Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

At about this time, no doubt egged on by Hennie and his family, she began to develop an interest in her Afrikaner heritage. Hennie always thought that Neels had betrayed his people, and he was anxious to take the opportunity to show Zan how a real God-fearing Afrikaner farming family lived. At first Neels was pleased. This country is split as much between English and Afrikaans speakers as between black and white. Zan was brought up entirely in the English-speaking education system. Neels is very proud of his Afrikaner ancestry, and I think what he regrets most about his skepticism about apartheid is the way it has forced him away from the language, the Church, the community and the rest of his family. He’s an outcast now among his own people. So when Zan started taking a serious interest in the language and reading van Wyk Louw and Malherbe for pleasure, he was thrilled. He was even more thrilled when she said she might go to an Afrikaans university. Of course he assumed she would try for a place at Stellenbosch, which is becoming more what the South Africans would call liberal, but I would call normal. But in the end Zan decided to apply to the new Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg to study history. Probably just to spite him.

We didn’t hear from her for nine months. Then she showed up at our door saying she had made a terrible mistake. She was shocked by the racists she had met at the university, and by the apartheid ideology that she was studying. The last straw was when she was out with a group of rugby-playing students who picked a fight one evening with an old black man, and left him broken and bleeding in the gutter. They all laughed about it. She wanted to get out.

Neels was relieved. She switched to the much more liberal English-speaking University of the Witwatersrand and became a changed woman, organizing demonstrations, writing articles in underground magazines, getting in trouble with the police. After university she stayed in Johannesburg, doing more or less the same thing, bumming around from temporary office job to temporary office job.

And now she’s going to London to do Christ-knows-what.

It occurred to me that there was a slight chance that the Laagerbond might be a secret anti -apartheid society. I told Zan about Havenga and Visser seeing Neels, but she has no idea what the Laagerbond is either. I think that was just wishful thinking on my part.

Neels has been in London for a couple of days now. It’s good to have him out of the house.

July 27

I’ve just had a visit from the security police. It hasn’t happened to me before. A polite young man came to the door in a coat and tie. When he saw Zan he said he wanted to talk to me in private. Doris made us cups of coffee and we sat and chatted about the garden. He likes the magnolias and the fynbos beds, and he wanted to know how old the oak tree by the front door is. Apparently Finneas and I are doing a good job.

He asked me how well I knew Libby Wiseman. When I told him quite well, he asked me whether I knew she was a member of the Communist Party. I professed shocked disbelief. I asked him whether she was banned, and he answered that she wasn’t but they were keeping a watchful eye on her. Then he said it wouldn’t be wise for a woman in my position to become too close to her.

“My position?” I said. “By ‘my position’ do you mean as the wife of a newspaper proprietor or a citizen of the United States.”

“Both,” the policeman replied. “We believe in the rule of law in this country, and we treat all citizens equally, whatever their nationality or marital status.”

I choked on my coffee as he said this. But I knew what he meant. He meant “watch out.”

Zan was anxious when he had gone. Naturally, she had assumed the policeman was here to talk about her. When I told her he hadn’t mentioned her she was relieved. She thought a moment and then asked me what he did want to talk to me about. I just smiled.

I started writing this with the smile still on my face. How exciting for my activities to be taken seriously enough for the security police to pay attention! But the more I think about it, the more worried I am becoming. I have never been visited before. That’s mostly because of the pact I made with Neels just after we got married, one I’ve stuck to for the past twenty years. I won’t get involved with “the struggle,” or “the cause.”

Neels always knew I would make my opinions known, but that was one of the reasons he married me. It didn’t take me long to get into trouble. It was just after we had gotten married and bought Hondehoek. Doris had been our maid for only a week. I was unfamiliar with the whole concept of domestic servants, especially those that wore uniforms, but Neels was adamant that we needed them to manage the house and garden. It turned out Doris and I hit it off straight away. On her third day I found her crying. Her brother had gotten into some kind of trouble with the police; he’d been found with some beer, and blacks were not allowed to drink alcohol then. She needed twenty rand to bail him out. She wasn’t asking me for the money, but I gave it to her, and she was embarrassingly grateful.

I was explaining this at a dinner party Neels and I had been invited to the following Saturday. The host was one of the most important businessmen in Cape Town, a pillar of the English-speaking community and a big advertiser. The hostess, who was a real Kaffir-basher, was shocked by my action. She said I was stupid to trust a maid, especially one I didn’t know, and I would be lucky to see that money again. In fact, Doris would probably disappear that very weekend. She implied that it was people like me that were responsible for the ill discipline and licentiousness among black South Africans.

I said that Doris looked trustworthy, and that even if she wasn’t, she and her brother could probably use the twenty rand better than I could. The hostess turned red; she didn’t like the fact that I was American and criticizing her country. They get so defensive.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Your blacks are not like ours.”

“I don’t have any blacks. Neither do you,” I said.

She scowled. “Are you some kind of communist?”

“I would be happy to admit to being a communist if you’ll admit to being a Nazi,” I replied. Not exactly subtle.

Her jaw dropped. Then she turned to her husband. “Geoffrey! I won’t have this woman in my house. Can you see her out, please?”

Our husbands broke us up and we stayed at the table under a frosty truce until the coffee was served. Afterwards Neels gave me a lecture. He said it was quite simple: he couldn’t run his newspapers if I talked to people like that. He also said that it would compromise his position if I were seen with known radicals, black or white. I understood what he was saying. I had come totally to believe in his strategy for changing things. The work of the Mail and his other papers was too important for me to jeopardize for the sake of gestures which had no benefit beyond salving my conscience. Since then, I’ve pretty much stuck to the pact. I’ve been tempted over the years to help the cause; I’ve received tentative approaches from people, but I’ve always rebuffed them, and I’ve always explained why. Most people seem to understand. I guess I’ve thrown my energies into charities over the years: the literacy projects, the scholarships for black and colored students, and the clinics. I have made some small difference that way.

But now trouble has come looking for me. Is it really a result of my visit to Libby Wiseman, or is it Zan’s presence in our house? Perhaps it’s something to do with the Laagerbond. I assumed that I had Neels’s protection, but has he removed that now? I’m an American citizen. Doesn’t that make me untouchable? Or does it make me a spy?