The Club Dumas

Another song was playing on the radio, but neither of them was listening. The girl smelled of heat and fever, a gentle pulse throbbing under the skin of her bare neck. The room was light and dark, and things became lost in the deep shadows. She whispered something unintelligible very low, and light glinted in her eyes as she slipped her hand around his neck, spreading the trail of warm blood. With the taste of blood on his tongue, he leaned toward her, toward her soft, half-open mouth. She gave a gentle moan which seemed to come from far away, slow and monotonous, centuries-old. For a brief moment, in the pulse of her flesh all Lucas Corso’s previous deaths came to life, as if brought by the current of a dark, slow river whose waters were as thick as varnish. He regretted that she didn’t have a name that he could carve in his memory with that moment.

It lasted only a second. Then, recovering his clearheadedness, he saw his other self sitting on the edge of the bed, still in his coat, mesmerized as she moved back slightly and undid her jeans, arching her back like a beautiful young animal. He watched her with a kind of internal, benevolent wink, with a familiar indulgence both weary and skeptical. More with cu­riosity than desire. As she slid her zipper open, the girl uncov­ered a dark triangle that contrasted with the white cotton panties that came down with her jeans. Her long, tanned legs, stretched out on the bed, took Corso’s—both the Corsos’— breath away, just as they had kicked in Rochefort’s teeth. Then she lifted her arms and took off her T-shirt. She did it naturally, neither flirtatious nor indifferent. She kept her calm, sweet eyes on him until her T-shirt covered her face. Then the contrast was even greater—more white cotton, this time sliding upward over tanned skin, her firm, warm flesh, her slender waist, her heavy, perfect breasts outlined against the light in the darkness, her neck, her half-open mouth, and once again her eyes, with all the light in them stolen from the sky. With Corso’s shadow in them, like a soul locked in the bottom of a double crystal ball or emerald.

At that moment, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it.

He sensed it with the lugubrious intuition that precedes certain events and marks them, even before they have taken place, with inevitable disaster. To be prosaic, Corso realized, as he threw the rest of his clothes on top of his coat at the foot of the bed, that his initial erection was now in visible retreat. Cut down in its prime.  Or, as his Bonapartist great-great-grandfather would have said,  “La Garde recule.” Totally. Anxiously he hoped that, as he was standing against the light, his unfortu­nately flaccid state wouldn’t be noticed. Very carefully he lay facedown next to her tanned, warm body waiting in the dark and  used  what  the  emperor,  out  on  the  muddy  fields  of Flanders, would have called an indirect-approach tactic—sizing up the terrain from the middle distance and making no contact in the critical zone. From a prudent distance he played for time in case Grouchy arrived with reinforcements; he caressed the girl and kissed her unhurriedly on the mouth and neck. But no luck. Grouchy was nowhere to be seen. The old fool was chasing Prussians miles from the battlefield. Corso’s anxiety turned to panic as the girl moved nearer to him and slipped her firm, warm thigh between his thighs. She must have become aware of the extent of the disaster. He saw her smile, a slightly dis­concerted smile, but encouraging, as if to say something like, “I know you can do it!” Then she kissed him with extreme tenderness and put out her hand, to help things along. And just when he felt her hand at the very epicenter of the drama, Corso went down completely. Like the Titanic. Straight to the bottom, no half measures. The orchestra playing on deck, women and children first. The next twenty minutes were agony, atonement for all his sins. Heroic attacks meeting the immovable barrier of the Scottish fusiliers. The infantry on the attack glimpsing only the slightest chance of victory. Improvised incursions by the light infantry, in the vain hope of taking the enemy by surprise. Skirmishes of hussars and heavy charges by cuirassiers. But all attempts met with the same results—Wellington was messing around in a remote Belgian village while his pipers were playing the march of the Scots Greys in Corso’s face. The Old Guard, or what remained of it, was glancing desperately in all directions, teeth clenched and face against the sheets, twenty minutes by the watch, which, for his sins, he hadn’t removed. Drops of sweat the size of fists ran from the roots of his hair down his neck. He looked with wide staring eyes over the girl’s shoulder, desperately wishing for a gun to shoot himself.