Master of the Game by Sidney Sheldon

In 1928, when Tony was four, Kate sent him to nursery school. He was a handsome, solemn little boy, with his mother’s gray eyes and stubborn chin. He was given music lessons, and when he was five he attended dancing school. Some of the best times the two of them spent together were at Cedar Hill House in Dark Harbor. Kate bought a yacht, an eighty-foot motor sailer she named the Corsair, and she and Tony cruised the waters along the coast of Maine. Tony adored it. But it was the work that gave Kate her greatest pleasure.

There was something mystic about the company Jamie McGregor had founded. It was alive, consuming. It was her lover, and it would never die on a winter day and leave her alone. It would live forever. She would see to it. And one day she would give it to her son.

 

 

The only disturbing factor in Kate’s life was her homeland. She cared deeply about South Africa. The racial problems there were growing, and Kate was troubled. There were two political camps: the verkramptes—the narrow ones, the pro-segregationists—and the verligtes—the enlightened ones, who wanted to improve the position of the blacks. Prime Minister James Hert-zog and Jan Smuts had formed a coalition and combined their power to have the New Land Act passed. Blacks were removed from the rolls and were no longer able to vote or own land. Millions of people belonging to different minority groups were disrupted by the new law. The areas that had no minerals, industrial centers or ports were assigned to coloreds, blacks and Indians.

Kate arranged a meeting in South Africa with several high government officials. “This is a time bomb,” Kate told them. “What you’re doing is trying to keep eight million people in slavery.”

“It’s not slavery, Mrs. Blackwell. We’re doing this for their own good.”

“Really? How would you explain that?”

“Each race has something to contribute. If the blacks mingle with the whites, they’ll lose their individuality. We’re trying to protect them.”

“That’s bloody nonsense,” Kate retorted. “South Africa has become a racist hell.”

“That’s not true. Blacks from other countries come thousands of miles in order to enter this country. They pay as much as fifty-six pounds for a forged pass. The black is better off here than anywhere else on earth.”

“Then I pity them,” Kate retorted.

“They’re primitive children, Mrs. Blackwell. It’s for their own good.”

Kate left the meeting frustrated and deeply fearful for her country.

Kate was also concerned about Banda. He was in the news a good deal. The South African newspapers were calling him the scarlet pimpernel, and there was a grudging admiration in their stories. He escaped the police by disguising himself as a laborer, a chauffeur, a janitor. He had organized a guerrilla army and he headed the police’s most-wanted list. One article in the Cape Times told of his being carried triumphantly through the streets of a black village on the shoulders of demonstrators. He went from village to village addressing crowds of students, but every time the police got wind of his presence, Banda disappeared. He was said to have a personal bodyguard of hundreds of friends and followers, and he slept at a different house every night. Kate knew that nothing would stop him but death.

She had to get in touch with him. She summoned one of her veteran black foremen, a man she trusted. “William, do you think you can find Banda?”

“Only if he wishes to be found.”

“Try. I want to meet with him.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The following morning the foreman said, “If you are free this evening, a car will be waiting to take you out to the country.”

 

 

Kate was driven to a small village seventy miles north of Johannesburg. The driver stopped in front of a small frame house, and Kate went inside. Banda was waiting for her. He looked exactly the same as when Kate had last seen him. And he must be sixty years old, Kate thought. He had been on the run from the police for years, and yet he appeared serene and calm.