Vortex

“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 pissed 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