43 | MANDLA

IN THE AFTERMATH of the Swaziland debacle, the movement took some time to decide what to do with me. In fact there was little choice and I found myself in one training camp after another in the front-line states, the last of these in Angola. In some camps there was perfunctory military training, but I had already done mine in the Soviet Union and so with some other more experienced cadres I was put through a purgatory of drilling. In other camps the emphasis was on political lectures and these were more or less engaging, depending on the open-mindedness (or not) of the commissars involved. Most chose the safety of doctrine. In relation to international affairs it was unquestioning solidarity with the countries of the Soviet bloc and real existing socialism which, while flawed, was the only realistic alternative to capitalism. Certainly the subtle fractures that were emerging in these countries, as recounted to us by comrades who had studied there or in the Western newspapers that sometimes found their way into camp, were met with pronounced scepticism.

I was less concerned about the truth or falsehood of these accounts (I recalled the dark muttered cynicism of Vladimir back in my training days in the Soviet Union) than by the tenor of the discussion around them. Always there was an underlying tension. Not as defined as fear, but a definite unease. We knew there were agent provocateurs and spies among us. There was a sense that if one questioned “the line” one was being disloyal to the movement and placing in doubt the strategic wisdom of its leadership. That was dangerous. There were rumours, never substantiated, never openly discussed, of prisons in the bush where dissidents and spies were being held. It was better to hold the line. It served its purpose of preserving unity and order in the camps and to keep any eclecticism that might unsettle things contained.

In relation to the struggle in South Africa it was a promotion of armed struggle over mass mobilisation. There was a marked distrust of political forces that were not operating inside the structures of the movement. I’d had a taste of this in Swaziland and kept my counsel in these discussions. I fell into a torpor of military drilling, reading – endlessly, whatever books I could find – and, occasionally, sharing a rare bottle of vodka with a comrade from the Soviet bloc.

About Rachel there was no news. I sensed that there was some struggle taking place over me in Moscow, London, Lusaka or the other capitals where the leadership of the movement conferred. I knew that despite the interlude with Silver, I was still valued. Occasionally a high-placed comrade would arrive and seek my advice on political developments in the country, trying to gauge from me how the movement should respond. They would reassure me that my redeployment was but a matter of time, that my intelligence gathering and analytical skills were of immense value, and that they were aware that my talents were being wasted here in the camps.

But then months would pass with no decisions made and no instructions other than to exercise patience. It was not entirely unpleasant. I enjoyed the manual labour of working in the market gardens that provided the camp with food. I took pride in my small contribution to the evolution of the bright red tomatoes, maize, spinach, runner beans and morogo we cultivated. We were fit and healthy. A few of us went running every day. Our track was roughly ten kilometres through the low scrub of the Angolan bush and we’d set out early in the morning, before breakfast, and sometimes repeat the exercise in the evening. It was much too hot to run during the day.

Comrade Sihle, who was a small but powerfully muscled man, started a gym and offered weight-lifting training. This involved us lifting metal pipes and reinforced concrete blocks. I had had one of Rachel’s pairs of binoculars with me in the bakkie when I’d first gone back to Swaziland and found that the habit of birdwatching hadn’t left me. Sometimes I would go for a long solitary walk, binoculars around my neck, and train them on a thicket of bushes or focus them on the birds of prey that were always circling up above, trying to remember Rachel’s identification techniques. This was an activity I kept to myself, afraid of the derision with which my interest would probably be met. The comrades were happy to catch guineafowl or francolin in wire mesh traps for the pot but that was where their interest stopped. Meat was always a treat.

I fell into the slow rhythm of the life there, which was simple enough, but monotonous and lonely too. The hours of the day were shortened by the absence of electricity and, candles and paraffin being a scarcity, I would usually go to bed early and wake to the early morning birdcalls before the sun rose. I got into the routine of getting up before the camp got into its day and head off for the deep cool dam that had formed by the pooling of the river near our camp as it descended from a brace of hills. As the savannah came alive with the shrilling in the grass of invisible birds and the light in the east signalled another day of dry heat and dust, it was an exhilarating start to the morning.

And then the breakthrough came.

Comrade Zola arrived in our camp from London. I did not know him personally but I liked him right away. He was there to brief me and others on a new strategic course to do with intelligence gathering. This involved the setting up of a new structure – the Political Committee – and developing a network in South Africa and European countries. Things were already falling into place but someone was needed to keep the network strongly connected and growing.

He informed me that I was to be redeployed to London immediately to work in political intelligence, where my main task would be to debrief activists from inside the country, take personal control of certain individuals who were currently being identified and vetted in Holland, Belgium and Germany, analyse their information and keep the PC informed of the evolving struggle in South Africa. In my reaction I was suddenly, unexpectedly, emotional. A knot of tension I hadn’t realised was there came loose in my chest. I battled to keep my elation under control. I confess that before I went to bed that night I shed a tear or two, of relief but also of what I think now was loss and grief and longing. The weight of camp life, like lead in the blood, lifted from my body. Finally, I was looking forward again, not back.

I arrived in London one morning in late summer. On the train from Heathrow into the city I stared out of a window streaked with indeterminate grime at a monochrome sky. The clouds sat low over the landscape; there was no height to the sky. It made me feel mildly claustrophobic and I found myself searching the horizon for a break in the clouds, which I never found. My sense of claustrophobia increased as the train made its slow way through the outlying suburbs of London, where the houses were just a blur of semi-detached red-brick homes, miles of them, it appeared, grubby in their uniformity and interrupted only occasionally by startling green fields, in which teenage boys, stripped to the waist, played fast games of football. In a park I saw people lying stretched out on the grass with their shirts off. They were all white. To my un-tuned eye, all I could see was a miscellany of pale torsos, feeding off the light, like the pale earthworms our forks unearthed in our vegetable garden back in Angola. I thought they were a very strange sight indeed.

My claustrophobia stepped up a notch as the train entered a subterranean tunnel. The light of the day was suddenly snatched from the windows and the untreated brick-work of the tunnel walls pressed too close for comfort. My temples pounded with shock and beads of sweat formed on my forehead. I turned to look at my fellow passengers, most of whom were dressed for summer, while I was wearing both a pullover and a jacket. They seemed unconcerned, subdued even. There was no light conversation, no easy laughter. Many were reading books or newspapers, while others listened to music on earphones. A woman opposite me stared unfocused at a point above my head, as if mesmerised. All my fellow passengers seemed oblivious to one another. It was like a deliberate disconnection from discourse, as if engaging might commit them to something untenable.

The train stopped periodically at underground stations and the carriage grew more crowded. People pressed in against me, their clothes brushing my face. As the heat in the carriage rose I felt invaded and nauseous.

It was a relief to emerge onto the concourse at King’s Cross Station and to ride up on an escalator from what had felt like the bowels of the earth into the cooler surface air tinged with the hint of coal smoke. The concourse was a teeming mass of people, walking fast and criss-crossing in a bewildering pattern of colour and noise. I managed to steady myself by standing for a few minutes against a news agent’s window. Using Zola’s detailed instructions, I worked out where exactly I was. Then I made for the wide glass swing doors of the station entrance and emerged into Euston Road. There the scent of exhaust fumes was pungent and the traffic dense. People pushed past each other. Everyone was in a hurry. It made me dizzy. I looked around desperately for a still point. Across from where I was standing was a pub. I made my way over to it and dropped into a velveteen seat near the door. My heart was pounding but after a few minutes I felt calmer and went up to the bar counter, where I ordered a vodka. The young woman behind the bar had a silver surfboard on a chain around her neck and tanned brown arms. She saw me fumbling clumsily with my coins and she gave me an understanding smile.

“I was just like you when I first got to London,” she said cheerfully in what was unmistakably a Durban accent, “but you’ll have the money thing sorted in no time. Here – let me help you.”

I knocked back the vodka Russian style and took another back to my table.

Later, in the quieter streets behind the station, I found the address Zola had given me. A white, somewhat sour-faced landlady – I sensed she did not take well to black tenants – let me in and provided me with a set of keys. The flat was at the top of three flights of stairs. My suitcase dragged against the runners. I was panting when I got to the top, my daily running in Angola notwithstanding. I opened the door onto a single room with a musty atmosphere. This was the distinctive smell, I was to learn later, of damp.

The movement had furnished the place for me, but only rudimentarily. Under the windows, which were covered by net curtains, was a single bed. I cursed. It seemed I was destined for celibacy. There were some empty bookshelves, a table with copies of Sechaba and the Morning Star on it, two wooden kitchen chairs and a faded patterned sofa. In the galley off to one side there was a counter top, two built-in cupboards with plates and cups and saucers, and a sink. A bar fridge was stocked with two beers and a carton of long-life milk. Behind the galley there was a narrow shower cubicle and beside it, a toilet. The room was painted out in a neutral cream to match a carpet that was worn in places, suggesting that the previous furniture of the room had been differently arranged. I read the imprints of two armchairs facing one another.

But it would do. Apart from the damp smell, the room was clean. Some lavender-scented household cleaner lingered on the air. It was strangely comforting.

I parted the net curtains, drew up the wooden sash window and looked out. Below me lay an expanse of railway lines. My room looked out over shunting yards and Victorian warehouses and the red gas-coolers of King’s Cross. My neighbours were a profusion of modern grey-brick tenements. I became aware of the constant low hum of traffic in which the sirens of fire-engines and ambulances sometimes rose dominant and then ebbed into the distance of North London’s urban mass. Gulls called from on high, shrill and plaintive. In the distance above the hills of North London, there was finally a parting in the grey clouds and shafts of sunlight penetrated through the grey, illuminating the green shape of Muswell Hill in the distance. There the landscape sparkled as the clouds began to break up and shift, giving up their grip on the city. The anxiety of the journey began to ease and I experienced another emotion, one I hadn’t felt for quite a long time. Excitement. I could do some good work here, I told myself. I could contribute something substantial, something meaningful.