Young Mandela

by David James Smith

  Williams, who was gay, middle-aged and white, had a wealthy guardian angel, the elderly Mrs. Sharp. She bought him gifts and gave him money. It was she who had provided him with a big car—in fact an Austin Westminster, not a Jaguar—which Mandela sometimes used, pretending to be the chauffeur.

  Wolfie and Amy parked, went up the stairs to the door of the flat and rang the bell. She heard Mandela take the chain off the door before opening it. Mandela had been asleep and there he was—one of Johannesburg’s best-dressed men—in his shorts and a string vest.

  They chatted and Amy made some coffee. She thought Mandela a very impressive figure. He told them he had just been out by himself on an arrangement to meet Winnie. Something had gone wrong and he’d taken the risk of driving into Orlando and sending a neighbor’s child to fetch Winnie for him. It seemed to Amy that he was very much in love with Winnie and couldn’t bear the thought of their date not materializing.

  She couldn’t stay long—she still had to get home and her sister would be waiting up as she would not entrust a key to Amy. Everyone was so security conscious then. As she was going, Mandela asked her whether she would like to come again and do some typing for him. She agreed, so Wolfie came to collect her the next morning and for the next three mornings. She would sit with Mandela at the table by the window and they would talk and work. Wolfie would drive her home again each evening. One morning Wolfie bought steaks and Amy cooked lunch.

  Mandela spoke openly about the necessity for a change in tactics, an end to passive resistance. He was writing a speech to deliver to the ANC national executive about the turn to armed struggle and Amy typed it up from his handwritten draft. She recalls her cheek in questioning Mandela about the document and telling him there ought to be room in the military campaign for white comrades.

  Mandela also told her that he had made the trip to see Chief Luthuli (who was still ANC president) as David Motsamayi. He posed as the chauffeur to a white stranger who was not involved in the struggle and did not know Mandela’s true identity. On the way, Mandela saw in the rear-view mirror that the man was becoming ill. As they drove through Natal, Mandela realized that they were close to an Indian doctor who knew him so he stopped there. The doctor, once recovered from the shock of finding Comrade Mandela at his door, was able to treat the man so their journey could continue. Now Mandela saw that the man was watching him in the mirror, finally saying, “I don’t know who you are but no doctor speaks to a driver the way that man spoke to you.” No more was said. If the man realized who his driver was, he never gave him away.

  Mandela finally reached his destination, a poor farm in Natal, where a child was sent to fetch the chief. Amy could see a sudden flash of anger from him as he talked about how he had been “revolted” by the poverty of the rural people. Mandela stood with Luthuli in a cane field, trying to persuade him to give his blessing to armed resistance. Mandela told Amy that Luthuli had eventually said he could not publicly support the armed struggle but would not oppose it.

  One minor historical event that Amy witnessed involved a visit from the Jewish photographer and activist, Eli Weinberg, who, struggling to find work in other fields because of bans and restrictions, had become a professional photographer, with a lucrative line in capturing the weddings of black Africans. Indeed, he had photographed Mandela and Winnie in their wedding outfits, in June 1958.

  Wolfie and others realized that there was constant talk of Mandela being missing or dead, so they looked for ways to reassure people of his presence. Weinberg came to the flat and took some photographs. There is an image—not much circulated—of Mandela in what appears to be a tribal blanket but is in fact one of Wolfie’s bedspreads. The most famous photograph was the one of him wearing a striped T-shirt. He is slightly full in the face, bearded, and his close-cut Afro hair has an artificial parting razored into it, as was the popular style of the time, in an odd sort of approximation of a white man’s haircut.

  Of course, as Wolfie told the story, Weinberg had to be smuggled into Wolfie’s flat for the assignment. Not his flat, but his “hideout.”

  A copy of the photograph was taken to Mandela later, after his arrest, who signed it and wrote a message on it. The photograph was returned to Wolfie, who kept it framed on his wall when he went into exile in London. “I look forward to many, many years of collective effort on our part. Let strength, initiative and solidarity be our watchwords,” was Mandela’s wider message for the comrades. On the back he wrote, “Dear Wolfie, I am most inspired by the many messages of solidarity and support which you have sent me. The terrific spirit of the people makes me absolutely confident of the early defeat of the Nationalist government. Yours, very sincerely.” It is dated October 25, 1962.

  Wolfie says he was always on edge about Mandela being at the flat for too long, feeling responsible for him, as his minder, and always aware that, in spite of all his precautions, he could still be tailed and caught. When he came back one evening after being out all day, Mandela said he wanted to speak to the cleaner, so Wolfie went up to the location in the sky to find him. The cleaner was not in his room but the door to the tiny room was open. There on the bed was a magazine open at a page with a headline in thick lettering, “Black pimpernel still at large!” alongside half a dozen pictures of Wolfie’s flatmate. Wolfie found the cleaner in another man’s room and told him, “David wants to see you.” The cleaner came down and Mandela spoke to him, Wolfie watching the man nodding and nodding as Mandela talked to him in Xhosa, apparently asking him to run an errand the next morning. As soon as he had gone, Wolfie told Mandela about the magazine and said he thought it was time to leave. Wolfie had already arranged another place for him to stay.

  Mandela said, “No. Why must I go? I’m very happy here. That fellow will never give me away.” Wolfie felt that Mandela had some intuition or knowledge about “his own people” that Wolfie lacked. He relented but he was unhappy, still fearing Mandela would be betrayed—if only by an accidental remark—or recognized while he was out. Mandela might put on a chauffeur’s coat and hat—in fact, he had a choice of two coats, one a white driver’s dustcoat and the other a khaki raincoat—but whenever he went out in these disguises, he was still very obviously Nelson Mandela, or so it seemed to Wolfie.

  In his memoir, Mandela says, briefly, that the end of his stay with Wolfie came abruptly after two Zulu men spotted the milk that he had left outside to ferment, on the windowsill of the flat. The souring milk would become amasi, a thick yogurt-like drink or topping for African dishes. Mandela was inside the flat talking to Wolfie when he overheard the two Zulus commenting. He could not see them as the curtains were drawn but asked Wolfie to be quiet so he could listen. “What is ‘our milk’ doing on that ledge?” one was saying. They were wondering why a black man was living in a white area. “I left for a different hideout the next night,” says Mandela.

  His next refuge was the home of Hymie and Hazel Rochman. In 1961, Hymie was a medic, just approaching forty, and had earlier been an intern at Baragwanath Hospital where he had known and been smitten by the hospital’s black pediatric medical social worker, Winnie Madikizela, before her marriage to Mandela. Hymie’s wife, Hazel, a newspaper reporter, was pregnant with their second child. They knew Wolfie on the network of white Jewish friends and relatives, many of whom, like Hymie and Hazel, were radical and active, if not deeply involved.

  The police used to raid the Rochmans’ house, looking for banned publications, which were never found because the Rochmans had buried them in a tin trunk in their garden. The list of prohibited books was ridiculous, remembers Hazel, including, for an obvious if nonsensical reason, Black Beauty. They used to hide things for Wolfie sometimes. One day he just came and asked whether they would hide Mandela at their home, 21 Nursery Road, in the suburb of Gardens. They did not feel they had a choice, and of course they wanted to help, but that did not mean they weren’t scared by the implications of hiding South Africa’s most wanted man. They agonized over where to put him, eventually
deciding that, for the sake of appearances, he must go in the servants’ quarters outside, in the room next to their black maid, Catherine Shabalala.

  All the white Jewish couples, even the most revolutionary, like the Slovos, had black “domestics.” The Rochmans never discussed their house guest with their maid, and never ever referred to him in front of her as anything other than David. She too only ever referred to him as David, but she in fact was in the ANC and knew all along exactly who he was. As with the cleaner back in Webb Street, she would run errands for Mandela and help him, whenever he asked.

  A friend installed an alarm that ran from the study in the main house to the servants’ block, so that the Rochmans could warn Mandela if the police turned up. Otherwise, he used the study himself during the day for his readings and writings, and was invariably out at meetings at night. Wolfie would come to collect him, in a dry-cleaning van, Hazel recalled, which he would also use to bring supplies for Mandela, such as books, paper, food and clothing.

  If visitors arrived while he was in the house, he would slip out and pretend to be the gardener. Hazel’s own father saw him there on one occasion: “My God, who’s that?” Her father recognized immediately that it was Mandela and left, afraid they would all be in trouble.

  Mandela had dinner a few times with the Rochmans. Hazel remembers sitting with him in their dining room, the one room in the house that didn’t have windows, and listening. She was a little in awe of Mandela and a bit tongue-tied in his presence; on the other hand, her truculent husband, Hymie, took on Mandela over the same issue that was raised by Amy Reitstein—the role of whites in the struggle. Hymie knew the ANC didn’t want whites and understood why black Africans would not want to end up taking orders from whites at the top. However, he was still not satisfied with the multiracial Congress Alliance and wanted to see all races—black, white, Indian and colored—gathered together in one rainbow organization. Keeping them separate was like mimicking apartheid, Hymie argued. No doubt Mandela sat courteously through his host’s onslaught. Multiracial politics was among the most sensitive questions, causing terrible divisions among black activists. Hymie could not have known of the key role being played by some white Jewish veterans, such as Jack Hodgson, as the armed struggle loomed.

  Mandela stayed with the Rochmans for some seven weeks, always appearing relaxed and easygoing, but keeping a polite distance. There was no contact between them after he left.

  So many times he escaped arrest by the slimmest of margins. Once he pulled up to a robot—as South African traffic lights are called—and saw police chief Captain Spengler in the car alongside him. He would later describe the time it took for the light to change as “The longest day I ever had.”

  There were many instances in which he was recognized by black policemen who merely winked, or raised their thumbs in salute, or ignored him altogether and let him pass. There were a couple of sympathetic officers who used to go to the house and give Winnie tips on what the police were up to and where they were searching for Mandela.

  Mary Benson describes meeting Mandela at a suburban bungalow and his telling her of a narrow getaway he had made. He had been waiting for a lift on a street corner in town, in his chauffeur’s garb, and the car he was expecting was late—“It’s vital,” he told her, “to be absolutely punctual when you are functioning underground”—and he saw coming towards him an African Special Branch detective who looked straight at him. Mandela thought the game was up but instead the officer winked and gave him the ANC salute. It was evidence, he said, of the ANC’s hidden support, even within the police.

  Pressure on him was mounting now and Mandela could spare Benson only an hour to talk. When the time was up he offered her a lift back to the city and put on his chauffeur’s coat and cap before taking her to a car that was, in her view, “very much the worse for wear.” She sat in the back like a white madam while they spluttered along, the car frequently stalling, each moment seeming like an eternity before the engine revved back to life. Benson expected a police car to pull up beside them at any second but eventually they arrived at her sister’s flat where Mandela pulled over and they parted.

  It sounds as though this was the same vehicle that Mandela provided for Winnie, who described how the “crock of a car” he had given her finally gave out. She was told by a comrade to drive it to a particular street corner. When she got there a tall man in blue overalls opened the door and asked her to move over so he could take the wheel—her husband, she realized—and they drove to a garage where he bought her a newer car, trading the old one in part exchange. He then drove to the city center and when he arrived at a stop sign on Sauer Street, with hundreds of commuters all around, he got out and disappeared into the crowds after a brief goodbye.

  “So that was the kind of life we led,” said Winnie.

  On June 26, 1961, Mandela released a public statement as “Honorary Secretary of the All-in African National Council.” The lengthy declaration—like many senior comrades he was rarely given to brevity—reassured ANC supporters that the campaign was continuing and that there would be renewed pressure on the “race maniacs who govern our beloved country.” The precise form of the contemplated action, its scope, dimensions and duration, would be announced at the appropriate time but at “the present moment it is sufficient to say that we plan to make government impossible.”

  He was informed, he said, that a warrant for his arrest had been issued and that the police were looking for him. Colleagues had advised him not to surrender himself and he was not going to give himself up to a government he did not recognize. Seeking cheap martyrdom by handing himself in would be “naive and criminal.” It was more important to carry out the important program ahead.

  “I have had to separate myself from my wife and children, from my mothers and sisters to live as an outlaw in my own land. I have had to close my business, to abandon my profession and live in poverty and misery, as many of my people are doing… Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won.

  “The struggle is my life, I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.”

  Thirteen

  IT WAS NO easy task for Mandela to persuade the ANC leadership and the Congress Alliance that it was time to go to war. Not even the very modest war—not much more than a few minor skirmishes really—that Mandela initially envisaged. There were some, however, who were straining at the leash, who couldn’t wait, who in fact did not wait, but began gathering their own guerrilla armies. That too was in Mandela’s thoughts: the danger of being overtaken by events, of being left behind in the rush to armed struggle.

  At least he had Walter Sisulu to support him. They had first discussed the prospect of violence back in 1952, as doubts set in about the effectiveness of passive resistance. Peaceable protest might have shown the racist authorities their determination to defy, but was it ever going to overturn the government, or force them to break down the barriers of apartheid? Since then, Mandela had been reading, learning the lessons of history and considering the potential power of a guerrilla army.

  His first attempt to win over his colleagues had been at a meeting of the Working Committee of the ANC in May of 1961. No sooner had he started his speech—perhaps the speech that Amy Reitstein had typed for him—than Moses Kotane, both a senior member of the Communist Party and a leading member of the ANC executive, began attacking his proposal, saying it was ill conceived and born of desperation as he had been outwitted by the government and run out of ideas.

  According to Mandela’s memoir, Kotane told the meeting, “There is still room for the old methods if we are imaginative and determined enough. If we embark on the course Mandela is suggesting we will be exposing innocent people to massacres by the enemy.” Mandela could see that the meeting was swayed by Kotane and was disappointed that Sisulu did not speak up to support him. When he complained afterwards to Sisulu, his friend only laughed and said it would have been “as foolish as attempting to fight a pride of a
ngry lions.”

  Kotane, who was notoriously overbearing and even bullying in his style, was not universally popular with colleagues. Joe Slovo said he was easier to admire than to like and seemed to revel in the image he had created of himself as “no-nonsense, hard and domineering.” Sisulu was the diplomat, a canny tactician, and now said he would bring Kotane to meet Mandela privately so they could have a more open discussion.

  Kotane’s biography makes no reference to Mandela’s involvement in the turn to armed struggle and, it follows, does not allude, even vaguely, to these events. But in Mandela’s version they spent the day together at a safe house in the township. Mandela softened his colleague with an African proverb: Sebatana ha se bokwe ka diatla— “the attacks of the wild beast cannot be averted with only bare hands.” He then proceeded to tell him that Kotane’s stance was like that of the communists in Cuba under Batista, who kept waiting for the revolution because they were bound by the rigid doctrine of Lenin and Stalin.

  People could wait forever for the right conditions, but Castro had shown everyone it wasn’t necessary. He had started a revolution without them and it had still succeeded. Havana had fallen to Fidel Castro and Che Guevara thirty months earlier, on New Year’s Day 1959. In just two years they had turned a handful of guerrilla insurgents into a triumphant revolutionary force of thousands, an inspiring achievement to Mandela and the armies of the oppressed throughout the world.

  Kotane was still stuck in the old ways of the ANC, Mandela told him, and meanwhile people were already ahead of him, forming their own military units, waiting for the ANC to lead them. This time Kotane listened and eventually said he would make no promises but invited Mandela to bring the proposal back to the Working Committee a week later. He did so while Kotane stayed silent, raising no objections or overbearing challenges. Mandela was authorized to go forward and present his proposition to the national executive in Natal.