The Casanova Embrace

by Warren Adler

  Lying in bed, she seemed to will herself into a state of paralysis, hating herself for yielding to the pain of it, but not wishing it to end. She watched the light change in the room, wondering if she could ever summon up, or want to, the urge to move again. There seemed no point to it anymore. Maybe I have died, she told herself, or I am wishing it to happen.

  Then, when the room was brighter, and the sounds in the streets below indicated that the city was fully awakened, the sound of the telephone burst into the air. Him, she knew, as her body moved suddenly, the energy recoiling. She picked up the receiver.

  "Eddie?"

  "Yes." There was an echo. He was obviously in a booth, the sound muffled.

  "All right," he said. She could not summon a response. The tears rolled in a stream again.

  "It's all right" he said again. "I will call you in a few days."

  Then the phone clicked. She continued to hold the phone until the buzz began.

  VII

  Who is being investigated here, Dobbs wondered, angrily. His mind had wandered. He was thinking about himself, his lost insight. Perhaps I have been at this game too long, he decided. I have grown as dry as a leftover leaf in winter. Was he really looking for a motive behind the Palmero hit or something in himself. Or both.

  Furtively, like a self-conscious bird, he looked up from the files on his desk, glancing in either direction and behind him, a visual sweep to be sure no one was there to observe him. He had given strict orders that he was not to be disturbed. And he had double-locked the door. Then why had he suddenly searched the room with his eyes, he asked himself, knowing that the answer was his own fear. He shivered at his faulty logic, fingering the files again, forcing his concentration.

  But again he looked up, turned from side to side and behind him. The table was jammed tight against the wall, stark, pictureless, a secured space. Someone was here, he was certain, in the room with him, watching him, sensing things inside of him, sensors crawling under his skin like maggots in a dead carcass. Eduardo, he whispered. The audibility shocked him, because the word had slid out of his mouth. He had not willed it to be said.

  Opening another file, he noted his fingers shook. Eduardo, he said, this time in full control, deliberately louder as if to ridicule what had happened previously. Stop bugging me, he said in a conversational tone, as if Eduardo were within earshot.

  It took a long time for the meaning of the words in the report to penetrate his mind. Finally his interest was magnetized again and he felt the pull of Eduardo's as yet unfathomable world.

  The wife! Miranda Ferrara Palmero. An excellent Polaroid color shot showed her clearly; graceful, slender, with high cheekbones, creamy skin and longish dark hair almost to her shoulders, parted in the middle, giving her face a Madonna-like air. Another Polaroid showed her again with a young child, a boy, clinging to her shyly. By any standard, the woman was a beauty. She seemed strong, proud, aristocratic in bearing, oddly symbolic of Chile's emancipated female.

  The writer of the report was quick in confirmation. Miranda Palmero was, indeed, something special even in Chilean eyes, much accustomed to beautiful women. The Ferraras could trace their huge land holdings to Bernardo O'Higgins himself, the Irish-Indian bastard who liberated Chile from the Spaniards and then gave away much of the land to those who had helped him.

  Ferraras were both oligarchs and intellectuals, poets, doctors, politicians, businessmen, and the activities of their offspring were grist for the newspaper mill. In a Manila envelope was a pile of clippings. Miranda with her father at the opening of the races. Miranda riding. Miranda at tennis. Miranda sailing. Miranda in a night club. Miranda at her wedding. There was Eduardo, handsome, even glowing in his winged collar and tails, standing beside the radiant beauty. The couple on top of the wedding cake! One clipping described the event as the ultimate merger, the inevitable melding of the old with the new, good genes coming together, the ceremonial crossing of the great bloodlines of Chile. Who could have foretold how it would turn out?

  The report was long. Miranda was voluble, excessive, and the interrogation was obviously a catharsis, a long tirade of self-justification. There was deep guilt here. The woman had harangued, raged, boiled with emotion as she spilled her life into the recorder. With uncommon detail, the writer had even described the setting for the interrogation. A huge, ornate room, in the Ferrara compound in the foothills above Santiago, pre-Columbian art abounding, a dominant oil of O'Higgins, surrounded by family mementos, shrines to the Ferraras. It had started on a bright sunny morning and gone on until well beyond midnight.

  "So it was fashionable to be compassionate," she had raged. One could almost hear her well-bred voice modulate in emphasis as it seethed with anger over this enormous intrusion. "We are all compassionate. We have eyes. We see suffering. We see poverty. We see injustice. We bleed. We pray for them. We are not stone hearted." Perhaps she had paused, lit a cigarette, which dangled from ringed tapered fingers.

  "With Eduardo Palmero it was not enough merely to be compassionate. With Eduardo he had to bleed with them. He had to cut his wrists with them. There was no middle ground. I had to conspire with his family to preserve his inheritance for my child. As it was, he had given much of it away to finance them." "Them" spat out of the page as an expectoration.

  "Who are 'they'?" the interrogator had asked. Obviously, it was the root motivation of the interview. Dobbs checked the dates. Eduardo was in prison at the time, and they were putting electrodes to his testicles to get out of him what she would have given freely, if she knew.

  "They would crawl over the house like lice, all these so-called saviors. I detested their presence. They revolted me. They stunk. It was the bone of contention from the beginning. He and his friends would have handed us over to the Russians on a silver platter. And that pig Allende. He was a bumbling idiot, a foil for their manipulations. In a few more years there would be nothing left. We would be on refugee boats heading north, begging our big brothers to throw us the crumbs of their hospitality."

  "Did you fight about this?" the interrogator had asked slyly.

  "Fight?" There might have been a long hesitation, a deep tug on the cigarette, two great streams of smoke flaring out of her nostrils. "Fight implies a relationship. We had none."

  "Not even in the beginning."

  "Not even then. I loathed him."

  "So why the marriage?"

  There was a long pause. She might have shivered. They were reaching the raw nerves.

  "He was a Palmero. I was a Ferrara. Marriages are not made in heaven. His father was clever. He pursued the marriage like a fox. My father could not resist."

  "And the child?"

  "It was my duty to create one." The pronoun seemed odd.

  "It was my duty," she repeated calmly, showing her contempt of the interrogator's ignorance, a flash of aristocratic arrogance.

  "And he was the father?" She would be containing her rage now, at the point of exasperation.

  "Ferraras are not given to whoredom," she had said, speaking for the gallant line of her predecessors. "We are also quite fertile. Our conceptions are quick." Dobbs could sense the intimidation in the male interrogator, who seemed confused. Humanity is a weakness in this business, Dobbs was thinking. It had been his refuge. But it was gone now. A sense of humanity might have saved this case. What, after all, did he know of the love of women?

  "There was no love between you?" the interrogator asked.

  "Love?" She might have looked at him coldly. But the interrogator needed more.

  "If you say it was over from the beginning, then how could you...?"

  "I could," she must have said quickly. "It is quite possible."

  "But you said you loathed him?"

  "With my soul."

  "And you loathe him now?"

  "More than ever."

  "And did you loathe him at the time of your conception?"

  "Especially then."

  "And how did he feel about you?"

/>   "I would have hated me," she would have cried. "He should have hated me. From his vantage point, I would have detested me. Everything he wanted me to be, I was not, could not be. If I were him, I would have put a knife in my heart."

  "Then he loved you."

  "If that is the word."

  "And you could not love him?"

  "No. I told you. I loathed him."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know."

  "Was it his politics?"

  "Maybe."

  "You are not sure."

  "No. Why are you asking me this?"

  "I am doing the questioning."

  "It is enough that I loathe him. I denounce him. I disassociate myself and my child from everything he stands for."

  "And do you care what happens to him?"

  "No."

  "Even if he was executed?"

  "Even then."

  "You have no compassion for him?"

  "No."

  "Did he treat you abominably?"

  "No."

  "Then why?"

  Hesitation again. The interrogator seemed to have gained the upper hand.

  "I cannot answer that question. I don't understand it at all. I'm sorry. Don't talk to me of love. What does love have to do with it?"

  Dobbs could imagine the long pause, the tension in the air, the terror of some old memory.

  "If it is true that love is an illogical emotion, then so is loathing." The woman had whispered, her throat barely able to support the ejaculation of the word.

  "Then why did you marry him?"

  "I told you."

  "You were forced by duty?"

  "In a manner of speaking."

  "That is why you loathed him?"

  "Not at all. The marriage was logical. It was an excellent match from our family's point of view. His father saw me as the force to change the direction of Eduardo's life. He was a man who could get what he wanted."

  "It would have been better if you loved him."

  "Of course."

  "Did you try?"

  "Try to love? Can one?"

  We are getting nowhere, the interrogator must have said.

  Dobbs understood, imagining Eduardo's father trying to manipulate fate. Hadn't he tried as well, and failed?

  * * * *

  Eduardo knew his father had been watching his face, but the distraction of the tennis ball as it collided with the racket had interfered with his concentration.

  "Are you listening?" his father said sternly. The veranda overlooking the tennis courts of the club glowed violet in the late afternoon sun. The air was dry, light; the scent of eucalyptus, which came in like the tide at night, was already settling sweetly over them. His father had chosen the tennis club for this talk so he would not miss his late afternoon game. He always kills two birds with one stone, Eduardo thought. At moments like this the image of Isabella always intruded and he could not find the old respect.

  "The firm must continue to have a Palmero," his father said. He had announced by letter to his father that he would not attend law school.

  "It has you," Eduardo said quietly, respectfully.

  "Now," his father replied wistfully. "But in ten years.... "His voice trailed off. He put a hand on his son's arm, haired along the ridges under his knuckles.

  "I would not be happy at it," Eduardo said, sipping the golden sherry in the tapered glass.

  "But, my God, Eduardo. You are the only son." There was a brief air of pleading as he glimpsed the shattered dream in his father's eyes. They displayed the beginnings of his impending old age.

  "We are different, Father," Eduardo said. It was then that his father had begun to talk quickly, his voice velvet, with the lawyer's art of persuasion. But the sound of the tennis ball intruded. His mind had been filled with the arguments for his own case, his lack of interest in law, the absurdity of endlessly accumulating property, the lack of justice in it. We cannot always be taking without giving something back, he had wanted to argue, but what was the point? His father would think of it as youthful stupidity. A ball cracked, sharper than the others, like a gunshot. He had seen the racket swing swiftly in the girl's arm. It was only then that he noticed the girl.

  "It is your duty," his father droned on. "I cannot leave this to your mother or your sisters and certainly not their husbands." His views on his daughters' choice of mates were well-known. But then he had always shown contempt for the females of his household. With good reason, Eduardo agreed, seeing the disgust surface on his father's face as if any thought of his wife and daughters could fill him with nausea.

  Eduardo's mind was absorbing his father's information, but his senses were alert to the girl on the court, long legged, the short whites tightly wrapping a fullness in her breasts and buttocks, long hair tight in a pony tail as she glided over the court, humiliating her male partner with her. grace and skill. He felt a stirring in his crotch and crossed his legs, sipping again from the glass. But he did not turn his eyes away from the girl and finally his father noticed.

  "Miranda Ferrara," he said, "lovely to watch."

  "Excellent player." Remembering Isabella, Eduardo determined not to show interest. He had seen her before, of course, always with detachment since she seemed beyond his aspirations, an intimidating figure with her arrogance and confidence.

  "And quite beautiful," his father said, still watching him, the challenge implicit. Had his father known he was outside of his study, watching? He tore his eyes away and looked into his father's face.

  "I know I'm a disappointment to you, Father," Eduardo said, surprised at his wavering voice. Their discussion seemed remote from his real interest now as he imagined the girl on the tennis court behind him. He watched as his father shrugged and dipped his head into his drink.

  "I wish I could be what you want me to be," he whispered. But his father's face had quickly changed, the mask of ingratiation forming as he looked beyond Eduardo, who turned as the girl came toward him, his heartbeat accelerating. A deep flush seemed to wash over his entire body. His father stood up and Eduardo obeyed the impulse of politeness. It was odd how much he aped his father's sense of politeness.

  "Miss Ferrara," his father said, adding quickly, "this is my son, Eduardo."

  She held out a limp hand and touched Eduardo's, the flesh of his palm perspiring as he looked into her dark eyes, flickering briefly as if he were a piece of stone in her line of sight. On the surface it was all so formal, so ritualistic, while beneath he surged, sputtered. When she reached for his father's hand, anger erupted, barely contained as he remembered Isabella. I will not let this happen again, he thought, the rage boiling, making his tongue thick. Then she passed on, a regal figure moving through an aisle of admiring subjects.

  He would remember the moment, of course. His mind would try to unravel the mystery of the sudden attraction, like a hook shoved into his body, as if he were merely a carcass to be hung on a rack.

  Later, agitated, he had gone back to his own apartment in Santiago brooding over his inaction in not explaining himself to his father, annoyed that he had been deflected. Could he know then that the distraction would last a lifetime?

  He had, by then, already allied himself with the political left, who had eagerly welcomed a son of the oligarch. He had joined with the FRAP forces against Frie, had met Allende, and was already composing unsigned articles for the party journal. His father deliberately avoided the subject, a wise man. "You are plotting the destruction of your own family," he might have said. Which, in a way, was curiously true.

  So politics had been merely an undercurrent. The meeting had accomplished little between father and son. Only the sudden attraction for Miranda had made the meeting memorable for Eduardo. He could not get her out of his mind, nor out of his body. It was as if she had, like some invisible substance, seeped into his pores and spread through his cells, commanding his attraction. The brief memory of her flesh touching him could send him into a paroxysm of autistic passion with visible, very physical
reactions.

  He began to haunt the places she was known to frequent. It was relatively easy to find out where they were since she was of great interest to the press, the beautiful, vivacious, wealthy, untouchable princess of the Ferraras. Occasionally at a dance or a night club, or at a party, he would nod her way, receiving in turn her cool acknowledgment, devoid, he was certain, of any interest on her part.

  He began to save her clippings and paste them on the inside of his closet door, hidden from the eyes of his occasional visitors, a gallery for his private pleasures or guilt. It was annoying to be so helplessly obsessed, he knew. Nor did it help his self-esteem, since personal discipline was an important factor in his make-up, up till then a source of pride.

  His father, a man of infinite subtlety, continued his pressure, perhaps sensing his son's vulnerability. Did he know? Eduardo wondered, a curiosity that filled him with dread, since the idea of it could summon up the early pain of Isabella.

  One day his father arrived at his apartment unannounced. Eduardo had just come home from a party meeting, drained from exhortations since he'd had to whip himself into participation, an added strain that certainly had diminished his effectiveness. He was morose and had barely taken off his jacket when his father arrived. The older man was fresh from the exhilaration of some negotiation, although it was odd that he would arrive without the courtesy of a call in advance which would have put Eduardo on his guard.

  "You look terrible, Eduardo," he said, surveying his son with that stifling sense of proprietorship. Knowing it was true, Eduardo ignored the observation. He wanted his father to leave. He was an intrusion. Alone, he could contemplate Miranda, summon up his private image of her, the sensual, supple beauty. Sometimes he could almost reach out and feel her hair, its softness caressing his fingers.

  "I have been working hard," he said finally, to shift his father's concentration on him, or, at least, interrupt his visual surveillance. There was, obviously, something special on the older man's mind. He hoped it would not be the law thing.