Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

Some of the Germans took him for a playboy. They were wrong. Jonas Cord was an astute, even a Machiavellian, businessman.

One of the Germans introduced him one evening to a strange little man who walked with a limp, smiled too readily and too broadly, and spoke of a Führer , a man who would lead the German nation to glory. The little man's name was Dr. Josef Goebbels, and a week or so later he arranged for Jonas and Sonja to meet his Führer , an oddly charismatic man named Adolf Hitler. Neither Jonas nor Sonja thought much of the encounter at the time. They would later search their memories to try to reconstruct the conversations.

On the way home on the Berengaria — the former German liner Imperator — they discovered that the Prince of Wales was a fellow passenger. Everyone sought his company. Jonas did not. Perhaps it was as a consequence of his refusal to intrude on the privacy of the prince that he and Sonja were invited to dine at the prince's table the third night out. They found the personable, gracious Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David a far more memorable fellow than the two peculiar Germans. For years Sonja would talk about the evening when she dined with the Prince of Wales.

As they neared the end of their journey, Sonja began to wonder when Jonas would propose marriage. She felt sure he would. For more than two months they had lived together as though they were a married couple. She utterly failed to realize they were like a married couple in another way. He was becoming a little bored with her.

Aboard the Berengaria he openly courted the daughter of a Massachusetts banker — or, said more accurately, he tried to seduce her. Sonja was aware but failed to understand. It was not unusual for a married man to have his little flings on the side. That was understood and accepted both in Cuba and in yanqui land. She was troubled but not alarmed.

They reached Los Angeles. He took her home — that is to the home of the Mexican family and her mother — and left her there. He said he had to travel to Nevada and then to San Francisco and would call her when he was next in Los Angeles.

During the three weeks before he called she learned she was pregnant. She would not tell him on the phone and asked him to come to the house. He said he was only passing through and would be leaving for Texas in an hour or so. She did not see him until eleven days later, when he returned from Dallas. Then he took her to lunch.

All he wanted to talk about was what they had done in Germany. She could not endure his chatter and finally asked him, "Jonas, what of the future?"

"Future? What future?"

"Ours," she said simply.

He frowned. "I'm not sure ... My god, you don't mean marriage!"

"We have been together as husband and wife."

Jonas shook his head. "You slept with me for two months. It was great. I appreciated it. I took you to Germany. We went first class. Did I ever mention marriage?"

"No."

"Well, then."

Her eyes filled with tears. "Then ... the lovely traveling, the ships and all, were meant as ... payment ?"

Jonas smiled. "I wouldn't put it quite that way."

"The payment for the services of a puta ," she said bitterly.

"Sonja! No."

She got up and walked out of the restaurant. He didn't follow her.

Her father and uncle were angry. Her father spoke of horsewhipping Jonas Cord, better yet of killing him. Her uncle demanded that she be married immediately, so quickly that her husband would believe the child she was carrying was his. He knew who she could marry: the son of Don Pedro Escalante. The Escalante family was not as rich as the Cords, but an alliance between the Escalantes and the Batistas could be mutually profitable. Fulgencio Batista traveled to Mexico and arranged the marriage.

Two days before the wedding Sonja contrived a private meeting with Virgilio in the garden of the hacienda near Cordoba. She told him she was pregnant. He was already in love with her.

"Twenty-five years," Sonja murmured. "And now for some reason you called. You didn't telephone me for sentimental reasons. I don't think you do anything much for sentimental reasons."

"Sonja, I —"

"You're being divorced again," she said with a thin smile. "So, are you going around looking up old girlfriends?"

Jonas shook his head.

"If you like kidneys," she said, "there is no place in Mexico where they do them better. Nowhere in this hemisphere, I should say." She shook her head. "You still do favor that foul norteamericano whiskey, don't you? Bourbon. Whiskey flavored with maple syrup. Anyway, you came to see me about what?"

"It can wait," said Jonas.

"You've bought a casino-hotel," she said. "You want to buy one — or build one — in Havana. Right? Uncle Fulgencio —"

"Maybe," he interrupted. "We can talk about it another time. Right now, I want to know about you. I am told your husband is a very wealthy man," said Jonas.

"No. But of a very old family," she said. "The Escalantes are hidalgos, if there is any such thing anymore."

"Do you live in Mexico City?" Jonas asked. "I mean, all year round."

"We have an apartment here, where we spend most of our time. Our chief residence, in theory, is a hacienda near Cordoba."

"Do you have children, Sonja?"

She frowned, as if the question distressed her. "Yes," she said. "I have two sons and two daughters. My elder daughter is married and has made me a grandmother."

"You're too young to be a grandmother."

"I was too young to be a mother when I first became one," she said. She opened her purse. "Here. Here is the business card of my elder son."

Jonas took the card and looked at it.

jonas enrique raul cord y batista

Abogado y Jurisconsulto

gurza y aroza abogados

1535 Avenue Universidad

Jonas's lips parted. He blanched. For a long moment he stared at the card, and then he turned his eyes from the card to Sonja's face.

"Our son," she said quietly.

"BUT WHY? MY GOD, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?"

Sonja raised her glass and sipped champagne. "When you left me, you said the affair was over. You were most emphatic about it." She shrugged. "Need I tell you I was not feeling very positively toward you at that time, Jonas? Besides, I had my pride. I didn't want you thinking I was asking for an allowance."

"Allowance? I'd have been happy to send ... to send money, to send presents. I'd have come to visit."

"I didn't want you interfering in his upbringing," she said bluntly, coldly.

"Meaning you didn't want him to be like me."

"I never had to worry about that. He isn't."

"Does he know —"

"He knows who his father is," she said. "He has read every news story about you. For a long time he was not sure if he liked you, if he ever wanted to meet you. I can tell you now that he would have sent a letter to your office before much longer. He wanted to be firmly established in his career before he contacted you. He didn't want you to think he asked anything of you."

"My god, he's twenty-five years old!"

"Almost twenty-six. He graduated from Harvard Law School with honors. His law firm is an international firm. Mexico does not allow American firms to open branch offices in our country. But there is a brotherly relationship between his firm and a prominent firm in New York. They exchange young lawyers for a year's training. Jonas will be spending next year in New York. He expected to see you during that year."

"Tell me more about him," said Jonas quietly.

"My husband and I saw to it that he had every advantage, a good education, foreign travel, exposure to the better things of life. He is perfectly bilingual. In fact, he is fluent in French and German also. He graduated from a private secondary school in 1943, when he was seventeen. He completed a year at Harvard before he enlisted in the United States Army."