she was with us full-time. At times, when she had personal problems, she and Luthando would live with us. She quickly became my children’s other mother, and they adored her (and still do). She in turn would talk of them as her children and would scold me if she thought that my parenting was not up to scratch.
Far more importantly, Emily became my bridge to the political world and the other South Africa that I did not know. Through her stories and explanations, I started to gain an insight into the lives that millions of Africans led in South Africa. She took me into the townships and showed me around, introducing me to the women. Through her patient education, my eyes were opened to the brutal realities of life in the townships, and of being black in South Africa.
In particular, the lives of the domestic workers distressed me. When I was growing up, we were the exception to most white South African homes in that we never had a full-time domestic worker. My mum, despite being a professional woman who always worked, did almost everything herself. From time to time we had someone come in for a few hours once a week to clean, but even that made my mum uncomfortable. When she designed and built our various houses, she never included a ‘maid’s room’, as was the practice, and begrudgingly had an outside toilet, only because it was a legal requirement. So the world of the live-in domestic worker was a shocking new discovery for me.
As I met more of Emily’s friends, I could not believe the conditions in which they were living and working. They had no formal hours and had to be on call 24 hours a day. Their average salary was less than R200 per month, and if anything broke, it was deducted from their pay. They rarely had leave (and often had to go with the family on holiday, to cook, clean and mind the children) and were not allowed to have partners or husbands stay over. Their rooms had no hot water, sometimes no electricity, and just a toilet (with no basin or shower). Often there was only a mattress on the floor. The most distressing thing was that, if they became pregnant, they had to send their baby away to their family in the rural areas – they rarely saw them afterwards – while they were raising the white family’s children. I was appalled. It was the early 1990s, not the 1700s!
What I found most baffling and infuriating was that I knew many employers personally. They were mostly well-off, educated, middle-class women, well known in Stellenbosch, who pretended to be defenders of human rights. These experiences caused more and more arguments between me and these women at social functions. The problem was that domestic workers, like farm workers, enjoyed little, if any, protection under the law. Something had to be done.
Emily and I decided to set up an organisation to defend the rights of domestic workers in Stellenbosch. I would negotiate a contract with the employer and monitor their conditions. Emily would be the head-hunter and trainer. Emily quickly had a list of competent women. We drew up their curricula vitae and I advertised our service. I started receiving calls from white women, but found the negotiations a sobering experience. I insisted on contracts, and that we would inspect the living conditions first. We also demanded decent wages, as recommended by the domestic workers’ union. We had a few successes, but for the most part our venture did not go down well, and word quickly spread that I was involved in Communist activities with ‘the blacks’. I was conscious that I was increasingly being pulled away from ‘my community’ and, like quicksand, sucked into the arms of another. But it was only after a meeting with one of the most exceptional men ever to live that my life took a radical new turn.
About a year after his release, Nelson Mandela was invited to a private meeting with some progressive Afrikaners in Stellenbosch. The cocktail party was to be held at Jannie Momberg’s house. Jannie was a very affluent Afrikaner. A former wine farmer, he had sold his farm, Neethlingshof (where Wilhelm and I had had our wedding reception), and gone into politics. He had truly done the rounds. He originally joined the right-wing Conservative Party, then switched to the governing National Party, but as things progressed he crossed the floor to the Democratic Party. (He later joined the ANC and became one of the senior whips in the new parliament.) Wilhelm and I knew the family through their children, who were our peers, and I was pleased – although slightly apprehensive – when Oom Jannie invited us.
The meeting caused a stir in Stellenbosch. On the night, various members of the press were present. Mandela, with his amazing charm, quickly put everyone at ease, and people started to talk to him. Being academics, they tended to keep their emotions under control and engage more intellectually.
We hung back, but at some point Oom Jannie spotted us. Never a very discreet diplomat, he pushed everyone away and pulled us closer, then introduced us to Mandela. The moment Mandela heard the surname, his eyes lit up. ‘Ah, I am so honoured to meet you,’ he said in a sincere, warm voice. My heart was racing. I had no doubt that we were in the presence of greatness. How could he be honoured to meet us – especially with the surname? After all, it was Wilhelm’s grandfather, the architect of apartheid, the symbol of oppression, who had banned the ANC, and it was during his time as prime minister that Mandela had been incarcerated.
Wilhelm started to talk politics, and then tried to apologise for his family’s role in Mandela’s personal suffering.
But Mandela stopped him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you only need to remember that with the surname you both carry, you have a voice. People will listen to you. So you have to think carefully what to do with that power.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘By the way, how is your grandmother?’
Slightly taken aback, Wilhelm explained that she was well, even at 92, and, slightly embarrassed, admitted that she had moved to Orania, a whites-only enclave in the Northern Cape.
Mandela looked at us earnestly and said: ‘If she will not get angry at you, please send her my regards. Tell her from an old man that I am happy that she has reached such a great age.’
By now I was shaking. What an extraordinary man: no bitterness, no anger. After 27 years of being unfairly imprisoned, he did not seek revenge. In fact, the opposite: he sent his sincere regards to the wife of the man who was behind his incarceration. How could we have been fed such lies all our lives? Mandela the terrorist. Mandela the dangerous, evil monster. Mandela who hated everything white. I vaguely registered that a photographer took a photo and that journalists were eavesdropping.
That night I could not sleep; over and over I heard Mandela’s words: ‘You have a voice. People will listen. Think carefully what you do with that power.’
The next day there was a piece on the ‘Verwoerd–Mandela meeting’ in the Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger. Before long, we were summoned to the Verwoerd house. Wilhelm’s father took Wilhelm into his study, where they remained for hours. As the wife, I was not to be involved in the political discussion, which was seen as men’s business. When Wilhelm finally emerged, I could see that he was tired and shaken, but also angry. His father had lectured him on his naivety, the danger of people such as Mandela, the need for separation of the races, and of course the need for loyalty to the family. Wilhelm felt patronised, but also misunderstood, and remained in an angry, introspective mood for days.
Having been excluded from the conversation, I took note of it, but did not reflect on it too much. I tried to speak to Wilhelm, but, as was his usual practice, he withdrew into his own world of reflection. I continued with my work in the library and, on my free days, with the domestic workers. But Mandela’s words stayed with me.
Two days after our meeting, I drove home after yet another infuriating meeting with a potential employer. It was around 5pm, and as I drove into our neighbourhood, Paradyskloof, I watched the regular exit of black women to Kayamandi township on the outskirts of Stellenbosch. These women did not ‘live in’, but worked during the day in the luxury houses of the white women. At night they left to go home to their little tin shacks. Many recognised me by now and waved and gave me big smiles, shouting: ‘Kunjani sisi?’
Mandela’s voice rang in my ears: ‘You have a voice, you have a voice.’
