The Eden Inheritance

by Janet Tanner

  All through that vacation Jorge was on Madrepora and for the first time in her life Lilli neglected her favourite haunts, neglected Josie, neglected everything to spend every waking moment in the secluded cove where she knew Jorge could find her whenever he had time to spend with her. He had become the breath of life to her; it was as if her world had shrunk to hold nothing but him and when they were not together she was only half alive. She thought of nothing but him, cared for nothing and no one but him. She developed a craftiness and a deceitfulness she had not known she was capable of to prevent her father from discovering how she spent her days, and pretended it was no worse than slipping off to meet Josie behind his back.

  Sometimes it was perfect. They swam together in the clear sea, lying side by side on the hot sand to dry afterwards, their limbs barely touching, and Lilli marvelled at the beauty of Jorge’s body, still taut and lithe, awakening a hunger in her unlike anything she had ever known before. He took her to Johnny Shovelnose’s bar on the south side of the island which had always been forbidden to her and which was frequented by locals, buying her drinks she had never tasted before, like planter’s punch and gin slings, and whispering endearments to her. And one day he suggested she should come back to his house.

  The moment he said it Lilli knew what he meant. Her heart began to pound.

  ‘You mean … now?’

  ‘In a few minutes, yes. Don’t you want to?’

  ‘Oh yes … yes …’ It was what she had been waiting for for so long; now the moment had come she felt the beginnings of panic.

  ‘Don’t look so scared, little one. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You don’t think I’ll hurt you, do you?’

  ‘No no … of course not.’

  ‘Then I will go there and wait for you. Leave it a little while so we are not seen together and then follow me.’ He took her hand, kissing her fingers so that her fear turned to trembling anticipation. ‘After today, Lilli, you will be mine and I will be yours forever.’

  She sat on the beach after he had gone, knees drawn up to her chin, looking at the familiar vista and thinking suddenly that it would be the last time she would see it through the eyes of a child.

  After a few minutes she stood up, arranging her wrap around her shoulders to cover her still-wet swimsuit, letting her hands linger for a moment on her hips, exploring the softly curving lines between stomach and thighs and hoping desperately that she would please Jorge. Then she turned slowly, walkingback beneath the palm trees towards the gingerbread house. The sun, filtering through the fronds, made her skin glow, but it was nothing compared to the warm moistness that was there between her thighs where the fires of desire had already begun to burn.

  She climbed the steps, eager yet moving like someone in a dream.

  ‘Is that you, princess?’ Jorge called when he heard her push the door open.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Up here.’

  She climbed the old colonial-style staircase, her bare feet making no sound. Jorge appeared in the doorway of his bedroom. He had changed into a black silk dressing gown which reached to just below his knees, exposing his thick brown calves.

  ‘Wait, princess, I shall carry you in, just like in all the best movies.’

  He swept her off her feet and she wound her arms around his neck, feeling with heightened sensitivity his thick hair and the smooth satiny silk of his robe.

  He had pulled aside the mosquito-netting drapes which surrounded the bed and turned back the covers to reveal black silk sheets. Now he set Lilli down, kissing her forehead, damp with a perspiration that came partly from nervousness and partly from the heat of the day, and gently eased the wrap from her shoulders. He paused to kiss her again, this time on the tip of her nose, before finding the hook of her bikini bra and easing it undone. As it fell away he cupped her breasts with both hands and ran a line of kisses down her throat to her nipples, rising in the circles made by his fingers and thumbs. Lilli’s whole body was coming alive with shivers of delight but she stood motionless. After a little while he released her breasts, moving his hands slowly and sensuously down over her midriff and hips until he reached her bikini pants, sliding his thumbs inside and easing them down, lifting each foot in turn until she was free of them then tossing them aside. Then his lips were on her pubic mound, seeking the tender warm places as he parted her soft hair with his mouth, kissing first, then licking and sucking until every nerve deep within her abdomen screamed out in sharp delight.

  Only when he was satisfied that she was absolutely ready for him did he straighten, shredding his robe with careless grace, and she caught her breath at the first sight of his naked body, gloriously aroused.

  He lifted her again, carrying her to the bed and laying her down gently on the silken sheets. She moaned and writhed a little, wanting him now with a fierceness that made all the other wanting, pale into insignificance, on the point of orgasm simply from his kisses, the sight of him and the erotic feel of the sheets beneath her fevered body.

  He came to her gently but firmly. She felt a moment’s sharp pain, felt the hot rush between her legs where before there had been only moist yearning, and moaned deep in her throat. Then he was moving in her deeply but slowly and she gave herself up to the wave upon wave of urgent sensuality, not believing it could get. better, still better, scarcely able to bear the sensations that were turning her world upside down, yet wanting it to go on forever … and ever …

  The climax came suddenly, catching her in the maelstrom of sharp dizzying delight, then beginning to drop her gently as a giant roller lifts and discards a body-surfer. She wanted to cry out: No, no, it can’t be over! It can’t stop – please, please! But although Jorge still moved within her, although his rasping breath told her he was approaching a climax of his own, and inexperienced as she was, she knew instinctively that the glory was slipping away. So desperately did she try to hold on to it that she scarcely noticed Jorge’s grasp or his fingers biting into her arms as he reached his own orgasm. Only in retrospect did she realise it was over for him too as he rolled away from her, breathing heavily, and lay beside her, one arm still lying possessively across her body.

  For long moments neither spoke. Then Jorge sliifted slightly so that his hand once more cupped her breast and turned his face into her neck.

  ‘And now, my little princess, you are mine. Wasn’t it worth waiting for?’

  ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say; she was drained, exhausted, but happy.

  After a while, he reached for her again. She felt his body stirring against her thigh and let the delight begin once more, gender, less urgent, yet equally exhilarating.

  And then, suddenly, an alien sound caught her attention, breaking the spell, bringing her sharply back to pulsing, fearful reality. A door banging in the house downstairs, a voice, loud and angry, calling out.

  Otto’s voice!

  ‘It’s Daddy!’ Lilli gasped, horrified.

  Jorge was on his feet in an instant, moving with the grace of a big cat, reaching for his trousers which were draped over the back of a cane chair.

  ‘Stay here. I’ll see what he wants.’

  He thrust his feet into lizard-skin sneakers and left the room. Lilli sat up, reaching for her bikini and pulling it on in trembling haste. She was suddenly overcome with terror that her father might come bursting into the room and find her naked in Jorge’s bed. But at the same time she was angry, suddenly, with the need for subterfuge.

  I am going to go downstairs and tell him! Lilli thought with a burst of impetuosity. We are in love – we have nothing to be ashamed of. He’ll have to know sooner or later – it might as well be now! She flounced out of the bedroom.

  The two men were in the living room at the foot of the stairs. As she descended them she heard her father’s voice.

  ‘Where is Lilli?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Cammy saw you on the beach together – and it’s not the first time. I won’t have it, do you un
derstand?’

  Lilli hesitated, frightened by the intensity of feeling in her father’s tone. She had heard him angry many times before but this was more than anger. Jorge, however, merely laughed.

  ‘Really? And what are you going to do about it, my friend?’

  ‘You’ll leave me no choice. I shall tell her the truth about you and Magdalene. Do you suppose she would want anything more to do with you then?’

  Lilli froze, clinging on to the wooden newel post.

  ‘Lilli is besotted with me,’ she heard Jorge say, and his choice of phrase shocked her still further. ‘Nothing you could say will change that. But you would do well, my friend, to remember your position here. Make an enemy of me and you could lose everything – including your freedom.’

  ‘You bloody bastard!’ Otto’s voice was almost bestial in his fury; Lilli had a sudden vision of him grabbing Jorge by the throat, of the two men she loved fighting like animals. The vision stirred her to action.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it, both of you!’ she screamed, running into the room.

  They turned towards her, startled. An angry red flush stained Jorge’s darkly handsome face whilst Otto’s features were distorted with fury.

  ‘So you are here, you little fool!’

  Lilli slipped between them, taking Jorge’s arm and facing her father defiantly.

  ‘Daddy, listen – I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it’s something you are going to have to get used to. I love Jorge and he loves me.’

  Otto swore, an ugly guttural sound.

  ‘Oh Lilli, Lilli, you don’t love him! You only think you do. And he certainly does not love you. If you knew the truth …’

  His words, echoing what she had overheard earlier, frightened her.

  ‘What are you talking about? Not that anything you say could make any difference …’

  ‘Lilli …’ Otto broke off, gesticulating helplessly, and in the silence Jorge laughed unpleasantly.

  ‘Well go on, Otto – tell her!’

  Otto opened his mouth, closed it again. Lilli could not remember ever having seen him so upset … except, perhaps, when her mother had died. He looked old suddenly, his face so drained of blood that it was almost as white as his hair, and she saw that his hands were shaking.

  ‘What is it, Daddy,’ she said quietly. ‘You can’t stop now.’

  ‘No, Otto, you can’t.’ Jorge’s tone was jeering. He moved away from Lilli, reaching for a packet of panatellas and a chunky onyx lighter which lay on a side table. ‘All right, if you won’t tell her, I will.’

  He lit the cigar, drawing on it lazily.

  ‘Your mother and I were lovers, Lilli. From the time we were younger than you are now. Is that so terrible?’

  Lilli gazed at him in sheer disbelief.

  ‘You … and my mother?’ The words were wrung from her, as primitive emotions she could scarcely recognise welled up inside her. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Oh, it’s true. But it was all over a long time ago. So now you know.’

  Lilli stared at him in horror. As yet she could scarcely take it in. She only knew that everything in her world had changed – and Jorge had changed most of all. The man she loved had disappeared; in his place was a cold gloating individual, a monster behind a familiar handsome mask, not so much unreal as obscene.

  Suddenly, in spite of the twirling ceiling fans, the heat of the room was stifling and Lilli felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat. She had to get out – get away from both of them. Pressing her hand against her mouth she turned and fled, ignoring her father’s anguished plea to her to stop.

  Blindly she ran down the stone steps between the fragrant frangipani bushes, running, running, as if she could somehow leave the confusion and shock and pain behind her, but knowing she could not. The soft breeze whipped her hair around her face, she raised a hand to hold it back and ran on. Down to the beach, where the soft sand, slowed her footsteps, filling her sandals, dragging her down, and the soft lap of the waves was drowned by the roaring in her ears.

  Jorge and her mother. It couldn’t be true! Yet at the same time she knew it was. Why hadn’t she guessed? Why hadn’t she put two and two together long ago?

  Images were filling her mind now, images from the distant past as real as if she were seeing them all again for the first time. Jorge and her mother on the veranda; her mother’s voice: ‘Lilli – why don’t you run off and play?’ Jorge looking at her mother with just the same intensity with which he looked at her; her mother sparkling with joie de vivre – a joie de vivre that was absent when Jorge was not there. And another image, even more painful – her mother lying on the floor of the villa in a haze of scarlet. For a long while now she had suspected that Magdalene’s death had not been natural – that she had in fact killed herself. Now, remembering how Jorge had disappeared shortly afterwards, she found herseli wondering if he had had anything to do with it – and not wanting to know the answer.

  ‘Oh God, oh God!’ Lilli sobbed. She sank to the sand in the shade of a palm tree, drawing her knees up and burying her face in them. ‘Oh Jorge … oh Mama – no, no, no!’

  The sun was beginning to drop towards the sea in a ball of fire before could bring herself to go home.

  Ingrid was on the veranda sipping a long, cool pink gin. Her smooth round face was bland as ever but her blue eyes flashed her displeasure.

  ‘Where have you been, Lilli? Your father has been very worried about you. I have seldom seen him so upset.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s not the only one,’ Lilli said sullenly. She was in no mood to take criticism from her father’s wife.

  ‘Lilli.’ Otto appeared in the doorway. His face was drawn, the scar down his cheek standing out in livid relief. ‘Thank God. I didn’t know where you were. I thought …’

  ‘That I might have done what Mama did?’ Her voice was tight, quite unlike her usual light musical tone. She saw the shock come into his eyes. ‘That’s what happened, isn’t it, Daddy? Mama killed herself, didn’t she? She and Jorge were having an affair and something went wrong and so she killed herself.’

  ‘Lilli – I think we need to talk.’

  He glanced uncomfortably at Ingrid. She remained where she was, sipping her drink in stony silence.

  ‘I don’t want to talk!’ Lilli said. But she did. Little as she wanted to hear the truth there were things she had to know. She just did not see why she should make it easy for him.

  Another glance at Ingrid. Then Otto said: ‘Let’s go to my study, Lilli.’

  ‘Dinner will be ready in a minute,’ Ingrid said testily.

  ‘Damn dinner! I’m not hungry anyway – and I doubt if Lilli is.’

  As much to annoy Ingrid as to please her father, Lilli followed him to the study. She did not know why she was so angry with him – it wasn’t his fault if her mother had had an affair with Jorge, and she supposed he must have suffered then as she was suffering now. But then again some of the blame must attach to him. If he had made her mother happy she would not have needed Jorge … would she? And in any case it was he who had destroyed her illusions. In that moment she hated him for that alone, hated the whole world …

  In the study Otto motioned her to a chair.

  ‘Sit down, Lilli.’

  ‘I don’t want to sit down.’ She crossed to the window, looking out at the familiar garden, now subtly altered like everything else in her world.

  And the Lord God planted a tree in the Garden of Eden. And all was beauty and the man and woman loved one another. And then the serpent came and the blindfolds were torn from their eyes and in the midst of beauty there was ugliness and pain, jealousy and shame …

  ‘Well, I do want to sit down.’ Otto had a glass in his hand containing a generous measure of cognac. He tossed it back, set the glass on the table and sat down facing her.

  ‘I am sorry you had to find out like this, Lilli,’ he said. ‘I suppose I should have told you a long time ago but I hoped you would never need to know. I tried t
o warn you about Jorge …’

  ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘No, you didn’t! You told me he wasn’t suitable, but that was all!’

  ‘And nor is he, for a great many reasons, most of which we need not go into now. The most important thing is that you realise that where women are concerned Jorge has no scruples at all. He has broken more hearts that I could count. He certainly broke your mother’s twice over.’

  ‘Twice over?’ In spite of herself he had Lilli’s full attention now.

  He replenished his glass from the crystal decanter which stood on his desk.

  ‘You’ve heard the story before, Lilli, about how I came to South America when Germany was defeated in the war. How I went into business with your grandfather and his old friend Fernando Sanchez. And how I met your mother. I fell in love with her, Lilli, the minute I set eyes on her. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.’ His voice had become soft dreamy; even through the haze of her own pain Lilli knew he was reliving the days before she had been born.

  ‘She was also very unhappy,’ he went on, sipping his cognac. ‘She had been involved in a relationship with Jorge stretching back almost to the days when they were children together, but he had treated her very badly. That is Jorge’s way, you see – he likes to be surrounded by beautiful women, likes to have them crazy about him, but he gives nothing of himself. What Jorge wants, he takes. He is a ruthless womaniser – as well as being a very dangerous man.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean – dangerous,’ Lilli said, twisting the bangles round her wrist. ‘I know he used to be a racing driver and he rides and flies and things, but that doesn’t mean he’s dangerous.’ She stopped, biting her lip and wondering why she was still defending Jorge.

  ‘I’m not talking about his hobbies, I am talking about something quite different. You may think you know Jorge, Lilli, but you don’t. You don’t really know him at all.’

  ‘I know I love him.’ In spite of everything it was no more than the truth.