Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

The daughters of this family were thoroughly Americanized, and they urged Sonja to dress as they did, to bob her hair, and to learn to smoke cigarettes. The pressure to conform gradually overcame her resistance. Over a few months she became half Americanized. She would not bob her hair, but she began to wear short dresses, to smoke, and — very cautiously at first — to venture into the noisy, uninhibited society of young Americans. She was, she realized painfully, neither fish nor fowl. She was no longer the timid, convent-educated girl who had come to Los Angeles from Cuba; but neither had she become a hard-edged, giddy American. She was deeply curious about American ways and wanted to learn more about them and selectively adopt more of them, but she remained confused and embarrassed by the conspicuous difference between her and the young people around her.

Oddly, they did not attach any importance to the difference. Another American habit, it seemed, was to be welcoming and uncritical. They accepted her.

She met Jonas Cord at a party held aboard a yacht. It was an evening she had been looking forward to ever since she heard about it — to go aboard a yacht and mingle with people who could afford yachts. Jonas was a handsome young man, exceptionally virile as she saw him. His manifest virility, plus his air of self-confidence, set him apart from the other young men aboard the yacht that night. She had observed of other young American men that many of them were ambiguous about their masculinity. In their exuberant gaiety some of them were as giddy as girls. Also, many of them lacked confidence in themselves. More accurately, they lacked confidence in anything.

It seemed Jonas Cord had nothing he needed to prove. He knew who he was. He knew what he wanted. He looked around the partygoers on the rear deck of the yacht and walked directly to Sonja Batista. He asked her to dance. He offered a drink from his pocket flask. After an hour or so he suggested they leave the party and go for a drive.

He explained his car to her. It was a Bentley, imported from England, and the driver sat on the right. It was dark green, with nickel plating on the frame above the radiator and on its big lights and its wheel hubs. The windshield folded down, so the wind blew in your face. The hood was fastened down with a strong leather strap. The seats were upholstered in fine leather and had the odor of leather.

Sonja put her foot on a stirrup and climbed in. The frame of her seat folded around her in a sort of U, as did the body of the car, so she felt secure enough; but there were no doors, and if she leaned forward a little she could see the road rushing underneath. Jonas removed a delicate silk scarf from the glove box and helped her tie it around her head to control her hair. He handed her a pair of goggles to protect her eyes.

He drove her where she had never been: into the mountains north of Los Angeles, from where they had beautiful views of the lighted city and of the Pacific Ocean.

"I want to learn to fly an airplane," he told her. "So I can have a view like this of any city."

It seemed a glorious dream. "I would fly with you," she said. "I would not be afraid."

Then the question was Of what would she be afraid? Would she be afraid to allow him to kiss her? She was, but she allowed it.

From the moment of that kiss, Sonja ceased to think she was a virgin. She ceased to think she was pure. Not because he had violated her, of course — she was not so naive as to think he had. It was the way she had welcomed and enjoyed his kiss that had debased her. It was the fact that she wanted him to do it again that corrupted her.

He touched her breasts and her legs. She shook her head. She was frightened. He stopped, smiled, lit a cigarette, and offered it to her.

When they returned to the yacht, the party was still going. Hardly anyone had noticed they had been gone.

She was naive. She had no doubt he would want to see her again, that he would pursue her — court her, after the old-fashioned term. She expected probably he would propose marriage.

He did not. She didn't see him for several weeks. When she did see him, it was at another party, this one in the courtyard in the center of a block of small attached stucco houses. When he approached, she was standing by a fountain lighted with red and blue spotlights.

"Sonja! How nice to see you."

"Señor Cord ..."

"I got that airplane we talked about," he said. "Are you ready to go flying?"

"I am not certain," she said. "Maybe I am afraid after all."

Jonas Cord was a perceptive man. He recognized hesitancy in this young woman who had been so forthcoming before. He understood why. "The world has changed for me, Sonja," he said. "That is why I did not call you again before now. You see ... my father died suddenly."

"Oh, Jonas!" (She pronounced his name Hoe-nass, as she pronounced her own Sone-yah.) "If I have known ... such sympathy I would have extended!"

"I knew you would. You are a wonderful girl, Sonja."

She knew he was bold. He was direct, in the yanqui way. She had not guessed his boldness and directness would extend so far as the proposition he made before the evening was over.

They were in his car once again. He had kissed her again as he had done before, and she was aroused. She let him slip her dress off her shoulders and down around her waist. She allowed him to unhook her brassiere. He kissed her nipples, licking them and sucking them between his lips. She knew if he suggested it she would allow him the ultimate privilege. She wanted that and had ceased to fear it.

Instead — "Sonja, I inherited my father's business. Shortly before he died he committed our company to a major venture in a new product called plastics. I have to go to Germany for two months, Sonja ... Would you come with me?"

She went. Her mother was appalled, but her father and uncle encouraged her to go. They knew who Jonas Cord was. They envisioned a perfect alliance: Cords and Batistas. Sonja would play the traditional female role: a marker in a game, her body would cement the alliance.

1925 was an important year. Jonas's father died. Jonas's stepmother sold him all her claim to the Cord estate, leaving Jonas in complete control of the Cord businesses. A man who seemed to be his dearest friend, named Nevada Smith, left Jonas and went off to run a Wild West show.

Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated President of the United States, for a full term in his own right. A squat, pockmarked, obviously brutal man who called himself Josef Stalin took control of Russia. An elderly retired field marshal by the name of Paul von Hindenburg was elected President of the German Republic. A man named Clarence Birdseye froze fish fillets so hard they were like small oak planks, in which condition they would last indefinitely and were tasty when thawed. Jonas took an interest in the process but decided not to invest in it. What interested Americans most that year was a spectacular courtroom trial that resulted in an odd little schoolteacher named Scopes being fined a hundred dollars for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in a Tennessee school.

The two months in Germany was a dream. Jonas traveled first class. They crossed the Atlantic on the Aquitania, which had to be like living in the palace at Versailles; certainly no palace in Cuba was as elegantly appointed as the cabins, lounges, and dining rooms of the ship. They flew to Germany on a Domier flying boat that lifted off from the Thames and landed in the harbor at Hamburg. In Berlin they took up residence in the Adion Hotel, one of the city's finest.

Luxury and privilege did not come without its price. She was expected to give herself to Jonas without reservation. That was expected by her father and uncle as well as by Jonas. She gave herself to him without reservation: whatever he wanted, whatever he suggested. She never said no to him, not once. It was no high price. She had not imagined what rapture she would find in the most animal of human relationships.