The Opéra
The taxi pulled up in front of 7 rue Monsieur. Dexter got out, nodded at the driver. “We’ll be about an hour.” The driver settled in to wait. Dexter had reserved the cab for the evening.
He approached the big double door; it was ajar and he pushed it open and walked across the stone courtyard and knocked on the front door. The door opened and Marcelle stood in the glow of light, resplendent in a long silk dress, beautifully cut revealing lovely white shoulders on which rested cascading dark hair. She said, “Entrez.”
Dexter entered and handed her a small bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine. She took the wine and set it on a table and said, “For later.” Then she looked closely at the bouquet of flowers, looked up at Dexter with dark eyes glistening, and said, “They’re lovely. Thank you.”
Dexter gave a slight bow and said with great panache, “You are unimaginably lovely tonight. Sure you haven’t been to the Opéra in years?”
She smiled. “No. Only a matinee now and again with some women friends.”
She picked up the wine and said, “Here, let me put this away. You go into the drawing room and have a seat by the fireplace. Would a champagne cocktail be appropriate?”
“Certainly.”
“I’ll be right back,” and she glided down the hall, the silk rustling as she went.
Dexter took a seat along the couch near the fireplace. Marcelle came back into the room holding two champagne glasses. Dexter stood up. “Great.”
Then looking at Marcelle he said with customary self-confidence, “We’ll have a great time tonight. I have dinner reservations after the Opéra at the Café de la Paix.”
Marcelle’s face fell. Seeing this, Dexter’s expression clouded over.
“We can’t,” she said.
Dexter took a breath and said, “Marcelle, it is almost required to have dinner at the Café de la Paix after the Opéra. People will expect to see us.”
She looked at him, the light smile dissolving into a smoldering look that he had never seen before. She said, “I prepared a little supper for us here. A deux.”
He slowly took a breath and smiled. “Of course.”
A bright smile quickly lit her face, the smoldering eyes now gone like quicksilver, as she pronounced, “I thought you’d understand.”
He looked at her with loving wonder.
She walked up next to him and took his free hand and squeezed it, “Let’s sit down.”
The taxicab pulled up in front of the Opéra House, stopped, and the driver came around and opened Dexter’s door. He got out and reached back for Marcelle’s hand. She slid out, smiling, and stood up. Dexter nodded at the driver. Dexter held Marcelle’s hand and guided her up on the sidewalk, stopped, and turned her around in a pirouette and said, “Let me see you?”
She wore a dark navy velvet cape coming to the knee and clasped just below the throat. A soft white sweater over her shoulders just peeked out from under the cape. The cape was trimmed in soft yellow, complimenting the light sky blue of the long dress. In her hand a silk clutch purse matched the color of her dress. Dexter was simply smitten. He took her arm and they swept up the steps to the entrance of the Opéra and ascended the Grand Staircase. They walked towards the Ambassador’s Box.
In the corridor behind the boxes they encountered the secrétaire général and his wife in full evening dress. Marcelle quickly walked up to them holding Dexter’s hand and warmly said, “Monsieur le Secrétaire Général, let me introduce my good friend Mister Dexter Jones. He is a diplomat at the American embassy,” and Marcelle turned to the wife, and smiling said, “Dexter, this is Madame…wife of the secrétaire général.”
Dexter stepped forward and took madame’s hand and bowed, “Enchanté.”
She smiled sweetly and replied, “Oh, it is always a pleasure to meet a friend of Madame Lambert’s; she seems to have so few outside of work.” She nodded and smiled sweetly at Marcelle.
Marcelle smiled in reply.
The secrétaire général stepped forward and shook Dexter’s hand. “It is a pleasure to meet a friend of Madame Lambert’s. She has been so busy ever since Premier Laval came to the Matignon.” He looked over at Marcelle. “Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Secrétaire Général.”
Dexter said with man-about-town assurance, “At intermission, why don’t you and your wife come down to the American Ambassador’s Box and have some champagne with us. Several other members of the embassy will be there. I am sure they would be pleased to meet you.”
The secrétaire général replied, “It will be our pleasure.” He smiled and guided his wife down the corridor towards the Premier’s Box.
At intermission, Dexter led Marcelle out to the small reception area behind the seats where a table was covered with champagne glasses. Several bottles of champagne were cooling in buckets. A black-coated waiter stood ready to pour refreshments. Just then, the secrétaire général and his wife came though the door.
Dexter walked up and shook the hand of the secrétaire général and greeted his wife. Marcelle came up and shook her hand and asked, “Enjoying the performance?”
“Of course.”
Dexter then introduced the secrétaire général and his wife to several other American diplomats and their wives. Dexter brought Marcelle up next to him and said to the group, “My friend Marcelle Lambert. She is a redactrice on temporary assignment at the Matignon. That’s how she knows the secrétaire général. Normally she works at the ministry of labor. She’s a sous-chef there, right dear?”
Marcelle politely responded, “Yes, a sous-chef,” and she looked at the secrétaire général with an almost accusatory look at her continued lack of permanent promotion. He smiled weakly at Marcelle in return. Women, he thought—there isn’t a meek one in the species.
The wife of the secrétaire général, smiling more than a little mischievously, said, “Oh, Marcelle, ma petite, are you still doing the little redactrice routine about the ministry of labor?”
Marcelle smiled, made a small curtsey, “Bien sûr,” she cooed in mock submissiveness.
The secrétaire général stepped forward to smooth the waters and said to the group, “Madame Lambert knew Premier Laval at the ministry of labor. He has strong trust in the quality of her work.”
The wife of the secrétaire général nodded in agreement. Then she said to Marcelle, “I heard that the finance minister met you at Lipp’s. He was fulsome in describing your influence.” She turned and took in the whole group with her glance. “I would have liked to have seen that...he said she was the power…”
Marcelle quickly pleaded, “Oh, Madame…Monsieur le Minister had had a little too much to drink.”
The wife, taking the rest of her champagne at a gulp, rather haughtily continued, “He seems to know who rules the roost at the Matignon.”
The secrétaire général winced. He quickly came over and put his arm around his wife’s waist and started her for the door. “The performance is about to begin, ma cherie.”
As she was being swept towards the door by her husband, the wife called out over her shoulder, “He called Marcelle la marquise.” She turned to her husband, “Which Louis king was it that Madame de Pompadour controlled?”
The secrétaire général hurriedly said, “Fifteen.”
“Oh yes, the handsome one,” she exclaimed as she went through the door, waving farewell with her hand high above her head.
Dexter watched the two leave and then turned to the group, smiling, and said disarmingly, “Lipp’s. Yes, it was great fun. The finance minister sparkles with wit. I am afraid it has gotten a little exaggerated in the retelling. Right dear?”
Marcelle smiled at him. “You are quite right,” and then added, “dear.”
The American diplomats looked knowingly at Dexter; of course Dexter’s lady friend would have political position beyond appearance. The wives smiled with their deeper understanding: of course Madame Lambert would have rare abilities. As they walked back
into the box, one woman said to other, “If there is a more fetching woman in France tonight, I would not believe it. La marquise? The finance minister undoubtedly spoke a truth.”
The other woman asked, “I thought Laval was a devoted family man?”
The other answered, “He is. He is interested in power.”
The other woman asked, “So Madame Lambert is interested in power?”
“So it would seem.”
The other woman asked rather quizzically, “Then what does she see in Dexter?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” The first woman turned her thoughts inward, then laughed. “Something to think about in the second half.”
The two women turned their eyes to the stage where the curtain was going up.
The taxicab slowed to a stop outside 7 rue Monsieur. The driver jumped out and opened the door. Dexter stepped out, reached back for Marcelle’s hand and guided her out to the sidewalk. She stood up on her toes and whispered in Dexter’s ear, “You can let the taxi go.”
“Of course.”
She smiled and walked over to the big doors, put in her key, while Dexter reached around and pushed the door open.
Inside the flat, he helped her off with her cape, while she helped him out of his overcoat. She hung both in the closet and said, “Let me take you jacket.” He took it off and handed it to her.
“Let’s go into the dining room. Marie will have set it out.”
“Marie?”
“Yes, she comes with the flat. She has been a long time with the family that owns the flat, friends of my family. She is a treasure.”
“I see.”
They walked into the dining room and there was a small round table with plates set out and a side table with covered dishes on it. Two small gold candlesticks held narrow white candles.
Marcelle held out her hand, beaming, and said, “A deux.”
She turned to Dexter and held him by the shoulders and stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips. She stood back and said, “I’ll let you light the candles while I go get the wine.”
He smiled and went over to the mantelpiece and found a match.
Marcelle came back with a bottle of wine and poured a glass for Dexter, saying, “I’ll be right back. I have to get into something more comfortable,” and she swept out of the room.
Dexter sat back, sipped the cool white wine, and looked around the room, the soft yellow walls, the elegant furnishings. He heard slippers coming down the hall and turned around. He stood up. She was wearing a light blue silk floor-length dressing gown, high waisted with a tied sash, and long billowing sleeves. Underneath the gown she wore a high-necked white blouse, soft and ruffled. He simply said, “Elegant.”
She smiled and walked around the table. He held her chair for her, admiring the soft curve of her thigh. Then he sat down, picked up the wine bottle and poured her a glass. She picked up a serving dish and passed it to Dexter; he took a helping and passed it on to her.
With a first course on the plates, she picked up her fork and looked across the candlelight and asked, “Dakar? When did you leave?”
Dexter replied, “I left in 1931. For Washington.”
Marcelle mulled this over and then continued, “You were married while you were in Dakar?”
Dexter smiled. “For a while. She left in 1930. Went back to New York. She grew up there. Loved it.”
“Why?”
Dexter sat back, he hadn’t thought about it in years. “Why?”
He twirled the wine in its glass, watching the candlelight reflect in the glass. “Well, Paris had been great in the 1920s. We were with a fast crowd. Fun. Then came Algiers, followed by Dakar. She saw an endless chain of out-of-the-way consular posts. Dreary.”
Marcelle said, with some sympathy for the departed wife, “Yes, I could understand.”
Dexter, deep in recollection, explained, “Then she realized that a culmination to my successful diplomatic career might mean an appointment as minister to Bolivia, a final posting as head of station at La Paz, in say 1955. Paris, London, never.”
Marcelle smiled. “La Paz. Sounds very exotic. The beautiful Andes.” Then she thought of the immense problems of war and peace coming towards them, a troubled if not tumultuous future, and said thoughtfully, “Might be charming and peaceful, a beautiful end to a career that I am afraid will be caught up in truly momentous times. Just to get to 1955…” and her voice trailed off.
Dexter saw the wisdom of her thoughts. He gazed straight into her eyes and said softly, “There’s a vacant seat at that table.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
She smiled, lifted up her wine glass and clinked her rim against his, and with bright eyes and a widening smile said, “La Paz it is.”
With dessert on the table, Marcelle poured small cups of coffee into little cups and passed the sugar. She said, “I have a surprise for you, I think?”
A surprise? Now? She thinks? He looked at her with something approaching puzzlement.
Marcelle continued, “Suzanne said that to trap an American man I should play American jazz on the phonograph. She gave me some American jazz records.”
Dexter looked at her, then made a sweeping look around the entire room, and said, “Trap? With a phonograph record?”
She looked at him with amused dark eyes, sipping her coffee, and said, “Suzanne and Étienne are quite anxious that,” and she paused and collected her words, “I may have lost my touch.”
“You can tell them we will always have La Paz.”
Marcelle laughed and said brightly, “We can dance a foxtrot in the other room. For them.”
Dexter laughed and stood up. “Lead the way.”
In the drawing room, Marcelle put a record on the phonograph and said, “It’s Duke Ellington. Suzanne said you would know.”
Dexter smiled. “Right she is.” He held out his arms as Marcelle came into his embrace. He slowly started to move her around the floor, pushing her hair back over one of her shoulders with his hand, holding her firmly against him with the other.
He whispered into her ear, “I love you more than you can imagine. To share a future with you…” and he nuzzled her ear, kissed her temple.
She pulled him closer, moved her hips into his, pushed herself into him, kissed him on the neck and whispered, “I know. I don’t know what has come over me, but I love it. Love you.” And she clutched at him tighter, shoved herself into him more, her breath taking a leap. She stayed like that for several long and lingering moments. Then she pulled away, put both her hands on his chest and pushed him back, and turned him around and said, “A certain time has come.”
She grabbed his hand and led him towards the hallway. She stopped and stepped around behind him and put both hands on his waist and placed the top of her head between his shoulder blades and playfully pushed him down the hallway. She released him towards the bathroom, saying, “There’s a robe hanging on the back of the door. I will wait for you in my room.” She darted through the door into her darkened bedroom.
Dexter came into the darkened bedroom, faint moonlight coming through the high windows to one side of the room. Marcelle lay under covers pulled up to her neck, her hair in beautiful disarray on the pillow, bright eyes watching him. He sat down on the bed, dropped the robe off his shoulders, pulled back the thick couverture and slipped into the bed.
He stretched out alongside her, with his arms he reached out and held her, feeling her body through the soft flannel nightgown. He moved his hands up and down her back, down over the curve of buttocks, along her hips. He pulled up the bottom on the nightgown, then grabbed more of it and started to push it up over her body. She wiggled her hips and then lifted her shoulders as he slipped the entire gown up and over her head.
She fell back down on her side, the length of her body brushing against his. He reached an arm around her and pulled her close against him; he ran the tips of his fingers down her spine, his fingernails rustling the ri
dges of her spine. He ran his nails lightly over her buttocks, edging them in here and there, and then wrapped his hand around her thigh, his fingers exploring the inner places.
She took a sudden breath, then let it out, sighed, and breathed in again and let a sound of pleasure escape from deep in her throat. She wrapped her arms around his back, her fingers digging into his back, then her nails; she breathed heavily into his ear, kissed his neck with ever-increasing rapture taking hold, carrying her off, the wonderful pleasures of her body coming back to her after a long absence.
He pulled her over on top of him, he pulled her upper legs up and out, she kissed him on the chest, he ran his hands up and down her back, then along her flanks, and then he held her waist in both of his hands and pushed her hips down his belly while he lifted himself up into her, her back arching as she bent her head up looking into the darkness above Dexter’s head, not seeing anything but feeling the pleasure of consummation. Deep chords of pleasure began to keep time with the rhythm of union.
Later, in the darkness, she lay alongside him, looking at the faint moonshine coming through the glass panes in the windows high on the wall across the room, dreamy from the sensual delight. Then she felt his hands glide along her flanks and buried her head in the crook of his shoulder; she shivered with expectation as his hands came for her a second time.
In a gathering of passion, he pushed her over onto her back, bent over and kissed her, and swung his body over on top of hers. She reached down for him, then pulled one knee up, then the other, and in one smooth motion they came into union. Words flew away from her consciousness, washed away in waves of pleasure.
In the morning, a misting rain settled across Paris. Marcelle watched the soft gray light coming through the glass-paned windows; she snuggled against Dexter’s chest. She savored her memories of the night before and whispered to the drowsy Dexter, “I don’t think you said a word.” She let her memory linger. “So nice. To go somewhere so wonderful without a word being said.”
He murmured, “Uhmm.”
Like a little girl she wondered out loud, “I think words just get in the way of rapture, the passion,” and she paused, “and ecstasy. It’s a wave washing over you. To describe it is to lose it.”
He brushed some hair back from her face and looked at her.
She looked up at the ceiling and spoke, as if to herself, “In Joyce’s book, and the others, the words make it all profane…base physical words…the words anchoring the experience to the profane…” and her voice drifted off into disappointment.
She turned and looked at Dexter. “But love is a large wave of emotion sweeping over you with beautiful unspoken images of beauty, a feeling completely undescribed by words…and so you feel exalted, not profaned.”
Dexter now said, “The deep emotions of physical love probably were present in man’s evolution eons before mankind learned to talk, or to even use the simplest of words. So the strongest emotions were always unshaped by words.”
“Oh, I like your explanation. Almost like it came from the doctors in Vienna.”
Dexter gave a mock frown.
“It’s a wonderful insight. Can I share it with Suzanne?”
“I hope not. People might mistake me for an intellectual. My diplomatic cover is as a bon vivant.”
She laughed. “You’re secret’s safe with me.”
He leaned over and kissed her behind her ear and whispered, “No psychology. I simply believe beautiful women should be brought to the full potential of their enthusiasm.”