of mine is going to work. What would people say when they hear that my wife is working? That I am incapable of taking care of you and the children? No, Nobantu, forget it!”
At the time, Nobantu had looked at him aghast, but in retrospect she wondered why she had hoped that he would take her seriously. They had had the same conversation a million times before. Maybe she had hoped that the goodwill that had resulted in the party the night before would continue into the morning.
The previous time she had raised the subject, a few months earlier, he had even threatened her with divorce should she go ahead and defy his wishes. That time, Nobantu had cursed herself, asking herself why she caused so much trouble. Andile was right, of course, he gave her everything. She even had an untouched account where he had been depositing twenty thou monthly for the last five years in the event that “if anything happens to me, you at least have some ready cash, before you begin sorting out the entire legal wrangle”.
She had been silenced then, certain that she did not want to get a divorce. What would her mother say, and, more importantly, how would she survive without the lavish lifestyle she had become accustomed to?
Sure, she had the untouched bank account to live on, but how long would that last?
Could she leave him, slum it, and become – horror – middle-class: no maids, no manicures or pedicures, no gardeners?
Could she leave him for a business that might, as Andile had highlighted time and again, fail?
But an idea once dreamt can only be deferred for so long. She was thirty-five. She knew that if she didn’t act now, she would forever ask herself “what if ?”.
In the past, when she had complained to her mother about Andile’s archaic attitude towards gender roles, her mother had always questioned her, “Hhawu, sana, why are you so ungrateful? Many women are dying for what you have and you are complaining. Your husband gives you and your children everything. Look at your wardrobe, the trips you make. Which woman would not die to get a trip to Tahiti just to buy genuine Tahitian pearls . . . Meanwhile your father always claims to be too sick to take me even as near as Botswana,” she had said, shaking her head at her child. “No, my child, I did not raise you to be an ungrateful wife. Stay with your husband without complaining. Besides, you know what your Aunt Thembi says . . .” She paused to look meaningfully at her daughter. “ ‘Better to cry in a limousine than laugh in a taxi!’ ”
Nobantu looked down at the two of them on the society pages and shook her head.
Damn the limousine. She would regain the independence that had been hers in those first few weeks of university before she got into a relationship with Andile. There was more to her life than this. There was more to her than just a housewife and she, Nobantu Makana, would prove it, with or without Andile’s blessing, marriage be damned!
3
MAPAMO Holdings, now advertised as a one hundred per cent BEE company, was named after the first syllables of the last names of founding partners Andile Makana, Anant Patel and Oupa Mokoena. As befitting any company with serious ambitions, they had their offices in the fashionable business hub of Sandton – where all three partners had somehow managed to get themselves spacious corner offices. As he swivelled on his chair, Andile realised that as soon as the company was listed this particular leg of MAPAMO’s journey would come to an end. There would be more people to be accountable to; less responsibility on his shoulders. He recalled how it had all started.
Andile had met Anant at Ackerman & Patel and they had become firm friends. Anant, an only child whose mother had died at an early age, had always spoken of the opportunities on the continent once the sanctions against South Africa were lifted, but his father was not keen to finance what he thought of as a pipe dream. Andile, however, had also seen the opportunities open to those brave enough to dare and wished he had some collateral that could guarantee a worthwhile bank loan to kick-start his and Anant’s dream.
Anant’s father – Uncle Zaheer, as everyone from the cleaners to his partner called him – had been an excellent lawyer and businessman. He had been more aware than most that the glory was in criminal litigation but the money was in company law, and together with a like-minded Jewish gentleman, Emmanuel Ackerman, he had set up Ackerman & Patel. Their company consulted far and wide on all aspects of business – from production companies to television stations, from NGOs to big business. If anyone wanted to know the legality of anything to do with their business, Ackerman & Patel were there to advise and make pots of money in the process. With the political situation in South Africa slowly changing, their name had started appearing on every important merger and acquisition on the continent. In Africa, the best young legal minds, trained by major universities worldwide – from Oxford to UCT, from the Sorbonne to Yale – either worked for, or knew someone who worked at, Ackerman & Patel. Zaheer had hoped that his son would, with his strong business acumen, study law and join the family business, but Anant had been adamant in his refusal, preferring to become his own man and study finance instead. With a little technical advice from his father’s sister, a few good chefs and some funding from a disappointed but supportive father, Anant had started a top-notch halal restaurant in Johannesburg. He had hoped to eventually turn the restaurant into a chain, should profits permit, and his father still refused to give him that big loan that would get him started on greater things. While the restaurant was profitable, Anant always told Andile that he considered the profits chump change compared to what he knew he could achieve if he had more money. Their opportunity had come with the death of Uncle Zaheer five years to the day after the 1994 elections.
Approached by his father’s partner with a business proposal, Anant took the opportunity with both hands. The proposal:
“Listen, dear boy, save for a few coins left to charity, your father left everything to you. What say you sell me, and some interested investors, the half of the company that now belongs to you, because unlike your father, Yahweh bless him, I know you have no interest in this company.”
Anant had asked for the offer of purchase in writing, knowing well what a shrewd lawyer his Uncle Emmanuel was. He might not grossly cheat the son of his partner, but he might put a couple of hundred thousand over him. Anant needed to discuss it with Andile so he could cover all the loopholes, and besides, this could just be the opportunity that would allow the two friends to set up on their own. After consulting with Andile, Anant was able to get a higher price than initially offered as well as a sentimental clause that requested that Uncle Emmanuel keep the Patel on the masthead in memory of Anant’s father.
“Dear boy, did you ever think I would remove it?” Emmanuel had said, finding amusement in the sentimentality of this otherwise level-headed child.
With the papers signed, Andile, now a junior partner, had tendered his resignation eight years after he had first joined Ackerman & Patel, which brought much sorrow from Emmanuel, who was well aware that, of the many young lawyers in his company, here was one young man who was more than simply well-versed in the landscape of the country and its laws.
With Anant’s capital and Andile’s legal brain, it may have looked like they were set, but Andile wasn’t convinced.
“We are going to throw most of this money down the drain if we don’t get another person in,” he had advised.
Anant had been aghast. “For what? We have everything we need.”
“Not quite, my friend. We need connections. Governments and businesses don’t give contracts to nobodies just because they have good legal minds and a bit of money,” he had said pragmatically.
“So, do you have anyone in mind and, if so, what can you tell me about them?” Anant had asked impatiently.
