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    THE CASANOVA EMBRACE
    THE CASANOVA EMBRACE
    THE CASANOVA EMBRACE
    Ebook415 pages6 hours

    THE CASANOVA EMBRACE

    By Warren Adler

    3/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStonehouse Press
    Release dateJan 24, 2017
    ISBN9781533307743
    THE CASANOVA EMBRACE
    Author

    Warren Adler

    Acclaimed author, playwright, poet, and essayist Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce adapted into the BAFTA- and Golden Globe–nominated hit film starring Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas, and Kathleen Turner. Adler has also optioned and sold film rights for a number of his works, including Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas) and The Sunset Gang (produced by Linda Lavin for PBS’s American Playhouse series starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould, and Doris Roberts), which garnered Doris Roberts an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries. His recent stage/film/TV developments include the Broadway adaptation of The War of the Roses, to be produced by Jay and Cindy Gutterman, The War of the Roses: The Children (Grey Eagle Films and Permut Presentations), a feature film adaptation of the sequel to Adler’s iconic divorce story, and Capitol Crimes (Grey Eagle Films and Sennet Entertainment), a television series based on his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series. For an entire list of developments, news and updates visit www.Greyeaglefilms.com. Adler’s works have been translated into more than 25 languages, including his staged version of The War of the Roses, which has opened to spectacular reviews worldwide. Adler has taught creative writing seminars at New York University, and has lectured on creative writing, film and television adaptation, and electronic publishing.

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    • 3/5
      This book had a good plot as an intriguing espionage thriller.But had so much sex, sex and not more sex that if you consider the parallel lives of the women caught in this triangle one wonders of the feasibility and could consider that the Casanova in question is certainly deserving of the moniker. That aside this does have an intriguing plot and could make the basis of a book that might be taken more seriously.

    Book preview

    THE CASANOVA EMBRACE - Warren Adler

    Praise

    Praise for Warren Adler’s Fiction

    Warren Adler writes with skill and a sense of scene.

    —The New York Times Book Review on The War of the Roses

    Engrossing, gripping, absorbing… written by a superb storyteller. Adler’s pen uses brisk, descriptive strokes that are enviable and masterful.

    —West Coast Review of Books on Trans-Siberian Express

    A fast-paced suspense story… only a seasoned newspaperman could have written with such inside skills.

    —The Washington Star on The Henderson Equation

    High-tension political intrigue with excellent dramatization of the worlds of good and evil.

    —Calgary Herald on The Casanova Embrace

    A man who willingly rips the veil from political intrigue.

    —Bethesda Tribune on Undertow

    Warren Adler’s political thrillers are…

    Ingenious.

    —Publishers Weekly

    Diverting, well-written and sexy.

    —Houston Chronicle

    Exciting.

    —London Daily Telegraph

    Praise for Warren Adler’s Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery Series

    High-class suspense.

    —The New York Times on American Quartet

    Adler’s a dandy plot-weaver, a real tale-teller.

    —Los Angeles Times on American Sextet

    Adler’s depiction of Washington—its geography, social whirl, political intrigue—rings true.

    —Booklist on Senator Love

    A wildly kaleidoscopic look at the scandals and political life of Washington D.C.

    —Los Angeles Times on Death of a Washington Madame

    Both the public and the private story in Adler’s second book about intrepid sergeant Fitzgerald make good reading, capturing the political scene and the passionate duplicity of those who would wield power.

    —Publishers Weekly on Immaculate Deception

    Title Page

    The Casanova Embrace

    by Warren Adler

    Copyright Page

    Copyright © 2014 by Warren Adler

    ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795345616

    2nd Edition

    All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without permission. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination based on historical events or are used fictitiously.

    Inquiries: Customerservice@warrenadler.com

    STONEHOUSE PRODUCTIONS

    Published by Stonehouse Productions

    Cover design by Brehanna Ramirez

    Dedication

    To Don M. Wolfe who ignited the flame

    Epigraph

    …and who hath fully understood how unknown to each other are man and woman!

    —Friedrich Nietzsche

    Thus Spake Zarathustra

    Contents

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    More Thrillers from Warren Adler

    Also by Warren Adler

    About the Author

    Chapter 1

    Covert intelligence agents and security men in the various embassies along the tree-lined street knew instinctively that it was a bomb blast that had intruded on the chilly morning calm. It was hardly an automobile’s backfire. Windows nearby were shattered. Bric-a-brac fell from shelves and tables in elegant houses innocently flung in the blast’s periphery. A pervasive, unfamiliar odor flumed invisibly upward through the usual pall of pollutants hanging in the heavy Washington air. Someone who not only surmised what had occurred but actually saw the twisted wreckage of the gray Pinto, apparently floating in a cloud of smoky after-blast, called the police. Spectators hovering behind heavy draperies contemplated with fascination the block-long wreckage. A hubcap had been blown, like a discus, into a tree trunk. A tire lay on the doorstep before the heavy wrought-iron door at the entrance of the Greek Embassy. A trail of upholstery stuffing, white, like heavy snow, lay on the asphalt.

    Experienced eyes, familiar with the impersonal ruthlessness of explosives, picked knowingly among the debris of the violence seeking limbs. A foot, the shoe still carefully laced and reflecting on its shine the glint of the shrouded February sun, lay on a patch of grass, fifty feet from the car’s mangled remains. A ringed hand rested eerily on a piece of deformed chrome ornament. Blood stains materialized adjacent to the wreckage, adding a grisly highlight to what might have been a surrealistic performance of an avant-garde art show.

    Officer Bryant of the Executive Protective Force, a tall man with a craggy face, felt the backwash of bile in his throat as he tamped down an involuntary retch. It was the worst, most horrifying scene he had ever witnessed. The first detail he was conscious of was that of a man’s mangled torso in the front seat jammed against the remains of the dashboard, though it was the sight of the head that had made him want to vomit. It was cleanly severed at the neck and lying like an errant basketball on what might have once been the back seat. The eyes were open, the silvery-gray surrounding the black pupils oddly clear and glistening. A thin mustache, neatly edged, lay perfectly centered above a fatty upper lip. The mouth was set in a broad sardonic smile, showing even white teeth.

    I’ll be a sonofabitch, Officer Bryant heard himself say after he had assured himself that he had conquered his urge to vomit. He stared at the face in the severed head, fascinated, compelled to absorb the horror of it. He had no idea what to do.

    Sirens screeched as both marked and unmarked official cars swarmed into the area. Wooden horses suddenly emerged, restricting access to the crime scene. Police officers began to reroute traffic. A white ambulance from the Georgetown University Hospital was quickly passed through the cordon. Two pale, white-coated doctors stepped out, surveyed the scene, hesitated, went back into the ambulance and reappeared wearing surgical gloves.

    A group of uniformed police officers with golden braided caps talked quietly with men in civilian suits as they clustered around the main area of the wreckage. One of the suit clad men waved the doctors forward. Two uniformed attendants followed them carrying a stretcher and a package of transparent bags.

    Looks like a single corpse, male, Caucasian, one of the men in civilian clothes said. He was from the FBI, a take-charge type from his bearing, obviously the senior of the group. Be careful, he whispered to the doctors. There may be prints.

    They should leave their shit at home, another man said. His complexion was sallow, his hair completely white. He was Alfred Dobbs, CIA. Flashbulbs popped as two FBI photographers recorded every detail. An acetylene torch appeared suddenly in the hands of a policeman. He wore safety glasses. The flame of the torch bit into the mangled metal and cut a long rectangular gash in the wreckage, large enough to remove the remains.

    When he had finished, the doctors knelt, poking their arms into the opening, and gently removed the torso. Part of it seemed to disintegrate in their hands as they deftly edged it into a large plastic bag. Securing it with a length of tape, they placed it on the waiting stretcher. Sliding half his body through the opening, one of the other doctors saw the head.

    Oh, my God, Dobbs whispered, lifting it by the hair. He put it in another plastic bag and handed it to the other doctor, who placed it on the stretcher with the pieces of the torso. One of the attendants was searching the area for other signs of human remains, a plastic bag in his hand, like a garbage picker gathering rubbish after a county fair. He picked up the severed hand, found the foot, as well as pieces of indistinguishable flesh, and put them quickly in the bag. He was a young man, a former medic in Vietnam. He was used to this, he told himself. He had seen worse. He sensed that people were watching him from behind the tall windows of the big houses and he liked the attention.

    The doctors, too, continued to find bits and pieces of flesh and bone in what was once the interior of the car. They moved methodically. They knew that the FBI would want the pathologists to get everything that could be found and they wanted their efficiency to be commended.

    A beeping sound grated their ears, and the FBI take-charge man drew a compact walkie talkie from his pocket and quickly extended the antenna.

    Grady here, the FBI man said.

    What is it, Jack? He recognized the voice of the Director.

    Male, Caucasian, sir. Looks foreign. Probably Latino or Italian. About thirty feet from the Chilean Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. Looks like a homemade bomb, blast ripped through the interior of a 1974 Ford Pinto. The medics are picking up the pieces.

    A real mess, eh?

    Better believe it.

    No identity?

    The prints will be over shortly.

    One of the doctors handed him what seemed to be the remains of a District of Columbia license. He held it up at a distance to assure the focus of his farsighted eyes.

    I’ve got a license make, Grady said into the walkie talkie. He gave the Director the number, heard the sound garble as the director repeated it to another person. Static crackled as Grady waited. He knew the information banks were being sent into action, the electronic probes activated. Waiting, he watched with some annoyance as the CIA man approached, the competitive animosity surfacing as he recognized the gray-haired man. It was Dobbs. Pretty high up, he thought with contempt, knowing how swiftly they would move in when they smelled foreign involvement.

    Eduardo Allesandro Palmero. The Director’s voice intruded over the static. His pronunciation was amusingly inaccurate. The car was registered in his name.

    I’ve got a spook here, sir, Grady said. His contempt was undisguised.

    The Director sighed. Who? he asked.

    Dobbs, he wants to know. There was a brief pause. Grady knew what was in the Director’s mind. Hoover would have told him to get lost.

    Tell him, the Director said.

    Eduardo Allesandro Palmero, he said, proud of his pronunciation.

    Dobbs heard the name. It was the confirmation he had dreaded. His stomach lurched. How could he have not foreseen what had happened?

    Is the name familiar? Grady asked, his contempt now hidden, professionally alert. The answer from Dobbs was spare, crisp.

    A Chilean. He was in the Allende government. We gave him asylum. There was more to tell, but this was all they would get. Grady sensed the ambiguity. They would dole out only what was officially necessary. He conveyed the information.

    Shit, the Director said. The foreign aspect meant CIA interference, bureaucratic competition, and aggravation. Keep me up on it.

    Yes, sir, Grady responded, hearing the sign-off click. He put the walkie talkie back in his pocket.

    That’s it, one of the doctors said, tapping Grady on the shoulder. Grady motioned to two of his men who jumped in behind the attendants. The ambulance backed out of the street and moved swiftly down Massachusetts Avenue, sirens turned on, the message of urgency, frightening to the many ears that could hear the shrill agony of its sound.

    The street was crowded with police, FBI and other officials and experts. Many were searching meticulously through the wreckage, retrieving any object that might be potentially useful. They combed the length of the street, peering, hawk-like. Some worked on their hands and knees placing material in plastic bags with tweezers. Photographers continued to snap pictures. Technicians tenaciously brushed all available surfaces for prints. Samples were taken of everything—blood, dust, the upholstery stuffing.

    Men with small pads, ballpoint pens scribbling, meandered up and down the street. Some went in to interview people in the big homes and embassies nearby. They talked to servants, staff, ambassadors, their wives, children. Reporters, forced to remain behind the wooden horses, yelled questions to the men working in the street. Flashbulbs popped. Television and motion picture cameras whirred.

    Everyone worked swiftly. Grady was satisfied with the cooperation of the D.C. Police, the Executive Protective Agency, his own men and the specialists with their sophisticated equipment who gathered every scrap of evidence that might tell them who had torn Eduardo Allesandro Palmero to shreds on this chilly morning in February. Amid the bedlam, he occasionally cast an annoyed glance at Dobbs. Damned spooks, he muttered, knowing that they would, as always, withhold pieces of the puzzle.

    Dobbs, Grady sensed, was already deep in speculation. Dobbs was the Langley wizard on terrorist groups, the resident expert on the sub-underworld of competing gangs who waged continuing war between factions and ideologies. This battleground respected neither national boundaries nor human life. It was an ugly, brutal, maddening war of unparalleled intensity, with many casualties, far from the prying eyes of the media. There were rarely any wounded. Combatants were wasted. Only the innocent were occasionally maimed when, by some odd misfiring, they were not killed. This was Dobbs’ arena, and hundreds of analysts, technicians, agents in every country of the world under his supervision were covering people of every persuasion, all on the payroll—hired guns, mercenaries supplying bits and pieces of intelligence—so that Dobbs could examine this war and synthesize it for the President and his advisors. He was the information filter and he knew his own power, the power of rhetoric.

    Sometimes, with luck, he could track a hit in advance. The Palmero thing, he knew, was an aberration. Who could believe it? His mind was already manufacturing rationalizations, the cover up. On the surface, it could appear to be a logical Junta hit. Was anything awry, out of focus? What was the Junta getting out of it? he asked himself. Every hit had a purpose. Nothing was without design. Perhaps, though, at the moment, it might have been useful to let the obvious prevail.

    Watching the scene now winding down as the men efficiently disposed of their assignments, Dobbs grew restless to be back at his desk in Langley to read the Palmero files, to reach into the information banks, to comb through the forest of information gleaned from the monitoring of the Chilean counterinsurgents, an arm of DINA, their vaunted intelligence apparatus. For South Americans they were a marvel of organization, a long and ruthless arm that could pick out and set up anti-Junta agents with superb dispatch. They had destroyed their enemies in Europe, Africa, the Middle East with great skill. A quick hit. Then fadeout. He wished their own Capos were half as efficient. Capos, he called them, borrowed from the Mafiosi. They would now see him only as a bungler.

    Grady moved closer. The man was in his fifties, but still retained that clean FBI Irish look. You could spot it coming at you almost before you saw the face, as if they threw out some special scent.

    Well, Grady said, how do you read it?

    Could be a Junta hit, Dobbs said. He wanted to seem sincere. Grady nodded, as if he understood. It seems political. Was he suspicious? Dobbs wondered. Bits of information collected themselves in his mind.

    Palmero had been a strategist in the Allende inner circle. He had been Allende’s Minister of Interior, but that was merely to give him a handle. In actuality, he was the propaganda man, the ideological brain, and the Junta had imprisoned him. The CIA had gotten him out, ostensibly as part of a barter for United States aid. In fact, he was set up to be one of their pigeons, a lure, carefully marked bait.

    It has all the earmarks, Dobbs said, feeling the need to reinforce Grady’s naive suppositions.

    Do you think it will be the beginning?

    Dobbs understood. The United States was off limits. Even the most ardent fanatics shied away from performing their bloody business on American soil. Setups were difficult. Officials were less corruptible. Surveillance was sophisticated.

    I hope not, Dobbs replied. In this case, it was still neutral, he knew.

    What kind of bomb was it? Dobbs asked. He knew the answer to that as well.

    Plastic stuff. We found the timer. It looks like it was placed in the back seat, set to go when he hit this area. Where was he heading, you think? Grady was fishing now.

    Who knows? Dobbs shrugged, on his guard. The symbolism was clever, the blast so close to the embassy. A lucky stroke? Or well planned? Either way, it was a useful device.

    You think we’ll get them? Grady asked.

    Nobody ever does.

    We’ll get them, Grady said with an air of conviction.

    Good luck.

    Their naiveté was incredible, Dobbs thought. The FBI was clueless, he told himself. Too macho. Too worried about their own image. Too simplistic. This business happened in the shadows. It was his war. The FBI was out of its league and he was grateful for that.

    The crowd in the street began to thin out. The wooden horses were removed and a crane and truck appeared. The crane quickly lifted the wreckage of the Pinto into the truck while the remaining litter was removed and bagged. Then it, too, was put into the truck, covered and driven out of the area. Reporters pressed around Grady as he moved toward his own car, but he said nothing and drove away.

    Dobbs moved slowly out of range of their probing voices. He liked to think of himself as invisible, an observer, when he was in the field—a rare occurrence. Cloaked in the mist of anonymity, he surveyed the scene.

    The large embassies on either side of the street had borne witness impassively. Dobbs could see eyes still watching in the shadows beyond the large windows. The street emptied. The last traces of the twisted Pinto had disappeared. Even the bloodstains on the asphalt had been cleaned, and the janitors of the various large homes and embassies had already swept the shattered glass. Glaziers were on their way to replace the shattered windows.

    Soon cars were moving normally and people had ventured back into the street, observing the spot where it had happened, then moving on to accustomed chores. The men of the Executive Police wearing their blue-trimmed uniforms resumed their posts. A debrief of the morning events would chase boredom for a few hours, then it was back to the stultifying emptiness of their official duties.

    Dobbs walked to his car. So far, he had observed nothing amiss. But it was still too early to be sure. What was there in Eduardo… he began to think of him as an acquaintance… to inspire such… he hesitated… grandeur? He needed to refresh his mind, consult the files and review the bigger picture. It was not the conclusion he was concerned about. That had already been determined. What had this man done? Why had it eluded him until it was too late?

    Chapter 2

    It was one of Marie’s private pleasures to recall the exact moment when she first laid eyes on him. Later, it would become a ritual of their lovemaking, like an after-dinner drink savored with all the concentration and subtleties that the taste buds could muster.

    It had happened at a crowded affair at the Romanian Embassy. There was always an eclectic group, since Romania could bridge the gap between ideologies. One could find representatives of antagonistic countries and factions calmly sipping champagne together as if what was happening in the real world was merely a fictional device for a screenplay. It made sense politically, she later agreed, for Eduardo to be on their invitational list, since it gave him the opportunity to continue to represent the ill-fated Allende regime.

    He was standing in a corner of the ornate room, deftly removing tidbits from the buffet table, searching swiftly but carefully, with a practiced eye for the most interesting culinary concoction. Then, with clear grace, he had propped the plate on the tips of the fingers of his left hand and proceeded to eat with the calm assurance of someone obviously familiar with diplomatic functions.

    She had watched him from across the crowded room, an idle curiosity, since she was stuck with a boring man from the Department of State whose words she could barely hear above the social din. Her husband, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Embassy, gesticulated with usual intensity in another group of foreign diplomats. There goes Claude again, she remembered thinking, turning slightly, spilling a drop of champagne on her pink Pierre Cardin, the one that was lent out of his new designer’s collection. She had looked up swiftly, caught his eye, then with feigned embarrassment but genuine relief, she excused herself and went off to the ladies room. She had felt his eyes watching her as she moved away.

    And then? It was his ritual response whenever she recalled the moment, her head nestled in the crook of his bare arm, the hard muscle a pillow, as she stroked his chest.

    Then you passed completely out of my mind.

    Completely?

    Well, I was concentrating on the removal of the champagne stain.

    But I did notice that you had disappeared.

    How could you? You were so busy stuffing your face.

    My digestion has nothing to do with the male antenna.

    And what a beautiful antenna.

    Her hand reached down and fondled his penis. She felt its awakening response. Then she removed her hand.

    It was the furthest thing from my mind.

    But a seed was planted.

    Perhaps I loved you then, from that moment.

    You romantics. You exaggerate everything.

    How then can you explain this? She looked downward and watched his penis grow. I was an innocent. I had never been unfaithful. I have been married fifteen years. I felt myself grow wet with yearning.

    He reached downward for her, confirming the result of suggestion.

    You see?

    Purely chemical. Purely a physical reaction. He chided her playfully as two fingers massaged her nipples.

    When I came back you moved toward me. I saw you from the corner of my eye. Then I looked at Claude. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was guilt. Perhaps I knew what was happening. But he was busy being intense and impressive. He is quite impressive, you know, quite eloquent.

    I’m sure he will be an ambassador at his next posting.

    He will be important someday. Powerful and influential. I must never embarrass him. It will destroy him. She felt her eyes begin to mist and a throbbing in her chest, a sob urging to be heard. But she held it in, crushed it with her will.

    I brought you a glass of champagne.

    You came over with two. I could barely catch my breath when you came near me. I swear it. I wanted to refuse your offer. I felt that my fingers would be clumsy, and I would spill some more on poor Monsieur Cardin’s creation.

    But you took it and your hands didn’t shake.

    It was a commitment even then. I must have subconsciously wished to accept anything you offered.

    I said something silly, he responded shyly as his head moved downward, his lips brushing the soft skin of her belly.

    You said: Come, we must toast to beautiful women. I felt myself blushing and I knew that something was happening.

    He moved further downward, his lips touching her pubic hairs.

    It was the beginning of a madness. I hardly knew myself. I am a woman now, she said. You have made me a woman.

    He began titillating her clitoris with his tongue. She responded in kind, reveling in her newfound ferocity a volatile chemistry that she had not thought possible. Then he got on top of her. She waited with quivering expectation, a bit of flotsam on an angry river, following the crashing tide. She wished she could stand outside herself and observe what was happening, what he was doing to her. The sob emerged again, transformed into a low moaning as he entered her, filled her, and her heartbeat accelerated, the joy of it suffusing her body, her soul. She floated on the rushing river, feeling the surge of ecstasy, a repetitive thrash of waves washing over her as he continued to plunge inside of her. I deserve this, she imagined she was telling herself, vaguely acknowledging her guilt, but no longer caring.

    What she had been recalling was the essence of their meeting, not the surface details. He had, indeed, approached her first. But standing there in the crowded room, he had been quite ordinary, but she had noticed his eyes, silver specks in the gray luminescence. How could she have avoided those compelling eyes?

    I am Eduardo Palmero, he had said. His English had little trace of accent, although the precision revealed it had been acquired and was not an original tongue. Holding out his free hand, he took hers. She remembered the light pressure, but felt the fingers’ strength. The touch was delicate but powerful.

    Marie DeFarge. She had hesitated, looking again over at where Claude was standing. My husband is the French minister.

    Ah, Madame DeFarge.

    Don’t say it, she said, laughing, knowing she was showing her white even teeth. It seemed a breach of the formality. But she had already begun to feel his aura. I don’t knit.

    He smiled. His teeth were also very white, against a skin slightly dark in tone, softened by the trim black mustache and the flared nostrils. These were details she was absorbing consciously. The touches of gray at the side of his head of full hair, slightly curled, the thin nose, a median size between aquiline and patrician. He was approximately six feet tall, slender, a man aging with grace. One might say oozing with charm, an errant thought at the time, since she did not want to think of his spontaneity as contrived.

    Italian? she asked.

    My father’s side. My mother was Spanish. Actually, I am a Chilean.

    With the Embassy?

    A brief cloud seemed to pass over his face, dulling the eyes, wrinkling his forehead, tightening the lips.

    No, he said coldly. I am, for the moment, persona non grata.

    She knew at once. The wife of a diplomat is trained to understand. And living with Claude, she dared not even seem ignorant of the games of nations, as he called them.

    Romania, she said, sipping the champagne to mask embarrassment. Yes, I see.

    Brothers under the skin, he remarked cheerfully raising his glass to his Romanian host. At least the exile gets a chance to eat and drink. He smiled again, moving closer to Marie, his eyes probing deeply now. She knew now she had fully gained his interest and it was flattering to her. She was being a flirt, she realized. Claude would chide her about it later, especially after he had had too much to drink. It triggered jealousy, but made him amorous.

    You flaunt yourself, he would say in French. Their intimate moments had started to demand it.

    It is all in your imagination, she would reply, but he was already close to her, his breath mounting, his face flushed.

    There is a limit. It was if he were deliberately bringing himself up to a boil.

    I am a true and faithful wife, she would say. You should be proud that men find me attractive.

    By then, he was fondling her. You are a woman. You don’t know what is in men’s minds.

    What occurred would be swift, violent, and, on his part, passionate. She wondered why nothing he did moved her. It was the major disruptive influence in their lives. She had mothered two children for him, did his bidding as a dutiful diplomatic wife, never embarrassed him, was supportive and outwardly loving. But he did not infatuate her. For many years she had resolved that this is the way it really is. That there was something in her that could not be moved, a patina of cement, beyond which feeling could not penetrate. It was not only with Claude. No man had ever really moved her. The fact of it had made her seem dry and brittle to herself. It was terrible to live with such an idea, she had decided.

    There are many of us in this town, Eduardo had assured her, perhaps sensing her interest. Her eyes roamed his face. It intrigued her to see the moods shift across it, like lightning on a midsummer afternoon.

    Chileans?

    Exiles. Mostly American citizens now. The world map has changed so radically in the last thirty years that the exiles can hardly tell from which country they have been banished. At least, we in South America know where we are from.

    She considered if there was an edge of humor to his remarks. She nevertheless remained silent. It was her diplomatic training. Different languages created different nuances, Claude had warned. Words might be easily translatable, but not the value of the words in emotional terms. Guard yourself, he had added. You might be speaking English, but you are thinking in French and he is thinking in his own language.

    We are revolution-happy, he said, smiling. Then the lightning came again and the smile faded. Ours was the only real revolution since the conquistadors were thrown out. Sooner or later, we will win. We have just lost the first round.

    She was fascinated, she admitted to herself, but she had no desire to hear his story at that moment. It was inappropriate to be heavy in an event like this. Diplomatic receptions were essentially for surface talk. One nibbled at the leaves and left the roots.

    And you, Madame DeFarge? he asked.

    I am a diplomatic wife. We have spent the last fifteen years roaming the world. West Germany. Canada. Hungary. Cambodia.

    She noticed that guests were beginning to leave, and that Claude had glanced her way, nodding, the thin smile a harbinger of what she might expect later. This man was monopolizing her and it was becoming obvious. She had to excuse herself and reach her husband’s side, a diplomatic maneuver. She held out her hand.

    It was so nice to meet you, Mr. Palmero, she said. He took her hand in his and she felt the power and electricity of his touch, an unmistakable surge of sexuality between them. This is absurd, she told herself, a wave of confusion breaking in her mind.

    We must meet again, he said, holding her hand and looking into her eyes, the invitation blatant. It was the moment to say no, to exercise deliberate indifference, to pour water on the hot coals.

    Yes, we must, she responded, knowing that she had exposed her essence. My God, is this me? she wondered, withdrawing her hand and moving across the room to her husband’s side. He introduced her to his companions while she watched Palmero cross the room, graceful and confident, hardly the defeated exile that he wished to portray.

    Later, when they arrived home, Claude admonished her playfully for her flirtatiousness. Luckily, he had not had much liquor.

    Who was that fellow? he asked.

    Some South American, she said with feigned indifference.

    Claude took her in his arms and pressed his pelvis against hers. She felt his hardness and she caught herself imagining that it was Eduardo, and there was, she knew, more feeling in her response. Despite this, she still remained disenchanted.

    Weeks passed and the feeling would not go away. She performed her daily tasks by rote, her mind fogged. The children were cared for and fussed over, suitably swathed in motherly love, disciplined, and otherwise parented.

    What is it, mama? Susan, her ten-year-old, would ask.

    What?

    You’ve hung my skirt in Henry’s closet.

    I’m sorry, what I was thinking.

    But she knew what she was thinking. She carried in her head always the graceful image of Eduardo Palmero, probing the message that he held in his gray eyes with their flashes of silver. At times, when she was not pursuing some task, his image would become more animated, as if he were calling to her from somewhere inside her brain. I am thirty-five years old, she would tell herself, not some dumb teenaged ninny. Claude DeFarge had not been her childhood sweetheart. Marie had considered herself quite experienced with men by the time she had met him.

    She was a student at the Sorbonne, living with her parents in their big house on Rue de Lyon.

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