The Casanova Embrace

by Warren Adler

  The father squatted near the glow of a fire, outside of the shanty, the flames playing a shadowy dance on his face. As before, Uno squatted a few feet off, watching them, showing no expression in her face, although the reflection of the fire made her eyes glow like embers.

  "I've brought her back," Eduardo said. Her father looked up at him. Only his head moved, the sinews of his neck etched by the firelight. He shrugged.

  "And I want you to keep her here."

  Her father looked at the girl.

  "She did not suit you. You should beat her."

  "I'm not a savage."

  The father shrugged. "Then I shall tell the padre to keep her. The padre knows."

  "Knows what?"

  "That she has become your woman."

  "She is not my woman."

  The father looked at her, rattled some words in a foreign tongue.

  "She is your woman," he said.

  "I have no woman," Eduardo answered, looking at the girl, her primitive foreignness disgusting him. "Is it money you want?"

  The father nodded.

  "And you must keep her here. She is not to follow me like you made her do last time."

  He looked at the girl, then at Eduardo, who could tell from the man's apparent confusion that the long hike to Valdivia was her own idea.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a neatly folded pile of bills. Squatting beside the man, he showed him the money, which he divided in half.

  "You will get this now," Eduardo said. "And the other if she does not return."

  The man nodded. Eduardo looked briefly into Uno's face. It told him nothing.

  "In three months. Remember, if she comes, you will get nothing."

  He did not look back, walking swiftly away, groping through the brush to the downward trail, lit only by the light of the moon. It was after he had been walking for nearly an hour that he heard the scream. He told himself it might be a beast in the throes of a deep pain. But he knew better.

  In three months, he sent one of the young men among the party workers into the village with the other half of the money. When the young man returned, he confirmed the delivery. If he wondered why it was done, he said nothing. As for Uno, Eduardo blocked her from his mind, although sometimes in his dreams he would hear the scream again and would awake in a cold sweat.

  XIV

  In the gray light of the early morning, Anne watched his face. The tiny hairs of his beard had begun to sprout like the first shoots of a spring garden and she wondered, with delight, if she could count them, including all the hairs of his mustache. After all, wasn't that, too, the measure of her knowing him? His breath was easy and the flutter in his eyelids told her that he was dreaming. She was suddenly jealous of this private world of his. If only she could scoop him up and lock him into a cage forever.

  Perhaps her staring had awakened him. His eyes opened quickly, not in gradual stages, as she imagined his awakening might come. He was instantly alert, alive. And it triggered something deep inside of her. She threw the covers aside and looked at his naked body, the member erect, ready, as if she had willed it that way. She discovered, too, that she was ready and she straddled him, feeling every sensation of the descent into her and the instant eruption that had been caused. What occurred was quick, a sudden gust, a new assault on her senses. Her body shook for a long time and her heart pounded.

  "You see," she said after a while. "Is that answer enough?"

  "I wonder," he said, and she contemplated the extent of his own pleasure in her.

  "I will do it today," she said, feeling the need to prove that what he had asked was on the very top of her consciousness.

  "What must be done?"

  "I have to call my investment counselor."

  "All you need do is transfer funds. He will probably have to do some liquidation, and surely he will try to talk you out of it."

  "Then I will threaten to remove my account. See, I am not totally ignorant of business matters."

  He seemed pleased by her response. She had even forgotten her investment counselor's name. She hadn't talked to him in at least a year.

  "Then you must consult a gold broker and provide your own vault space to which the Krugers will be delivered. I estimate that we will get nearly seventeen hundred Krugers, depending on the price of gold at the moment. It will probably weigh about one hundred pounds."

  The concentration on technical details amused her as she watched his excitement mount, feeling pleasure in it. He sat up and folded his hands together.

  "I'll get two leather bags. That should do it. Yes," he said, as if the thought were complete now. "In two days would be ideal. Ideal." He seemed relaxed and she wondered if she had truly begun the process of keeping him with her always.

  To her delight, he stayed with her throughout the day and the next night, and they moved about the house together like an old couple grown used to each other. She called her investment counselor in New York. She had looked up his name in her papers, a Mr. Handelman. She was proud of herself, hoping he would admire her decisiveness as he listened to her talking.

  "I don't care about the future of the gold market, Mr. Handelman. Just effect the transfer and arrange the details of the transaction." She smiled and held the phone upward so he could hear Mr. Handelman's agitated voice.

  "Please, Mr. Handelman, just carry out the transaction and arrange the vaulting at Riggs' Dupont branch." She had just remembered her safe-deposit boxes lying there in the big vaults, the clutter of her life and possessions, jewelry, deeds to property, birth certificates. Meaningless geegaws, she told herself, watching Eduardo. "Now there is value," she whispered, pointing to him.

  "What?" He hadn't understood.

  "I was studying comparative values."

  When she hung up, they called the stores for food to restock her kitchen and when it arrived they both packed her cabinets. Then she cooked steaks and they ate ravenously in the dining room.

  "What lovely china," he said.

  "Just things."

  Toward the end of the day, she could feel his restlessness begin and she steeled herself for what she knew was his coming departure. She detested the idea of it, but quieted her greed for him. We had better move in slow steps, she assured herself, remembering his reaction of last week. After all, he will have to come back for the gold.

  "I just want you to know, Anne," he said as he faced her near the door, holding her shoulders, looking into her eyes. "You cannot know how grateful ... "His sudden inarticulateness surprised her as he stumbled forward. "Someday the people of Chile must know what you are doing ... the people. They must know."

  He enveloped her in his arms and she felt him kissing her hair, and then he was gone and she was alone in the house. She watched him walk down the quiet street to Wisconsin Avenue.

  When he was out of sight, she turned up the stereo, the Bach tape sending its sinuous sounds throughout the house as she moved her body to the complex rhythms. She literally felt that her bones creaked as she struggled to bring her dormant muscles back to life. The idea, she knew, was to physically evade her longing for him, exhaust herself so that her mind might stop imagining, questioning where his was. Aside from his cause, that obsession, what else was there in his life? Finally she was too tired to continue and she fell exhausted on the couch. Perhaps she would be lucky and sleep until he came again.

  Which he did, of course. She had grappled with the details of getting the gold into her vaults, which meant she had to take an unaccustomed taxi drive to the Riggs branch on Dupont Circle. The Krugers came in carefully wrapped rolls, and after the guard moved them into a cubicle, she transferred them into two large steel safety-deposit boxes. When she came home, she sank into a chair in the front parlor and watched the light fade. Then the phone rang.

  "Is it done?"

  "Yes."

  "Then tomorrow we will do it."

  "Yes."

  She sensed his hesitation.

  "I need you now, Eduardo."<
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  "We must be careful.... "he began, then, whispering, "The telephone is not safe."

  "Please, Eduardo."

  He seemed to contemplate his response. She could hear his hurried breathing. The hollowness of the sound indicated that he was in a telephone booth.

  "Someone is following me."

  What was he saying? What is this mystery?

  "Then come when it's dark. I'll leave the door open."

  "All right." The word was curt, final. The telephone went dead abruptly.

  Sensing her power over him, she felt somehow corrupt. Perhaps if she had made the sum smaller and doled it out like food, he could be sustained by it indefinitely. She wondered what her possessions were really worth and dialed Mr. Handelman's number.

  "I was just going out, Mrs. McCarthy," he said. His voice was distant, cold. He must have concluded I've lost my mind, she thought.

  "What are my holdings worth, Mr. Handelman?"

  "Nearly five million." He answered instantly, as if he had just calculated the amount. "We have been very fortunate." He paused and added with a touch of sarcasm. "But if you continue to be headstrong ... Gold is a ridiculous purchase at this time."

  "Five million, you say." She ignored his brief lecture. This did not count the jewels. Another half a million, she calculated, remembering the heirlooms that had come down from Jack's family and her own. I will tell Eduardo when he comes, she decided, putting down the phone after a courteous dismissal.

  She had not contemplated her wealth for years. In her hostess days, she had spent lavishly, but not without a firm hand on the pocketbook. Nothing in her life, she knew, had ever been pursued without obstinate single-mindedness. Poor Eduardo, she thought, half in jest, fearing that if he could read her thoughts, he might think it the beginning of his diminishment and suspect her of some form of castration. She was amused at the idea. Power did have its compensations.

  That night she watched him enter her house, leather bags on either shoulder. He unhitched them and put them on a chair. Then she clung to him, felt his arms guiding her to the couch. She sat beside him, touching him, unable to keep her hands from his flesh. His mind, she saw, was agitated, concentrating on other matters.

  "It is all settled. The wheels are in motion," he said. "Are you certain that there will be no problem with the gold?"

  "I can't imagine any."

  "Nothing you can think of. The gold is in the boxes at the Riggs branch?"

  "Yes."

  "And there will be no problem about gaining access?"

  "Eduardo. It is mine. It is my property."

  He put his head back against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. Beneath the lids, his eyeballs twitched.

  "This is a tense business," he said. She put her hand on his forehead. It felt warm and she wondered if her touch soothed him.

  "It will be fine," she said, kissing his cheek. He put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder.

  "I am very grateful, Anne. Truly grateful."

  Gratitude seemed a thin reward and, for a moment, she felt a stab of anxiety. Why doesn't he speak of love? she wondered, but she let that pass.

  "Come to bed," she whispered. It seemed like a command and she watched his hesitation. "Come to bed," she said again, her hand unbuttoning his shirt and groping for the flesh of his chest. "Now." It was power. She reveled in it.

  Holding his hand, she led him up the stairs. And then they were naked in bed. She could not get enough of him.

  "Do you forgive me my greed, Eduardo?" she said as she watched him fight drowsiness.

  "Of course," he said and soon he was asleep and all she could hope for was a place in his dreams.

  Moving the gold from the safe-deposit boxes was, as she had predicted, quite simple. They had taken a taxi to the Dupont branch, ordered it to wait, and she walked into the bank with Eduardo at her side, signing the admittance slip to the vaults without incident.

  "This is my husband," she felt compelled to tell the guard as he opened the heavy door and led her to the boxes. When she had turned the key in tandem with the guard's master key, Eduardo helped her remove the boxes to the cubicle, where they emptied the Krugers into the two leather bags, which he rehitched over both shoulders.

  "It is a beautiful heaviness," he said as they walked through the bank outside into the bright sunlight. The taxi waited and they both got in. It moved slowly through the traffic, heading toward Georgetown. He looked outside through the rear window.

  "What is it, Eduardo?"

  "One can never be certain." She followed his gaze, seeing only the stream of traffic. It seemed so far from the reality of her situation. But she did not have time to explore the thought further, for Eduardo tapped the driver on the shoulder as the cab moved through the thickening traffic in Georgetown.

  "Pull over, driver. Let me off here."

  The taxi swerved to the curb and Eduardo kissed her on the cheek.

  "I will call," he said.

  "I don't understand," she began, with genuine bemusement. It had not occurred to her that what was happening was possible. Why was he leaving her?

  "I will call," he repeated, opening the taxi door, slamming it shut, then heading toward Wisconsin Avenue. The taxi moved forward, and soon he was lost in the crowd.

  Within moments the panic began. "Please stop," she said, tapping the driver's shoulder.

  "But I thought..." the driver began. She put a twenty-dollar bill in his hand.

  "Keep it," she said. He stopped the cab and she got out, hurrying in the direction that Eduardo had taken. Moving swiftly, she turned up Wisconsin Avenue, focusing her eyes for distance, surveying the moving crowd ahead.

  Her panic grew as she walked. The crowds moved slowly. Eduardo! She wanted to cry out, to shout his name. She walked up Wisconsin Avenue to Calvert Street, then crossing the street, went south again to M Street. Eduardo had melted, disappeared.

  "I will call," he had said, and she clung to this as her talisman. Of course, he will call, she convinced herself at last, refusing to yield to her panic. I have conquered it, she told herself proudly as she finally headed toward her own house.

  But the victory was too tentative to sustain itself, and before darkness came again she was starting to waver, questioning her own grip on herself. She remembered his question. Why me? And she could not explain it. As long as she lived, she was certain she would not be able to explain it. Only that it had happened. That it was there. The need for him was palpable, overpowering, embodying not only sexuality, which was part of it, but the entire force of the man. Why me? She suddenly cried out aloud, feeling excruciating pain, a hurt without specificity.

  He did not call for two days, most of which she spent in bed, searching for sleep. But she was determined not to slide into the old abyss, and each moment conquered gave her the courage to hold back the forces of despair.

  The sound of his voice effected a magical cure. She sensed his ebullience. "We have done it," he said.

  "Done...?" She paused, pondering his meaning. "How wonderful."

  "Thanks to you."

  "When are you coming, Eduardo?"

  "Tomorrow," he said. "I will come tomorrow." There was a long silence as neither of them spoke. "Early."

  "But why not now?" she said.

  "I will come early," he repeated. Then the click came and the buzz of the disengaged line began.

  She awoke after a deep sleep, savoring the delights of expectation, feeling the juices in her body flow, a raging river frantically searching for the sea. She was also beginning to take pride in her own sense of discipline and courage, getting through the moments without him without panic. She jumped out of bed, switched on the Bach, and began a series of strenuous exercises, doing them in double time, enjoying the swift movements, the strength of them, an affirmation of her body's control.

  By the time he arrived, she was showered and dressed and had prepared a breakfast of toast and butter and camomile tea, with eggs standing ready fo
r him to choose the kind he wished. In the sharp morning light, he looked tired.

  "My God, I missed you, Eduardo." She pressed her face against his.

  "Careful. I will scratch you."

  She felt the bristles along her cheek and pressed closer, as if it were important to deliberately force the irritation.

  "We have begun," he said. "The counterattack has begun. I cannot tell you how much you have helped our cause."

  "Yes you can." She felt playful, an odd sensation for her. He looked at her with a puzzled expression. She was determined to capture his mind, to make him empty all other thoughts, to think only of her.

  "You think I'm a crazy woman." She started to kiss his face again, his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, his ears, the nape of his neck. She put one of his hands on her small breast. Her breath came faster, her heartbeat stronger, urgent.

  "You move me, Eduardo," she whispered quickly. "I cannot help myself. Something is urging me on." She reached for his penis, felt it slowly harden through his pants as she solicited his response with greediness. What is the limit to my need, she wondered as she quickly stepped out of her slacks and helped him undress. She was standing on her toes, her pelvis tilted to take him, then moving downward, gyrating, feeling the suffusion of him and his response, shuddering but less demonstrative than hers, so that she wondered if he felt the same degree of sensation. But it could not be possible. Then she cried out in pleasure again, wanting to scream out an obscenity. Is this me? Who am I?

  Later, after she had made him breakfast, she sat on the closed toilet seat and watched him shave with Jack's old razor. She had helped him shower, laving his body with soap and working the faucets as she might have with her own child.

  "Too hot?"

  "No. Just perfect."

  She dried him with a big bath towel, then wrapped him in her terrycloth robe. "It is too small," he said.

  "Then we will get you one that fits ... Stay with me, Eduardo," she whispered, watching the razor pass smoothly over his skin. She admired his grace of movement, the fingers tapered, acting with a life of their own. He did not stop his movements, as if he had heard nothing.