Читать книгу The Verwoerd who Toyi-Toyied - Melanie Verwoerd - Страница 11

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Wilhelm and I were married on 29 December 1987. We rented a beautiful little Presbyterian church and invited about a hundred guests. By now, we had many friends from across the racial spectrum. Wilhelm’s mother did the flowers, and we used Wilhelm’s father’s antique German DKW as the wedding car. Wilhelm had arrived only a few days earlier from Oxford, so I made almost all the arrangements on my own.

Two days before the wedding, a crisis erupted. We had asked Anton van Niekerk, one of our philosophy professors who was also a theologian, to lead the service, but since he was no longer a practising minister, he could not conduct the legal part of the ceremony. So we asked a friend, Sydney Davis, a minister in the nearby coloured area, to officiate. He said he was honoured, and to our delight agreed. When Wilhelm’s father found out that a ‘coloured man’ was to be part of a Verwoerd wedding, he exploded. He said that he would not attend, and would not allow Wilhelm’s mother to attend either. I was livid! I felt that, out of principle, we should not cave in. Yet, for his mother’s sake, Wilhelm convinced me otherwise. Sydney immediately understood, and graciously still came to the wedding. It was an early-morning wedding, and afterwards we had tea for the guests on a veranda on the Neeth­lingshof wine farm. It was a glorious summer day and thankfully everything went smoothly.

After the wedding, we moved into a flat the local council provided for low-income white families – for which we qualified, being students with almost no income. We were due to return to Oxford, but Wilhelm had agreed to take a break for a year and do some part-time teaching, so that I could complete my Honours degree in philosophy. (I had graduated a few days before the wedding.) Even though a recent synod of the DRC church had finally agreed to the ordination of women, I had no interest any more in going to the seminary school to study for another three years. I was deeply disillusioned with the church on political and gender grounds. I had lost all respect for its leaders and was seriously questioning my faith. Instead of taking the safer route of studying for a postgraduate degree in clinical psychology, which I had also considered, I decided to follow my heart and study philosophy.

In between studies, Wilhelm and I were settling into married life. In the middle of the year, Wilhelm was invited to join a group on a clandestine trip to meet the ANC in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Similar trips had previously resulted in the participants’ passports being withdrawn and them being held up to public ridicule, so the trip was to happen quietly. Originally I was also going, but then it was decided that women could not attend. When I asked why, I was told that they were not sure what living conditions would be like, and that women might not cope. I felt patronised and insulted, and vowed never to be excluded from political discussions again.

On his return, Wilhelm became increasingly withdrawn, and the arguments with his family increased. Even though our political activities were very limited at this stage, it became apparent that the government was aware of us. In 1987 Wilhelm and I dropped Wilhelm’s grandmother, Betsie, at the airport in Cape Town. As the wife of a previous prime minister, she was entitled to use the VIP lounge for life. While we were waiting for her flight to depart, the door of the lounge opened and FW de Klerk, who was at the time the minister of National Education and Planning, walked in with a few staff members. He spotted Ouma Betsie and came over to greet her. She in turn introduced us to De Klerk. His eyes narrowed slightly when he heard our names.

‘Yeees,’ he said with a sigh, looking at us knowingly. ‘We know about these two.’ Then he leaned forward and said in a threatening tone: ‘Be careful, you two, very careful!’ He turned and left to board his plane before we could ask any questions.

We returned to Oxford at the end of 1988, after I had graduated with an Honours degree in philosophy. I had enrolled for a Masters in philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch, and was planning to do the research for my thesis while at Oxford with Wilhelm. My thesis was on the work of various feminist theologians who questioned how the masculine language used for God was impacting on society and patriarchal structures. I quickly discovered that Oxford was not the best place to do work on feminist theology.

Wilhelm found Oxford a lonely and challenging place. Not being under the same pressure academically, I loved it. The first apartment we were assigned was dark and dreary, but when we subsequently moved to a much brighter ground-floor apartment close to University Park, I was much happier. We had very little money, since we were both living on the Rhodes scholarship. Eventually I took a job delivering newspapers to bring in a bit more cash. I bought anything we needed second-hand from Oxfam or at the university club, where foreign students would sell their belongings when they left Oxford. I would cycle into the city centre daily to have lunch or dinner with Wilhelm at Corpus Christi College. I loved the big old dining hall, with its long tables and benches. Sometimes we were invited to high table, which meant sitting at the top table and getting much better food. Afterwards we would have coffee in the senior common room; it was all very civilised.

On my first day in the common room, I met a lovely Scottish man. ‘Hello! I’m Eddie McKenzie,’ he said in a strong Scottish accent.

I introduced myself, then asked what he was doing at Oxford.

‘Oh, I kill frogs,’ he responded.

‘Why?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Because I like it!’ Eddie said without the slightest tone of irony. ‘Actually, I prefer South African bullfrogs. They croak less when you kill them.’

Slightly perturbed, I told Wilhelm about the conversation. He just laughed and told me that Eddie was doing a doctorate on genetics in frogs.

We made many good friends from around the world, such as Todd Breyfogle from the United States and Graeme McLean from Australia, who would later become godfathers to our children. Together we would play croquet and spend long hours in the pub (even though I never drank alcohol). During the summer, we spent leisurely afternoons punting on the river; in the evenings, we would frequently go to evensong in Christ Church College.

During our first year at Oxford, Wilhelm and I made two big trips. First, we decided to backpack and camp through Israel. I had always wanted to see the holy sites. It was an extraordinary three weeks during which Wilhelm and I were very close. I will never forget waking up on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, watching the sunrise through our open tent flaps. In between visits to the holy sites, we made time to float in the Red Sea and snorkel in Eilat. Although it was a magical time, we were disturbed by the political tensions in the country. Even coming from South Africa and its succession of states of emergency, we found the military presence in Israel and the animosity between Palestinians and Jews unsettling. It was clear that peaceful co-existence between the two communities was very far away.

In retrospect, Wilhelm and I seem to have been drawn to conflict areas. Having seen Israel, we decided to visit Ireland. In the weeks before we left, I was amazed to discover how few British people – and in particular how few Oxford students – had ever been to Ireland (North or South). Despite – or perhaps because of – the centuries-old conflict there, no one seemed particularly interested in the country. A good friend of ours, Edward Peters, who worked for a Christian organisation called Moral Re-Armament (MRA), with which Wilhelm was very involved, joined us.

We drove to Stranraer in Scotland, from where we took the ferry to Belfast. We stayed with two other lovely MRA people, Peter and Fiona Hannon, in Coleraine. Lady Fiona is the daughter of the Duke of Montrose, a title her brother inherited. She and Peter had spent many years in South Africa, and I was good friends with their daughter Catherine. Peter and Fiona were well connected in Northern Ireland and arranged various political meetings for us.

One of the most memorable of these events (for all the wrong reasons) was a lunch with the Reverend Ian Paisley in his home. After passing through security, we were asked to wait in a sitting room. Shortly afterwards, Ian Paisley arrived, greeting us warmly. He asked Wilhelm and Edward what they did, and he then turned to me. He clearly assumed that I was a housewife, but I corrected him, saying that I was also studying.

‘Oh? And what do you study?’ he wanted to know.

‘Theology,’ I responded.

‘Oh good!’ he smiled. ‘What type of theology?’

Now I was getting a bit nervous. ‘Well,’ I started hesitantly, ‘feminist theology.’

Ian Paisley locked a stern gaze on me. He snorted slightly. ‘In my church, that will not be allowed. In fact, women still wear hats!’ he said, while spitting slightly as he emphasised the ‘ts’ of hats. He clearly had no interest in continuing the conversation with me, and his wife invited us to the dining room. It was not a good start.

After saying a lengthy grace, Ian Paisley engaged Wilhelm and Edward in political discussions. I was listening with interest and was struck by the similarities between his arguments and those of conservative whites in South Africa. After our earlier interaction, I kept quiet. However, when Ian Paisley laughingly told us that he always knew when there were Catholics on a plane, as he could smell them, I was shocked. As I have never been good at keeping a poker face, it showed. He wanted to know why I looked so shocked.

‘Well, with respect, Reverend Paisley, I think it’s deeply offensive – and exactly what racist whites would say about blacks in South Africa,’ I responded.

A silence fell around the table. Again he looked at me with a stern gaze. There was a tense pause before he said: ‘No, no. We Protestants associate ourselves with the cause of black South Africans.’

‘How is that?’ I wanted to know.

‘We are a majority, who could soon be oppressed by a minority,’ he responded, much to my surprise.

A far happier meeting, on the opposite side of the political spectrum, was with a wonderful Catholic community worker called Paddy Doherty from the Bogside in Derry. He did extraordinary, inspiring work developing cross-­community links between young people.

So many aspects of Northern Ireland were similar to what we were going through in South Africa. The restrictions on the media and on political activities, prejudice and suspicion between people, security concerns – even the metal detectors at shopping malls were familiar. Yet people in Northern Ireland looked basically the same, and spoke the same language; the conflict clearly was not really about religion any more. Why can this conflict not be resolved? I wondered, once we had left Northern Ireland and were driving through the green hills of Connemara.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was more relaxed. I was seduced by the peaceful charm and beauty of the west of Ireland. We stayed at B&Bs and loved the charm and humour of our Irish hosts. We crossed the country and drove east to Dublin, where we visited the tourist sites and strolled around Trinity College, before taking a ferry back to the UK.

During our first year back in Oxford we also made a trip back to South Africa. We wanted to see our families, but also had something special to do. We had kept in contact with Tshepiso Mashinini (the younger brother of Tsietsi Mashinini), whom I had met during my first trip to Oxford in 1986. Over a cup of coffee one day, Tshepiso remarked how sad he was about the complete lack of contact with his parents. Knowing that any communication might be picked up by the South African security police, he did not want to expose his parents to any possible harassment or put his own life at risk. However, this meant that his parents did not even know for certain that he was alive. Wilhelm and I offered to visit his parents in Soweto, when we were in South Africa. On our suggestion Tshepiso made a tape recording which we took with us.

Given that there was still a state of emergency, we knew it would attract attention if we just drove into Soweto, and since we did not know the area we asked a friend to take us there. He asked us to hide under blankets as we drove past the military presence at the entrance. Feeling tense, but also exhilarated, we were very happy to meet Tshepiso’s parents and to bring them greetings from their son. They were overwhelmed with joy to hear that he was not only alive and well, but had succeeded in getting a scholarship to study at the Oxford Polytechnic. Their relief and pride was visible. Over refreshments one of Tshepiso’s younger brothers, who was sitting quietly next to Wilhelm, suddenly asked loudly: ‘So what do you think of your grandfather?’

A shocked silence followed before his parents berated him in Zulu. But Wilhelm did not mind and took some time to engage with this young man, who was clearly very politicised. After an hour of intense discussion and being fed endless cups of tea, we left, leaving the little tape recorder and tape with them to listen later.

It was our first visit to Soweto. We were deeply moved by what we saw and by the time we spent with this remarkable family that had sacrificed so much in the struggle. Years later Tshepiso and I would work together on the White Paper on Local Government, before he died of a heart attack at the very young age of 32.

Back at Oxford, Wilhelm and I decided to start a family. It seemed like a good idea, since I had a lot of free time. We felt it would be good to have the children young, so we would still be relatively young when they were teenagers and young adults. We planned things carefully, since we did not want the birth to happen before or during Wilhelm’s final exams, but our visas ran out at the end of July 1990 and I would not have been able to fly back to South Africa if I was too far pregnant. This gave us a window of three weeks in which everything had to happen. Fortunately, I became pregnant easily, and we quietly congratulated ourselves. Little did we know what was about to happen.

I have a condition called porphyria variegate, which runs in certain Afrikaner families. I inherited it from my dad. The condition results in a faulty liver enzyme which can, in some cases, cause great difficulties with certain medication, dramatic hormonal changes, and sensitivity to sunlight. You can live with porphyria without ever showing any symptoms, and the only reason I was tested was because my dad had the condition. I had never had any difficulty with it before (or since) the pregnancy, although I am always extremely careful with medication.

In October 1989, I developed kidney infections, and after weeks on antibiotics I woke up one morning in agony. The doctor diagnosed a kidney stone and I was taken to hospital by ambulance. There I warned all the doctors that I had porphyria – and told them that I might be pregnant. Since porphyria is extremely rare outside South Africa and Scandinavia, the British doctors knew very little about the condition and, as I realised afterwards, paid little attention to it for the first few days. An ultrasound showed a kidney stone in my right kidney, and a little white flicker confirmed that I was indeed about six weeks pregnant. I was delighted – with the pregnancy, if not the kidney stone! Of course, my pregnancy meant that the doctors could do nothing apart from pain management for the kidney stone. I was also vomiting frequently, which was put down to morning sickness, and I was becoming dehydrated.

On the night of 8 November, I started to get severe stomach aches and my urine turned dark brown. Within hours I was fighting a losing battle to remain conscious and was having breathing difficulties. I was afterwards told that doctors had no idea what was happening to me. Then a doctor from South Africa overheard them discussing the case and suggested that it might be a severe porphyria attack. He was right: the moment they treated the condition correctly, I improved, but I was semi-comatose for a few days.

I eventually woke up to find the South African doctor who had saved my life next to my bed. He reassured me in a strong South African accent that everything was going to be fine. He then told me that the Berlin Wall had fallen while I was unconscious! I stayed in hospital for ten days before flying home to South Africa (on the suggestion of the doctors in Oxford) to recover. This gave Wilhelm, who was trying to study for his finals, a much-­needed break. We were of course very concerned about the impact my illness had had on my tiny foetus, but a scan in Cape Town showed all three centimetres of her moving around happily.

The rest of the pregnancy was challenging. I returned to Oxford in January, but had to be admitted to hospital on three other occasions. I had no further difficulties with the porphyria, but had three more kidney stones. I was looked after by a high-risk team in the John Radcliffe Hospital and got world-class care from the NHS.

In between all the hospital visits, on 11 February 1990, we sat with a few college friends in their kitchen watching for hours a tiny TV screen showing the gates of Victor Verster Prison in Paarl. Finally Madiba appeared on the screen – a free man. We wept and hugged each other, overwhelmed with joy and wishing we were home. We knew it was time to go back to South Africa, but there was one more momentous event that had to take place before we could leave Oxford behind.

Shortly after Wilhelm’s finals, at the end of June 1990, Wilmé was born. It was agreed that I would be induced, but after sixteen hours of labour, Wilmé went into distress and an emergency C-section was performed. Thankfully, I was awake during the birth; I’d had an epidural earlier. Just before midnight, they lifted Wilmé over the screen covering my tummy. It was the most magical moment of my life. She did not cry, but a little tear ran down her left cheek. I had a strong sensation that I recognised her – that I would have recognised her among other babies as my child. Before I could hold her, my blood pressure suddenly dropped dramatically. Feeling that I was about to lose consciousness, I said to the anaesthetist: ‘I’m going, I’m going!’

‘Where?’ she asked.

‘Heaven, I hope,’ I managed to joke, before everything turned black.

A while later, I woke to the voices of doctors urging me to look at my baby. This had the necessary impact and I regained consciousness – and held Wilmé for the first time. I stayed in hospital for a week, watching the World Cup in Italy (where both England and Ireland progressed to the final stages), in between recovering, and of course doting on my beautiful new baby.