on the royal blue carpet in my bedroom.
“Stevie?” Dariya stood behind me, waiting, and placed a hand gently on the back of my neck.
“So she didn’t just cheat on my father with this man,” I said. “They blew up an electrical plant together. And they went to jail.”
Dariya didn’t say anything.
“My father never said a word about any of this. He must have been trying to protect me. She must have died later, maybe in prison.”
“I’ve looked,” she said, “gone through the paper page by page, and found no other mention of your mother. She seems to have just disappeared. I did name searches during the ten years she would have been in prison, and after, and found nothing there, either.” She paused. “I did find a mention of Mandla, though,” she said. “He won a teaching award—I think it was from the Natal Regional Ministry of Education—sometime in the early 1990s.”
“I’ve spoken to him—so we know somehow he survived.” I paused for a moment, and Dariya also remained silent. “But what happened to my mother? Did she die in prison, or did something happen to her once she got out? I can’t let this rest here just because the newspaper doesn’t give us an answer,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “She can’t just have disappeared.”
“I’ll keep looking, if you want me to.”
“Where would you look? You’ve already gone through the newspaper page by page.”
“There are other sources,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Mandla. You can phone him. He should know. And there may be retired news reporters who worked for these newspapers. And there are other databases that I could get access to.” She paused. “If you want to follow this further.”
“I don’t have much choice,” I said. “I can’t let this rest here. But let’s finish my father’s manuscript first. Perhaps it will answer some questions. And if it doesn’t, maybe it will give us a better idea of where to look, and what to look for.”
.
six
L ENNY
Johannesburg, 1960
A fter Sharpeville our lives fell apart with bewildering speed. At times I wanted to punish your mother—but even when I knew she was away from my bed and from our child, it was beyond my imagining that she would be willing to risk her family, her life and her freedom to meet with that man in forbidden places. All I could do was pace up and down the hallway of our house in a murderous rage—but even then I didn’t consider doing anything that would have separated her from you.
What I felt went beyond confusion and betrayal—I was incredulous. In our world what she was doing was not just scandalous, it was inconceivable. Marriage between them would have been illegal; sex between them was a criminal act; if they had lived together openly they would have been arrested and convicted. What was left to them? Short of settling in another part of the world, their only alternative was to continue hiding their affair, and that was hardly a long term solution. In fact, there was no long term solution—unless they believed that they were about to change the world, and that love between them would shortly be sanctioned. But that would have been delusional. It was clear to me and to everyone else, that for a white woman and a black man to have an affair was to destroy both lives—but somehow, she was unable to see it.
I still loved your mother, and she hadn’t disavowed her love for me. I didn’t want to divorce her—all I wanted was to understand what she was doing, but there was no one I could confide in, and nowhere to go for help. I went to the library, read books on psychology; searched through medical books on the sociology of sex. I wondered whether she had been brainwashed; considered that perhaps she had fallen in love with him because she saw him as a heroic figure fighting for his people’s freedom.
The only conclusion I could live with was that your mother and Mandla shared a commitment to freedom and were strongly opposed to the
“Stevie?” Dariya stood behind me, waiting, and placed a hand gently on the back of my neck.
“So she didn’t just cheat on my father with this man,” I said. “They blew up an electrical plant together. And they went to jail.”
Dariya didn’t say anything.
“My father never said a word about any of this. He must have been trying to protect me. She must have died later, maybe in prison.”
“I’ve looked,” she said, “gone through the paper page by page, and found no other mention of your mother. She seems to have just disappeared. I did name searches during the ten years she would have been in prison, and after, and found nothing there, either.” She paused. “I did find a mention of Mandla, though,” she said. “He won a teaching award—I think it was from the Natal Regional Ministry of Education—sometime in the early 1990s.”
“I’ve spoken to him—so we know somehow he survived.” I paused for a moment, and Dariya also remained silent. “But what happened to my mother? Did she die in prison, or did something happen to her once she got out? I can’t let this rest here just because the newspaper doesn’t give us an answer,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “She can’t just have disappeared.”
“I’ll keep looking, if you want me to.”
“Where would you look? You’ve already gone through the newspaper page by page.”
“There are other sources,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Mandla. You can phone him. He should know. And there may be retired news reporters who worked for these newspapers. And there are other databases that I could get access to.” She paused. “If you want to follow this further.”
“I don’t have much choice,” I said. “I can’t let this rest here. But let’s finish my father’s manuscript first. Perhaps it will answer some questions. And if it doesn’t, maybe it will give us a better idea of where to look, and what to look for.”
.
six
L ENNY
Johannesburg, 1960
A fter Sharpeville our lives fell apart with bewildering speed. At times I wanted to punish your mother—but even when I knew she was away from my bed and from our child, it was beyond my imagining that she would be willing to risk her family, her life and her freedom to meet with that man in forbidden places. All I could do was pace up and down the hallway of our house in a murderous rage—but even then I didn’t consider doing anything that would have separated her from you.
What I felt went beyond confusion and betrayal—I was incredulous. In our world what she was doing was not just scandalous, it was inconceivable. Marriage between them would have been illegal; sex between them was a criminal act; if they had lived together openly they would have been arrested and convicted. What was left to them? Short of settling in another part of the world, their only alternative was to continue hiding their affair, and that was hardly a long term solution. In fact, there was no long term solution—unless they believed that they were about to change the world, and that love between them would shortly be sanctioned. But that would have been delusional. It was clear to me and to everyone else, that for a white woman and a black man to have an affair was to destroy both lives—but somehow, she was unable to see it.
I still loved your mother, and she hadn’t disavowed her love for me. I didn’t want to divorce her—all I wanted was to understand what she was doing, but there was no one I could confide in, and nowhere to go for help. I went to the library, read books on psychology; searched through medical books on the sociology of sex. I wondered whether she had been brainwashed; considered that perhaps she had fallen in love with him because she saw him as a heroic figure fighting for his people’s freedom.
The only conclusion I could live with was that your mother and Mandla shared a commitment to freedom and were strongly opposed to the
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