Spandau Phoenix (61 page)

Ilse recognized the bundle as her clothes. They had been washed and neatly folded. "Where am I?" she asked. "What day is this?"

"Madam will dress, please," the woman repeated in a deep, resonant voice. She pointed to the small end table by, the bed. "It is nearly three of the clock. I come in one quarter of the hour. Dinner then."

Before Ilse could speak again, the giant black woman, f@ slipped out and shut the door. Ilse sprang forward, but the doorknob would not turn.

Alone again, she fought back another wave of tears and reached for her clothes.

Alfred Horn sat in his wheelchair in the study, his hunched back to a low fire. He watched his Afrikaner security chief put down a red telephone. "Well, Pieter?"

"Linah says Frau Apfel is awake now, sir."

"She slept so long," Horn said worriedly. "I don't mind waiting dinner, of course, even until three in the morning.

But it seems very odd."

Pieter Smuts sighed wearily. "Sir, do you really think you have time to dally with this young girl?"

"Pieter, Pieter," Horn admonished. "-It's much more than that. I don't expect you to understand, but it's been years since I dined with a real German.

And a Frau at me this indulgence."

Smuts looked unconvinced.

"What is she like, Pieter? Tell me.

"She's quite young. Early twenties, I'd guess. And bea tiful, I must admit. Tall and slender with fair skin."

"Her hair?"

"Blond."

"Eyes?"

Smuts hesitated for an instant. "I didn't see her eyes, sir.

She was unconscious when she arrived."

"Unconscious?" Horn asked sharply"I'm afraid so."

"But I instructed that no drugs of any kind be used."

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid Frau Apfel arrived in rather poor condition, sir.

She had bruises about her legs and torso. I ordered the doctor to examine her. She wasn't sexually molested, but he thinks the police lieutenant who accompanied her from Berlin probably used an intravenous barbiturate to quiet her."

Quivering with rage, Horn wheeled around to face the fire. "Can no one follow orders!" he screeched. "Where is the swine?"

Smuts heard the old man wheezing, as if unable to get enou h oxygen.

"Hq's in one of the basement cells, sir. Do you have a particular punishment in mind?"

Horn did not reply, but when he finally@ turned back around, his distorted face had regained its composure. "All in good time," he mumbled. "Help me, Pieter."

Smuts moved behind the wheelchair, but the old man -shook his head impatiently. "No, come around front."

"Beg your pardon, sir?"

."Help me up," Horn demanded.

"Up, sir?"

"Do it!"

Smuts bent slightly and with slim but powerful arms drew the old man bodily out of the chair. "Are you sure, sir?" he @Absolutely," Horn croaked, trying to subdue the pain in ruined leg joints. "The Jungfrau will see me as a natural n before she sees me as ... an invalid. Even after these it two years, Pieter, I still can't accept it. That 1, once a mfior athlete, should be reduced to this. It's obscene."

'It comes to all of us, sir," Smuts commiserated.

that's no comfort. None at all. Is dinner ready?"

"When you are, sir."

Horn's dun legs trembled. "Let's go, then."

"Take my arm, sir."

"Only to the hallway, Pieter. Then I'm on my own."

Smuts nodded. He knew the old man was in great pain, but he also knew that if Alfred Horn meant to walk to the dining room under his own power, nothing would stop him.

Seated in the huge dining room, Ilse tried desperately to conceal the panic that knotted her stomach. She sensed the presence of the tall black woman behind her, watching.

Fighting the urge to turn, she concentrated on the spectacular table.

She had never seen such splendor gathered in one place before: Hutschenreuther china rimmed with eighteenkarat gold; fine lead crystal from Dresden; antique silver from Augsburg. The fact that each piece 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 of it! Look at America. For all their bluster about equality, the Americans have seen abuses as bad as those anywhere. In South Africa, Frau Apfel, prejudice does not wear a mask.

And no one will forgive us for that. Because South Africa admits something that the rest of the world would prefer to hide, the world hates us."

"Do you think that's an excuse?"

"We're not looking for excuses," Smuts muttered.

"Simply an observation," Horn said, glaring at Smuts.

"Isn't this bloody marvelous," Lord Granville crowed.

"Two Germans and a bloody Afrikaner debating the finer points of race relations! It's really too much." He poured himself a second brandy from a bottle he had claimed as his own.

"You think England's any better?'-, Smuts snapped. "All you've ever seen of it is public schools and polo fields, you@' "Pieter," Horn cut in. He turned to Ilse. "Herr Smuts is what the Americans call a self-made man, my dear. He views the aristocracy as something of an obsolete class."

"That's one view I sympathize with."

The Afrikaner inclined his head respectfully, his smoking gaze still on the Englishman.

"Actually," said Horn, "even the South Africans shrink from truly effective measures in the race question."

"Effective measures?"

"State-sponsored sterilization, my dear. It's the only answer.

We can't expect kaffirs or Mohammedan savages to regulate their own.

breeding habits. One might as well expect the same of cattle.

No, the government health services should simply sterilize each black female after the birth of her first child. An entire spectrum of problems would disappear within a single generation."

While Ilse stared in astonishment; Horn signaled to the stonefaced Linah, who brought him a thick Upmann cigar, clipped and ready to light.

He did so without asking if anyone minded, took several puffs, then exhaled the smoke in deep blue clouds that wafted gently above the table.

"Well," he said finally, "I'm sure you have many questions. I'll try to answer what I can."

Ilse had not even touched her salad. Now she set her quivering hands flat on the table and took a deep breath. "Why am I here?" she asked softly.

"Quite simply," Horn replied, "because of your husband.

I'm afraid your Hans stumbled upon a document that belonged to a man I knew well-a document he should have turned over to the proper authorities, but did not. Pieter decided that the most expeditious method of recovering the property was through you. That is why you are here. As soon as your husband arrives, the matter will be resolved."

Ilse felt a flutter of hope. "Hans is coming here?"

Horn glanced at his watch. "He should be on his way now."

"Does he know I'm safe?"

Smuts answered. "He heard the tape you made."