was of German manufacture reassured her. On the plane she had worried
that her captors might take her out of the country; now she felt Hans
could not be too far away. As she stared up into a sparkling
chandelier, Alfi-ed Horn appeared in the doorway and strode with slow
dignity to the head of the table.
'Guten Abend, Frau Apfel,' he said, inclining his white-haired head with
courtly grace.
Ilse's heart leaped. The moment she saw the frail old man, she knew
that he had the power to free her. In spite of Horn's advanced age, his
gaze burned with an intensity Ilse had seen in very few men during her
life. She stamd to her feet, but the strong hands of the Bantu woman
pressed her firmly back into her seat.
Struggling to silence the screams of his arthrific knees, Alfred Horn
seated himself. 'Please,' he said, 'do me the honor of sharing my table
before we discuss any details of this awkward situation. There will be
no chains or rubber hoses here. You might even find this to be an
enjoyable evening, if you but allow yourself to. Sit, Pieter.'
Smuts took the nearest chair to Horn's left.
'Allow me to introduce myself,' the old man said. 'I am Alfred Horn,
master of this house. The man across the table from you is my security
chief, Pieter Smuts.' Horn frowned at a large wooden clock hanging over
the buffet to his right' 'And any moment now,' he added, 'we should be
joined by a young man wh@' A sudden flurry of footsteps in the hall
heralded the arrival of the tardy guest, a young man who hurried in and
took the seat next to Ilse without a word. He looked to be about Hans's
age, perhaps a couple of years older. His ne was short and thick, his
head a size too large-indeed all is features seemed a little
oversized-and his sandy hair, though freshly combed, was wet. Beneath
his sunburned nose, Ilse noticed something she saw all too often at
parties in Berlin, the gleam of clear mucus that often betrayed the
recent use of cocaine.
'You're late,' Horn complained.
'Sorry,' said the young man without a trace of apology.
'There's a late rerun of the Open on the telly.' He appraised Ilse with
undisguised relish. 'Who's this little plum, Alfred?'
'Frau Apfel,' said Horn, annoyed, 'may I introduce Lord Grenville9
He's English, if you haven't surmised that already.'
'How do you do, milady?' the young man asked too courteously, and
offered his hand.
Ilse ignored it, keeping her eyes fixed on the white-haired man at the
head of the table.
Horn's eyes twinkled. 'Frau Apfel is not favorably impressed,' he
observed. Noticing Ilse's look of uneasiness, he softened his tone.
'Linah-the Bantu woman behind youremains only to bring us anything we
require from the kitchen. Ask for whatever you like.'
Ilse swallowed. 'Do you mean I'm free to leave if I wish?'
Horn looked uncomfortable. 'Not exactly, no. But you do have the run
of the house and grounds-with certain restrictions. I think you'll find
that out here on the veld, there isn't much of anywhere to go.
Not without an airplane, in any case.'
While Ilse pondered the word veld, Horn began to eat his salad.
Linah lifted the covers off large dishes of split-pea soup, red cabbage,
and dark pumpernickel bread-all classic German fare. A huge roast ham
sat at center-table, but Horn ignored it. He talked between healthy
bites @f the cabbage, acting more like a patriarch presiding over a
gathering of distant relatives than a kidnapper toying with his hostage.
'You know,' he said, his mouth full, 'I've tried to adapt myself to
African cuisine-if one ventures to call it suchbut it simply doesn't
compare to German food. Robust enough, of course, but terribly bland.
Pieter loves the stuff.
But then, he was raised on, it.'
Africa ... ? Fighting the urge to bolt from the table, Ilse remembered
her vow to behave as unprovocatively as possible. 'So you're originally
from Germany, then?' she stammered.
'Yes,' Horn replied. 'I'm something of an expatriate.'
'Do you go back often?'
Horn stiffened for an instant, then resumed eating. 'No,' he said
finally. 'Never.'
My God, she thought, her face hot. Africa! No wonder it feels so warm
here. As Horn glanced around the table, Ilse realized that only one of
the old man's eyes moved. The other remained fixed in whatever
direction Horn's head faced. As she stared, she noticed faint scarring
around the eye, stippled skin shaped in a rough five-pointed star.
With a chill she forced herself to look away, but not before Horn caught
her staring. He smiled understandingly.
'An old battle wound,' he explained.
Lord Granville forked a huge slab of ham onto his plate.
'And what does a beautiful woman like you do in the Rhineland?'
he asked, grinning.
'I believe the young lady works for a brokerage firm,' Horn INTERJECTED.
Suddenly the double doors behind Horn bumped open. A young black man
entered with a wheeled cart and took away the used dishes. A servant
girl followed with another cart that bore an antique Russian samovar
filled with steaming tea. She poured a brimming cup for Horn; Smuts,
Granville, and Ilse declined.
'I suppose you're wondering exactly where you are,' Horn said.
'You are now in the Republic of South Africa, and unless you neither
watch television nor read the newspapers, I'm sure you know where that
is.'
Ilse clutched the tablecloth as her stomach rolled. 'As a matter of
fact,' she said hoarsely, 'my company maintained close ties with a
South- African FIRM before we ceased speculation in the Rand.'
'You know something about our country, then?' Smuts asked.
'A little. What one sees on the news paints a pretty bleak picture.'
'For some,' Smuts said. 'Not half as bad as they make out, though.'
'I think what Pieter means,' Horn said smoothly, 'is that ... racial
problems in any society are always more complex than they appear to an
outsider. Look at the Asian question the White Russians must soon face.
In twenty years the Soviet Union will be over forty percent Islam. Think
