Emmanuelle (13 page)

The dress that Emmanuelle put on to go to the reception at the French Embassy was perfectly adapted to this purpose. Its round neckline, which clung to the slope of her shoulders, enhanced, by its broad curve, the beauty of her neck, and covered only the tips of her breasts. All she had to do to make them appear completely was to lean forward a little, or sit down. Furthermore, the lamé cloth was so thin and so tight against her skin that any undergarment would have shown through or been outlined in relief, so she was wearing nothing under that dress, not even a pair of her diaphanous panties. In Paris, after her marriage, she had seldom worn panties when she “dressed up” to go out in the evening; feeling naked in that way gave her a pleasure as physical as a caress. This sensation was still more intense if she was going to dance, or if she was wearing a loose skirt.

This evening, her dress fitted her as tightly as a glove from her waist to her groin, but below this point it abruptly flared out in a kind of spiral whose fullness was surprising. She let herself fall into an armchair to show how the skirt rose of its own accord, revealing the whole length of her golden thighs. The sight she thus offered was so gracefully immodest that Jean suddenly leaned down, reached for the invisible nylon zipper under her armpit, and pulled it down to the bottom of her hip with a sure hand while, with the other, he tried to free her nude body from its silk sheath.

“Jean,” she protested, “what are you doing? Have you lost your mind? We’ll be late! We have to leave right now!”

He gave up trying to undress her. He picked her up and stretched her out on the table in the dining room.

“No! Oh, no! My dress will be all wrinkled. You’re hurting me! What if Christopher comes in? The servants will see us!”

He placed her on her back so that her buttocks were just touching the edge of the table. She herself pulled up her skirt to uncover her belly as much as possible. Her raised, half-bent legs were suspended in the air. Jean, standing, penetrated her all at once, completely. They were both laughing at this impromptu scene. His haste gave her a new pleasure that made her throat burn as if she had been running. She pressed her breasts with her hands, as though to squeeze out their nectar. Her own caresses inflamed her as much as Jean’s furious lunges. At her first cries, the houseboy hurried into the room, thinking she had called him. He stopped hesitantly in the doorway with his hands crossed politely over his chest. It must have been possible to hear her from the houses near by.

When Jean had put her back on her feet, he told the houseboy to clean the table, which they had spotted, and to call Ea, Emmanuelle’s little chambermaid, so that she could help her put her appearance in order again. They arrived at the Embassy a little late.

The crowd was already large. The ambassador, having reached the end of his stay, was giving a farewell reception.

“Ravishing!” he said appreciatively, before kissing Emmanuelle’s hand. He turned to Jean. “Congratulations, my friend! I hope your work leaves you some free time.”

A white-haired lady, to whom Emmanuelle recalled having paid a visit, was staring at her with an expression of wrathful disapproval. Ariane de Saynes arrived in time to make things worse.

“Why, if I’m not mistaken,” she cried, holding out both her hands, “here’s our living outrage to public decency! Let’s hurry and give her a fair trial!” She attracted the attention of an elegant man who was conversing with a bishop. “Look, Gilbert! What do you think of her?”

Emmanuelle felt herself being appraised by the Embassy Counselor and the cleric at the same time. She felt that she was doing better with the former than with the latter. She had more or less expected Ariane’s husband to be a kind of pompous, monocle-wearing simpleton. But the first words he said made her laugh loudly, and she found him physically very much to her taste.

She was already surrounded by gentlemen of various ages who were paying her gallant compliments and giving her obvious looks, but her attention was distracted; she was studying the unknown faces in the distance, both wishing and dreading that she would find Bee. The whole diplomatic corps was to be present. Could Bee’s brother have been invited without her? Maybe so. Emmanuelle did not know what her attitude would be if she should suddenly find herself face to face with the American girl. She hoped with all her strength that she would not meet her. Each group seemed to hide a trap. What was she doing here? When would she be able to escape, or at least be under Jean’s protection again? He had been swallowed up in the crowd.

Ariane reappeared opportunely to take charge of her and dragged her into a whirlwind of introductions. The admiration of the men followed her everywhere. This homage, to which she was accustomed, restored her self-assurance. Her face pretended indifference, but all those eyes that undressed her warmed her at least as much as the cocktails that Ariane poured into her.

Ariane silently watched Emmanuelle joust with a quartet of aviators, holding her shoulders forward and tilting her bust a little. She abruptly drew her aside.

“You’re magnificent!” she exclaimed. Her eyes were flashing. She delicately took the tip of one of Emmanuelle’s enticing breasts between her fingers. “Come with me,” she urged. “In that drawing room back there . . . it’s empty!”

“No, no!” Emmanuelle said rebelliously.

Before Ariane could stop her, she hurried back to the mass of guests and did not feel safe until an aging gentleman had taken her to the edge of the terrace, on the pretext of letting her admire the Chinese lanterns made of painted pigs’ bladders. Marie-Anne discovered her while she was still talking with him.

“Excuse me, Commander,” she said with her usual aplomb, “I have to speak to my friend.”

She took Emmanuelle’s arm, ignoring the graybeard’s protests.

“What were you doing with that old fogey?” she said indignantly as soon as they had taken a few steps. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Mario has been waiting half an hour for you.”

Emmanuelle had forgotten this rendezvous. She was not in the mood for it. While the old man had been paying court to her, she had at least been able to think about other things in peace and quiet. She tried to plead for her freedom.

“Is it really necessary?”

“Now listen, Emmanuelle!” Marie-Anne said with exasperation. “Wait till you see him before you start acting so difficult!”

She sounded so comically promising that Emmanuelle regained her good humor. Before she had time to deride Marie-Anne’s confidence in her hero’s charms, he was standing in front of her.

“What a beautiful smile!” he said, bowing. “How I wish it could have served as a model for the painters of my country! Don’t you find that those restrained smiles, those Florentine intimations, eventually begin to seem like grimaces? They refuse art. I reject everything that contains itself. After all those centuries of grudgingly doling out the favors of its statues, art still exists in its truth only in a candid face.”

Emmanuelle was a bit taken aback by this conversational beginning.

“Marie-Anne insists on having me painted.” (She reflected that Marie-Anne had not even bothered to introduce them.) “Are you the artist she considers worthy of the task?”

Mario smiled. She inwardly admitted that his smile had a rare charm.

“If I had only a hundredth of the talent that I permit myself to challenge in others, Madame, I would offer it to you; the genius of the model would do the rest. Unfortunately, I lack even that. I’m rich only in the art of others.”

Marie-Anne intervened. “He’s a collector, wait till you see! In his house he has not only sculpture from here, but ancient things he brought from Mexico, Africa, and Greece. And paintings . . .”

“Which have no value but to serve as motionless reminders of true art, whose risk and movement defy dead figures. Marie-Anne
mia,
I don’t believe in those scraps of bark fallen from the tree of life. I keep them only in memory of those who have suffered and destroyed themselves to tear them from its trunk or its branches. Art is made of the wasting away of being. What counts is not the painting—as in Poe’s ‘The Oval Portrait’—but the painter’s bride.”

“Once she’s dead?” asked Emmanuelle.

“No, while she’s dying.”

“But hasn’t the painting become alive?”

“Nonsense! It’s nothing but a shoddy curiosity. Art existed only in what was being lost, in the woman who was deteriorating. There can be no beauty in what maintains itself or in what subsists. Every conceived object is stillborn.”

“I was taught the opposite—that only robust art has eternity . . .”

“And would you please tell me who cares about eternity?” Mario interrupted violently. “Eternity is not artistic, it’s ugly; its face is that of a monument to the dead. Every memorial is another corpse in the city. If you try to make beauty eternal, it dies. What’s beautiful is not what’s bare, but what’s baring itself. Not the sound of laughter, but the throat that’s laughing. Not what’s left on paper, but the moment when the artist’s heart is being torn.”

“You said just now that the artist was less important than the model.”

“The sculptor or the painter is the artist only if he takes hold of his subject and
unmakes
it. But often the model fulfills that destiny unaided, and the painter is only a witness. Allow me to quote Miguel de Unamuno: ‘The greatest work of art is not worth the smallest human life.’ The only art that’s not futile is the story of your body.”

“Do you mean that what matters is the way you create yourself? That you have to conceive of yourself as a work of art if you want to live beyond yourself?”

“No,” said Mario, “I don’t believe any such thing . . . If I had any right to give you advice,” he said with faintly disdainful courtesy, “I’d urge you not to live beyond yourself, but just to live.”

He turned away. He seemed to consider that the conversation was over. Emmanuelle felt that her presence was no longer required. It was a rather disagreeable feeling. She spoke to Marie-Anne with a touch of ill-humor: “You haven’t seen Jean by any chance, have you? He vanished as soon as we got here.”

Other women monopolized the Italian; Emmanuelle took advantage of the interruption to slip away. But Marie-Anne quickly rejoined her.

“Are you keeping Bee under lock and key?” she asked, without giving the impression that she attached much importance to her question. “Every time I try to call her, I’m told that she’s at your house.” She gave a rather good-natured little laugh. “And since I don’t want to disturb your love life . . .”

Emmanuelle was dumbfounded. Was Marie-Anne making fun of her? No, she seemed to believe what she was saying. What irony! Emmanuelle was on the verge of complaining aloud. Once again, she was restrained by fear of what Marie-Anne would think. Could she admit to her that she had lost all trace of her one-day mistress? It would be better to maintain the illusions that the little girl in pigtails still had about her elder’s power. Unfortunately, by remaining silent Emmanuelle was depriving herself of a possible means of finding Bee. She decided that, instead, she would question Ariane. But she did not see her short hair anywhere, or hear her bursts of laughter. Had she found another victim to take into her little drawing room?

Marie-Anne spoke again of the elusive American girl. “I wanted to tell her good-by. Too bad for her. You’ll have to do it for me.”

“What! Is she leaving?”

“No, I am.”

“You? You didn’t tell me. Where are you going?”

“Oh, not far away, don’t worry. I’m just going to spend a month at the seaside. My mother has rented a bungalow at Pattaya. You’ll have to come and see me. It’s not a long trip, even with the crowded roads—a hundred miles. You have to see those beaches, they’re fantastic.”

“I know, one of those blessed places where the sharks come and eat out of your hand. I’ll never see you again.”

“Where did you pick up that nonsense?”

“You’re going to be bored there, all alone.”

To her own surprise, Emmanuelle felt heavy-hearted. Unbearable as Marie-Anne was, she was going to miss her. But she did not want to let her see her sadness. She forced herself to laugh.

“I’m never bored anywhere,” Marie-Anne said decisively. “I’ll lie in the sun for hours, I’ll go water-skiing. And I’m taking a suitcase full of books; I have work to do before school starts.”

“That’s true,” Emmanuelle teased her, “I forgot you had to go back to kindergarten.”

“Not everyone has your inborn knowledge.”

“You won’t have any friends with you at Pattaya?”

“No, thanks. I want to be left alone.”

“That’s very kind of you! I hope your mother will keep an eye on you and not let you run off with the fishermen’s sons.”

Marie-Anne’s green eyes produced an enigmatic smile. “And you,” she said, “what are you going to do without me? You’ll fall back into your natural foolishness.”

“No, I won’t,” Emmanuelle said banteringly, “you know very well that I’m going to give myself to Mario.”

Marie-Anne instantly seemed to lose all taste for joking. “Yes, that’s settled. You’re not free any more.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ll do whatever I want.”

“All right, as long as you want Mario. You don’t intend to back down now, do you?”