Behind The Text’ Part 23_Lovers
‘Cherchez La Femme!’
Hi,
Jonas Forbes
is certainly one for the ladies. In 11/16 books he has a sexual relationship –
however brief. Even so, here I’ll only consider 3 of the 14 women (no mistake
with the Maths!) involved.
Lieutenant
Natasha Rykov of the GRU (in ‘Dare Call It Treason’ - Book 2) is undoubtedly the key lover in this series. A relationship which started
as ice soon melts and is transformed after Jonas rescues her from Bonus’s gang.
Then it’s back to Portsmouth, stopping at a hotel, a dinner impatiently
consumed before passion in her bed. And then? The discovery of her murdered
body in the morning, an accusation of murder soon proved false and then Jonas’s
determination for revenge – not just on James Bonus but on the men who’d hired
him to secure the means of killing the Soviet leaders. Natasha dead comes to
mean far more to Jonas than Natasha alive. Her name appears in several of the
later novels – perhaps as a memory which slowly, slowly fades. Even in the last
novel his wife thinks: ‘Jonas had never really
played fair with her - right from the affair with Natasha, but she’d surprised
herself by living with that for seventeen years.' She was to become an icon, an impossible perfection
against which other women are matched and a life-long regret their affaire had
lasted but hours.
Wou San-San is
a Linguistics student at University College, London with whom Jonas enjoys an
affair over the first weeks of 1961 (see ‘Dragon-Spit’
– Book 7). Jonas is working undercover, trying to penetrate the
circle of Chinese students at London University in order to foil a Maoist plot
to unhinge UK politics. So is it just a means to an end? Perhaps at the start,
but it soon deepens until he disappears, after his cover’s blown, and San-San
realises most of what he’s told her has been lies. Taunts from her twin, Wou Mei-Mei,
provoke a struggle in which San-San is killed by accident. Wait a minute
though. When reviewing Jonas’s feelings for San-San, remember Jonas had also enjoyed
sex with Mei-Mei (thinking she was her twin) and detected no difference, apart
from improved technique. And remember that when he tracks down Wang Li, the
killer of the Chinese agent, Mei-Mei, he deliberately cripples him by shooting
out both knee-caps. So his true feelings for Wou Mei-Mei must remain, at best,
uncertain.
Jonas (in ‘Find Bormann’ - Book 8)
forms a relationship with Ilse Buch (aka ‘Miss
'36-24-36'),
even though he learns she’s also in 1962 Uruguay looking for Martin Bormann - whom
she’s certain is her father. Consummation of a sexual attraction for each other
takes place on the pampas under the stars – and then they’re captured by the
gauchos of Don Esteban de Cordilla y Marquez
who has his own agenda for the couple.
And there this Spoiler will end, except to quote virtually the last
words of this novel: ‘Why was Jonas
Forbes here? And, perhaps more importantly, why was he crying over that girl?’
So it wasn’t just sex or infatuation or even loneliness which bound two disparate
humans together – or was it?.
Note I leave out
Vanessa Holmes nee Clarke, who actually married Jonas Forbes, for a later, more
detailed treatment (Post 26).
Bob Hyslop
No comments:
Post a Comment