest. “I’ll make it twenty-five hundred dollars if she joins in the party.”
Suddenly she knew what he meant. She fled from the room, her face flaming, and closed the door of her room behind her.
A few moments later Dearest came into the room. Her face was cold and she looked down at her daughter. “Why did you run from the room like that?” she asked angrily. “It was absolutely infantile.”
Ileana stared up at her mother. “But you know what he was asking, Mother. It was disgusting. He wanted us to go to bed with him.”
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Dearest snapped.
“You’re not going to bed with him?” Ileana’s voice was incredulous. “With that drunk?”
“I am,” Dearest said calmly. “And so are you!”
Ileana sprang to her feet. “I will not! And you cannot make me!”
“Do you know how much money twenty-five hundred American dollars is? One and a half million francs on the black market. How do you think we have been living anyway? On the thirty-two pounds a month disability pension that your father gets from the army? How do you think we can afford the medicine and doctors for him? From the estates he will never see again? What kind of a life do you think it is for me to spend my days with a cripple who cannot walk and is no good for anything a man is supposed to be good for?” Dearest shook Ileana angrily. “With this money you can go to Nice to your friends, we can live for six months, your father can have that operation he has postponed so many times.”
Stiletto Page 10