by Larry Bond
Ian shook his head irritably.
“Sony to disappoint you, Sam. We don’t have anything really sordid on tap for today. Just lunch and a quick jaunt up the Table Mountain cableway for the view. “
“Sounds great.” Knowles must have heard the bite in his voice because he changed the subject fast.
“You still want me to keep that slow pan across the cabinet while Haymans’s making his statement?”
“Yeah.” Ian nodded toward the dais behind the speaker’s podium. Technicians were still swarming around the podium itself, jostling each other as they unclipped microphones and coiled lengths of tangled wiring.
“I want that shot in because one of his cabinet ministers was missing. Somebody important, too. Somebody who obviously isn’t much interested in showing a united front on this talks thing.”
Knowles smiled broadly.
“Let me guess. That well-known friend of the international press and all-around humanitarian, the minister of law and order. Am I right?”
“You get an A for today, Sam.” Ian matched his smile.
“Can you dig up some good, juicy file footage of Vorster for me? Something suitably ominous. You know, shots of him glowering in the back of a long black limousine. Or surrounded by armed security troops. That kind of stuff.”
He waited while Knowles jotted down a quick note and went on, “Then we can weave those pictures in at the wrapupKnowles finished the sentence for him.
“Thus leaving our viewers with the unpleasant, but real, impression that these talks aren’t necessarily going to lead straight to the promised land of peace. “
“Right again.” Ian clapped his cameraman on the, shoulder.
“Keep this up and I’ll think you’re after my job.”
Knowles made a face.
“No thanks. You’re the on-air ‘talent.” I prefer being an unknown gofer. You can keep all the headaches of dealing with the network brass for yourself. All I ask is the chance to shoot some interesting film without too much interference. “
Ian shrugged and turned to leave.
“You may get your wish. I’ve got a feeling that this country’s finally coming out of hibernation. “
KEPPEL HOUSE, CAPE TOWN
Every table in the small dining room was occupied-each fit by a single, flickering candle. Voices rose and fell around the darkened room, the harsh, clipped accents of Afrikaans mingling with half a dozen variants of English. White-coated, dark-skinned waiters bustled through the crowd, hands full of trays loaded down with steaming platters of fresh seafood or beef. Mouth-watering aromas rose from every platter, making it easy to understand why Keppel House never lacked customers.
But Ian Sheffield had scarcely tasted the food he’d eaten or the wine he’d sipped. He didn’t even notice the other diners filling the room.
Instead, his eyes were firmly fixed on the
woman seated directly across the table. He was sure that he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.
Emily van der Heijden looked up from her wineglass and smiled at him-a smile that stretched all the way from her wide, generous mouth to her bright blue eyes. She set her glass down and delicately brushed a strand of shoulder-length, sun-brightened auburn hair back from her face.
“You are staring again, Ian. Are my table manners really so horrible?”
Her eyes twinkled mischievously, taking the sting out of her words.
He laughed.
“You know they’re perfect. You ought to emigrate to the UK.
I bet you’d have no trouble finding a teaching job at some private school for wealthy young ladies. “
“How ghastly!” Emily wrinkled her nose in mock disgust. It was just barely too long for her face, adding the touch of imperfection needed to make her beauty human.
“How could I think of abandoning my fine career here in order to teach spoiled young English girls which fork to use?”
Ian sensed the faint trace of bitterness in her voice and mentally kicked himself. He should have known better than to let the conversation wander anywhere near the working world. It wasn’t something she enjoyed talking or thinking about.
Emily was rare among Afrikaner women. Born into an old line established
Transvaal family, she should have grown up ready to take her place as a dutiful, compliant housewife. That hadn’t happened, Even as a little girl, Emily had known that she would rather write than cook, and that she preferred politics to sewing. Her police official father, widowed at an early age, had found it impossible to instill more “womanly” interests.
So, instead of marrying as her father wished, she’d stayed in school and earned a journalism degree. And four years of -life on the University of
Witwatersrand’s freethinking campus had pulled her even further away from her father’s hard-core pro-apartheid views. Politics became something else for them to fight about.
Degree in hand, she’d gone looking for a job. But once outside the sheltered confines of the academic world, she’d learned the hard way that most South African employers still felt women should work only at home or in the typing pool.
Unable to find a newspaper that would hire her and unwilling to admit defeat to her father, she’d been forced to sign on with one of Cape
Town’s English-speaking law firms-as a secretary. The job paid her rent and gave her a chance to practice her English, and she hated every minute of it.
Emily saw Ian’s face fall and reached out, gently stroking his hand.
“You mustn’t mind my moods, Ian. I warned you about them, didn’t P They are my curse.”
She smiled again.
“There! You see! I am happy again. As I always am when you are near.”
Ian fought to hide a smile of his own. Somehow Emily could get away with romantic cliche ds that would have made any other woman he’d ever known burst out laughing.
“I thought for sure that you would not come today when I heard the news of the PI-esident’s press conference. How could you stand to leave such an exciting story as this?” Emily’s eyes were alight with excitement. She tended to look at his career with an odd mix of idealistic innocence and muted envy.
“Easily. I wouldn’t dream of abandoning lunch with a beautiful, intoxicating woman like yourself.”
She slapped his hand lightly.
“What nonsense! You are such a liar.
“Really, Ian, don’t you think the news is wonderful? Haymans and the others may finally be coming to their senses. Surely even the verkramptes can see the need for reform?” Emily used the Afrikaans word meaning “reactionaries.”
Ian shrugged.
“Maybe. I’ll believe the millennium’s arrived when I see people like that guy Vorster or those AWB fanatics shedding real tears over Steve Biko’s grave. Until then it’s all just PR “
Emily nodded somberly.
“I suppose you are right. Words must be backed by deeds to become real.” She shook her
head impatiently.
“And meanwhile what are we doing? Sitting here wasting a beautiful day with all this talk of politicians. Surely that is foolishness!”
Ian smiled at her, turned, and signaled for the check.
Emily’s tiny, two-room flat occupied half the top floor of a whitewashed brick building just around the corner. In the year she’d lived there, she’d already made the flat distinctively her own. Bright wildflowers in scattered vases matched framed prints showing the rolling, open grasslands near her ancestral home in the northern Transvaal. An inexpensive personal computer occupied one corner of a handcrafted teak desk made for her great-grandfather more than a century before.
Ian sat restlessly on a small sofa, waiting as Emily rummaged through her closets looking for a coat to wear. He checked his watch and wondered again if this trip up the cableway was such a good idea. He was due back in the studio by four, and time was running out fast.
He resisted the temptation to get up and pace. Sam Knowles was going to be plenty p
issed off if he missed his self-appointed deadline…. “Could you come here for a moment? I want your opinion on how I look in this.” Emily’s clear, happy voice broke in on his thoughts.
Ian swallowed a mild curse and rose awkwardly to his feet. God, they were already running late. Was she going to Put on a fashion show before going out in public?
He walked to the open bedroom doorway and stopped dead.
Emily hadn’t been putting a coat on-she’d been taking clothes off. She stood near the bed, clad only in a delicate lace bra and panties. Slowly, provocatively, she swiveled to face him, her arms held out.
“Well, what do you think?”
Ian felt a slow, lazy grin spread across his face as he stepped forward and took her in his arms. Her soft, full breasts pressed against his chest.
“I think that we aren’t going to make it to the mountain today.
“
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
“Oh, good. I hoped you would say that.”
He sank back, pulling her gently onto the bed.
“You know,” he said teasingly, “for a good Afrikaner girl, you’re becoming incredibly forward. I must be corrupting you. “
Emily shook her head slightly and Ian felt his skin tingle as her hair brushed against his face.
“That isn’t true, my darling. I am what I have really always been. Here in Cape Town I can be free, more my true self.”
He heard the small sadness in her words as she continued, “It is only when I am at home that I must act as nothing more than my father’s daughter.”
Ian rolled over, carrying her with him, still locked in his arms. He looked down into her shining, deep blue eyes.
“Then I’m very glad that you’re here with me instead.”
She arched her back and kissed him again, more fiercely this time.
Neither felt any further need to speak.
JUNE 3-NYANGA BLACK TOWNSHIP, NEAR CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
Andrew Sebe stood quietly in line among his restless, uneasy neighbors, waiting for his turn to pass through the roadblock ahead. He felt his legs starting to tremble and fought for control. He couldn’t afford to show fear. Policemen could smell fear.
The line inched forward as a few more people were waved past the pair of open-topped Hippo armored personnel carriers blocking the road. Squads of policemen lounged to either side of the Hippos, eyes watchful beneath peaked caps. Some carried tear gas guns, others fondled long-handled whips, and several cradled shotguns. Helmeted crewmen stood ready behind water cannon mounted on the wheeled APCs.
Hundreds of men and women, a few in wrinkled suits or dresses, others in faded and stained coveralls, jammed the narrow streets running between
Nyanga Township’s ramshackle houses. All had missed their morning buses to Cape Town while policemen at the roadblock painstakingly checked identity cards and work permits. Now they were late for work and many would find their meager pay docked by
inconvenienced and irate employers. But they were all careful to conceal their anger. No matter which way the winds of reform blew in Pretoria and
Cape Town, the police still dealt harshly with suspected troublemakers.
The line inched forward again.
“You! Come here. ” One of the officers checking papers waved Andrew Sebe over.
Heart thudding, Sebe shuffled forward and handed the man his well-thumbed passbook and the forged work authorization he’d kept hidden for just this occasion.
He heard pages turning as the policeman flicked through his documents.
“You’re going to the du Plessis winery? Up in the Hex Rivierberge?”
“Yes, baas.” Sebe kept his eyes fixed on the ground and forced himself to speak in the respectful, almost worshipful tone he’d always despised.
“It’s past the harvest season. Why do they want you?”
Despite the cold early-morning air, Sebe felt sweat starting to soak his shirt. Oh, God. Could they know what he really was? He risked a quick glance at his interrogator and began to relax. The man didn’t seem suspicious, just curious.
“I don’t know for sure, baas. The Labour Exchange people just said they wanted a digger, that’s all.”
The policeman nodded abruptly and tossed his papers back.
“Right. Then you’d better get on your way, hadn’t you?”
Sebe folded his documents carefully and walked on, his mumbled thanks unheard as a South African Airways jumbo jet thundered low overhead on final approach to the airport barely a mile away.
The policeman watched through narrowed eyes as the young black man he’d questioned joined the other workers waiting at the bus stop. He left the roadblock and leaned in through the window of his unmarked car, reaching for the cellular phone hooked to its dashboard. With his eyes still fixed on Sebe, he dialed the special number he’d been given at a briefing the night before.
It was answered on the first ring.
“Yes?”
Something about the soft, urbane voice on the other end made the policeman uneasy. These cloak-and-dagger boys managed to make even the simplest words sound menacing. He raced through his report, eager to get off the line.
“This is Kriel front the Cape Town office. We’ve spotted one of those people on your list. Andrew Sebe, number fifteen. He’s just gone through our roadblock.”
“Did you give him any trouble?”
“No, Director. Your instructions were quite clear.”
“Good. Keep it that way. We’ll deal with this man ourselves, understood?”
“Yes, sir. “
In Pretoria one thousand miles to the north and east, Erik Muller hung up and sat slowly back in his chair, an ugly, thin-lipped smile on his handsome face. The first ANC operatives earmarked for Broken Covenant were on the move.
JUNE 8-UMKHONTO WT SIZWE HEADQUARTERS, LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
Col. Sese Luthuli stared out his office window, looking down at the busy streets of Lusaka. Minibuses, taxis, and bicycles competed for road space with thousands of milling pedestrians-street vendors, midday shoppers, and petty bureaucrats sauntering slowly back to work. All gave a wide berth to the patrols of camouflage-clad soldiers stationed along the length of
Independence Avenue, center of Zambia’s government offices and foreign embassies.
Umkhonto we Sizwe’s central headquarters also occupied one of the weathered concrete buildings lining Independence Avenue. Strong detachments of Zambian troops and armed ANC guerrillas guarded all entrances to the building, determined to prevent any repetition of the
Gawamba fiasco.
Luthuli scowled at the view. Though more than six hundred miles from
South Africa’s nearest border, Zambia was the closest black African nation willing to openly house the ANC’s ten-thousand-man-strong guerrilla force. Despite the ANC’s
reappearance as a legal force inside South Africa and the temporary cease-fire, the other front line states were still too cowed by Pretoria’s paratroops, artillery, and Mirage jet fighters to offer meaningful help. And without their aid, every ANC operation aimed at South Africa faced crippling logistical obstacles.
He heard a throat being cleared behind his back. His guest must be growing impatient.
“You know why I’m here, Comrade Luthuli, don’t you?”
Luthuli turned away from the window to face the squat, balding white man seated on the other side of his desk, Taffy Collins, a fellow Party member and one of the ANC’s chief military strategists, had been his mentor for years. Whoever had picked him as the bearer of bad tidings had made a brilliant tactical move.
Luthuli pulled his chair back and sat down.
“We’ve known each other too long to play guessing games, Taffy. Say what you’ve been ordered to say. “
“All right.” Collins nodded abruptly.
“The Executive Council has decided to accept Haymans’s offers at face value. The negotiations will continue.”
Luthuh gritted his tee
th.
“Have our leaders gone mad? These socalled talks are nothing more than a sham, a facade to hide Pretoria’s crimes. “
Collins held up a single plump hand.
“I agree, Sese. And so do many of the
Council members.”
“Then why agree to this… “
“Idiocy?” Collins smiled thinly.
“Because we have no other realistic choice. For once those fat Boer bastards have behaved very cleverly indeed.
If we spurn this renewed overture, many around the world will blame us for the continuing violence.
“Just as important, our ‘steadfast’ hosts here in Lusaka have made it clear that they want these peace talks to go ahead. If we disappoint them, they’ll disappoint us-by blocking arms shipments, food, medicine, and all the other supplies we desperately need.”
“I see,” Luthuli said flatly.
“So we’re being blackmailed into throwing away our years of armed struggle. The Boers can continue to kill us while whispering sweet nothings to our negotiators.”
“Not a bit of it, comrade.” Collins spread his hands wide.
“What do you really think will come of all this jabbering over a fancy round table?”
Collins laughed harshly, answering his own question.
“Nothing! The hard-line Afrikaners will never willingly agree to meet our fundamental demands: open voting, redistribution of South Africa’s wealth, and guarantees that the people will own all the means of production.”
Collins leaned forward and tapped Luthuli’s desk with a finger.
“Mark my words, Sese. In three months’ time these ridiculous talks won’t even be a bad memory. The weak kneed cowards in our own ranks will be discredited, and we can get back to the business of bringing Pretoria to its knees. “
Luthuli sat rigid for a moment, thinking over what Collins had said. The man was right, as always, but “What about Broken Covenant?”
“You’ve set it in motion, am I right?”
