by Warren Adler
"I've been a fool. Haven't I, Marie? A self-centered fool."
"That's absurd." She turned away again and poured the hot water into a teacup. Strike me, she told herself. Punish me.
"You have been betraying me, Marie," he said. His tone seemed gentler or was it merely the air of futility? But the moment had passed. She paused, gathered her strength. I must survive this somehow.
"It is not what you think," she said. She saw her reflection in the polished toaster, distorted, swollen. Her skin was dead white, her hair awry. She saw her lips move. The distortion was the mirror of her own view of herself.
"I'm listening."
"Tomorrow, Claude. I am tired now. I promise. It is not what you think. I will tell you tomorrow." He stood stiffly, his fists balled, then shrugged.
"Tomorrow then." She heard his footsteps depart. Tomorrow. She would think of something tomorrow. Perhaps she might die with Eduardo. The thought seemed a deliverance. Without Eduardo what did it matter?
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.
XVIII
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 t
o 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.
