The Promise

Another interval of nine years passes; Part 3 begins in 2004, and all three Swart children have again undergone significant life changes. Amor is in a relationship with Susan, the woman she told Anton and Astrid she was going to move in with, and is working as a nurse in an AIDS ward.

One night, Amor receives a call from an excited Astrid, who wants to tell her about President Mbeki’s inauguration. Astrid managed to secure an invitation to this important event because she is now divorced from Dean and married to Jake Moody, the man she was having an affair with in Part 2. Jake’s business partner is a powerful politician. Amor is disinterested in the phone call because she sees President Mbeki as the man who is ignoring the AIDS crisis and therefore making her job harder.

After the phone call, Astrid goes to her Catholic priest to confess her sins; like her mother, she has converted to a different religion for the sake of her husband. In the confessional, she admits to Father Batty that she is having an affair with Jake’s partner, saying she would not have considered doing this years ago because he is a Black man, but the changing tides of the country have made her more accepting of the idea.