Mecha is still staring at him, with a look of such utter contempt now that he almost has to force himself not to look away.
“Is that all? Strange, you say? . . . For God’s sake, Max. I’ve been in love with you ever since we danced that tango . . . almost my whole life.”
Night was also drawing in twenty-nine years before, over the bay in Nice, while Max Costa and Mecha Inzunza walked along the Promenade des Anglais. The sky was overcast, and the last rays of light were fading fast among the dark clouds, fusing the line between the sky and the rough sea crashing onto the pebbly beach. The odd heavy raindrop, presaging a downpour, splashed on the ground, giving a forlorn look to the motionless palm fronds.
“I’m leaving Nice,” said Max.
“When?”
“In three or four days. As soon as I’ve finished some business here.”
“Will you be coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
She said nothing more about it. She was walking steadily in her high heels, despite the damp ground, hands in the pockets of a gray raincoat with the belt pulled tight, accentuating her slender waist. Her hair was swept up under a black beret.
“Will you stay in Antibes?” asked Max.
“Yes. Probably all winter. At least for as long as the situation in Spain lasts, and while I’m awaiting news of Armando.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“No.”
Max hooked his umbrella over one arm, then removed his hat and shook the raindrops off before putting it on again.
“At least he’s still alive.”
“He was a few weeks ago. Now, I don’t know.”
The Palais de la Méditerranée had just switched on its lights. As though responding to a general signal, the street lamps suddenly came on along the wide sweep of the Promenade, casting alternate light and shadows on the façades of the hotels and restaurants. Opposite the HÔtel Ruhl, beneath the covered walkway to La Jetée-Promenade where a uniformed doorman was standing guard, three young men in evening dress were hanging around, trying their luck with the cars that pulled up and the women who stepped out of them on their way inside, where music was playing. Clearly none possessed the hundred francs that was the price of admission. All three men looked at Mecha, quietly covetous, and one of them went over to Max to cadge a cigarette. He smelled of cheap cologne. Extremely young and rather handsome, he looked Italian and was dressed like the others in a double-breasted jacket, tapered at the waist, a starched collar, and a bow tie. The suit looked hired and the shoes were somewhat scuffed, but the young man behaved with a self-assurance and almost insolent swagger that made Max smile. Max came to a halt, unbuttoned his Burberry, took out his tortoiseshell cigarette case, and offered it to the young man, open.
“Take a couple more for your friends,” Max suggested.
The youth looked at him with vague unease. Then he plucked out three cigarettes, thanked him, glanced once more at Mecha, and went to join the others. Max went on walking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her looking at him, amused.
“Old memories,” she said.
“Indeed.”
As they moved away, the tune playing on the Jetée-Promenade came to an end, and the orchestra struck up another melody.
“I don’t believe it.” Mecha laughed, linking arms with Max. “You staged the whole thing for me . . . gigolos included.”
Max laughed as well, just as astonished: the strains of the Old School Tango wafted over from the casino dance hall, competing with the sound of the surf on the pebbles.
“Would you like to go in and dance to it?” he jested.
“Don’t even think about it.”
They strolled along. Listening.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, when they could no longer hear the tango. “Far better than Ravel’s piece.”
They walked for a while in silence. Then Mecha gave Max’s arm a squeeze.
“Without your contribution, that tango wouldn’t exist.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “I’m sure your husband would never have succeeded in composing it without you. It’s your tango, not his.”
“What nonsense.”
“I danced with you, remember. In that corner dive in Buenos Aires . . . I haven’t forgotten how he looked at you. How we all did.”
It was completely dark outside by the time they crossed the bridge over the Paillon. On their left, beyond the gardens, Masséna Square was lit up by street lamps. A tram passed close by, between the dense, shadowy trees, scarcely visible but for the sparks from the trolley pole.
“Tell me something, Max.” She was fingering her neck beneath her raincoat. “Had you always planned to take the necklace, or were you improvising as you went along?”
“I was improvising,” he lied.
“You’re lying.”
He looked straight at her with complete candor.
“No I’m not.”
There was almost no traffic: the odd horse-drawn carriage went by, hood up, lantern burning, rolling over wet leaves, and occasionally they were dazzled by the moist, hazy lights of a car. They crossed the road carelessly, leaving the Promenade behind them, and turned down a side street near Cours Saleya.
“What was that dive called again?” asked Mecha. “The tango place.”
“La Ferroviaria. Next to Barracas station.”
“Do you think it’s still there?”
“I don’t know. I never went back.”
Heavy raindrops were once more falling onto Max’s hat. Still not enough to warrant opening his umbrella. The couple quickened their pace.
“I’d like to listen to music again in a place like that, with you. . . . Are there places like that in Nice?”
“You mean, seedy?”
“No, silly, I mean special. Perhaps a little sleazy.”
“Like that boardinghouse in Antibes?”
“For example.”
“With or without a mirror?”
She responded by forcing him to stop in his tracks and lower his head. Then she kissed him on the lips. A fleeting yet forceful kiss, thick with remembrances and immediate purpose. Max was seized by an urgent desire.
“Of course,” he said calmly. “There are places like that everywhere.”
“Name one.”
“Here, the only one I know is Lions at the Kill. A nightclub in the old part of town.”
“I love the name.” Mecha made as if to rub her hands together, knowingly. “Let’s go there right now.”
Max took her arm, forcing her to walk on.
“I thought we were going to dinner. I reserved a table at Bouttau, next to the cathedral.”
Mecha pressed her face into his shoulder, almost bringing him to a halt.
“I can’t stand that restaurant,” she said. “The chef always comes out to greet the diners.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“A lot of things. Everything started to go wrong the day dressmakers, hairdressers, and cooks began fraternizing with their customers.”
“And tango dancers,” Max added, chuckling.
“I have a better idea,” she proposed. “Let’s have a snack at La Cambuse: oysters and a bottle of Chablis. And afterward you can take me to that nightclub.”
“As you like. But before we go in, put your necklace and bracelet away in your bag. We don’t want to tempt fate.”
They were near to a street lamp in Cours Saleya when she looked up at him. Her eyes glinting like copper or tin.
“Will the boys from the old days be there, too?”
“I’m afraid not.” Max smiled, wistfully. “Only the ones from today.”
Lions at the Kill wasn’t a bad name, but it promised more than it offered. There were bottles of cheap champagne in ice buckets; dark, dusty corners; a s
inger of indeterminate gender with a gravelly voice who dressed in black and imitated Edith Piaf; and, after ten o’clock, some striptease acts. The ambience was fake and self-conscious, somewhere between late Apache and tired Surrealist. The tables were taken up by a few American and German tourists mistakenly expecting to find some excitement, a few sailors from nearby Villefranche, and three or four individuals, with pointed sideburns and dark, pin-striped suits, who looked like movie gangsters, and whom Max suspected were employed by the owner to give the place atmosphere. Halfway through the second striptease act (a plump Egyptian woman with large, pale, quivering breasts), Mecha yawned and said she’d had enough, so Max asked for the bill, paid two hundred francs for the bottle they had scarcely touched, then once more they found themselves outside.
“Is that all there is?” Mecha seemed disappointed.
“Here in Nice, yes. Almost.”
“Take me to the almost, then.”
Max responded by opening his umbrella, while signaling the end of the street. The rain was dripping from the eaves. They were in Rue Saint-Joseph, near the crossroads and the hill up to the castle. Two women were standing close to the only streetlight, sheltering beneath the small awning of a closed florist shop. One of the women stepped back into a doorway when she saw them, but the other stood her ground as they approached. She was skinny and tall. Dressed in a short jacket with a Persian lamb collar and a close-fitting, dark, midlength skirt. The skirt hugged the clean curve of her hips, accentuating her slender legs, which seemed even longer in her high, wedge shoes.
“She’s pretty,” said Mecha.
Max studied the woman’s face. In the light of the street lamp she looked young behind the dark stain of her painted lips. She wore thick eye shadow beneath eyebrows that were a penciled line, barely visible below the narrow brim of her dripping hat.
“Perhaps she is,” Max conceded.
“She has a nice body, supple. Almost elegant.”
They had drawn level with the woman who was looking at them: a professional, fleeting glance aimed at Max, which turned to blank indifference the moment she realized he and his companion were arm in arm. An inquisitive look followed, sizing up Mecha by her clothes and appearance. The raincoat and beret didn’t give much away, but Max noticed her instantly taking in Mecha’s shoes and handbag, as though reproaching her for not caring about ruining them in that rain.
“Ask her how much she charges,” whispered Mecha.
She had leaned toward Max as she spoke, almost fervently, her eyes still fixed on the woman. He looked at Mecha uneasily.
“It’s none of our business.”
“Ask her.”
The woman had overheard their exchange (which was in Spanish), or was guessing. Her eyes moved from him to her, seeming to understand. A smile, somewhere between disdainful and expectant, played on her dark red lips. Mecha’s bag and shoes had stopped being important. Marking limits or distances.
“How much?” Mecha asked her, in French.
With professional discretion, the woman replied that it depended on them. On the time, and the gentleman’s preferences. Or those of the lady. She had stepped to one side to shelter from the rain, moving out of the light after looking over the couple’s shoulder, her hand resting on her hip.
“Doing it with him while I watch,” Mecha said, with icy calm.
“Don’t even think about it,” Max protested.
“Be quiet.”
The woman mentioned a figure. Max looked again at her long, slender legs, beneath the clinging skirt. He felt aroused, in spite of himself. Not so much by the prostitute, as by Mecha’s attitude. For a brief moment he imagined a room somewhere nearby rented by the hour, a bed with soiled sheets, him penetrating that skinny, supple body while Mecha, naked, watched them attentively. Turning to her afterward, still moist from the other woman, to penetrate her in turn. To find himself once more inside that pure, natural, perfect body he could feel palpitating hungrily on his arm.
“Bring her with us,” Mecha demanded suddenly.
“No,” said Max.
In the Negresco, as the rain came drumming on the windowpanes, they came together in a frantic, passionate embrace that was like a combat: hungry, silent—except when they moaned, hit each other, or cried out, a silence made of avid, taut flesh and warm saliva, alternating with sudden, lewd curses, which Mecha whispered in Max’s ear with obscene zeal. The memory of the tall, thin woman accompanied them throughout, as intensely as if she had been there watching or being watched, obeying their bodies saturated with perspiration and desire, locked in a fierce embrace.
“You would whip her while thrusting in and out of her,” Mecha whispered breathlessly, licking the sweat from Max’s neck. “Bite her back, tear her flesh. Yes. Making her scream.”
In a moment of extreme violence, she punched Max’s face until his nose bled, and when he tried to stanch the blood that was spotting the sheets, she continued to kiss him furiously, hurting him even more, her nose and mouth caked in his blood, like a frenzied wolf devouring its prey, pulling it apart with its teeth; meanwhile, clasping the iron bars of the bedstead, Max tried to find a way of controlling himself on the verge of the abyss, forced to grit his teeth to repress a howl of animal anguish, as old as time itself, arising from deep inside him. Holding back as best he could the overwhelming desire, past the point of no return, the longing to plunge into the empty, soulless, desolate void of that woman dragging him to the verge of madness and oblivion.
“I feel like a drink,” she said later, putting out a cigarette.
Max thought that was a good idea. They slipped their clothes on over skin reeking of flesh and sex, and descended the wide staircase to the circular foyer and the wood panel bar, where Adolfo, the Spanish waiter, was closing up. The frown on his face relaxed when he saw who was approaching. For Adolfo had long considered Max a member of that select brotherhood, never officially defined, not even by their financial status, whom, out of habit or instinct, barmen, taxi drivers, headwaiters, florists, shoeshine boys, hotel receptionists, and other personnel essential to the smooth functioning of high society, could recognize at a glance. And there was a reason for all that goodwill. Max was aware that with the kind of life he led, such accomplices in the servant world could be invaluable, and he contrived at every opportunity to strengthen those ties, with a skillful mixture (which anyway came naturally to him) of easy amiability, thoughtfulness, and generous tips.
“Three West-Indians, Adolfo. Two for us and one for yourself.”
Although the barman was willing to prepare one of the tables (he had turned the bronze appliqué wall lights back on for them) they settled for two bar stools beneath the wooden balustrade of the floor above, sipping their drinks in silence, very close, gazing into each other’s eyes.
“You smell of me,” she said. “Of us.”
It was true. Pungent, very physical. Max smiled, his head tilted, a broad strip of white flashing across his tanned skin, where a stubble was beginning to show. Despite having powdered her face before coming down, Mecha had red marks on her chin, neck, and mouth from chafing against it.
“You’re a handsome devil.”
She touched his nose, which was still bleeding slightly, and then left a red fingerprint on one of the small embroidered napkins on the bar.
“And you are a dream,” he said.
He took a sip of his drink: chilled, perfect. Adolfo had an extraordinary talent for making cocktails.
“I dreamt about you when I was a little boy,” he added, wistfully.
It sounded sincere, and it was. Mecha looked at him intently, lips parted, breathing with quiet agitation. Max had placed his hand on her waist, and could feel the perfect curve of her hip beneath the mauve fabric.
“Nothing in life comes free,” she jested, folding the napkin away.
“Well, I hope I’ve already paid, ot
herwise the bill will be ruinous.”
She placed her fingers on his lips, silencing him.
“Goûtons un peu ce simulacre de bonheur,” she said.
They were quiet again. Max was relishing the cocktail and her closeness, his physical awareness of her skin and flesh. The silence associated with their recent pleasure. This wasn’t a simulacrum of happiness, he told himself. He felt truly happy, lucky to be alive, to have encountered no further obstacle on the path that had led him there. That long, perilous, interminable path. The thought of leaving her felt like an unbearable wrench. Verging on fury. He wished he could be far away from the two Italians and Fito Mostaza. He wished they were all dead.
“I’m hungry,” said Mecha.
She was looking at Adolfo in the way of someone used to having everybody, servants included, at her beck and call. Accepting her abrupt tone as part of his job, the barman apologized, adding that everything was closed at that time of night. But, he said, after hesitating for a moment, if the lady and gentleman would come with him, he could fix up a little something for them. Then, with a knowing look, he switched off the lights and beckoned them to follow him through the back door, down a poorly lit staircase into the basement. They went after him hand in hand, enjoying the unexpected adventure, and made their way down a long corridor toward the deserted kitchen. On a table next to a stack of shiny pots and pans was a cured Spanish ham (all the way from the Alpujarras, Adolfo declared proudly as he removed the cloth that was draped over it).
“Are you any good with a knife, Mr. Max?”
“First rate. I was born in Argentina, you know.”
“Then start slicing, if you don’t mind. I’m going to fetch you some burgundy.”
No sooner had they returned to the room than Max and Mecha tore off their clothes again, coming together with renewed urgency, as if for the first time. They spent the rest of the night in semislumber, embracing whenever they awoke, each responsive to the other’s insistent desire. Finally, as the first light of dawn began to filter through the window, they plunged into a deep, exhausted sleep. They lay calmly side by side until Max opened his eyes and, without looking at his watch, went over to the window, where a pale light and the sound of the still-falling rain penetrated through the curtains. A lone dog was scampering across the pebbly beach. Through the windowpane, speckled with raindrops running into tiny trickles, the sea was a misty gray sheet, while along the Promenade the palm fronds drooped mournfully toward the glistening tarmac. Max turned to gaze once more at the beautiful, naked woman asleep facedown amid the rumpled sheets, and he knew that this dull blue light, smeared by the autumn rain, was a sign that he was about to lose her forever.