Authors: Roberta Latow
The palace was one of the show places of Austrian Baroque, luscious and filled with unimaginably beautiful objects. The young man took her on a tour of the rooms. He had been smitten by Mimi from the first moment he saw her. She did look exceedingly beautiful in an ivory taffeta ballgown with egret feathers on her shoulders for sleeves, and a décolletage that was the envy of many a woman at that ball. Her voluptuous face was all her companion needed to enslave him. The Stefanik charm, the tilt of the chin and the head moving back ever so slightly to induce a reflex action of one shoulder thrusting provocatively forward. The husky laugh and teasing eyes did the rest. He swept her from one room to the next. Mimi was impressed. Then, reaching into a jardinière for a key, he said, ‘In here is my uncle’s study, his favourite room. Only special people are allowed to come in here.’
He placed the large decorative ormolu key in the seventeenth-century lock and turned it. The room was
magnificent with four enormous windows overlooking a balcony. In the far distance, a glow marked the position of Salzburg. The windows were draped heavily with ochre silk damask, lined and interlined, held back with elaborate silk tassels. The walls were hung in the same fabric, and on them magnificent paintings were arranged. The young man flipped a switch on the wall and each of the paintings sprang to life under its own light.
Mimi concentrated for several minutes on one enormous painting by the French painter David: white horses rearing against a wide landscape, beautiful women, dogs, and bold and handsome men in sumptuous military dress. A passionate, romantic painting that struck a note with her. Something about it was familiar. She stepped further back from the painting to give herself distance and bumped against the wall. Mesmerized by the painting, she hardly noticed. Her mind was tripping back in time. She knew that painting. Where had she seen it?
The young man approached her. Placing an arm on the wall, he pinned her to it with his body. He tilted her chin up and kissed her lightly on the lips. He was sexy, young and strong. She felt the physical attraction. He put his tongue in the cleft made by her breasts and licked her there. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation. But, when she opened them again to the painting over his shoulder, she lost interest in his advances and the pleasure she had experienced. The years fell away like autumn leaves and she recognized the glorious work of art facing her. That painting had been in their house in Prague. Mimi remembered it now as if she were five years old again and playing there in the room where it had hung, pretending she was part of the painting, that she belonged in it. It all came flooding back to her now. As a little girl she would imagine she knew all the people and animals in the painting, and act out stories about them. They had been her playmates, those exciting people in the David painting.
The young man was too anxious. He guided her hands
downwards: she must not miss his erection. The action was crude, she found him offensive. She stared at the Iron Cross around his neck. Disgust rose in her. She pushed him away from her with a strength that nearly knocked him off balance and quite surprised herself. Mimi was stunned. To have her childhood revived again like that, by something she had forgotten for so long. To come upon it once more in a schloss in Austria was amazing. The painting had obviously been stolen from her father. It was part of her life, her family heritage. She slapped her princeling hard across the face.
‘Don’t be vulgar,’ she told him and flounced from the room.
Mimi said nothing to Barbara or her husband and several days later returned to New York. She was angry, obsessed with the painting. She wanted it back. No Nazi was going to keep it, she had made up her mind to that. There had to be proof that the painting belonged to the Stefaniks. This was a new sensation for Mimi, anger and possessiveness over an object.
For days she searched, and was finally rewarded with a photograph of Dr Benes and her father standing in Karel’s study in the house in Prague. There was the painting in recognizable detail behind the two men. The caption underneath the photograph in the book: ‘The Stefanik Palace, Prague. Dr Benes and Count Karel Stefanik, Prague, 1931’. It was proof enough.
It was the painting: that had made Mimi want to return to Prague. It was such a little thing, compared to the many people who for the last forty years had passed through her father’s house and had coaxed her to do just that: take an interest in Czechoslovakia. None of them had inspired her to return. Not even Alexander and his declaration of love had reached down into her heart and galvanized enough awareness for her to endure seeing even the smallest piece of her life and home, torn away, stolen from her. War-loot hanging in an Austrian palace. A visible denial of her right to have lived a happy childhood in the country and home she was born to. It
was the spark that set her aflame. In a moment it had wrenched her back through a lifetime of suppressed losses.
Now, at last, she understood why Alexander had asked her to return to Prague with him. What an important moment it was for him to have his country whole and free. How blind she had been, how blind she had made herself. No, how blind fate had made her. War had destroyed that part of her life that had been Prague, killed her passionate belief and passionate love for her heritage, the country of her birth. War, and then communism, had done their work of destruction. Now these things had destroyed themselves and until now she had hardly understood that. Oh God, the David painting had meant so much to her as a child. She had lived in the fantasy world she had created out of it. It had been such a joy to her, and now it had saved her, inspired her to return to her origins. She would get it back, would get it all back. Never again would she allow anything of such significance to slide away from her. Not if she could prevent it.
She went directly to the telephone, only to realize she had no phone number for Alexander. She knew only that he lived in Prague. She rushed up to her room and looked at his note. It was no help. She sat in a wing chair in her bedroom looking out into the garden. A warm breeze rippled the sheer white curtain. How clever he was. He had done it deliberately, he didn’t want her to come to him impulsively. He was right, and until she had determined whether this really was an impulsive act, she would do nothing.
At midnight, New York time, she heard his voice for the third time in her life. She closed her eyes. Tears moistened her eyelashes, and she swallowed hard.
He said, ‘Mimi, dear Mimi.’
‘Alexander, I’ve been such a fool. I should have gone with you to Prague.’
‘No, I see now you couldn’t have, you didn’t understand. And you do now?’
‘Oh, yes. I read your letter often, it sustains me. I have so
much to tell you. So many times I have sat down and written you letters, but I never posted them. They’re love letters.’
‘We’ll read them together, in Prague, when you come. You are coming?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Alexander …’ A pause. He waited for her to continue.
‘Mimi, are you all right?’ he asked. She caught the note of concern in his voice.
‘Fine, just fine,’ she answered quickly. ‘Maybe better than I have ever been. So much has happened. I think you should know I have left my husband. Divorced him, actually. And I am living alone, here, in my father’s house.’
‘Mimi …’
‘No, please, let me finish. I want you to understand. It was over for me with my husband just a few days before you came to see me. Your timing was perfect. I was ready for you to step into my life. But not aware of just how ready. So much had happened so fast. You do understand?’
‘Yes, completely.’
‘Oh, good, because since then, without realizing fully why, I have kept making monumental changes in my life, going adrift, not knowing where. You’ve been in my mind. The flowers were wonderful, and your letter. When you kissed me I felt something for you I have never felt for anyone in my whole life. I felt love, powerful love. I want to feel you again holding me in your arms. I’ve spent nights thinking about us, wanting you. There have been dreams and fantasies, and until now they didn’t seem possible. Then something inside me snapped, and I knew I was fooling myself. They were possible, those dreams and fantasies and yearnings. All I had to do was reach out and you would be there. We would make them our reality. You didn’t make it easy to find you though.’
‘I know. I worried about that. But I wanted you to be sure, to want me as much as I want you.’
Mimi felt her heart racing. Its pounding nearly drowned out the sensuous overtones in his voice, the seductive words she
had wanted to hear these many months. ‘I was nearly devastated when your agent would not give me your telephone number, not even an address in Prague. You will never know the relief I felt when he told me he would call you at once and give you the message that I had called. Oh, dear, I’m rambling on. Does any of this make sense?’
‘It all makes sense, it’s more than I dreamed possible. I’ve loved you a long time, Mimi, and wanted you, it seems to me, for ever. There is not a woman I’ve made love to since I first set eyes on you that I have not pretended was you. Nor have I written a word about love and passion, nor about the bliss of erotic love, without having you in my mind and heart.’
Neither of them spoke. Their emotions had to be given time to settle. And then it was Mimi who broke the silence. He did not miss the tremor of emotion in her voice when she told him, ‘Alexander, I want to return to Prague and come to you. But I don’t know my country any more, I don’t know Prague. I was five years old when I was spirited away. I have lived a whole lifetime here, and now it’s over for me. I want it all back, that Czech life that was stolen from me. I want back all my father’s lands, his palaces and houses, the chapels, his paintings and all his treasures. I want it all. I feel madly possessive. I must have it all – starting with a painting by David, and then all the other things that belonged to my father and now to me. I want them home in Czechoslovakia. Seeing a painting from my childhood, hanging in a Nazi palace in Austria, was an extraordinary catalyst for me. I want to come home, that’s one thing. And then I want to go to you, that is another. I don’t want you to think that I am using you or how I feel about you to accomplish my return. I want you just for yourself, for no more than to love you and be with you. I want to add something to your life. I can’t mix them up, the two. I think I’ve done that all my life, mixed up love and survival.’
‘I’m coming to New York. I’ll be on the next plane. I can’t let you go. We’ll come home together. It’s so exciting here,
Mimi. The Government is very busy returning buildings, land, works of art and businesses confiscated by the Communists and held and used by them. Everything will be yours again.’
‘Is it really true? I have some documents that say so, I have signed papers for some of my property already, but is it true? Have they wiped away fifty years of oppression and looting? I can hardly believe it.’
‘Oh, it’s true.’
‘Do you promise I can get it all back for the family?’
‘I promise.’
‘Then come, as fast as you can. And we will return together.’
Three days later he called her from Kennedy Airport.
‘Mimi.’
‘Alexander.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At the airport.’
‘Why didn’t you let me know? I’d have met your plane. Oh, Alexander, I can’t believe this is happening to us.’
‘I didn’t want you to come to the airport. I couldn’t bear to meet you in public. Coming together with you again is the most private, most intimate, exciting thing in my life, and I want to share it with no one but you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Each minute seemed like an hour, each hour a day. Mimi couldn’t stop looking at the clock every five minutes. She was calculating how long it would be before he got there. She was up and down the stairs half a dozen times. Everything had to be right. Suddenly she remembered Sophia and dinner. He would be here in time for dinner. Down the stairs yet again to the kitchen.
‘Sophia.’ She didn’t miss the excitement in Mimi’s voice.
‘You have something to tell me? Something exciting, I think?’
‘Sophia, I’ve met a man.’
‘Ach!’ She exclaimed. ‘My Gott, is this going to be trouble? I hope not.’
‘Will you make supper for us, something lovely, something Czech? Oh, how stupid. He
is
Czech, he eats it all the time. Just anything delicious, special. I want him never to forget this meal for as long as he lives.’
‘Oh, my Gott!’
‘You’ll like him. He’s Czech, lives in Prague, and he’s a famous writer. I think he loves me.’
‘Oh, my Gott!’
Mimi began to laugh. ‘Will you stop saying “Oh, my Gott” and be happy for me?’
‘I am happy for you, but … oh, my Gott!’
Mimi laughed again. ‘You’ve met him.’
‘I’ve met him?’
‘Christmas Day, remember? We were all out walking. He
was down here in the kitchen with you and Jay and some other people. Milos, too, I think.’
‘Ah, him. At the time I thought to myself, this man is something special. Are you sure he loves you, Mimi?’
‘That’s what he tells me.’
‘Now just one minute … I’m thinking.’
‘About what to cook?’
‘No. Yes I think so … This is the man?’
Sophia rose from the table and went to the windowsill where she kept magazines she wanted to read. She pulled one out.
‘There you are, there’s your Czech.’ And she proudly placed the magazine on the table. And there he was, Alexander Janacek, in full colour on the cover. Inside were seven pages on the literary world’s most respected and interesting erotic novelist.
‘Oh, my goodness, how did I miss it?’
‘Because you never read
Time.
And look, he’s here too.’ Sophia handed her
Newsweek.
‘When did it come out? Oh, it’s last week’s.’
‘Yes.’
‘He never said a word about it. I know nothing about him, Sophia.’
‘Oh, Mimi, how can you be in love with a man you know nothing about?’
‘Believe me, it can happen.’
‘Quick, you read
Newsweek,
I’ll read
Time,
’ suggested Sophia.
The two women pulled out chairs and sat down at the kitchen table to read the magazines as if hitherto starved of them. Then, without a word, they swopped over.
‘What do you think?’ asked Mimi. ‘Isn’t he wonderful? And he loves women. Did you read those excerpts from his latest book? They’re so sexy. Oh, Sophia. His father was a count, his brother inherited the title, and they’ve just got back all their properties.’
‘Already?’
‘And, look, he lives in Prague in this wonderful Rococo house. And he’s not married.’
‘But it says here he has a long-time mistress who runs his life. I don’t like the sound of that. And a girlfriend,’ said Sophia. ‘Look at her.’
‘Well, you can just put them in the past tense.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Positive.’
‘Well, that’s all right then.’
The two women pored over the magazines. The mistress was no more than thirty-five, the girlfriend more like twenty. The article claimed that Alexander was devoted to women and the conquest of them, but had no intention of ever marrying either of the women, or any woman come to that.
‘I don’t like the sound of it,’ said Sophia.
‘I do. Sophia, I’ve been married. Boy, have I been married! It was a great marriage, but that’s a path I don’t have to go down again. I’ll settle for spending the rest of my life with the man I love. I don’t need a certificate to declare my right to that.’
Suddenly Alexander became a reality for her, as he had been in her house that Christmas Day. He had come alive for her in those articles. She realized that she wanted really to know him, and to be the special someone who would add to his life.
‘What will you cook?’ she asked Sophia.
‘Pigeon pie. Yes, for him, pigeon pie with a filo pastry. Pigeon pie and wild rice.’
‘Oh, that’s inspirational, Sophia.’
‘And candied baby carrots.’
‘And for a first course? Something sexy, Sophia.’
‘Ah, sexy. Oh, my Gott, Mimi!’
She laughed. ‘Oh, my Gott,’ she mimicked.
‘Ah, I’ve got it. My cold cherry soup with cream, and
then fresh asparagus. Very, very
al dente.
With the lightest hollandaise sauce. Then the pigeon pie. And for pudding, pears poached in red wine and cinnamon and vanilla.’
‘Perfection.’
The doorbell rang. ‘Quick, hide the magazines. We don’t want to look obvious.’
Mimi ran up the stairs. She checked herself in the mirror. She had dressed carefully, discarding several outfits before choosing the one she was wearing. She had wanted to look young, fresh and provocative, yet elegant and chic. She wanted to be sensuous and seductive, as erotic as hell, but not obvious. So she had chosen a fine white linen dress with a wide oval neckline that showed off her long slender neck and seductive collar bones under creamy white skin. It had enormous balloon sleeves that buttoned tightly to the wrist. The bodice hung loose over her breasts. That they were naked was unmistakable through the semi-transparent linen. The top was cut blouson-style and cinched tight with an antique Byzantine belt of silver and coral, a gift from a Greek admirer. She wore no stockings or underclothes, her body silhouetted seductively through the folds of white linen that ended several inches above her knees, accentuating long, shapely legs. High-heeled sandals of lattice-work thin white leather showed elegant feet and long slender toes, their nails painted a carmine red. She wore no jewellery except a pair of Byzantine golden earrings studded with garnets, handsome decorative antiques. Her cascades of blonde hair were held off her face with a leopard-skin patterned chiffon scarf tied around her head in a seductive knot just off-centre. A perfect, chic look for a hot, early-summer evening in Manhattan.
She had time for only a fleeting glance at herself in the hall mirror. For he was there, standing on the other side of the glass entrance door. She could see him clearly through the decorative wrought-iron work. Her heart began to race. She had to ask herself, was this a fantasy, or was she, for the
first time in her life, taking a chance on love for nothing more than the sake of sexual passion? For merely wanting to be that someone special for Alexander. She pulled the door open. And then there was nothing to separate them.
They stood facing each other, and she remembered more than a field and their lust, that Christmas kiss: she remembered an intense beautiful young man in the Café Lipp.
There was a lovely light in the street, weak, soft, late-afternoon, early-summer light. There would be no dusk. In a very short while it would be dark. It happened like that sometimes on hot June days in New York.
They gazed at each other. The impact of seeing him was far more powerful than she had expected. He looked more handsome, his face more sensuous, more hungry for her than she had remembered. She had expected to feel disappointment, or at least a hint of it, but felt quite the opposite. He was more charismatic, more powerful. Even in his quietness there was enormous power.
For him there could be no disappointment. He had loved her too long, had admired her from afar. When she had broken down in front of him on the day of the funeral and he had taken her in his arms, he knew the extent to which she had hidden herself. He had not been disappointed then, and now, standing opposite her, he knew he never could be. For several months after he had left her on that Christmas Day, he had poured his passion into a new novel while he had waited for her to fall in love with him, to seek him out, never doubting that they would ultimately be together. He had sensed her powerful sexual yearning during those few short minutes with her in his arms, during that kiss.
It was he who broke the silence, who took her hand in his and lowered his head to place a kiss on her fingers. ‘May I come in?’ His voice shattered the silence, the last thing keeping them apart. He released her hand and, picking up a battered leather briefcase, stepped inside.
‘No suitcase?’
‘Everything I need is here.’
She took the briefcase from his hand and placed it on the floor, stepping closer to put her arms around his neck and look up into his eyes – those dark brown, seductive, clever eyes. He was holding nothing back, he never would. She could tell that by the way he ate her up with his eyes. She loved the hunger he had for her, and that he played no games but showed it to her, showed what he wanted from her. ‘Kiss me. Oh, please, kiss me,’ she pleaded, her heart racing.
Alexander listened to her words, but recognized in them more than she spoke. They were Mimi’s desire for him. She was erotic passion on the edge, begging to be recognized and loved for it. She was Mimi with a hungry heart for those very things he himself hungered for. She was the love of his life: years of secret loving, erotic desire come to reality.
She was waiting for him as he had waited all those years for her. He took her in his arms. Nothing in his life had ever been or would be as exquisite as this moment. He had tried to make love to other women since he had fallen in love with Mimi, had satiated both them and himself with sex. Sated and discarded, again and again, when efforts to love them as he loved her failed. Because of her, because of those secret, dark and rich erotic desires she awakened in him, sexual love took on a new meaning in his life and work. She had been his inspiration for years. Now, wrapped in each other’s arms, she wanted him.
He told himself, for Mimi, I want it to be right. I want it to be so good for her, for us. I have to do this right. Because these are our lives and I am dealing with all the love and passion we have stored up for each other. She knows how I feel, she understands, and now she wants me. The waiting is over.
He tilted her chin with a finger so the light could catch
her face at a certain angle. He smiled at her, happiness overflowing, pressed his lips lightly to her cheek and then her mouth. She was trembling and so was he. His kiss was insistent. Her lips parted, tongues met and made love. He sucked gently, hungrily nibbled. The feel of her hands on his face, stroking the back of his neck, excited him. She was overwhelmingly sexy, everything he knew her to be.
He caressed her arms through the billowing linen sleeves and stroked her flesh, the long sensuous slender neck and across her collar bone. It felt good to have her in his hands again. He sensed her yield to his touch. He pressed the sides of her breasts under the linen, his penis straining against his trousers. Beneath her dress, she moved against him, acknowledging his passion and that their kisses were impossible to control. It was all too fast, too heady, they deserved better than this. They had had fast and heady the first time they had sex. They could do even better than that now, and for the rest of their lives.
Alexander eased off, not in retreat but merely to pause. He could feel, as she moved in his arms, her approval. That meant everything to him. Finally they parted and she slipped an arm through his. Voice husky with emotion, she gave a seductive laugh. ‘I could have at least closed the front door,’ she told him, and did so. ‘The library, I think.’
He smiled back at her and kissed her again, only briefly this time. She closed her eyes and felt her heart pounding. They both knew they wanted the bedroom, but that would come later. Together, hand in hand, they stood in the hall, merely enjoying the sight of each other.
He was wearing a smart putty-coloured linen suit, well cut, elegant, probably Armani. A shirt the colour of Delft blue china and a coral-coloured tie of raw silk. He looked every inch the successful artist, unimaginably sexy. Love for her showed in his eyes. She felt she had never seen love like that before. Everything he was showed in his face, his body, the way he moved. Love and passion, a desire for
perfection, an animal-like maleness, sensitivity, intelligence, an imaginative mind, erotic desires lurking only just below the surface of the image he presented to the world. All this emanated from him like the aroma of a very special perfume. Alexander Janacek was that special kind of man women search for all their lives.
She picked up his battered briefcase again and they walked across the hall and into the library. Mimi closed the door behind them and then stood with her back against it. He took the briefcase from her and walked further into the room. He was extremely fond of this room. It had remained vivid in his mind from his last visit here. Mimi remained leaning against the door and watched him circle the library and then turn to face her. Alexander felt overwhelmed by desire, Mimi no less so. She forced herself to put desire aside and to say something.
‘You must be hungry.’ It sounded so banal, almost like small talk. Mimi thought she sounded ridiculous. She shook her head and turned around to double-lock the library door. Then, walking towards him, she said, ‘Until you came through that door today, I thought I had fallen in love with you when we got lost in sex and passion and the violence of our feelings. Then I knew I loved you when you arrived here with your Christmas declaration and kiss. I feel a love for you that is different and richer and more special than I have ever exprienced before. But I didn’t understand how much, how strongly I feel about you.’
She went behind him and removed his jacket. Then, taking him by the hand, and while kissing him lightly on his cheek and the lobe of his ear, she walked with him towards the large, deep sofa covered in pig-skin worn soft and to a rich rust colour. There they stood facing each other. Her hands were trembling as she undid the antique silver belt and dropped it on the Persian carpet. He clasped her hands in his, and then raised them to kiss first one palm then the other. Then he raised them to cover his face and gently
caress it, and to touch his mouth so that he could lick them and suck their flesh gently with his lips.