The Chameleon

by Sugar Rautbord

  His brain led his body like a maestro conducting a symphony, holding himself back as he gave her the gift of extra pleasure and she shuddered in a crazed atonal finale with flutes and crashing cymbals over and over again until she fell off a jagged edge, her breath gone, her heartbeat racing. He caught her.

  Quietly he cradled her face in his hands to calm her rapid breathing, until she cooled. Coming down, she kissed him back a dozen times and, gathering up her strength, she used every muscle she had newly discovered to please him. The next movement was in her hands, and she took the baton. She stroked him lyrically with her fingers until she grasped him and then unhesitantly brought him to her parted lips.

  She could tell by the way his body tensed and swelled within the pink moistness of her mouth that her boldness had rekindled his insatiable desires. She felt the pressure of his arms on her naked body and knew they had crossed all the borders of good taste, leaving Italy, lapping each other up, drunk in one another's juices until, finally exhausted, supper long forgotten, they fell asleep.

  Their days moved along like airy cloud puffs speeding across a flawless summer sky. For the first time since the war, an opera was performed at the opera house. Tom joined them as a patched velvet curtain rose over Verdi's Il Trovatore. Although they didn't mean to, later, at their after-theater supper of cannelloni and red wine, they somehow shut out Tom's chatter about commission gossip and news from home. Claire teased him that his face was beginning to look as glum as the stone gargoyle spitting a steady stream of water into the fountain of the walled garden restaurant.

  The next day Tom was grumpier than ever during the private tour for commission members of the Barberini Gallery, the guide directing his comments to the American delegation in a pitch to solicit funds to restore Italy's art treasures. When he extolled the virtues of Raphael's Fornarina, a portrait of the very young, bare-breasted baker's daughter generally believed to be the artist's mistress, Tom turned abruptly on his heel and stormed into another gallery hung with vivid crucifixions. Later that day, Tom announced he was going on ahead to prepare for the round of miniconferences at Interlaken, Brussels, and London, where more data would be collected for the American fact-finding study. He would catch up with “the Harrisons” in London, he said. As far as Tom was concerned, he had uncovered one fact too many.

  With their chaperone having called his own curfew, Claire and Harrison were free to roam the city alone after five, when the meetings and relief requests ended for the day. They liked blending invisibly into the crowd. Claire, a scarf over her head, and Harrison, in a linen suit, joined an anonymous line of pilgrims following the Appian Way, one of the routes of St. Paul, walking with flickering candles down into the catacombs where the early Christians had hidden and held their religious services.

  Later they attended a moving hilltop ceremony where the remains of American soldiers who had fallen at Anzio were being transferred for interment in the English cemetery outside Florence. Harrison and Claire walked quietly hand in hand, both of them silently mourning the hundreds of young men they had never met but for whom they had worked so hard to arm back in Washington. By the time the open-air car driving them back to Rome finally delivered them to the hotel, Claire and Harrison were smothered with rust-colored dust.

  Entering the lobby, Harrison brushed some ancient dirt from his lapel, turned to his companion, who looked as if she had been crop-dusted, and asked, “Did you ever cancel those reservations for the weekend at Lake Como?”

  “Oh dear, I forgot. The one I made for you and—”

  Neither one of them wanted to say her name. For one crazy, dark second Claire had a vision of Ophelia riding a broomstick over the Colosseum trying to chase Cupid out of the sky. She instinctively took two small steps back to avoid the imagined calamity.

  With a touch to the small of her back, Harrison steadied her. “Why don't the two of us go?”

  “You mean—?”

  “Of course. Weren't the reservations made for Mr. and Mrs. Harrison?”

  Claire looked at him as if he had just announced he was going to fight the Christians and the lions.

  “And if I'm not mistaken, that is the name on your passport.”

  “But Harrison, it's… a resort,” she stammered. “I don't even have a swimsuit.”

  “Then don't wear one.” Her eyes grew as wide as his grin.

  Harrison turned to Alberto, who was never far away from a potential tipper. “Be a good man and have the desk prepare my bill. We're checking out.”

  “Certainly, signóre. I also ask the kitchen to pack del panee formaggio. Right away. And I will see to the cigars. Como is very very beautiful place but has a no good black market” In his eagerness, Rome's best concierge clicked his heels together and shot out his right arm in a reflexive Nazi salute; catching himself just in time, he slammed his hand against his forehead like a good American GI.

  “I'll have to shower first.”

  “Good. We'll save time and water and shower together.” Alberto bowed away backwards, pleased as punch. He knew a big reward was coming. Sometimes guests paid more to be forgotten than remembered.

  Her long, wet hair lay against the salt-and-pepper short hairs on his chest. His lean torso, conveniently hollow in places, made way for her soft curves. Claire lay languidly in Harrison's arms, the muscled limbs of a man who had held the reins of thoroughbreds.

  Thrown wide open, the fourteen-foot floor-to-ceiling windows let in the pleasing sounds of Lake Como lapping against its medieval stone walls, the humming motor of a single Riva cutting its sleek way through the cold water, a dark mahogany sports machine with blue and white leather seats carrying groceries to a villa across the way. A mountain breeze blew in the white sheers, shrouding silk-sleeved armchairs in gauzy cover before billowing out again. It reminded her of parachutes.

  Claire lifted her head like an alert sentry. She was determined not to let Harry and his arsenal of obligations land on the beach and storm their Italian idyll. The last thing Claire and Harrison needed was reality shrapnel splintering their glass palace and the loveliness of what they had together. So she reinvented her mood, playfully shaking water from her wet head, bringing buoyancy back into the bedroom.

  Harrison pushed her away, laughing. “Are you trying to drown me?”

  “Only with love.” She leaned over his pillow and kissed the creases around his eyes to coax a twinkle. What had been lines of worry in the not-so-far-away Washington years now fanned out like pinwheels on a child's toy.

  These lazy afternoons at Lake Como had taken on the dream quality of a wall fresco, soft colors ombred into earth tones, tugging on their imaginations and taking them out of real time. If the beautiful still water outside their second-floor suite was their lake, then the bed—a four-poster antique hung with bronze brocade drapery puddling onto the pale-green-and-salmon terrazzo floor—was their island.

  Their days fell into an idle pattern, beginning ambitiously enough with a swim before breakfast. Claire would speedily breaststroke her way across the bottom of the pool, emerging out of the slapping cold water a few inches from Harrison, who'd be doing some sort of steady WASP crawl. Invigorated, their laps completed, they made plans for the day over breakfast. A tour of the Isola Bella's gardens, a hilltop climb above Cernobbio—it didn't matter where. Plans always fell away when, coming out of the shower tying his robe, he would step into her embrace. The smells of unwashed salty perspiration and sun oil on her skin retired his urges and pulled them back into the eddy of their lovemaking. As they spun and twirled around one another like bedridden dancers, lunch was missed, dinner delayed. Room-service trays went untouched and telephone bells unanswered as they took their nourishment from each other and from naps in the rumpled sheets and the softness of each other's arms.

  Claire knew the difference between holding a lanky man in her arms with his youthful self-doubts and dreams and an-other with seasoned ambitions. She had stroked the stubborn lock of a young man's hair back into pl
ace and known zesty lust with him, but it paled with the feelings that had been newly aroused in her by the man who had stroked her heart with his intellect, and although his body was less firm, his embrace was stronger.

  It made her feel special to know that this accomplished man who could have spent his time with anyone on earth had selected to be with her. Finally she had found the very man she had searched for as a girl on the men's floor at Marshall Field's, in every catalog, and around every corner. She felt loved, secure, and, for the first time in her young life, chosen.

  All too soon, it was time to return to business. London couldn't be delayed. They had skipped Switzerland, Harrison sending a substitute and his regrets, but now commission efforts reasserted their claim on their time. Bidding ciao to Lake Como and Isola Bella they boarded the train for Calais, and from there, ferried their way to England.

  London was all meetings and deadlines. The devastation seemed far worse to Claire than she had heard. From the height of St Paul's Cathedral, she could easily see where houses and shops had once stood and could take in at a glance the destruction of an entire block. Her room at the Savoy near Tom's faced the Strand, while Harrison's suite overlooked the Thames, his windows framing a broad view of the heavily trafficked river. She realized how much she missed the water when they all attended a Wednesday morning staff meeting in his parlor.

  Before they broke for lunch, as a parade of room-service carts rumbled in, Harrison pulled Claire aside to tell her they'd been invited to Markenfield Park, Lord Dashwood's country house in Buckinghamshire, for the weekend and he hoped she'd want to go. The pleading in his eyes made her jump for joy, although in a roomful of people she wisely kept her eyes averted to the foxes leaping across the burgundy silk of his tie.

  “Who's sitting next to Pamela Churchill?”

  Emerald Cunard stood behind the heavy dining room chair, a scotch in her hand, and peered over her lorgnette at the crested place card held aloft by two silver hoofs of a jumping horse. There were twenty-four of these polished equine place-card holders arranged on her long mahogany table.

  “An extra man.” Lady Dashwood exclaimed proudly.

  “What luck!”

  “Quite a remarkable feat in these times.”

  “And what does the extra man do?”

  “Binky says he's some sort of pirate.”

  “How glam. Does he have a peg leg and eye patch?”

  “No, some sort of financial privateer. Made a bundle in rubber during the war.” Wissie Wolfington whistled through her teeth.

  “Oh, rubber. As in tank tires and those plasma tubes. Just like a pirate to profit from our war.”

  “Now he's going for gold. Been sucking up to Will Harrison for the big construction jobs. Shipping, too. Duccio's so vulgar you can practically smell his olive-and-vinegar breath before he enters.”

  “Oh, that Duccio! I think he's rather cute. A little short, perhaps, too dark with too much hair on his arms.”

  “If he was a horse, I wouldn't have him in my stable.” Wissie sniffed.

  “Well, I've heard he's hung like a stud.” Emerald Cunard flashed her famous witty eyes. “But is he Pam's type? Poor Pami. Edward R. Murrow's gone back to his wife and America, and Averell Harriman gone to mother Russia and eventually back to his Marie.”

  “Don't pity Pam Churchill.”

  “So does the pirate have a wife?”

  “Single.”

  “Oh my.” Emerald lightly dusted the single pirate's chair with the hem of her chiffon evening dress.

  Claire cleared her throat in the doorway so as not to appear to be eavesdropping.

  “Ah, the lovely Miss Harrison. Join us, dear.”

  “Is your room all right? I put you right next to your father-in-law. Lord Dashwood says Harrison's the one to know but that you're the one with his appointment book.”

  “Sort of like the gatekeeper. Frightfully good to keep it in the family.”

  “Yes. Would you care for a drink, dear?”

  “No, thank you. And the rooms are so lovely. Will I have time for a tour of the gardens before dinner?”

  “Hardly. You'll be in quite a haste to slip into your dinner clothes as it is.” Both Lady Dashwood, longtime wife of Britain's press lord and hostess of one of England's great country estates, and Emerald were dressed in slim gowns that skirted their ankles.

  Claire looked down at her well-cut suit. Here her reliable war uniform didn't seem quite up to snuff.

  “Oh, I'm truly sorry, Lady Dashwood.” Claire's cheeks turned the prettiest shade of pink, like peonies. “I'm afraid I didn't think to bring black-tie clothes along.” Or jewelry, she thought, stealing a look at the enormous sapphires and diamonds encircling the neck wattles of the two older ladies. “I'm not sure Harrison has a tuxedo with him, either.”

  “Oh, he's always kept a suit of dinner clothes here. Even during the worst of the bombings, we dressed for dinner. One can't let the Nazis spoil a good dinner party, Binky's always said. Bad for morale.” Her hair was crimped in a stiff tidal wave of curls.

  “Come with me, dear.” Emerald Cunard, whose family had launched a thousand ships and who loved a good makeover almost as much as she enjoyed a juicy society scandal, took Claire under her chiffon wing. “We'll find something for you. You have such a lovely figure. So slim.” She raised her lorgnette to inspect the young girl's well-rounded bosom. “See you at half past, Wissie.” Emerald's mind was on her wardrobe in the Vuitton steamer trunk she had packed for the weekend.

  “Please do. One hour of highballs and then dinner is promptly at half past eight.” A frown crossed the hostess's high brow. Why couldn't the Americans, with their casual ways, understand the importance of keeping up a good show?

  Standing in her slip in front of the Victorian mirror, Claire was reminded of Aunties Slim and Wren and, of course, of her mother's antics in gussying her up for the Pettibone debut. There she had allowed the overzealous ladies to deck her out like a Cecil Beaton Christmas tree. Now, more sure of herself and her own style, she would not be misled.

  “That one's the ticket.”

  “What, that old thing? It's what I wear when I have to dress up after somebody's died.”

  “It's simple and if it's a little large I can easily belt it. See.” Claire held up the black crepe to her bare shoulders.

  “Fine then. Well, at least it's got good cleavage. On you the front will be scandalously slit to the waist. Perhaps we'll seat you next to the pirate and stir up the dinner talk.” Her mischievous eyes brightened at the prospect. “But you'll be needing a piece of jewelry.”

  “But…”

  “I insist. Dressed all in black and no jewelry, someone will ask you to draw a bath. Ha-ha!”

  Claire beamed back at her as Emerald fluttered out of the room like a lady butterfly.

  She spun around as Emerald Cunard's apricot poodle darted into the room to hide a precious hambone. Food. That was the crack in this incomparable British courtesy. Food was so short that the government issued free cartridges to anyone wanting to snoot gray squirrels. The minister of food even hawked tasty recipes for squirrel pies. And while the table downstairs in the great dining hall would be elaborately set with Meissen platters, George II silver gravy bowls, Minton china soup tureens, and tortoiseshell candy boxes, the sugar bowls, butter tubs, eggcups, and sweetmeat dishes would be bare.

  Claire looked away from the mirror to the window and out to the perfectly manicured turf behind the house, which was set up for croquet and lawn tennis. Beyond that the ground was stepped, descending to the grand parterre's vast expanse of lawns and hedges arranged in the Italianate manner. However, the grove of ilex trees was now home to a dozen or so sheep, and Claire knew that part of Lady Dash-wood's prize rose garden had been sacrificed for beds of cauliflower and turnips. She also knew from Wissie's fingernails that the lady of the house tended the precious vegetable garden herself.

  Claire examined herself critically in front of the mirror. The dress
was too large and cut too low. She shook her head. Harrison wouldn't approve, she was sure, and this was the perfect opportunity to make herself desirable for him. So Claire used her shop-girl ingenuity to do like the Brits and make do with what was.

  As the clock bells chimed seven-thirty she moved as quickly as if she had been inspired by the Aunties’ fashion wand. The lustrous hair was swept up into a French roll so that the special place on the back of her neck could be visible to him from any angle. She pinched a crocodile belt from his drawer to make the size ten fit her size six and, still wondering how to conceal her full breasts, suddenly spun the sheath around, fiddling with the opening so that from the front she was demurely covered from her collarbone to her wrists but her strong back and tapered waist were entirely naked from behind. Quite satisfied with herself, she heard a soft rapping on the door.

  “Come in,” she called out.

  Emerald Cunard's personal maid made a short curtsy as she handed over the red box.

  “These are for you, ma'am.”

  “Oh, how lovely.” Claire held the luminous, perfectly matched string of round South Sea pearls up to the fringed lamp shade just for a second before she fastened them around her neck. The diamond baguette clasp rested at that spot on her neck.

  “Oh, thank Mrs. Cunard for me. Please tell her I'll be sure to return them first thing in the morning.” Claire's skin glowed with the same luster as the pearls at her throat.

  “Oh, no, ma'am.” The maid curtsied again as she hurried away. “These are from the gentleman.”

  Claire smiled with her gleaming American teeth and, glancing over her shoulder at her reflection, wondered if she could just back into the drawing room.

  As Claire swept down the inlaid satinwood staircase, her coltish legs supporting her regal posture, she had only one ongoing hope. If, if, and if Harrison would return to Lake Como with her forever. Could he be content surrounded by books and his papers, writing political histories and his memoirs of the war? Who better to assist him than she, the woman who truly loved her great man? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the impossible could happen? If it could happen anywhere, it would be on their idyllic lake. Mornings spent in quiet research, he writing, she preparing the next day's text; then lunch on the veranda; and after the afternoon's work was done, a walk in the garden, a cappuccino, and long evenings entangled in one another's arms, their passion free to soar in the bed they'd share without the charade of separate rooms. If only he could lose his senses, as she had lost hers, they could return to Italy. She wouldn't even have to change the initials on her luggage—or her last name.