barricading off Eric’s pain-contorted face and moans of agony. As I rushed to my car to drive to the hospital, the siren reverberated through the streets and grew fainter, rapidly putting distance between Eric and me. I was numb, barely able to focus on the road. I tried to conjure up comforting thoughts. It’s just a broken leg! Nothing life-threatening. He’ll be out in no time, in a white plaster of paris cast, learning to maneuver around with crutches, back at his studies, back at home.
At the hospital I was told to wait. Finally, a white-coated doctor came through the doors to tell me that the fracture was especially tricky, that he would have to operate to set it and put in a pin, and that Eric would remain in hospital, his leg up in traction to promote healing. I caught a glimpse of him on a stretcher through the door, white and still groaning. I made a move to go to him. The door was shut in my face. I was not family.
Eric remained in hospital for six weeks with his leg suspended in traction at a 45-degree angle. His fracture healed, but his leg was wasted. After another six weeks of physical therapy, first on crutches, then with a walking stick, he was finally able to walk as he did before and return to his nine-month postgraduate program in physics, a prerequisite for entering a British university. Before the accident, no one doubted that Eric would get a first-class pass, virtually guaranteeing a full scholarship at a top scientific institution in the UK. But having missed half of the program, he didn’t get his first and the full scholarship was off the cards. Instead, Eric turned his attention to the United States, where he was accepted at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan. The offer of a stipend and a grant to cover his fees settled it.
I had to face the fact that I would be living in a truly foreign land. I turned to books. One in particular, displayed on a table in Stuttafords, caught my eye: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. I was pulled in by the opening words.
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—“Is this all?”
South Africa’s white women—Friedan was talking to me as a white woman—did not make the beds. Nor did we eat peanut butter sandwiches. Whether I remained in South Africa or went to the United States, could I avoid the fate described by Friedan? I read the book at a fast clip. When I reached the last pages, I was relieved to read there could be a remedy.
Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? … Who knows of the possibilities of love when men and women share … the responsibilities and passions of the work that creates the human future and the full human knowledge of who they are? It has barely begun, the search of women for themselves. But the time is at hand when the voices of the feminine mystique can no longer drown out the inner voice that is driving women on to become complete.
I closed the book, my heart pounding. Friedan’s writing had lit up thoughts hidden in my subconscious mind. Her words unsettled and unmoored me. At the same time, they excited, they inspired. At this point, I did not know much about the United States. I was not thinking race or class. Nor did I recognize the turning point this moment was for me. All I knew was that her writing had carved a space ready to be filled once I got to America.
AT THE END OF MAY 1967, the day before we left Cape Town, Eric and I were married at the magistrate’s court. It was rather seedy, not geared for ceremony and celebration, but a place couples scuttled to for a shotgun wedding or a marriage that defied parents and community. Sally and Michael, soon to leave for Montreal, were our witnesses. We celebrated with a champagne lunch at the smartest restaurant in town and then, slightly tipsy, drove to the top of Signal Hill to look out over Cape Town for the last time and take some wedding pictures, the last photos I took in South Africa: me smiling in a green wool-knit dress, my black hair shoulder length and sleek with the help of careful drying so it wouldn’t frizz up; my new husband and I with our arms around each other; Sally, leaning over in a goofy position, her long blond hair flowing behind her. I was happy. I was in love. I was about to start a new life.
That night, at a small farewell party, we announced our betrothal. Our hosts opened bottles of champagne from their wine cellar and our friends toasted us, berating us for being so secretive. The next day we set off by train to Johannesburg to board a plane to London and spend time with my parents before the final leg of our journey to the United States. At the station our friends, some choosing to remain, others planning their escape, waved and waved as the train slowly drew away. Leaning far out the window I waved back, broad smiles on my face, masking a sharp sadness that was stirring in my gut.
As we left Cape Town and the scenery changed to the vast open veld, I felt uneasy despite my happiness. Was I abandoning my country? Should I have remained, toughed it out, contributed in whatever way I could to undoing apartheid? Eric was heading for the future he dreamed of, a place in the world of physics. I was heading for … what? I had no idea what lay ahead for me in the United States, only that I was going into exile and I would have to create a new home. I would not return until there was democracy.
At that moment I was too quick to assume that I could shed my home like an old skin. I knew what I was heading away from: the mountain, the sea, the earth—a beautiful country distorted by an evil system. But my memories of home—the smells, the tastes, the sounds—would cling to me like an invasive vine, knotting together to produce a yearning that would not dim through the years.
The Karoo, the vast semidesert region of the northern cape that we traversed for hours, presented us with a farewell gift. I expected the scenery I loved: the brown and dry scrubby land where woolly sheep aimlessly grazed among stunted trees; the massive rocks that rose out of the veld; the hard, sandy earth where patchy brown grass took hold; the contorted branchless tree trunks with spiky green fronds that stuck out the top; the flat-topped hills that had defied millennia of erosion, set against distant blue-hued mountains. Instead, the Karoo had been doused with a brief rain storm the day before and bright flowers and wisps of green had broken out of the hard earth overnight. The transformed semidesert was a sea of color, putting on its best face as if to wish me well.
6 — Slowly, Haltingly, I Became Acclimatized
I have been in New York for two weeks and I’m trying to get a handle on how to order from one of the surly guys on the other side of a deli counter on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Behind an expanse of slanted glass is a mind-boggling array of salads heavy with mayonnaise, slabs of processed ham and turkey, and bricks of bright yellow cheese. Nothing looks very enticing. I think longingly of friendly Milly’s, Cape Town’s version of the Jewish New York deli, or the Indian grocery store near our cottage where I was made to feel welcome before I even hinted at my order. There would be smiles and politeness and discussions of the weather or some congenial tidbit while I made my purchases. Here in Manhattan at the end of September 1967, I am having to cope with a rush-rush culture. I have tried. I say, “Hello, how are you?” when it comes my turn, anticipating a broad smile or a chatty response. Their irritation makes it clear—I was wasting their time. I’m learning though. When my turn comes, my voice is strong as I call out, “Half a pound of turkey!” And when the package is slapped down on the counter in front of me, I respond without a blink: “A medium container of potato salad!” When the second slap comes, I say, “Thank you,” and head for the cashier. I have done it! I have mastered the art of being a customer in a New York deli. Now anything is possible.
MY FIRST WEEKS WENT BY in a blur of strangeness and discord. I had to create a tough skin to withstand the constant grazes and pricks from the external world as I encountered one more bizarre sight, made one more astounding
