Topaz - Leon Uris [35]
André found himself standing before Nicole’s door knowing it was not locked. Somehow he could not bring himself to open it and go to her with his thoughts flooded with Juanita de Córdoba and the coming nights with her.
Nicole lay in her bed tensely, listening for his every movement, praying the door would open. Praying to see his shadow move to her, stand over her, sit by the edge of the bed. She wanted the touch of his hand stroking her head, for him to draw back the sheets and come beside her.
Much of it tonight would be a lie, she thought, but God, I want him.
And she fell into despair as the sound came of his door shutting and wet tears formed on her pillow.
It turned midnight. André continued to toss in the dark, unable to sleep. The phone rang. He switched on the lamp and lifted the receiver. “Devereaux.”
“Hello, Daddy.”
“Michele. How are you, darling?”
“I’m fine. I understood you were going away. I just wanted to say good-bye.”
Her voice sounded strange and shaky.
“I mean,” she continued, “we’ve been missing each other and really haven’t had a chance to sit and talk for months.”
“Yes, come to think of it, it has been quite a time. Well, you know how my work goes.”
“Of course, I realize. I’m not complaining.”
“Come now. What’s really bothering you? The quarrel with Tucker?”
“We’re through and I couldn’t care less. I just missed you tonight and wanted to talk to you ... and to say ... I love you very very much.”
“Thanks, Michele. Maybe we’ll be able to get away later.” But these were meaningless words, for he’d promise and disappoint her again as he had done before. How many disappointments did the rules allow him?
He fell back on his pillow with the light on, then went to Nicole’s door and opened it softly and made to the edge of her bed and felt for her hand in the darkness. She was awake, but there was little warmth in her response.
That crazy recurring thought came to him that it would serve him right if some other man took her. He could envision the details of her love-making, her enjoying it madly. For that instant, he did not object to the sensation that swept through him. He wanted it to hurt and he wanted to be punished for Juanita de Córdoba and all the others.
He returned to his room.
André Devereaux and Brigitte Camus made for the National gate as the Miami flight was announced. He mumbled instructions she knew by heart.
She waited until he was in the plane and out of sight before she cried.
For twelve years André had come and gone, and Nicole had always taken him to the gate to see him off. André had looked for her in vain, and when the flight was announced Brigitte saw a desperation seize him. Oh, damn you, Nicole Devereaux! Don’t you know he must do what he must do?
“Cocktail, sir?”
“Bourbon, please.”
He watched land’s end below. The layover in Miami would be a short one until the KLM flight to Havana. It was painful to go there these days. Havana had turned old overnight, like a beautiful woman who had undergone major surgery at the hands of a butcher.
At least, Juanita de Córdoba would be waiting.
Beautiful Juanita ...
13
FROM THE EARLIEST MEMORY she had been known as La Palomita, “The Little Dove.”
Her name was Juanita Ávila de Córdoba. Her grandfather was Manuel Ávila, foremost among the lieutenants of the national liberator, Marti. During the ten-year war that freed Cuba from Spain, Manuel Ávila was to immortalize himself among his people as “The Poet of the Revolution.”
Juanita Ávila de Córdoba’s father, Jorge Ávila, had become Cuba’s greatest composer and a guitarist of world renown. It was his composition, a lullaby to her, “Don’t Weep, Little Dove,” that was to give her the identity that would remain all of her days.
When Héctor de Córdoba, scion of a great family of landed gentry, took the Little Dove in marriage, it was an event long remembered in Cuba as one