Introduction

Not since Lord of the Flies has a novelist written with such perceptiveness about the potential for harm that lurks within the innocence of childhood. Paula Sharp, author of Crows over a Wheatfield

"A wonderful novel and a true page-turner, a vivid story." Joan Silber, author of The Size of the World

Reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh in its biting satire and Somerset Maugham. . . . A book that both moved and surprised me until the very last word. Mary Morris, author of Revenge

In 1960, when her husband, Rupert, a British diplomat, is posted to the remote Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean, Penelope is less than thrilled. But she never imagined the danger that awaited her family there. Her sun-kissed children run barefoot on the beach and become enraptured by the ancient magic, or grigri, in the tropical colonial outpost. Rupert, meanwhile, falls under the spell of a local beauty who won't stop until she gets what she wants.

Desperate to save her marriage, Penelope turns to black magic, exposing her family to the island's sinister underbelly. Ultimately, Penny and her family suffer unimaginable casualties, rendering their lives profoundly and forever changed. Helen Benedict's acerbic wit and lush descriptions serve up a page-turner brimming with jealousy, sex, and witchcraft in a darkly exotic Eden.

Helen Benedict, a Columbia University professor, has written four previous novels, five nonfiction books, and a play. Her novels have received citations for best book of the year from the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago and New York public libraries.

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

PROLOGUE

1960

The ship was as big as a world to Zara. She explored it all day long,

tumbling through corridors and stairwells while the SS Kampala

lumbered through the Eastern seas. The cabin she shared with her

sister seemed a magician’s box, full of hidden drawers and locking

compartments. The ballroom was a vast rink, its polished wooden

fl oor so slippery she could skate from one side to the other in her

socks. But best of all was the upper deck pool, cool and slappy on its

surface, weighty and secret below.

Zara was eight and heady with new independence. The selfcontained

universe of the ship, free of traffi c and schoolteachers,

had enticed her parents into a neglect she had never experienced

before and she relished it. She was free to be bad or good or neither—

to just be, however that took her from moment to moment.

Her mother stayed in bed most of the time, too seasick to move,

her father hobnobbed all day, and her London school seemed eons

away, with its hurtling boys and the headmaster who liked to beat

them with a long, white cane. There, Zara had spent her time hiding

in a corner to avoid those boys, or wincing at the sound of their

beatings. Here, she did what she wanted and made her little sister

Chloe into her servant.

It began with words. A three-year-old is so easy to frighten with

words. “There’s a lady, long and skinny, who lives in the smokestack,”

Zara told Chloe one morning. “She’s watching you. If you don’t do what I say, she’ll come out to pinch you all over.” Zara

demonstrated and Chloe went wailing to their mother. But she

couldn’t fi nd their mother, so she had to turn back, wailing doubly

to Zara. “Don’t worry,” said Zara. “Just do what I tell you and I’ll

keep you safe.”

Zara loved Chloe’s dimples, two on one side, one on the other; her

bubble cheeks and bright curly hair; her little round bottom, perfect

as two peaches. She liked to dress Chloe up in her frilly frocks, cuddle

and kiss her, then take her between the lifeboats where no one

could see and make her pull down her knickers and bend over to be

spanked. Chloe would resist. “You’re not my mummy,” she would

protest, but a reminder of the lady in the smokestack took care of

that. After the spanking, Zara would feel high and strong, guilty

and dirty all at once. Excited between the legs, ashamed between

the ears. The cure was to go swimming and later, to do it again.

Zara felt at home as a tadpole in the water. She would put Chloe

in the paddling pool on the side and tell her to stay. Then she would

jump in, expel her breath, sink to the bottom and sit cross-legged for

as long as she could, watching her black hair fl oat about like smoke.

The sky—too big and too blue out there over the Indian Ocean—

would be tamed then, a shimmering ceiling patterned by bubbles.

The water would fi ll her ears, cutting off the sharp noises, the things

she didn’t want to hear. Zara made up her mind to grow gills. If

she stayed underneath long enough it would happen, she was sure.

Once she stayed under so long one of the deckhands jumped in to

grab her, plucking her out like a captured frog. Zara kicked him

hard in the chest, shooting out her leg, thin and straight as a bone.

The children’s mother, Penelope, heaved herself queasily out of bed

every evening just long enough to take them to dinner and then to their

very own cabin to sleep; Rupert, their father, they hardly saw at all.

Penelope was always dressed for the ship’s formal dinners then, long

and slender in a sparkly gown, her back exposed to reveal vertebrae like

a row of chipped pebbles. She reeked of cigarettes and perfume, a sickly,

cloying smell that made Zara turn away even as she was kissed.

Penelope with sprayed brown hair teased into a high bun, a shiny

fringe low on her brow, clumpy mascara weighing down her vague

blue eyes, and red, red lipstick, sticky as paint. She had to climb the

ladder to the top bunk to reach Zara, awkward in her long skirts.

“You’re turning black as a crust in all this sun,” she said one night

in her new seasick voice. “You remind me of Kitty.” Kitty! Their

black cat, white paws, a curling tickly tongue. Penelope had given

her to the cleaning woman in London because the family would be

gone so long. Zara had cried all day over Kitty and already she had

forgotten her! She clutched her toy kangaroo and forced the tears to

come, wanting to feel the loss again. And so, lying against the white

pillow, her sharp face thin and browned, her walnut eyes crumpled,

she did indeed look like a cat.

Penelope brushed her hand over Zara’s long hair, smiling weakly.

“Do you know how lucky you are, darling, to be adventuring about

on a ship like this? When I was your age, I was stuck in a freezing

little cottage in Devon with Nanny O’Neill.”

Zara looked up at the shadowy face of her mother, the red lips

almost purple in the dark. “That was in the war, wasn’t it, Mummy?

Were you very brave?”

Penelope tucked the sheet into a crisp fold under Zara’s chin and

stroked Kangy, the child’s threadbare plush kangaroo. Bravery was

not exactly what sprung to mind when Penelope thought about the

war. Fear did, of course, and that shrieking in the air. Ear-bursting

explosions and years of lonely exile. “No, I don’t think I was very

brave. Go to sleep now, poppet,” and she stepped down to Chloe’s

bunk beneath.

Zara heard the muffl ed sounds of complaint, whimpering, a

soothing kiss. “Yes, dear,” Penelope cooed. “Do as your sister says.

She’s a good little mother.”

“Where’s Daddy?” Zara said to her mother’s bony back as Penelope

picked her way out of the room. “I want him.”

“Oh . . . somewhere. Good night, dears. Kiss, kiss, sweet

dreams.”

As soon as her mother had left, Zara decided to count to one hundred

and when the coast was clear, go fi nd Daddy herself. She was

not afraid of the night but she didn’t like the porthole beside her bed,

the glass thick as the seat of a bottle, nor the darkness outside of it.

Daddy would make it better. She tried to look out—she wanted the

porthole to behave like a real window—but she only saw her own

face as a phantom, some fl ickering lights moving maybe behind her,

maybe in front, and a solid black that seemed to go on forever. She

didn’t like that, but she was not afraid. Zara was not afraid of anything,

she told herself every day, not even the headmaster’s white

cane because he never used it on the girls.

After she reached one hundred, she tucked Kangy under her pillow

and climbed down the ladder to the fl oor. The ship was rocking

more than usual, the fl oor heaving up and down as if someone were

trying to shake her off it. Zara staggered, hitting her ankle against

the bunk’s sharp metal leg. She gasped.

“Thara?” Chloe said in her baby lisp.

“Shh. Stay here. I’m going to fi nd Daddy.”

“I’m thcared. The ship’s all bumpy.”

“Don’t worry. Go to sleep. I’ll be back soon.” Zara slipped out of

the cabin.

The ship was different at night, bigger, more frightening, but also

more beautiful. The inside corridors were the same dim beige as in

the daytime, but outside the ship had been strung with so many

lightbulbs it looked like a fairground. She made her way to the

promenade deck, the fl oor tilting beneath her, sending her careening

from railing to wall and back again. She had to zigzag and run to

get anywhere. To the right, run run crash. To the left, run run crash.

When she reached the promenade deck, she saw some grownups

leaning over the railing, some in pairs, some alone. Long legs

stretching upwards, the jackets of the men crisp and white as paper,

the skirts of the women full as curtains, billowing in the wind. Their

heads somewhere up there, bobbling in the sky. She staggered again,

laughing because the wind was so strong and the stars were so big and the gaps between the railings were wide enough to swallow

her whole.

The ship was rolling harder now and even the grown-ups were

weaving as they made their way back inside, clinging to whatever

they could. Her daddy—there he was! He was clinging too, but to

a person. A lady with yellow hair. Zara zigzagged over to him. Her

daddy, tall and straight as a lamppost, beard like a woolly pillow.

Zara crashed into his legs.

“Bugger!” her father yelped. The lady squeaked.

“Zara! What are you doing here?” His voice sounded wobbly.

“Hello, Daddy.” Zara held onto her father’s lamppost legs and

looked up into his face.

“Rupert, is this is your daughter?” the yellow lady said. “Oh

dear.”

“Oh dear,” mimicked Zara.

Rupert frowned and bent down, his hands on Zara’s shoulders.

“Don’t be impudent. Now what’s the matter, muffi n, you can’t

sleep?”

Zara shook her head. “The ship’s gone funny.” Her father’s breath

smelled acrid and sweet—wine and pipe. “I wanted to fi nd you.”

“You shouldn’t be out here, a storm’s blowing up. Come, I’ll

take you to bed.” Without looking at the yellow lady, Rupert strode

off, holding Zara’s hand, the two of them tossed side to side by the

heaving ship. After banging into a wall twice, they managed to get

through a door and she recognized the ballroom. During the day the

room was empty—her rink of bare fl oor—but now it was cluttered

with chairs and people, and tables laid with white linen, glass and

silver. Zara stared. Nothing was as it should be. Chairs lay on their

backs in the middle of the room as if they’d somersaulted across

the fl oor. Glasses and bottles were knocked over. Grown-ups were

sitting on the ground, looking surprised. Everything was higgledypiggledy.

The ship tipped over so far they both sat down, plonk, Zara

between her father’s legs. “Hold tight!” he cried, clasping her around the tummy, and they slid across the polished fl oor, all the

way from one side of the room to the other. With them slid the tables

and chairs, gliding in a curious slow motion. “Duck!” Rupert called

as a table sailed over them and crashed into a wall. No sooner had

they hit one side of the room, the ship rocked back again and everything

slid to the other side in the same stately procession, plates and

glasses skimming across tabletops as if they’d come to life, while

the ship’s stewards balanced on their sea legs, collecting the breakables

as best they could. A woman in a ball gown shot past, her legs

splayed like a doll’s, her eyes and mouth open in astonished O’s. A

man in a tuxedo fl oated by, his legs straight out in front of him like

a plank. A waiter twirled around a central pillar, one arm hooked to

it, the other still holding up his tray. People shrieked. Rupert clung

tight to Zara and both of them laughed till their bellies ached.

Finally, they managed to half stagger, half creep back to the cabin,

where Rupert stowed Zara safely into her top bunk. “Are you all right,

lovey?” he said in his wonderful rumbly voice. “Not frightened?”

“No. Are we going to sink, Daddy?” Zara pictured the ship sinking,

with its ladies in long dresses swimming like mermaids, chairs

drifting about as if they could fl y, chandeliers and wine goblets

twinkling as they spiraled to the bottom of the sea.

“No, we are not going to sink. This is a British India ship. Sound

as a bell. Now go to sleep.”

The next morning, Zara was awoken by the ship’s steward, a sourfaced

man in a white uniform, bearing a tray of the hot chocolate

and croissants he brought to the children every morning. Perched up

there on her throne of a bed, the silver tray on her knees—a saucer

of jam, a swirl of butter, two fl uffy croissants and a whole teapot of

hot chocolate all to herself—Zara gazed out of the porthole, no longer

dark but bright now with sky, and saw that the sea had calmed

to a glossy blue-black, like the back of a sleeping fi sh. She decided

she had to swim, that instant.

“Chloe?” She pushed aside the tray, spilling chocolate on her

sheets but not caring, and climbed down the ladder. “Chloe, get up!

We’re going swimming.” But Chloe was not there. Zara shrugged.

She was probably in their mother’s cabin, cuddled up in bed to hide

from last night’s storm.

Zara was relieved. “You must watch Chloe every minute, darling,”

her mother was always saying. “Babies have been known to

drown in even two inches of water.” The image of Chloe lying facedown,

still and dead, had the habit of invading Zara just as she was

settling at the bottom of the pool to grow her gills. It would force her

to the surface, spoiling everything.

She wriggled into her bathing suit—blue smocking with a little

skirt she hated—and ran barefoot into the corridor, stopping now

and then to investigate the discarded breakfast trays outside cabin

doors. She found a half-fi nished chocolate croissant, which she gobbled,

and a miniature packet of Cocoa Krispies only half eaten. She

shook the rest into her mouth and dropped the box into someone’s

shoe, left out to be polished.

Nobody was on deck yet, it being early, so Zara made her way

alone to the square pool, which lay still and green under the morning

sky. She sat on the tiled edge to watch the surface for a moment

before disturbing it. She had noticed before that the pool on the

ship, a pocket of water within water, moved as if solid, shifting from

side to side like newly-set blancmange. If she jumped in, maybe she

wouldn’t even splash or get wet; she would only sink silently, like

a knife slicing through jelly. Would she be able to eat her way out?

Or would she get caught halfway down, trapped the way that poor

baby starfi sh was trapped in the glass paperweight on Daddy’s

desk? Splayed and still, like Chloe drowned in two inches of water.

Zara jumped up. The railing was only a few steps away. She ran to

it and looked over the edge. With one lurch of the ship last night,

Chloe could have slipped through as easily as Zara shot across the

ballroom in her socks. Chloe shooting overboard, forever.

Zara grasped the railing and climbed up to the second rung so she could see better. The sea, vast as the sky here, stretched until it

dipped over the edge of the world. She leaned far over, staring at

its gleaming black surface, fl ashing silver under the white morning

sun. A few foamy crests winked here and there, each resembling

Chloe’s curly head. Zara balanced on her stomach and strained over

further to watch the water near the hull, churning like a boiling pot.

Was that Chloe, that yellow bubble in the middle? Or was that her

over there? If only Zara had fi nished growing her gills. With gills,

she could climb over the railing, spread her arms like wings and dive

into the bubbles, deep, deep into the water, following a sun shaft to

the bottom of the sea. And there she would fi nd Chloe, curled like

a shrimp around a coral fan, waiting for her. Zara would tuck her

under an arm and swim up and up, fl ying into the embrace of her

mother and father. Oh Zara, Daddy would say, I am so proud. All the

people of the ship would cheer, holding her above their heads, her

father glowing, her mother weeping with relief. . . .

“Zara, get down!”

She felt herself seized by the back of her bathing suit and yanked

off the railing. “What are you doing? You could have fallen! Never

do that, never!”

Zara looked up into her mother’s frightened face, makeup

smudged into black wedges under her eyes, her body lumpy in a

pink velour bathrobe. How much Zara would have liked her mother

not to be this mother, this one on the ship who was too pale and too

smelly and too everything. Zara wanted her old mother back, the

one who used to make up games for her and tell her about animals,

the one from before they put everything in boxes and gave away

Kitty and had to walk through each of the empty rooms of their fl at

to say good-bye. “You must bid farewell to every home you leave,”

that mother had said. “Otherwise it will haunt you forever.”

Penelope dropped to a crouch, eye level with Zara. “Where’s

Chloe? She’s not in the cabin. I thought she was with you.”

“She’s a fi sh,” Zara said, still in her dream, and sucked in her

cheeks to make fi sh lips.

“Stop that!” Penelope gripped Zara’s thin shoulders. “This is

serious. Where is your sister?”

“She’s swimming in the sea,” Zara said, undulating her arms the

way she’d been taught in ballet class.

Penelope shook her hard. “Don’t act the baby with me! Tell me

where Chloe is!”

Tears welled up in Zara’s eyes. “I don’t know,” she stuttered.

”She—she was gone when I woke up.”

Near panic now, Penelope stood and dragged Zara by the hand

to the nearest uniformed presence. “I can’t fi nd my little girl! Curly

blond hair, three years old. Alert the captain, quickly!”

She locked Zara in the cabin, told Rupert what had happened, and

ran all over the ship crying out Chloe’s name. The ship seemed to

grow around her as she searched, like a Hydra sprouting neck after

neck, head after head, shooting out corridors, ladders and sinister

cupboards and doors. Death traps lurked everywhere: Machines in

the hold, their cogs murderously sharp, their belts designed to mutilate;

portholes suddenly huge and open, sucking like vacuums. And

the railings—how could she not have noticed how wide apart the

railings were? And Rupert, damn him! Why, they wouldn’t even be

on this lethal ship if it weren’t for him. Ever since he’d received this

infernal posting he had turned hard and selfi sh, blind to both her

and the children. He hadn’t even consulted them about the move.

He’d simply announced that they were to give up their old life with

no more fuss than shrugging off a coat and follow him to the ends

of the earth, where they were to stew for an entire year, or perhaps

even longer. And when she’d objected, all he’d had to say was, “But

everybody tells me Seychelles is paradise.”

Penelope and Rupert looked everywhere. Over all fi ve decks of

the ship, inside lifeboats, kitchens and gaming rooms, the dining

hall, ballroom, cocktail bar, smoking room and cabin after cabin.

Penelope ran and wept, calling for Chloe until, hit by another wave

of nausea, she collapsed in a deck chair, only to be up again as soon

as she could, crying out, running. Rupert steamed through the corridors and over the decks in dread, shouting out Chloe’s name

and wishing he could, through sheer force of will, conjure her safely

in front of him. He only remembered Zara at one o’clock in the afternoon,

when the ship’s chime rang out for luncheon. “Poor little pea,

shut up like that all morning,” he muttered, hurrying to her cabin.

Unlocking the door, he pushed it open.

“Daddy!” Zara looked up at him, fl ushing a little. She was sitting

on the fl oor, naked, her legs spread. And opposite, in the same position,

as trusting as ever, was his golden bundle of a Chloe.

“We’re giving names to our peepee places,” Zara said.

“I got a peepee place!” crowed Chloe.

Rupert shut his eyes, the ice draining from his limbs. “Girls, get

up now and put on your clothes,” he just managed to say. Then he

crumpled to the ground and pulled Chloe to him. “My God, where

were you?”

“Nowhere,” Chloe said, cuddling up in her father’s smell of

beard and pipe. “You’re thcratchy.”

Rupert looked over at his dark daughter. “Where was she?”

Zara shrugged, and clamped her mouth as tight as a seam. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1) The Edge of Eden explores the lives of Penelope and Rupert Weston, who grew up
during World War II. They were evacuated from their homes and separated from their
families in London to keep them safe from the bombs. This happened to many children in
wartime Britain. What effects did this exile have on Penelope and Rupert when they
became adults and tried marriage and parenthood?

2) Zara, the Weston’s eldest child, is full of an almost sinister mischief, yet she is also
poignant. Why is she drawn to magic and danger? What is she trying to do?

3) Do you find Zara ultimately sympathetic or not? Why?

4) At the beginning of the novel, Penelope seems at times spoiled and sulky. How does
Benedict develop this character and how does Penelope change? Is there a point in the
novel where your feelings about Penelope undergo a shift?

5) Rupert, the husband, also changes in the novel. What do you think his motivations are
for the things he does? Is he sympathetic at all? Why or why not?

6) Marguerite Savy is another complex and intriguing character in The Edge of Eden.
What are her motivations for indulging in magic? What does she want out of life?

7) Joelle Lagrenade seems as dangerous as she is beautiful. Are her motivations purely
selfish, or is there an aspect to her that the reader can understand and sympathize with? If
so, what is it and how does the writer show it?

8) Paul Leland, the American anthropologist, says he is studying Seychelles as a former
slave colony. In which ways is the Seychelles’ culture a legacy of slavery?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Helen Benedict's web site

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.

Member Reviews

There are no user reviews at this time.
Rate this book