Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

We all talked about how important the press is, even in these days of ever more draconian restrictions on what newspapers can report, and then Neels mentioned in confidence that he might be forced to sell his South African papers. He did it very well: Graham seemed interested. They talked by themselves after dinner and Neels thinks that Graham might bite. He would make a good owner and with all those gold mines he’s got the cash. Perhaps he’d take the Mail as well?

The banker was black! Oh, my God, can you stand it? We were, I hope, able to treat the man like a normal human being. The poor guy’s name is Benton, and he has to do some kind of work on Neels’s South African newspapers. He’s stuck in an “integrated” hotel in Cape Town but Neels has assigned him a driver to take him wherever he wants. In practice that’s just going to be back and forth to the office.

It was so good to talk to another American, especially just before Independence Day. He seems like a really nice guy, more widely read than most of the investment bankers I’ve come across, and smart too. He’s read all the Latin American literature I like — he said the new Isabel Allende is really good, and he’s just read Nadine Gordimer. He lives in Greenwich Village. Apparently, it’s been hit hard by AIDS; it’s like a ghost town. At least that’s one problem South Africa doesn’t have to worry about.

I feel sorry for the poor man, beavering away at work on the Fourth of July. Maybe I’ll bake some of my chocolate-chip cookies and leave him a care package at his hotel.

But what will I use for the chocolate chips? I’ve still got some Toll House left, but they are made by Nestlé, and I’ve started boycotting them again. I read the other day that they are still trying to sell baby formula to African mothers who can easily use breast milk instead. You would have thought with all the fuss over the years they would have stopped that by now. I might have to slice the chocolate by hand. Perhaps Zan will help me, just like she used to when she was a little girl.

July 4

Independence Day. How I wish I was in America today, without Neels. I delivered the cookies to Benton’s hotel. I hope he likes them.

Zan announced that she’s going back to Jo’burg today for a couple of days. I think it’s got something to do with the End Conscription Campaign, but she wasn’t very forthcoming. I didn’t ask. I’ve asked her about the Black Sash movement, but she won’t tell me anything about it other than it’s an organization for white women opposed to apartheid. I think she still doesn’t trust me. Which is understandable, I guess.

There was a massive bomb blast on Saturday, outside Ellis Park rugby stadium. There was a match going on inside; the papers are amazed that only two people died. It does kind of underline Neels’s point about how the country is falling apart. But I’m not sure we should run away.

July 5

Just got back from dinner with Benton Davis. He sent me a sweet note about the cookies Zan and I baked for him, so I called him and suggested we meet. Benton didn’t want to leave his hotel, so we ate in the dining room. Neels is in Durban tonight, trying to figure out what to do with the Durban Age. Alone, I hope, but of course I have no way of knowing.

Unsurprisingly, Benton can’t stand this country. He says the worst thing isn’t just all the little rules discriminating against blacks, the separate toilets and so on. Those are vile, but he was expecting that. It is the way the white people look at him, a tall black man dressed in an expensive suit. He says the reactions vary: there’s fear, there’s hatred, there’s shock and there’s contempt on their faces. The one response that he can handle is astonishment. That’s what makes it worthwhile.

He was walking through the lobby of the hotel on his first morning in the country when he heard a shout: “Boy!” He ignored it, not for a moment thinking it was meant for him, when it was repeated. “Boy! Wait!” He turned and saw a short gray-haired man with a moustache approaching him.

“Can I help you, sir?” he had said, falling back on politeness in his confusion. He could smell alcohol as the man got closer.

The man’s eyes lit up when he heard the accent. “Go back to your own country, boy. We don’t want you stirring up trouble with our Kaffirs here.”

Benton’s first instinct was to hit the man, who was much smaller and older than him. Then he realized that’s exactly what the man wanted, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the hotel. But he spent the rest of the day rehearsing to himself all the replies he should have come up with.

He asked me whether they have the term “redneck” in this country. I told him “redneck” is actually a term the Boers use for English-speaking liberals, but there are a couple of near equivalents to the American usage: “rock-spider” or “hairyback.” He liked rockspider.

I asked him why he had come. After years of ignoring South Africa, America has gotten itself all excited about the place, especially black America. Didn’t he think he was consorting with the enemy?

He said it had been difficult. He hates his boss. When it became clear that someone from Bloomfield Weiss had to go to South Africa to check up on Neels’s South African newspapers, his boss thought this was a great opportunity to send Benton. Benton objected and his boss called him a coward. I’d have thought that was asking for a racial discrimination suit, but apparently that’s this guy’s game: he’s always trying to force Benton to play the race card. This is something Benton says he has never done and never will do; he’s determined to succeed on his own terms, not because of his color. He was unsure whether to go when Neels spoke to him.

Apparently, Neels had anticipated the whole problem. He said that South Africa needed blacks like Benton to travel there, to show the whites that in the outside world blacks could be well-educated men and women in positions of power and authority. Andrew Young, the US ambassador to the UN, and Leon Sullivan, the black board member of General Motors, were both prominent black Americans who had visited South Africa and sent out an important message. Benton could do that too.

Benton was clearly impressed with Neels. He has always been a fan of Leon Sullivan in particular. He decided to come.

Dinner was fun. But toward the end Benton let slip something about Zyl News that I hadn’t suspected. It was a shock, a major shock. I will try to find out more from Neels when we are speaking to each other again. If we speak to each other again.

July 7

Neels came back from Durban yesterday and he’s off to the States tomorrow. I’ll be glad to see him go. Especially since I know he will be away from his woman, whoever she is. At the moment I don’t want to think about her.

With Zan gone, things were strained. I mentioned I’d had dinner with Benton the night before, but didn’t ask Neels about what Benton had told me. We went to bed in silence. Just after he turned the light off, Neels began to speak to me.

“ Liefie?”

“Yes?”

“There’s something I want to tell you. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a couple of days.”

I steeled myself, lying on my side in bed, facing away from him. I was the one who was supposed to mention his mistress, not him. I didn’t like surrendering the initiative.

“Do you remember that Zan and I went for a long walk on Saturday?”

“Yes,” I said, puzzled.

“She told me something then. Something she heard while she was in London.”

“I didn’t know she’d been to London.”

“Neither did I,” said Neels. “Maybe she had to interview for her place at the LSE. I don’t know. I didn’t want to ask her.”