The old Parliament. Pre-1994, pre-Mandela, pre-everything that had changed South Africa from the way the wealthy and powerful whites in the country once thought it always would be but wasn’t. The estate had belonged to one of the people who fled. In the legislature, the assemblyman had railed against Botha’s changes in South Africa’s political system, against the dismantlement of apartheid, against the loss of authority that everyone believed would follow. After losing those fights, he changed whatever financial accounts still remained in South Africa – most were long moved to European banks, but he relocated the rest in ’93 – and he found a tidy little place in Shropshire, England. He sold the South African estate at a price that was typical of the fire sale mentality of the day. Arthur Ariacht lived there now, and it was a home befitting the owner of Ariacht diamond mines. Everything was beautiful – the grounds, the living quarters, the views. The estate was verdant and rambling, with a sight of the ocean to one side and hills that were dotted with wine grapes on the other.
