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

The America Diaspora is a sequel to The Chinese Century.

The Lady was home at last.

The 60,000 seat Estádio da Machava in Maputo, Mozambique was filled to overflowing for the occasion.

A stage had been erected on the center of the pitch, and dignitaries from throughout southern Africa had been carefully seated around it. A double-ring of Mozambique’s finest troops stood on the stadium track, and no one had been permitted to enter without a ticket, although the tickets were free.

President Armando Guebuza, predecessor Joaquim Chissano, and (most amazingly) opposition leader Viana Magalhaes all stood on the stage, surrounding a short white woman in a red suit, her dyed hair permed around her head, and her face shining in the sunshine, beeming at her people.

Teresa Heinz Kerry addressed the crowd first in English, then in Tsonga, the dominant local language of the Maputo area. “It is good to be home, to feel the native soil, to see my neighbor’s faces, and to breathe the moist, fine air of Mozambique,” she said. The Tsonga was halting, read phonetically from a page, but all who heard her in that language cried over it, and promised to tell their children and grandchildren about this moment, all the days of their lives.

Mabulu, a rap group whose name means “dialogue” in Shongana http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/africaonyourstreet/chinoodimba_oct04.shtml , another Mozambiquan language, then began playing behind the Lady, who swayed and shimmied a bit to raucous applause before waving and being led out between troops to a car waiting for her and the leaders outside the Stadium.

The car drove directly to Maputo’s Presidential Palace, and there was no ceremony there. Mabulu would be followed by other bands, free drinks and fruit would be given the crowd under the guidance of the soldiers, as would ices emblazoned with the face of The Lady, who was paying for it all. The party would go on for the rest of the day, while the leaders and the Lady did the business she was there to do.

I was among those waiting in the Palace, and as the leaders entered the President’s chambers I and one of his aides unfolded a relief map before them. It was a map in two parts, one showing the western edge of the country as it was now, the other the same area as Virgin-Maverick proposed to transform it.

The area was marked as the “Chissano Preserve,” and ran right alongside the border of South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The proposal, The Lady said, was for Virgin-Maverick to manage the preserve, and to gradually gain title to the land. The idea was not to take the people off the land, but to find sustainable sources of income using the land, producing income from jobs that would not destroy the resources of the land.

“This is not an extractive industry,” she said. “We want to use the renewable resources of the land to create renewable income for the people, and to preserve those resources for future generations.”

Guebuza had a question about the preserve’s proposed boundaries. “Those are rough estimates, all subject to negotiation,” she said. “We have the full weight of the South African government behind our activities on their side of the border, and wish to replicate that model on this side.”

“But this is a park,” said Chissano, pointing to Kruger.

“Yes, it is a park,” said The Lady. “But it is a park that is badly troubled by poaching, by hunger, by crime and disorder which threatens the stability of the area and costs the country millions of dollars each year for policing. We are obtaining a contract for that policing which will be invested in the same types of work we propose to do in the preserve.

“How are you going to control the border itself?” asked Chissano. “How are you going to control the boundaries of the Preserve?”

“That is all in our proposal,” she said, giving me my cue to present notebooks, a complete prospectus, stamped Confidential, to the three leaders.

“How do we know you really do have the cooperation of the South African government for their part in all this?” asked Guebuza.

The best-known face in southern Africa then stepped out from behind a screen near a window. “Just ask me,” said Thabo Mbeki.

“I think we have much to discuss, then,” said Chissano, with a dismissive wave toward both me and The Lady.

“The Lady stays,” said Mbeki. “She is the principal in all this. She will be the controlling authority of both the Preserve and the Park once we come to an agreement.”

“I have much to do,” I said, bowing, leaving a young black woman, a secretary with far better organizational skills than I could ever hope to possess, behind to deal with the committee’s requirements.

As I left the room I saw Magalhaes leering at the young woman, but a stern look from Mrs. Kerry stopped his face, and I knew then that all would be well.

I spent a pleasant afternoon with Bernando Cherinda, spokesman for the ruling FRELIMO, which had controlled Mozambique since its civil war with RENAMO, a group supported by South Africa’s former white-controlled government. He showed me some wonderful Mozambiquan delicacies and I, as a foodie, was enchanted by all of it, even the stuff that tasted, to my, yucky. He’d been briefed and knew of my hometown, asking about fried chicken, pulled pork, and how chitlins were made.

After we ate, and drank one anothers’ health, we retired to his office, where we coordinated for a press briefing we know might have to come before there was any news to report. I urged him to be as forthcoming as possible, not to disguise this as just a social call, to admit that business was being discussed, and to add the principals would deliver their agreements personally if they made any.

“When a business agreement is for mutual benefit, there are always many details, many understandings that must be made,” I said later, under the glare of the state TV’s lights. “We hope an agreement will come that will benefit all the people of Mozambique, and bring profits to Virgin-Maverick as well.”

Then I repeated myself several times, in answer to probing questions. “That’s all subject to negotiation,” I would say. Or, “Any agreement will be revealed publicly, and debated publicly by the Mozambique government, with the people of this country.” I smiled when Cherinda began repeating my formulations, only in several of Mozambique’s many languages and, once, in Portugeese.

When we left Maputo later that night, we were accompanied by two Mozambique government ministers, a raft of notes from the secretary, and a smiling, but exhausted Mrs. Kerry. Mbeki had left earlier, and separately, as befitting a man of his stature.

The exhaustion of The Lady aged the face, especially around the eyes and neck, but the mouth was smiling, and I knew it had been a great deal all around.

“You don’t think we’re throwing away Mark Cuban’s money?” I asked.

“Is that all you ever think about, making money?” she asked, smiling back at me.

“No, ma’am. I just know profit is the fast road to stability, and I always look for the fast road.”

She closed her eyes then, still laughing inside. “Your wife is a very lucky woman,” she said.

“Your husband is a very lucky man,” I replied. “And it’s a shame our country is not so fortunate.”