This Other Eden (32 page)

At
twenty years old, and dazzled by his power and glamour, this was all fine by
Rosalie. Seldom can a woman have been deflowered under such splendid
circumstances. Long before he actually entered her, Jurgen’s skills had induced
a climax of an intensity that was new to Rosalie. His smooth, smooth face
between her thighs (Jurgen always waxed his chin for special occasions such as
this) made her back arch with joy, and when the time came to fully consummate
the night, big though he was, Jurgen had made her ready.

Afterwards
she lay exhausted on the bed for some time. Jurgen Thor got up and, taking his
drink, sat naked on some cushions and watched as the sun dipped behind the
glorious mountains outside the window, and turned his body to a silhouette. It
was then that the full splendour of the situation enveloped Rosalie, and for a
moment she almost swooned, an experience she had never had before or since. She
did not swoon, however, because something was preventing her from fully
glorying in the luxury of the situation. Something felt very strange, in fact,
felt wrong.

‘Jurgen,’
she said.

‘My
darling, you were wonderful,’ he said, still staring at the setting sun.

‘Thanks,
but that wasn’t what I was going to ask.’

‘What,
then?’

‘Who
pays for all this?’

There
was a tiny pause.

‘It’s
not so very expensive.’

‘A
house built on top of a mountain with a heli-pad. That’s
quite
expensive.’

Jurgen
turned to her. For the first time, there was a touch of irritation in his
manner.

‘We
have friends who believe that what we do is of some worth. What
I
do is
of worth.’

‘I know
that, Jurgen.’ Rosalie pulled a sheet over herself. ‘I was just saying that
this is pretty amazing, that’s all.’

‘I’m a
world leader, you know that, don’t you? A
world
leader.’

‘Of
course I know that, Jurgen.’

‘Natura
fights elections in every democracy on Earth. Do you begrudge me some trappings
of office? A house, a helicopter? Perhaps I should arrive at summit meetings
by public transport.’

‘Well,
maybe you should.’ Rosalie was now a little annoyed herself. ‘We all know what
the private car is doing, if everybody in the world used public transport that
alone would probably save the
—‘

‘I
know
that, little Miss Idealist! I knew it before you were born, damn it all,
man! But there are practical considerations for a man in my position. People
try to kill me, you know! I am also a bit too busy to be waiting for buses!’
For a moment Jurgen Thor seemed almost hurt. ‘Oh, my sweet naïve little almost
virgin, how I would love the luxury of your innocence. To be twenty and to
judge every little thing by what is right. But I have to lead and it is the
leaders who have to take the tough decisions, yes, and then live with
themselves afterwards. You could not imagine the awful truth of some of the compromises
I have taken in pursuit of what I believe. So be careful what you ask, tiny
girl. You might get the answers which you don’t want to hear!’

Jurgen
stopped, the fire in his eyes dying as suddenly as it had been kindled. He got
up and, big and naked though he was, his expression was that of a little boy.
He crossed back to the bed, his tone suddenly sad and conciliatory.

‘Forgive
me, little funky beautiful babe. Sometimes even I get tired, you know? It’s a
tough game you’re going to be playing. You must be careful that your dreams do
not betray you. Idealism is a wonderful thing, it got you into this, but it is
pragmatism that will keep you alive. There are many things we have to do that
we don’t like. Compromises that must be made. When we let off a bomb, we do not
like the damage it does, but we like even less the thing which we seek to
destroy. Let’s not talk any more. I spend half my life talking.’

And he,
of course, spent the other half fucking, which is what he proceeded to do until
both he and Rosalie fell asleep.

Later
though, and for some time afterwards, Rosalie thought about this conversation.
He had seemed so moved, he had actually been hurt and angry. She could not
escape the feeling that Jurgen Thor had been talking about more than his house
and his helicopter.

Further
adventures in cross-dressing.

‘Hey, you want to get a
coffee or something?’

Max’s
voice intruded upon Rosalie’s thoughts. Bringing her down off that mountain in
Switzerland and back across the years. Jurgen’s bitter little speech had
occasionally returned to her, tainting the memory of what had been a wonderful
night. What had he meant about compromises? Why had he seemed so sad? So angry?
Surely what Max was suggesting could not be true? Claustrosphere funding Mother
Earth? The idea was insane. Then again, the fact that the human race was
happily destroying the planet on which it lived was insane, eve thin was insane.
But this? It was impossible.

‘Max, I
have personally led teams that have destroyed four plants which make Claustrosphere
components. We attack them all the time. They can’t possibly be funding us.’

‘All I
know is what I’ve told you. Maybe it’s all bullshit, but Nathan definitely got
knocked off after meeting Tolstoy, in a house hired by Tolstoy and it was a
professional and clinical hit with no robbery involved. I can’t think of a
single motive other than the one I’ve suggested.’

‘Maybe
he had other enemies?’

‘Come
on, he’d only ever spent two weeks in LA, in a hotel room. Who’s going to kill
him for that? Besides, nobody but me, Tolstoy and his wife in England even knew
where he was.’

‘It’s
insane.

‘Well,
maybe it is. I don’t know. Why don’t we go ask your pal Jurgen?’

Just
then the beeper that Rosalie was wearing went off. She stepped to the window
and looked out.

‘Garda… Oh dear.’

Down in
the single street which was all the village consisted of, Rosalie’s lookout had
been arrested. By an unhappy stroke of poor luck the local Garda were being
particularly vigilant at that time, looking for Republicans from the North who
were believed to be lying low in the area. Rosalie’s comrade, hanging about as
she was, had been routinely DNA-scraped by a constable and immediately
identified as a member of a Mother Earth unit known to be led by Rosalie.
Instantly, the Garda had dropped all thoughts of boring old Republicans.
Rosalie was an escapee, somebody who had seriously embarrassed the force. If
she was in the village, she would make a grand catch indeed. This was why the
Garda were now knocking on doors at both ends of the street and a helicopter
was clattering above the houses.

‘They’re
searching every house,’ Rosalie said from her vantage point at the window. ‘My
God, why did you have to come back? They’ve got me now for sure.

Max was
thrilled. Here was his chance to redeem himself. ‘Look,’ said Max, ‘I know I
didn’t do too well last time but
—‘

‘Don’t
tell me you want to pretend to be me again. That story will have been all over
the force
—
they’re hardly likely to fall for the same trick twice.’

‘Variations
on a theme, man. Will you trust me? Ask the child inside.’

Rosalie
had little choice; there were no avenues of escape remaining to her. As far as
she was concerned, within ten minutes she would be under arrest.

‘What
did you have in mind, then?’

‘On the
dressing-table, there’s a moustache and some cosmetic putty
—
bring
them over here.’

Rosalie
nearly just gave herself up there and then. ‘I will not. If I’m to be arrested,
I shall do it with dignity.’ ‘Rosalie! We’ve only moments left,’ said Max and,
leaping out of bed, he grabbed his make-up bag. Rosalie would have protested
further, but she found it difficult to speak because Max was sticking a false
moustache to her upper lip.

‘This
time you get to be a man,’ he said.

‘Max,
you’re insane! I have a bosom.’

‘Not by
Hollywood standards, you haven’t … You said you’d trust me, well, trust me!
What do you have to lose?’

He
pulled Rosalie’s hair back tight into a ponytail.

‘OK,
you’ll have to strip, completely, I’m afraid. Come on, come on, we don’t have
much time.’

‘Max,
I’m a
woman!’

‘I
know
that. Now strip!’

Scarcely
knowing why, Rosalie stripped naked and Max instructed her to lie on the bed,
her head propped against a pillow. He draped a crumpled sheet casually across
her breasts, but left the rest of her body exposed.

‘OK
now, legs together… casual, come on, you’re drunk, you’ve passed out,
you’re asleep.’ Max raised one of her knees slightly, whilst making sure that
her thighs were still clamped together. Then, even as they heard the Garda
outside in the street, Max rolled the fleshy putty into a small sausage.

‘I
don’t believe…!!‘ gasped Rosalie, looking down.

‘Lie
still!’ Max barked. ‘You’re out to it! You’ve got to
think
out to it.
You’ve got to
act!
A lot of people think acting is easy, but it isn’t,
it’s
a damned tough trade.
Now remember, you are not a wild woman on a
mission to save the planet, but a drunk Californian homosexual on holiday with
his lover, OK? It’s complex, it’s delicate, it’s
acting!’

‘Well,
what do I do then?’

‘Just
close your eyes and try to snore a bit.’

And
with that, Max gently buried one end of his little putty sausage into the mound
of Rosalie’s pubic hair and draped the length of it delicately across one of
her thighs. Rosalie’s legs twitched at his touch.

‘Keep
them together, for Christ’s sake,’ Max urged, ‘I can’t do balls at this speed,
I’m not Michel-fucking-angelo.’

Rosalie’s
legs lay still. Max could hear the landlady conversing with the Garda
downstairs. He knew he only had moments left. Rosalie already had the slightest
downy snail-trail running up from her pubic hair towards her belly button. Max
took some ash from the ashtray and darkened the hair slightly, considered
attempting a shadow on her chin but knew he would smudge it in the rush. There
was a half-empty Paddy bottle on the bedside table, and he laid it on the bed
placing the neck of the bottle in Rosalie’s hand. He checked again that the
sheet across her chest was sufficiently rumpled to disguise the small rise of
her bosom, then he gathered the undersheet together on either side of her
thighs in an attempt to disguise the feminine curve of her hips. Rosalie’s slim
waist, he could do nothing about. It would just have to do, acting was down to
bluff, and that was up to him. He whipped off the jockey shorts, which to his
shame he had been wearing in bed, and just as the Garda began to hammer on the
bedroom door he draped himself completely naked across the bed, his head on
Rosalie’s stomach.

‘Open
the door!’ a stern voice demanded from outside.

‘Ugh!’
Max moaned as if from a deep sleep.

‘Open
the door or I shall kick it open!’ the voice shouted.

‘What?.
. . Heh, who the hell is…?‘ Max knew how to act semi-off his face, he was
that way most mornings. The door burst open and two uniformed officers rushed
in. Max gave them a split second to take in the whole scene before jumping up,
naked, drawing their attention with him.

‘My
God! Oh no!
Scream!!’
he shouted, affecting a fey campness which would
not have gone down very well with those members of the homosexual community who
object to such stereotyping.

‘Nathan,
wake up! It’s a bust! Don’t tell me boy love is still illegal in this country!
It’s not! I know it’s not! I checked with the travel agent. How dare you burst
in here… you… you damn caveman! Wake up, Nathan!… Oh, my God!’ Max
pretended to notice Rosalie’s nakedness for the first time. Giving the Garda
officers just a moment with which to follow his gaze and see again the pale,
soft, feminine, but unquestionably equipped with penis, body on the bed, Max
grabbed a coat and hurled it over Rosalie, before seeming to notice his own
nakedness for the first time and cover himself with a towel.

‘We
were told there was a woman in here,’ the constable stuttered, not knowing what
to think.

‘A
woman! Don’t be
disgusting!’
Max screeched.

‘The
landlady said there was a woman in here.’ The policeman was getting out of his
depth.

‘Darling,
I fear that in Mrs Mop’s tiny world, when two people are fucking like rabbits
and making the china shake in the best room, they are, by definition, a man and
a woman. No other couplings would occur to her. Wake
up,
Nathan…

Max
shouted at Rosalie’s prostrate form as he marched over to the dressing-table
and grabbed both his own passport and that which had once belonged to the actual
Nathan. ‘Look. There’s our IDs, I’m American, he’s British and we’re both
men,
thank you very much. I can assure you, I would know! … Wake
up,
Nathan!!’
The officer flicked nervously through the two passports. Max, fearing the man
might study the photos, attempted to partially obscure Rosalie’s face by
bending over to shake her, taking care not to disturb either the moustache or
the rumpled sheet over her breasts. Rosalie, who was beginning to believe that
Max might pull this off, groaned and dribbled, distorting her features as much
as she felt she could get away with.