She herself might have been shot. At the very least, if she had been caught in Cuba, she would have been — well, it would have been a painful experience. Her uncle's ambition and what he did in pursuit of it had interrupted her education and forced her to accompany her family into exile, first in Florida, then in Texas, finally in California.
When she met Jonas Cord she was nineteen years old. He was twenty-one. She had been educated in a convent and was confused and frightened, not just by the world but by this strange, bustling yanqui world into which she had been precipitated. She was so naive that she did not understand that norteamericanos did not apply the word Yankee to the residents of Florida, Texas, or California. It was all Yankee to her. The nuns had taught her English — but not the kind of English she heard spoken. They had taught her that America was a land of big men and big women.
The women ... They dressed outlandishly in short skirts and tight bodices and were aggressively bold, the nuns had said. They painted their faces. They smoked little cigars. (The nuns didn't know about cigarettes.) They drank distilled liquors. Unmarried girls went abroad in the streets day and night, without dueñas. They went to theaters and to dance halls without escorts. Some of them drove automobiles. Some of them lived in flats they shared with other girls, without parents or brothers to supervise and protect them. As a result, American men had no respect for American women, and any woman's virtue was constantly at risk.
Arriving in the United States, she had found that what the nuns had taught her was true, mostly. Girls her age did indeed wear their skirts above their knees, and they cut their hair so short their ears were exposed. They smoked and drank like men. They lacked elementary grace and seemed to know little of common courtesies. Worst of all, in their country they were not strange; she was.
Her father and her uncle traveled, where she did not know; but they were not often at home. A Mexican family somehow involved in her uncle's plans to seize power in Cuba were glad to offer Sonja and her mother a place in their home in Los Angeles, and they lived there for two years.
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?"