Master of the Game (23 page)

The next five years witnessed a period of incredible worldwide growth. Kruger-Brent, Ltd., had been founded on diamonds and gold, but it had diversified and expanded all over the world, so that its center was no longer South Africa. The company recently had acquired a publishing empire, an insurance company and half a million acres of timberland.

One night Kate nudged David awake. “Darling, let’s move the company headquarters.”

David sat up groggily. “W—what?”

“The business center of the world today is New York. That’s where our headquarters should be. South Africa’s too far away from everything. Besides, now that we have the telephone and cable, we can communicate with any of our offices in minutes.”

“Now why didn’t I think of that?” David mumbled. And he went back to sleep.

New York was an exciting new world. On her previous visits there, Kate had felt the quick pulse of the city, but living there was like being caught up at the center of a matrix. The earth
seemed to spin faster, everything moved at a more rapid pace.

Kate and David selected a site for the new company headquarters on Wall Street, and the architects went to work. Kate chose another architect to design a sixteenth-century French Renaissance mansion on Fifth Avenue.

“This city is so damned
noisy”
David complained.

And it was true. The chatter of riveters filled the air in every part of the city as skyscrapers began to soar into the heavens. New York had become the mecca for trade from all over the world, the headquarters for shipping, insurance, communications and transportation. It was a city bursting with a unique vitality. Kate loved it, but she sensed David’s unhappiness.

“David, this is the future. This place is growing, and we’ll grow with it.”

“My God, Kate, how much more do you want?”

And without thinking, she replied, “All there is.”

She could not understand why David had even asked the question. The name of the game was to win, and you won by beating everyone else. It seemed so obvious to her. Why couldn’t David see it? David was a good businessman, but there was something missing in him, a hunger, a compulsion to conquer, to be the biggest and the best. Her father had had that spirit, and she had it. Kate was not sure exactly when it had happened, but at some point in her life, the company had become the master, and she the slave. It owned her more than she owned it.

When she tried to explain her feelings to David, he laughed and said, “You’re working too hard.”
She’s so much like her father
, David thought. And he was not sure why he found that vaguely disturbing.

How could one work too hard? Kate wondered. There was no greater joy in life. It was when she felt most alive. Each day brought a new set of problems, and each problem was a challenge, a puzzle to be solved, a new game to be won. And she was wonderful at it. She was caught up in something beyond imagination. It had nothing to do with money or achievement; it had
to do with
power
. A power that controlled the lives of thousands of people in every corner of the earth. Just as her life had once been controlled. As long as she had power, she would never truly need anyone. It was a weapon that was awesome beyond belief.

Kate was invited to dine with kings and queens and presidents, all seeking her favor, her goodwill. A new Kruger-Brent factory could mean the difference between poverty and riches.
Power
. The company was alive, a growing giant that had to be fed, and sometimes sacrifices were necessary, for the giant could not be shackled. Kate understood that now. It had a rhythm, a pulse, and it had become her own.

In March, a year after they had moved to New York, Kate felt unwell. David persuaded her to see a doctor.

“His name is John Harley. He’s a young doctor with a good reputation.”

Reluctantly, Kate went to see him. John Harley was a thin, serious-looking young Bostonian about twenty-six, five years younger than Kate.

“I warn you,” Kate informed him, “I don’t have time to be sick.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Mrs. Blackwell. Meanwhile, let’s have a look at you.”

Dr. Harley examined her, made some tests and said, “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. I’ll have the results in a day or two. Give me a call on Wednesday.”

Early Wednesday morning Kate telephoned Dr. Harley. “I have good news for you, Mrs. Blackwell,” he said cheerfully. “You’re going to have a baby.”

It was one of the most exciting moments of Kate’s life. She could not wait to tell David.

She had never seen David so thrilled. He scooped her up in his strong arms and said, “It’s going to be a girl, and she’ll look exactly like you.” He was thinking,
This is exactly what Kate needs. Now she’ll stay home more. She’ll be more of a wife
.

And Kate was thinking,
It will be a boy. One day he’ll take over Kruger-Brent
.

As the time for the birth of the baby drew nearer, Kate worked shorter hours, but she still went to the office every day.

“Forget about the business and relax,” David advised her.

What he did not understand was that the business
was
Kate’s relaxation.

The baby was due in December. “I’ll try for the twenty-fifth,” Kate promised David. “He’ll be our Christmas present.”

It’s going to be a perfect Christmas
, Kate thought. She was head of a great conglomerate, she was married to the man she loved and she was going to have his baby. If there was irony in the order of her priorities, Kate was not aware of it.

Her body had grown large and clumsy, and it was getting more and more difficult for Kate to go to the office, but whenever David or Brad Rogers suggested she stay home, her answer was, “My brain is still working.” Two months before the baby was due, David was in South Africa on an inspection tour of the mine at Pniel. He was scheduled to return to New York the following week.

Kate was at her desk when Brad Rogers walked in unannounced. She looked at the grim expression on his face and said, “We lost the Shannon deal!”

“No. I—Kate, I just got word. There’s been an accident. A mine explosion.”

She felt a sharp pang. “Where? Was it bad? Was anyone killed?”

Brad took a deep breath. “Half a dozen. Kate—David was with them.”

The words seemed to fill the room and reverberate against the paneled walls, growing louder and louder, until it was a screaming in her ears, a Niagara of sound that was drowning her, and she felt herself being sucked into its center, deeper and deeper, until she could no longer breathe.

And everything became dark and silent.

The baby was born one hour later, two months premature. Kate named him Anthony James Blackwell, after David’s father.
I’ll love you, my son, for me, and I’ll love you for your father
.

One month later the new Fifth Avenue mansion was ready, and Kate and the baby and a staff of servants moved into it. Two castles in Italy had been stripped to furnish the house. It was a showplace, with elaborately carved sixteenth-century Italian walnut furniture and rose-marble floors bordered with sienna-red marble. The paneled library boasted a magnificent eighteenth-century fireplace over which hung a rare Holbein. There was a trophy room with David’s gun collection, and an art gallery that Kate filled with Rembrandts and Vermeers and Velázquezes and Bellinis. There was a ballroom and a sun room and a formal dining room and a nursery next to Kate’s room, and uncounted bedrooms. In the large formal gardens were statues by Rodin, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Maillol. It was a palace fit for a king.
And the king is growing up in it
, Kate thought happily.

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.

He hugged Kate and said, “You look more beautiful every time I see you.”

She laughed. “I’m getting old. I’m going to be forty in a few years.”

“The years sit lightly on you, Kate.”

They went into the kitchen, and while Banda fixed coffee, Kate said, “I don’t like what’s happening, Banda. Where is it going to lead?”

“It will get worse,” Banda said simply. “The government will not allow us to speak with them. The whites have destroyed the bridges between us and them, and one day they will find they need those bridges to reach us. We have our heroes now, Kate. Nehemiah Tile, Mokone, Richard Msimang. The whites goad us and move us around like cattle to pasture.”

“Not all whites think like that,” Kate assured him. “You have friends who are fighting to change things. It will happen one day, Banda, but it will take time.”

“Time is like sand in an hourglass. It runs out.”

“Banda, what’s happened to Ntame and to Magena?”

“My wife and son are in hiding,” Banda said sadly. “The police are still very busy looking for me.”

“What can I do to help? I can’t just sit by and do nothing. Will money help?”

“Money always helps.”

“I will arrange it. What else?”

“Pray. Pray for all of us.”

The following morning, Kate returned to New York.

When Tony was old enough to travel, Kate took him on business trips during his school holidays. He was fond of museums, and he could stand for hours looking at the paintings and statues of the great masters. At home, Tony sketched copies of the paintings on the wall, but he was too self-conscious to let his mother see his work.

He was sweet and bright and fun to be with, and there was a shyness about him that people found appealing. Kate was proud of her son. He was always first in his class. “You beat all of them, didn’t you, darling?” And she would laugh and hold him fiercely in her arms.

And young Tony would try even harder to live up to his mother’s expectations.

In 1936, on Tony’s twelfth birthday, Kate returned from a trip to the Middle East. She had missed Tony and was eager to see him. He was at home waiting for her. She took him in her arms and hugged him. “Happy birthday, darling! Has it been a good day?”

“Y-yes, m-ma’am. It’s b-b-been wonderful.”

Kate pulled back and looked at him. She had never noticed him stutter before. “Are you all right, Tony?”

“F-fine, thank you, M-mother.”