NOTE: This is part of a continuing online novel. Here is the Table of Contents.

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The wheels came up, the plane arced toward the sky over Qunu, and The Lady leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, tried to remember.

What had begun as a social call had become an interrogation, the most exhilirating of her life, but also the most draining.

Nelson Mandela had been everything she had expected, and much more. He was wise, cutting, funny and warm. They sat together in the garden of his house , under a pergola, on worn wood seats, shaded and cool by a fountain and pool. They drank cold bush tea, brought to them by Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, who fussed about them until she won her husband’s smile, and delivered a long monologue about the Mozambiquan ancestry The Lady and Graca shared.

But this was just a prelude. “Why are you fronting this modern Neverland?” he asked at once, after Graca had gone in to help a child with homework.

“That’s not what I want at all,” she said. “I’m involved to prevent that from happening.”

He had seen the plans, and the figures, and could bring up details more easily than she, its supposed chairman of the board, could. What would these rich refugees provide South Africa’s people in exchange for the center of her greatest city?

That center isn’t being used now, she replied. We will use it to its full. The profits of the enterprise will be taxed, in the way of any enterprise, once there are profits to have. We will need many local employees, she said, in both skilled and unskilled positions. And the institutions we build – the schools, the networks, the hospitals – those will also be available to everyone.

“You sound like a commercial filmstrip,” he said in reply, using a very old term to remind her he was a very old man. “What brings you to this, Mrs. Kerry? What are you going to build here? What legacy are you going to leave to my country?”

The word “you” got right to the heart of it, she thought. Branson and Cuban and Soros were investing money in this venture, but it was money they could afford to lose. She was investing things far more precious, her soul and her legacy.

What did she really hope to accomplish, bringing thousands of middle class Americans to the center of South Africa, building enterprises and institutions here, surrounded by millions of suspicions? And if she couldn’t win Mr. Mandela’s goodwill for that project, now, how could she accomplish anything?

In the garden she had shut her eyes for a second, and taken a deep breath, then let it out slowly as Mandela watched her, his eyes as observant as a lover’s. “My husbands have done a lot for America, and I have been a part of it,” she said at last. “But I am not, in the end, an American. I’ve known that all along, and it liberated me to be honest with people. Maybe too honest.

“I am an African, Madiba. My ancestors came here as colonists, but beyond that fact I have tried to be loyal to this land, as loyal as your wife has given our circumstances. Women will bend and flow to circumstance where men see only standing or yielding.

“If we can bring 10,000 Americans here, we will have at least $1 billion in work being done. And from that we will have a $10 billion enterprise. That’s 50 billion Rand. I think it will bring work or training to 50,000 people, the great majority of them black men and women. I will make sure those Americans understand that they are guests, not colonists. We are the guests of your government, overseers only of ourselves. We are not here to rule, or to seize your resources, but to live, to raise our own children, and to make a home with you.”

There was silence for a time. A bird came to play in the garden's pond. Mandela's arm flashed out, holding something like a TV remote, and a water spray erupted from the pond's center. The bird flew away, and Mandela laughed.

Then he turned serious again.

“Fine words,” he said. “But Africa has heard many fine words. And we have seen many dreams, left by the dreamers like broken toys, but felt by us like unexploded mines our children pick up. What if your husband were President? Would not the allure of an African Diaspora fade and die?”

“My husband will not be President. America will not turn back from its course. And I no longer care.

"I hope we will build dreams and ideals that people from anywhere might follow,” she continued. “Wherever smart, talented, wealthy people feel oppressed, whether in China, or Arabia, or Russia, or the Americas, or Africa itself, we need to welcome them…”

“And give them what, Mrs. Kerry. A tax haven? Black servants?”

She shook her head. “Opportunity, Madiba. Distances are no longer what they were. Hong Kong need no longer be on the edge of China to attract China’s best people. Monaco need no longer be on the edge of Europe to attract glamour. The Cayman Islands can be here, in this soil. And we can have all the benefits of that, for Africa’s people.

“It’s their opportunity I am thinking about. Think of all the great South African inventions of the last few years, and how hard it has been for them to reach world markets. Think of what Blue IQ can do for South Africa if they can get the capital and marketing they need here, rather than London. You have 40 software companies here, most of them small. What if we could have 400, 4000, all with World Class marketing, management, capital, and access to the market?

“It might take 20 years to build this, with South African capital, South African management, South African talent. Why wait a generation when it can all be built now? The money is here, the talent is coming, and I’m here to make sure it leaves something permanent.”

“A scar is also permanent.”

“This won’t be a scar. I promise you that.”

“I am holding you to your promise. I will not be here to see it all fulfilled, I know, but I accept your promise, from a Lady of Africa. I could not approve all this otherwise, and I can still call Mbeki to have you kicked out.

“But those skyscrapers need nurturing, and South African’s whites care more for internal exile than anything else. If you can set a better example, it is a chance worth taking.”

Eyes closed, the jet coming down near Johannesburg, The Lady, Teresa Heinz Kerry, renewed her promise. It wasn't just a promise to Madiba Mandela, but to herself.