Winnie Mandela (17 page)

Mandela was stricken by the news that members of his own clan were at war with one another. While he and other ANC leaders met with the tribal representatives, Winnie was in the kitchen, preparing food for the visitors. Enoch Mbhele, a man she knew from home and who had worked for Columbus as a bus driver, brought a pile of plates from the lounge, greeted her cheerfully and sat down, chatting about nothing in particular. Suddenly, he switched gear and told her, matter-of-factly: ‘Your father is a lucky bastard, but we shall get him yet.’ Then he added, menacingly: ‘He won’t be so lucky next time.’

Winnie went numb. Mbhele must have realised that she was in an impossible situation, torn between her father and her husband, but when she pleaded with him to consider her feelings, he simply laughed. She retreated to her bedroom and sobbed bitterly over the predicament she was in. She adored her father, but she had just fed men, under her own roof, who were plotting to kill him. And she didn’t feel as though she could discuss her anguish with Madiba. As she had feared, it wasn’t long before the rumour was spread that she had harboured her own father’s enemies in her house.

After more than a year of conflict, a handful of white traders – utterly dependent on the custom of the Pondo people for their livelihood – brought an end to the strife by complaining to the government that the boycott was ruining them. The government agreed to make certain concessions, and the Land Trust scheme was not enforced in Pondoland.

But for Winnie and her family, the Pondo revolt would have far-reaching consequences. After the Intaba attack on his home, Columbus resigned as a teacher, threw his support behind Kaiser Matanzima and accepted a position as a minister in his cabinet. Her father now stood in direct opposition to everything that Winnie and Nelson believed in, and his decision tore the Madikizela family apart. Winnie’s brothers had joined Intaba, and she felt that Columbus had betrayed everything he had taught his children about the need to strive for justice and respect. Columbus was instrumental in drafting the constitution for the self-governing homeland of Transkei. Matanzima rewarded him with the portfolio of agriculture and forestry, an important position in an area so dependent on farming.

Winnie always believed that Matanzima had misled her father into thinking that by serving as a homeland leader, he would be contributing to the liberation of his people. Years later, Columbus acknowledged as much.

W
HEN WE APPEAR
to be repeating our parents’ mistakes, the theory holds, we are paradoxically trying to rectify what we missed in our own childhood. Winnie dreamed of having a big, close and happy family, and before Zenani was a year old, she was pregnant again. But, as had been the case when she was in the Fort, she started haemorrhaging, and this time, even though Nelson rushed her to his friend, Dr Mohamed Abdullah, the miscarriage could not be prevented.

While Nelson was in prison after the Sharpeville massacre, Winnie found that she was pregnant once more. She was pleased, but this pregnancy, too, was beset with problems. She suffered so badly from acute nausea that she consulted Dr Motlana. He gave her an injection of Sparene, which was often used and believed to be a harmless drug in such circumstances. But in Winnie’s case, it gave the young doctor what he later said was one of the most terrifying experiences of his career. She collapsed and he could not detect a pulse. He called two of his colleagues to help him carry her to his car so that he could rush her to hospital. When the first doctor entered his room, he feared the worst, like Motlana, and exclaimed: ‘What have you done? You have killed Mrs Mandela!’ Fortunately, their other colleague had more experience of the drug and knew that a small percentage of people were allergic to it. Winnie was one of them. She recovered completely, but the incident haunted Motlana for many years.

When the Treason Trial adjourned in December, Nelson received word that his son Makgatho was ill at school in the Transkei. Once again violating his banning order, he drove through the night to go to the boy, and on reaching Qamata found that Makgatho was in need of medical care. Nelson wrapped him in a blanket and drove straight back to Johannesburg.

In the meanwhile, Winnie had gone into labour.

For her second delivery she didn’t go to Baragwanath Hospital, but to the Bridgeman Memorial Hospital where her sister Nancy had done her training. She was in labour for many agonising hours before their second daughter was delivered by forceps on 23 December 1960. Afterwards, Winnie developed puerperal fever and was placed in an oxygen tent. When Nelson arrived home in the early hours
of the morning with his sick son, he heard that he had a second daughter and a desperately ill wife. Inevitably, the police had been unable to resist raiding the house while the occupants were away, and it was in chaos. He simply left the mess and rushed to Dr Abdullah with Makgatho, then left him at home with Leaby and went to the hospital to see Winnie. She was still running a high temperature and was almost delirious. Nelson was furious, convinced that her condition had been caused by hospital neglect, and ignoring the objections of the medical staff, he bundled her and the tiny baby into his car and took them home, calling Dr Motlana to examine his wife. She made a full recovery, and the little girl was called Zindziswa, after the daughter of Samuel Mqhayi, the celebrated Xhosa poet, who had been a source of inspiration to Mandela while he was at school at Healdtown. According to legend, the poet’s wife had given birth to a daughter while he was away on a long trip. He had not known that she was pregnant, and when he returned home, assuming that another man had fathered the child, had stormed into the house with an
assegai
[spear] to stab the mother and child to death. But when he saw that the baby looked exactly like him, he retreated and said,
‘u Zindzile
,’ which means, ‘You are well established.’ He then named his daughter Zindziswa, and many years later the Mandelas did the same, but abbreviated her name to Zindzi.

As soon as she could, Winnie went back to work at the Welfare Society. Apart from the fact that she now had two babies to care for, there was little change in their routine. After being in court each day, Nelson either stayed in Pretoria for several hours to consult with his lawyers, or rushed back to Johannesburg to do what little legal work he could from the quiet of Ahmed Kathrada’s flat at No.13, Kholvad House. When he was at home the telephone would ring incessantly, or he would be called away, and he marvelled at Winnie’s patience with the frenetic lifestyle he had imposed on her. Busy as she was, Winnie took on the job of finding suitable schools for Nelson’s sons. He wanted them settled in a safe place if he should be imprisoned, so it was decided to enrol them at Anglican boarding schools in Swaziland – Thembi at St Michael’s and Makgatho at St Christopher’s.

Winnie’s day began early, when she drove to Kliptown to leave Zeni in the care of friends. Then she rushed to Fordsburg, where Paul and Adelaide Joseph lived. Adelaide had offered to take care of Zindzi along with her own small children, and Winnie, in turn, supplied the Josephs with medication and advice on how best to take care of their handicapped son. Having settled her children, Winnie would go about her social work, and when possible drive to Pretoria to drop in on the Treason Trial.

Just before the end of the trial, the judge adjourned proceedings for a week. This coincided with the expiry of Mandela’s banning order, and he was able to slip away to the All-In African Conference in Pietermaritzburg on 25 March. He
was the keynote speaker at the conference, which was attended by 1 400 delegates from across the country.

After five years, Justice Rumpff finally delivered the verdict in the Treason Trial on 29 March. As Winnie took her seat in the courtroom she appeared composed, smiling reassuringly at Nelson and the other accused, but inwardly she was in a storm of apprehension and uncertainty. Like many observers, she was convinced the defendants would not be sentenced to death, although this was the usual penalty for treason. The international community had expressed vocal opposition to the way the South African government was dealing with its political problems, but the state had done everything possible to prove that the accused were guilty, producing thousands of documents in support of the charges. Winnie was terrified. She had already had a taste of what life was like with Nelson behind bars, and that had been for only a few months. What would she do if he had to spend years in prison? How would she cope, alone with two small children? What if he
did
get the death penalty?

With her heart in her throat, she listened to the judge evaluating the testimony of 150 witnesses. Each word seemed to drop heavily like a clod of dark, damp soil, and she steeled herself to hear the worst. When Rumpff reached the crucial part of his deliberations, she dared not hope that she had understood him correctly: ‘On all the evidence presented to this court and on our finding of fact, it is impossible for this court to come to the conclusion that the African National Congress had acquired or adopted a policy to overthrow the state by violence, that is, in the sense that the masses had to be prepared or conditioned to commit direct acts of violence against the state.’ With growing incredulity and elation, Winnie heard the judge say that the prosecution had failed to prove that the ANC was a communist organisation, or that the Freedom Charter envisioned a communist state. After speaking for forty minutes, Justice Rumpff told the men in the dock to stand for his verdict. The court was as silent as a church. Then, incredibly, the judge said the words no one had dared to hope they would hear:
‘The accused are accordingly found not guilty and are discharged
.’

There was an explosion of sound as cheers erupted. The accused embraced each other and waved to their family and friends in the courtroom. There were floods of tears as they moved outside, and Winnie rushed into Nelson’s arms. They hugged one another with uninhibited joy. A large crowd of well-wishers lustily sang ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’. Surrounded by the jubilant crowd, Mandela told Winnie to go home, as he had to meet with his advisers.

Ecstatic and relieved as she was, Winnie’s heart was heavy. She had known for some time that in the unlikely event that he was found not guilty, it would be not the beginning, but the end of her life with Madiba. She had told no one, but she knew he was not coming home. What she didn’t know, was for how long.

Shortly before the end of the trial the ANC’s National Executive had met secretly to discuss the future, and decided that if Mandela were not convicted, he would go underground. They knew only too well that the National Party would step up its repressive measures, and that the government wanted to rid itself of the ANC leadership. If the accused were acquitted, the authorities would do everything possible to crush the ANC’s support. Nelson had told Winnie of the executive’s decision, and one day, while washing a shirt, she had found a receipt in the pocket showing he had paid the rental on the house for six months in advance. He had also had the car serviced, and she knew he was doing whatever he could to make her life easier while he was away, either in prison or in hiding. He told her he did not relish the thought of living as an outlaw, but that it was something he would have to do. She had tried to prepare herself for the worst, but had not expected that he would have to disappear immediately, without spending even a day or two at home. In her autobiography,
Part of My Soul Went With Him
, Winnie said there had been no opportunity to discuss the implications of his life underground, and in
Higher Than Hope
, Fatima Meer said it had not even occurred to him that he should discuss the decision with his family before agreeing. He simply took their full support for granted.

Just before the last day of the trial, Mandela came to the house with Walter Sisulu, Duma Nokwe and Joe Modise, and asked Winnie to pack a suitcase of clothes and toiletries for him. After the verdict she drove back to Johannesburg, deep in thought and struggling with her conflicting emotions. A jubilant crowd was waiting at the house to celebrate their leader’s freedom, and she bravely joined them, keeping to herself the terrible secret that he would not make an appearance himself.

In later years, Mandela often said he could not have coped underground without Winnie’s support. But when he left, it was extremely difficult for her. She was a young, country woman with a thin veneer of big-city sophistication, alone in the terrifying world of 1960s South African politics.

Mandela set off for Port Elizabeth to discuss the structure of the underground operation with Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba, and met members of the media to talk about the campaign for a national convention. From there he went to Cape Town for more meetings, and then to Durban to discuss the form of action planned by the ANC to protest against the establishment of the Republic of South Africa on 31 May. A referendum among white voters in October had voted in favour of a republic, but at the Pietermaritzburg conference the ANC had called for a national convention to draft a new constitution without a colour bar. Knowing that the government would not consider such a request, the ANC also called for countrywide demonstrations and a three-day stayaway to protest against the establishment of a republic.

As soon as the police discovered that Mandela was not around to be served with a new banning order, they issued a warrant for his arrest. He became, in his own words, a creature of the night. By day, he stayed out of sight in one of his many hideouts – empty flats, other people’s homes, wherever he would be invisible. During this period, under trying and often tense conditions, he wrote prolifically, planning and plotting in solitude. But he missed Winnie and the children terribly. When darkness fell, he would meet with various groups and recruit members for the ANC. He travelled only when it was essential, sticking mainly to Johannesburg and the surrounding area. He managed to elude the police in a game of cat and mouse that captured the imagination of the South African newspapers, which dubbed him the ‘Black Pimpernel’, after Baroness Orczy’s fictional hero of the French Revolution, the Scarlet Pimpernel, who, in similar daring fashion, had remained one step ahead of his pursuers. Wild rumours abounded about Mandela’s whereabouts, but in reality his life was anything but a romantic adventure. He was constantly on the move, spending a few weeks with a family in Market Street, Johannesburg, two months with Wolfie Kodesh in his bachelor flat in Berea, masquerading as the gardener and living in the servants’ quarters at a doctor’s house in Norwood, and hiding in a safe house in Cyrildene. He even spent two weeks on a sugar plantation in Natal. But he never considered giving himself up, even though he was deprived of everything he held dear – Winnie, their children, his work as a lawyer.