Tot weersiens Khulu!
There is a scene in the movie Long Walk to Freedom where the character of Nelson Mandela slowly walks up a hill in Qunu. His back is towards the camera, as he walks away. The light is gentle, his familiar gait meandering up a gentle slope. I knew it wasn’t him. It was Idris Elba, a British actor, but the image was so powerful, so evocative, so gutwretching that I burst into tears in the cinema. The tears came and came, over and over and in a way I have never experienced before. They just pumped from my eyes uncontrollably and streamed down my cheeks. It didn’t help that I tried to stop it. That night when I first saw Long Walk to Freedom at its premiere in South Africa I also cried myself to sleep, something I had never done in forty-three years. It was like a pre-mourning. I knew Madiba had almost gone. That he was in pain. But this re-enactment of his life pierced through all that and reminded me about him so much.
Madiba never got to see the movie. It was released in November 2013 when he was near the end. It was a story he had given his blessing to almost two decades earlier. The producer, Anant Singh, bought the rights to Madiba’s life story and it had taken twenty years for it to come to the big screen, just in time for us to be reminded of his story.
Besides reminding us of Madiba’s sacrifices, the movie also reminded me of a younger, fitter Nelson Mandela. His body was so broken, so damaged and deteriorated now but in the movie he was strong, robust, vibrant. He loved to dance, not that shuffle of his later years when his knees had given out, but the jazzy bop of the 1950s. Madiba used to tell us how he went dancing in Sophiatown and through the movie I could now visualize such stories. We would often sit during lunch or dinner on foreign travels, often just the two of us, and he would eagerly offer the details of his early life and he had the perfect audience in me. I had never had a problem allowing my imagination to run with a story and I would question him about his looks, his posture, his dress code, whether he charmed girls and what the dancing was like. He was amused by my directness and I often asked: ‘Did women just fall over their feet to dance with you?’ and he would laugh in a somewhat shy way and boast with a ‘Yes of course!’, upon which I would burst out laughing.
I had stopped seeing Madiba a few months before. Mrs Machel called me to the house one day to have tea, after Madiba had been discharged, although he was still considered critical but stable. She said that she knew how much I loved Madiba and that she didn’t think it was advisable for me to see his deterioration knowing how I felt about him. At first I had suspected that the family told her to tell me that I was no longer able to see him, but after thinking about it I was happy that it happened. I didn’t want to see him in a powerless state. I didn’t want to lose control over my emotions in his presence. It was only after his death that I learned that indeed I had been banned from seeing him.
I was constantly battling in my mind, trying to understand why he didn’t let go and whether he was able to let go himself. It haunts you. It eats you daily, piece by piece, not knowing and not understanding what was happening to him.
At times I wondered, like many South Africans, whether he was being kept alive artificially. But Mrs Machel and Josina told me there was a still a spark there, that he occasionally held someone’s hand or managed to open his eyes. But by November even that didn’t happen. He was slipping away, despite an overwhelming effort by the doctors to keep him alive.
His doctors thought it was amazing that he had such strength even when he was so weak. I often wondered – was he now becoming afraid of dying? He was often flippant about death, saying things like ‘when you’re gone your body is dead’. People raised the issues around his ancestors not having called upon him yet and I wondered whether he was aware of these issues. He was respectful of tradition but not overly obsessed with it.
As the days passed, I was permanently on standby, anxious, waiting for an update on his health. You start living in a permanent state of limbo. I communicated with Mrs Machel and Josina by text and messaging because we were worried. Sometimes I met them trying to resume duties as normal and I would not often ask too many questions but just ‘Is he OK?’, ‘Mum, do you think he is free of pain?’ or ‘Mum, do you think he is aware of what is happening?’ I was also trying to be one less person asking after him and, rather, showing my support to him, through supporting her. He had after all told me the first day I met her in Paris back in 1996 that I had to look after her and not lose sight of her at any given point. I was still doing just that.
And then the message that I knew was inevitable. On 3 December Mum and Josina told me that Madiba’s condition was deteriorating. This seemed like the beginning of the end.
I saw Josina on Thursday, 5 December at the Foundation. She looked exhausted.
Early evening on Thursday, 5 December Josina phoned me with instructions from Mrs Machel. I had to inform some of Madiba’s closest friends that things were turning for the worse. It was so hard. So brutally frank. It took me hours to get hold of everyone on my list. They included people like Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Ahmed Kathrada, Thabo Mbeki, George Bizos and others close to Madiba but who were outside government structures and who would not normally be informed in such instances. I was strong when I started making the calls but their reaction, a mixture of pain, shock and disbelief destroyed the strong spirit with which I started off. After each call I composed myself and repeated Madiba’s quote: ‘It always seems impossible until it is done’, and I would call the next person.
Later in the evening two helicopters flew dangerously low over my house. As I lived halfway between Pretoria, the base where military helicopters were stationed, and Johannesburg, where Madiba’s house was, the helicopters had to fly over the area where I lived. Was the military preparing for the worst? Or had it happened? If it was the military it meant that it had happened. There were two issues to consider: firstly they probably became involved at that point from a protocol point of view, and secondly I thought that they perhaps feared the much speculated uhuru or ‘night of the long knives’ when, it was said, blacks would kill whites the night after Madiba died. It was only the extremists that participated in this kind of talk and I knew by now that South Africa was stronger and more capable as a nation of dealing with what we all feared, black and white: Madiba’s death.
And then it was done. I just knew he was gone. I didn’t have to ask. I was numb for a few minutes and then I jumped up from my chair at the kitchen table thinking it would stop me from becoming hysterical. I went outside and sat quietly alone in the hot summer night just thinking, praying and trying to internalize what had just happened. I was alone at home and my first instinct was that I had to pray, light candles and then get to bed as soon as possible. I knew what lay ahead. My phone started going crazy. I didn’t answer anyone and rumours were running. About two hours later I started receiving messages from as far away as Los Angeles: ‘Is Madiba OK?’ I knew that if I answered one message then it would spread like a velt fire. I also did not want to lie.
My phone didn’t stop ringing and I decided to put it on silent, took two sleeping pills and went to bed. I knew that the President had to make an official announcement but I had no idea when that would be done. I told the CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Sello Hatang, that I needed to meet him at the office at 6 a.m. the following morning. He agreed and off I went to bed.
I sent a message to my brother and his partner Rick, asking them to collect my dogs early the next morning. I said: ‘Please don’t ask any questions, just fetch Winston and Indira as early as possible.’ They would need to be cared for and I knew I would not be at home much over the next couple of days.
On 6 December 2013 I awoke just after 4 a.m. I had twenty-eight missed calls and literally hundreds of emails, texts and messages already. I showered and when I went downstairs to have coffee I sat reading through some of the messages. The world had woken me to my worst nightmare. Madiba was gone. The President made the announcement during the midnight hours and to this day I have not seen the footage of the announcement.
I called my parents before 6 a.m. They had both heard already. They sleep with the radio on in their room and when the usual music on the radio was interrupted by an announcement by the President my dad woke my mom to tell her. My dad, the man who warned me about the terrorist’s release back in 1990, wept like a child for Madiba and spent the entire night watching events unfold on TV. When I heard the sadness of their voices over the telephone I broke down for the first time.
I rushed to the office and found some of my colleagues there already. Everybody was emotional but we composed ourselves, like soldiers moving into total operational mode, knowing that we had to get work done right away in preparation for the next few days. Condolence books had to be bought, statements prepared and we needed to create the space for the public to mourn Madiba’s passing too. The staff were brilliant and under the leadership of Sello they had created such a space in no time. I also called one of my friends, Minèe, to our office and asked her to supervise my phones and start responding to people. I needed help to contain the activity on my phones. The media started hunting me for comment or a response of some sort and Minèe had to keep the pressure at bay while I tried to figure out what to do next. To try and cage in the media pressure I decided to issue a statement. As I sat in front of my computer words and tears started flowing at the same time.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation agreed to issue my statement. I wrote:
I often battled with the relentless pressure. But then I looked at him who carried himself with such grace and energy. I never left. I never could. Nelson Mandela did not demand loyalty, but he inspired profound and unwavering loyalty from everybody whose life he touched. And now, as we grieve the departure of Madiba, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will never see him again. But heroes never die. As sad as it makes me that I will never walk into a room again and see his generous infectious smile or hear him say ‘Oh Zeldina, you are here’, I have come to terms with the fact that Madiba’s legacy is not dependent on his presence. His legacy will not only live on in everything that has been named after him, the books, the images, the movies. It will live on in how we feel when we hear his name, the respect and love, the unity he inspired in us as a country but particularly how we relate to one another . . . I will cherish every smile, the pleasant but also the difficult times and especially my barefoot moments . . . Tot weersiens Khulu [until we meet again grandpa]!! Will love you every day for the rest of my life.
The reality of it all hit home as I typed the last sentence. I was saying goodbye. Was this really happening? I had never, ever imagined that I would be sitting at my desk typing these words and it felt as if I was saying goodbye from another stratosphere. Minee was receiving calls and responding to messages on my behalf. People reached out to me from a personal perspective because it was known to them in particular how much he meant to me, but then others also called because I was their link to Madiba. They didn’t know how or where to express the sadness over their loss. I first had to figure out what needed to be done before I could start thinking about my own feelings.
For some time I had worked with Mrs Machel and Josina to compile lists for this eventuality. They included people who had served Madiba, people who had been with him during the Rivonia and Treason Trial, friends, the heads and trustees of all his charities, supporters and those we always called upon when Madiba needed something – not only for his charities but also sometimes to get a job for one of his grandchildren or to help a child with something specifically. The lists had been updated several times but the last one was updated in June 2013 when Madiba was hospitalized. The lists were then submitted to Makaziwe and Ndileka Mandela, Madiba’s eldest grandchild. They were the only two family members involved in funeral arrangements and they had been planning the funeral for the past eight years.
The state originally had a plan to have the funeral at the Union Buildings, the centre of power in South Africa and the place where all other state funerals were held in history. Although Madiba wanted to be buried in Qunu he didn’t specify that he wanted a state funeral in Qunu. He was a simple man with modest needs, somehow underestimating his importance to the world.
This funeral was going to be about maintaining power over the Mandela legacy and roles within the Mandela family.
I felt gratitude to those who remembered me and the small role I had played in Madiba’s life. Archbishop Desmond Tutu mentioned me during a very moving sermon he gave at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. But as a humble reminder of how we are all forgettable, replaceable, he forgot my surname and called me Zelda van Graan repeatedly. He was becoming old too. Fragile and upset at the passing of the man he respected. Amid the sadness people were texting and tweeting me saying that if they were me, they would just change their surname now to Van Graan. It was funny but I couldn’t laugh at the time.
I was also incredibly touched by Defence Minister Nqakula’s statement about me, thanking me for my years of service. She said that she didn’t ever think I had time to have a boyfriend and although I didn’t want people to talk about it she was right, and it was the first time someone said it in public. There was a time I couldn’t be with a man for twenty minutes without Madiba calling on me to do something. I never got angry. He was my number one. When I occasionally had a fling or a dysfunctional relationship I could never give it my full commitment. My job was everything and I didn’t mind it. It was my choice. Her thanking me made me even more emotional. I had never expected to be thanked by anyone. Madiba thanked me. That was enough to me and my blessings having been chosen to serve him were beyond any expectations I had from life. But for someone from the ANC to thank me really ripped my heart apart. I didn’t care for Madiba just because I cared for him. I knew millions of others cared for him too and I tried to serve his interests best to ensure that those relationships with others could be honoured.
My Twitter and Facebook accounts, text and emails were suddennly flooded with people thanking me. It was all too overwhelming and simply too many to answer. I am a person for detail and a left-brain thinker and at first I thought I would thank each and every one personally, but as time passed my cellphone constantly froze on me as a result of traffic and I simply didn’t get the time to do what I wanted. What made it worse was that the people pouring out their gratitude to me had all suffered the same loss. They all had their own emotions to deal with yet they thought of me. I was deeply touched.
We now had to figure out how the people on those Madiba ‘friends lists’ got accredited. Sello, the now-CEO of the NMF tried from his side to get info too, while staff worked around the clock putting out fires of disorganization from people who wanted confirmation of arrangements. Sello as CEO couldn’t get any detail and neither could his staff. People were calling asking for details about the memorial service to be held at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on Tuesday, 10 December. I couldn’t answer anyone as I didn’t have information and it was not forthcoming. In addition to the Madiba ‘friends list’, as we called it, the Machel family was suddenly told that they would only be allowed five accreditations and Mrs Machel would count as the first. So she plus four other Machels would be allowed accreditation at her own husband’s funeral. It is so ridiculous that you actually couldn’t help but laugh out loud at this.
In the few days to follow before the memorial many of us hardly slept, trying to make sense of arrangements and trying to get information. To say it was chaotic would be an understatement. A combination of bad planning and state secrecy, it seemed surprisingly badly managed for an event that had been inevitable. I had travelled with Madiba across the world, attending functions where there were sometimes hundreds of heads of state present. Arrangements at such big events were always a little haphazard yet I had never experienced such chaos. No one person could give you all relevant information and plans were changed every few minutes. Even those in charge didn’t know the answers to anything, it seemed.
On Sunday night, after much fighting and crossfire of words between myself, the government’s protocol people and the family, we were saved by a senior ANC official. She came to our rescue when she managed to get the accreditations for the Machel family and delivered them to the Saxon Hotel where Josina and I were meeting.
It was becoming farcical. If we could barely get Nelson Mandela’s widow and her children accredited to attend his memorial service, it was becoming downright impossible to get anyone else officially accredited.
In the meantime the advance teams for President Obama and President Clinton had arrived and were trying to get details from everyone – me included. Tempers were flaring as everyone felt the pressure and frustration of the disorganization. I repeatedly asked why they had been planning for eight years and now no one could give us any answers. We appeared unprofessional and caught off guard. We received assurance that we would get the Madiba ‘friends lists’ accreditation the next day.
Early Monday morning we started calling around. By 2 p.m. one of our friends, Basetsana Khumalo, went to the ANC head office to collect accreditation for the ‘friends lists’, but then we realized that only half the people on the list had been accredited. The memorial was the next day. There was no way people from abroad would take the risk to fly to South Africa for the memorial or funeral if they did not know for sure whether they would be accredited. No invitations were sent and Madiba’s friends were expected to go to the stadium on a first-come-first-served basis to get access and then be seated with the crowds of public people attending the memorial. That included people like Archbishop Tutu.
In the midst of all of this, just when it seemed things couldn’t get worse, I remembered an appointment I had scheduled the previous week. Root canal. The pain in my tooth was shadowed by the pain of my heartbreak. A friend, Marli, collected me and took me to the dental surgeon. I couldn’t manage to drive and answer the stream of phone calls and queries at the same time. Marli answered my phone during the root canal procedure and then asked me questions while I was lying open mouthed in the surgeon’s chair, close to being strapped down by the dentist as illustrated in cartoons. I would write the response to Marli on a piece of paper, nearly illegibly, but she managed to give directions for the hour and a half I was in the chair. The surgeon soon realized that he was not going to complete the job and asked me to return the following week for the rest of the work. He realized I was under pressure and he was exceptionally patient. He managed to stop the pain and off we went.
With a mouth full of cotton wool and enough painkillers to numb my brain as well as my mouth (I did ask him to inject me with more than the allowed quantity of local anaesthetics to try and calm my nerves as well, although he declined), I tried to convey to people that I still didn’t have any information. I tried to remain optimistic. But as soon as I managed to answer everyone, the first person on the list would start asking for an update again. I was bordering on a nervous breakdown and couldn’t bear the pressure.
At times Josina, Basetsana and I all yelled at one another, then we cried hysterically and then we would pick up the pieces and try to find order again. We knew our outbursts were safe with one another no matter what the nature. George Cohen, the manager at the Saxon Hotel who had become a good friend, as well as the owners, the Steyn family, insisted that I stay at the hotel during the funeral time. George wanted to support me and tried to do so in every possible way. I lived some distance out of Johannesburg and by offering for me to stay in the city he already alleviated some pressure.
As some of Madiba’s friends also stayed at the Saxon Hotel it made it easier, not having to communicate with them all in different venues but from within the hotel. Whenever I got one piece of information, no matter how mundane, I would share it with George and he would disseminate it to the friends who were staying in the hotel and even beyond to those he had contact with. The staff at the Foundation were busy with their own arrangements at the office to create a public space for mourning and George and the hotel staff helped me to take calls, they sent drivers around to try and help us get information, and in addition George force-fed me. On more than one occasion he found me sobbing, a mixture of pain and frustration, and he would calm me and help think of ways to find solutions. To me Madiba’s friends all felt they were important in his life and their requests for information or detail were legitimate and my inability to help anyone seemed unprofessional and uncaring.
On Monday night the Minister of Defence called to say I had to travel to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to sort out the accreditation of the ‘friends lists’. She suggested this to be the only solution at such a late hour. By now I had texted and called every possible person I thought could help us. By 7 p.m. on Monday night, we didn’t even know yet what time the proceedings were to start the next day.
It wasn’t just us. The media were also unable to plan. The government was working on a ‘need to know’ basis – slowly giving out information tidbit by tidbit.
In the meantime Madiba was being embalmed at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. From my friend Robyn Curnow, who had been briefed by the family for years, I learned that he was being ‘escorted’ to the afterlife by the elders of the Thembu tribe. They would talk to him, explaining the process of what was going on day by day. Madiba detested red tape and bureaucracy and I couldn’t but wonder what his response would be if he had been told about our frustration.
My friend who took me to the dental surgeon drove me to the Union Buildings, accompanied by Sara Latham, the advance for President Clinton and an old friend too. She was sent to South Africa by the Clintons personally to also support me in whatever way possible. Half way to the Union Buildings Basetsana called us to say that they were not printing accreditations at the Union Buildings and that we had to return to Johannesburg, so we did. We were told that we would receive the remaining accreditations by 10 p.m. At 10.30 I called again and Josina and I were told that we would receive word by 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. At 1 a.m. we were told 3 a.m. So, we didn’t go to sleep; 3 a.m. arrived and 3 a.m. passed without any word. We were still waiting. By 5 a.m. we started calling around. People like the business tycoon Johann Rupert had flown from Cape Town to attend the memorial, but his accreditation too was not delivered. At 6 a.m. I delivered two accreditation cards at the gate of his house, cards with names on that weren’t known to him or his wife. There was no other way I could help him. Johann got on his plane and returned to Cape Town.
Johann was one of the people Madiba always called upon whenever he needed financial help for a project. Madiba’s relationship with the family dated back to negotiations in the early 1990s after Madiba’s release, yet here this man could not go to Madiba’s memorial despite the fact that Madiba considered him as one of his sons.
In addition, none of the Nelson Mandela charities, their respective CEOs or trustees had been accredited. Their names all appeared on the list that was submitted on several occasions over the previous two years. Long-serving staff members who played critical roles in Madiba’s life were omitted from accreditation.
At 8 a.m., after sleeping for only forty-five minutes, I arrived at our offices from where the Machel family was going to depart. I profusely apologized to Prof. Ndebele, the Chairman of our Foundation, and to Sello our CEO and I was deeply disappointed, hurt and embarrassed that they had not been catered for. Had my name not been submitted by Mrs Machel as part of her family list, I would not have been accredited. It seemed like chunks of Madiba’s past were being whitewashed or ignored. The people he personally appointed, the legacy institutions he established were being marginalized in an act of pettiness.
Advocate George Bizos, one of Madiba’s oldest friends and the lawyer whose relationship with Madiba dated back to the Rivonia Trial, arrived at the office too, as his name was submitted as family too. I helped him onto the bus and asked Lori, my friend from Los Angeles and Morgan Freeman’s business partner, to remain with him at all times. Arriving at the stadium it was chaos. It rained continuously and an unrelenting storm passed over Johannesburg. Some people said this was lucky and that the gods were welcoming Madiba. He would have thought that was nonsense. The rain further complicated an already difficult and chaotic situation. Someone recently said that Madiba didn’t like too much of a fuss being made over him and that the rain was probably his way of ensuring that not too much of a fuss was being made.
We were sent from pillar to post between suites. Up and down we walked with the elderly Advocate Bizos. At one point I tried to assist Archbishop Tutu, Kofi Annan and the Elders as they were manhandled by police at one of the doors to a suite. It felt so disrespectful to me.
When Bono, Sol Kerzner, Charlize Theron and Douw Steyn’s wife and children arrived they were also blocked access to any of the suites. A protocol officer literally chased them away and directed them to ‘any open suite’ along a long corridor. I escorted them and simply took them to the closest empty suite, where there was no catering and only orange plastic chairs to sit on. At least they had privacy there. What made it worse was that the suite was situated behind a screen to the back of the stage where they could hardly see anything. I told them that I would return to fetch them once I had made arrangements for them to enter somewhere more dignified but that they needed to stay in the suite for now as I did not want them to be manhandled by police or protocol people. The only words that repeated in my mind were: ‘to honour Madiba, you have to honour his relationships’. If it was the last thing I would do for him, I would try to honour the relationships he had nurtured.
After fighting, more crying, yelling and losing my temper, Jessie Duarte, the Deputy Chair of the ANC, came to my rescue. I had told her what had happened and she entered the argument with the protocol officials and police at the door to the Ministerial suite to allow Madiba’s friends access to a decent suite. She shared my frustration and thought it was unacceptable that people were treated with such disdain. She allocated a protocol person and one of our friends went off to fetch them.
Madiba detested events where endless speeches were made. He detested people singing his praises for hours and hours. He argued that once someone has said something good about you, it was enough. It was hardly the celebration of his life we had hoped for. It was not a public holiday and the 90,000-capacity stadium was not even half-full. It was embarrassing. People had to take time off from work to attend the memorial, and being right before the Christmas holidays many probably simply could not take leave to attend the memorial service.
Josina and Malenga Machel, Mrs Machel’s two children and Madiba’s two stepchildren, had not been catered for either. They were with us, and the rest of the Machel family, in the Ministerial suite. Halfway through the programme someone came to announce to them that there was provision for them on the field with the rest of the family, but we stopped them from humiliating themselves and walking onto the field as an ‘afterthought’. Madiba had spent more time with these two young people than with many of his own blood. They made him smile, yet they were treated with what struck me as the utmost disrespect.
President Clinton called me to the Presidential suite because he, Secretary Hillary and Chelsea wanted to greet me. JD, the President’s PA, fetched me and when I saw them I nearly collapsed. It was like seeing your parents and family. I have spent many hours with them over the past nineteen years and they had appreciation for how much I loved Madiba and I knew how much he loved them. They shared the pain we were all feeling. They really deeply loved him, over and above professional admiration. Seeing them made me realize that the loss was theirs too. It was irrelevant how much time you spent with Madiba. Your relationship with him depended on how you felt about him in your heart, and the Clintons understood that.
President Obama had what we described as a Martin Luther King moment and delivered a speech that will go down in history as one of his best. Too many speeches were made though, and it was not the celebration of Madiba’s life we had hoped for. It took hours and hours for the speeches to be completed, with very little singing and dancing or musical items – something Madiba would have preferred. It just exposed how badly some people really knew Madiba that they could get it so wrong.
Very embarrassingly, President Zuma was booed by his own compatriots every time his name was mentioned or his face appeared on one of the big screens in the stadium. I was not in the least surprised. It was the same disrespect towards the President that Jacob Zuma had not condemned during his rape trial some years before, when ill-disciplined ANC youth started burning t-shirts emblazoned with the face of the then President Thabo Mbeki, that now manifested itself in a different time and in a different form. It was like a relationship in which abuse occurs. Once you allow it to happen you can never go back over the line that was crossed. It was allowed back then, so why would it not be allowed now? I was embarrassed not only for President Zuma but for South Africa as a whole.
* * *
On Tuesday night after the memorial we went to the Houghton house to see Mrs Machel, and President Clinton and his family departed South Africa soon after that. Sol Kerzner, one of the people who always brought a smile to Madiba’s face, also left, and the astute businessman had a sadness in his eyes too. Even if Sol or the Clintons hadn’t called, I sometimes in the last years told Madiba that they had, and it always brought about a smile whenever I saw that Madiba’s mood needed a lift. They visited as often as they could and whenever their business brought them to South Africa, and President Clinton, without fail, always made sure that he combined his other visits to Africa with a visit to South Africa over Madiba’s birthday period.
Before I went to sleep I tried to make arrangements for Bono, Naomi Campbell and the Steyn family to go and pay their respects at the Union Buildings the next morning, where Madiba was lying in state. Madiba liked Bono as he used his profile as a celebrity to support good causes. In turn we could always call on Bono to perform at concerts and events to benefit Madiba’s charities, without charging an appearance fee or travel expenses. Naomi was the first celebrity to support the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund publicly, and she got christened the first of Madiba’s honorary granddaughters. And after Madiba left his Soweto house on his separation from Winnie Madikizela Mandela, the Steyn family housed Madiba for six months and he completed the writing of Long Walk to Freedom in their house and where the interim constitution was prepared by the ANC. They entertained Madiba’s friends and comrades and provided a space for him to spend time with his son Makgatho’s children. These people all deserved their rightful place in Madiba’s life and now they had not been catered for to pay their last respects at the Union Buildings while Madiba was lying in state.
Bridgette Radebe, the wife of our Minister of Justice Jeff Radebe, offered to come round to the Saxon Hotel to help us get to the Union Buildings the next morning. Roads were all cordoned off and unless your car was accredited you were expected to go and stand in a queue for hours to take public transport to the Union Buildings. At 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning Bridgette called to say that Jeff would be there at 8 a.m. I waited until 7 a.m. and then asked George, the manager at the Saxon, to wake Naomi, Bono and the Steyns. At 8 a.m. Bridgette called to say that Jeff had been called to another ceremony and that he would not be able to help us. Panic struck again. How was I supposed to get these people to the Union Buildings? Surely the government couldn’t expect these VIPs to go and stand in a queue for five or six hours with the public to pay their last respects to Madiba?
I felt impotent. I had always been able to fix things, to open doors, but one by one they were closing. It didn’t help to contemplate how this would have angered Madiba. You simply square up and deal with it and find another way around.
While I was having a telephone conversation at the Saxon, former President F. W. de Klerk, who was also staying at the hotel, overheard me. Mr de Klerk was the President in 1990 when Madiba was released from prison. Madiba liked him and spoke of him with great respect and I shared that respect. After I finished the call he said: ‘Zelda, speak to Norman, my security, and see if you can work out something with him to help you.’ And at 9.15 we all left in convoy with former President de Klerk and his wife Elita. The irony in this was just too much for me. Here the man who represented apartheid to so many was, in a way, rescuing Madiba once again. It was just too much to handle and it is something I so badly wanted to tell Madiba about. It wouldn’t have surprised him though that Mr de Klerk came to our rescue. He truly believed that despite their political differences from time to time, Mr de Klerk was a reasonable and good human being.
Arriving at the Presidential guest house, the celebrities were allowed in but I was shut out together with the Steyns. When Minister Jeff Radebe and wife Bridgette arrived they had to escort me inside and I had to figure out a plan to get the Steyns inside. Eventually we managed to get all our guests transported to the Union Buildings where Madiba was lying in state.
As we walked down the steps of the Union Buildings a calmness came over me. I had to be ready to say goodbye to Madiba. I had to get the words right in my head. I didn’t plan to say anything out loud but he would hear me. He always knew what I thought before I could even say it. And when I sometimes told him something or raised something with him he would say, ‘You know, Zeldina, it’s strange that you mention it, I was just thinking about that now.’ It won’t be different this time, I decided.
A few steps from the coffin I realized that it was going to be too difficult. I hadn’t seen him in a few months. I had already started missing him. Naomi was walking behind me and she then froze. She was scared and again tears streamed from my eyes. I was hysterical and as much as I wanted to help her, I couldn’t help myself. I was holding on to Bridgette Radebe’s hand but she then let me go and took Naomi’s hand. I wanted her to help Naomi too. The next moment Olivia Machel, Samora Machel’s daughter and Mrs Machel’s stepdaughter, took my left hand and Bono took my right hand with his wife Ali on the other side and it was our turn to approach the coffin.
I was as composed as I could be until my eyes met those of Mandla Mandela, Madiba’s grandson, standing guard next to his grandfather’s coffin. My heart shattered. A physical pain I cannot describe to anyone but I am sure has been felt by many people. I so badly wanted to walk to Mandla to give him a hug but I couldn’t. Mandla was like my little brother.
Bono and Olivia led me to the coffin and there was Madiba. Lifeless. Dead. Cold. Khulu was gone. The first thing I noticed was the scar on the side of his neck where they obviously inserted a tube. Probably a tube from the many that had given him life the last six months. Now there was nothing, nothing left but the scar. The hole was closed but when you work with someone for so long you eventually even know each other’s scars. I knew every little mark on his face and this one in his neck was new. Then I noticed that he was a dark grey colour and next I noticed that his chest was completely flat. As flat as the top of a table. It upset me to see him like that but I knew that I only had a minute to say goodbye. Bono took charge and said a prayer, and although it was beautiful I couldn’t breathe and suppress my gasping. He thanked God for blessing us with Madiba and asked Him to be with Madiba and with us while we put sense to life after Madiba. Bono led us away and I felt like turning around and running back. I still wanted to say, something. We always have something more to say, don’t we? But life has taught me that we will often more regret the things we didn’t say than the things we said and I had made sure in the last few years that I told Madiba how much I loved him and appreciated him. I never wanted to regret not saying it, and walking away I knew that it was the one thing he knew about me as he was lying there.
Bono and Olivia held my hands and I cannot remember climbing the stairs up the Union Buildings, probably doing so for the last time. On the journey back to the Presidential guest house, no one said a word. By now I had stopped trying to control my tears, they were just cascading from my eyes. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I wanted to be alone, by myself, but I had others to think about.
Back at the Saxon we had lunch and I was very sad to let Bono and his wife Ali go. I have also become close to their staff over the years and they have become close friends. They have all become somewhat of a spiritual pillar and Bono is a bit of a preacher man. He has a very deep understanding of life and throughout Madiba’s prolonged illness he often sent messages of encouragement, never asking for anything or for information but sending a string of beautiful words. I remembered the saying ‘we’re all just here walking each other home’, and it calmed me a little; I was exhausted from the tension and emotions of the day. In a way I also felt that Madiba’s friends were all a special breed of people. He attracted a certain kind of person and I know it would have pleased him that they were there looking out for me. ‘That’s good, Zeldina,’ he would say.
* * *
The ad hoc lack of planning continued and I had to make a decision on how to survive the next few days. There had been brief moments of breaking down but there hadn’t been time to sit and think, to internalize the reality of Madiba’s passing. I did not have time to think about myself or fully come to terms with the event. Also, not having seen Madiba for a couple of months made it almost unbelievable to think he was really gone. I’d got used to the fact that he was home, and waking up every morning with the first thought crossing my mind that he was critically ill. You never knew how any day would end but you never expect the end either.
My challenge now was to get Alfre Woodard, Oprah, Gayle King, Stedman Graham, Forest Whitaker and Richard Branson accredited for the funeral in Qunu. It was planned at Madiba’s home village for Sunday 15 December 2013. They had all travelled from the US to be there but I was not sure whether we would succeed in getting them accredited. They were below the status of heads of state yet they were above a ministerial level. There was no level catering for their needs. They had to be treated like the public, with the rest of the masses. I would not have any of that. The bizarre and unnecessary difficulties of an event that had been planned for eight years continued.
Arriving at Madiba’s house to deliver something to Mrs Machel I was told by the uniformed police on duty that I could not enter the premises as my accreditation to the house had expired. It was not a person I had seen before and she refused me access. However, next to her one of Madiba’s bodyguards was seated. He didn’t try to help and kept quiet. I went into the guard house and tried to call the kitchen staff to ask them to verify that I was expected at the house. I couldn’t get through on the phone. I asked the bodyguard how long he had worked for Madiba and he responded eight years. I told him that I was called to the house by Mum and asked whether he did not think his behaviour by not helping me to get in was unacceptable. He responded by saying he was not on duty and simply keeping the lady in uniform company. My last response to him was: ‘How do you think Madiba would react if he heard you now? Having served him, you should know. I don’t have to answer for you. You really ought to be proud of yourself.’ I called Mum on her cellphone, of course again in tears, and she sent her bodyguards to come and collect me at the gate.
Arriving in the house I was told that I needed photo accreditation. I went to the room in the back of the garden where accreditation was done by state protocol officials and told them that Mrs Machel, as she had, had asked me to come for accreditation. They refused to accredit me and said my name was not on the list and that Makaziwe and Ndileka were the only ones that could give permission for me to be accredited. I left and went to Mrs Machel again to tell her that I was leaving and would not be staying for the prayer service she’d invited me to. I was disgusted that it was left to the mourning widow to intervene to get us accredited. She instructed Makaziwe’s husband, Isaac, to accompany me to the room again to try to get me accredited. Despite him telling them that he was Makaziwe’s husband and then saying that it was a ‘special request from Mrs Machel’ they refused. It was only after a long argument that they agreed. I thought it somewhat strange that Isaac put this to them as a special request from Mrs Machel.
I went to greet Mrs Machel and left. She wanted me to stay for the prayer service but I was too upset. I assured her that I would be around if she needed any assistance. She still relied on me for some of the administrative issues that I had performed while Madiba was alive: paying accounts or making transfers as instructed by them. I think the irony of it all intensified my own emotional feelings. The family was fast to call me to ask whether a transfer to them had been made, but felt that I wasn’t good enough to be treated like a human being or afforded just the courtesy of a basic greeting when they passed me, let alone accredited with just a little dignity.
I still had the Oprah/Branson/Whitaker obstacle of accreditation to overcome and left the house.
The next few hours were spent on doing exactly that. I emailed everyone, called, sent text messages to people to ask them to accommodate Madiba’s friends, and the same state protocol people told even the Director General of the Presidency that they did not take instructions from him. It appeared that some sections of government were at loggerheads with other members of government. I felt that it was nothing about honouring Madiba or giving him the dignity he deserved but all about asserting power and settling scores. But on the other hand, no one really knew who was in charge. One couldn’t help but wonder whether it was just eight years of bad planning, wasting money on foreign travel to consult with other countries about events of this magnitude, or whether it was a deliberate attempt to exclude from Madiba’s funeral people who were not aligned with the right people. Surely if you have eight years to plan, you get it right. It was distasteful to listen to and it deeply pained me that people who loved Madiba dearly were to be treated like that. They insisted that Oprah and others came to the accreditation room at the Houghton house to be accredited. I communicated this to everyone.
Sadly I heard that the accreditation was only done after Oprah, Forest, Gayle and others had had to pose for countless photos with the protocol people. It was revolting. I could not imagine that Madiba would have agreed to this type of treatment of his friends. I would never, ever, have subjected Madiba to this kind of treatment, yet here his friends were expected to pose for photos with fans in order to smooth their way through accreditation. In nineteen years of serving Madiba I had never, not once, asked any of his guests for photos with them. I had never asked Madiba to take a photo with me. Photos were taken in the course of working with him or he would sometimes ask me to join him when a picture with guests was taken and only on a few occasions some of his friends asked that I be included in a photo. But that was precisely one of the reasons why I lasted with him for so long. I never allowed familiarity or opportunity for photographs to distract from how he wanted me to behave. At one point he asked whether it was the case that I didn’t want to have my photograph taken with him and I laughed it off and had to assure him that was not the case. This behaviour by them now was totally unacceptable to me.
I eventually arrived in the Eastern Cape on the Friday, together with Josina, some of her family and friends, via the private plane organized by Faizal and Malaika Motlekar. When we landed in Umtata I noticed how lush and green the hills were. It had been raining heavily and still continued to rain, which is something that would have really pleased Madiba and I so wish he could have seen it. He was happy when the soils of his soul were adequately watered and became fertile for grazing and farming. In an interview with Robyn Curnow from CNN, one of his grandsons told the story of how he and Madiba were sitting in the living room of his Qunu house and Madiba urged Mbuso, his young grandson, to go and run naked in the rain. Madiba said that’s what he used to do when he was young. He loved life unconditionally despite what life handed him time and time again. Just imagine eighty years ago – a young Nelson Mandela frolicking in these same hills. Naked, unencumbered by the past and unknowing about his future. Perhaps the rain was a fitting way for him to come home.
Driving from the airport I was reminded how I made him smile whenever we were in Qunu and I greeted him by his circumcision name: ‘Ahhh Dalibhunga!’ The Afrikaans girl was greeting him in his Xhosa name; he was entertained by that and it usually brought about the biggest smile on his face.
We passed a few cattle and I reminisced about his adoration for his cattle. We used to drive on his farm, going out to see the cows and bulls and secretly I think he would have loved to have been a big cattle farmer. He often told me that a man’s wealth in their tradition was measured by the number of cattle he had. He had between thirty and sixty cattle at any given point and I would respond: ‘Oh Khulu so you are very rich!’ and he would laugh.
His easy accessibility, his natural affinity with people was what I remembered. My main role during my years with him was to be his protector – the shield – the person who had to protect him from being smothered with love by others. His openness seemed at odds with the closed nature of the funeral arrangements. It confused me, it saddened me and it even embarrassed me.
The world’s media had descended on Qunu. I was reminded how fond Madiba was of journalists and seeing them made me think that he would really be impressed to see so many of them in Qunu and how boastful he would be about his little village to them. He used to call them often, whenever a journalist wrote an article about him that was critical in nature. He would invite them to a meal and at first they assumed they were in trouble for being critical of him. But they soon learned after arrival at his house for a meal that he merely wanted to engage with them to get an understanding of their criticism. The journalists would often leave not having changed their minds, but Madiba didn’t attempt to change their minds. He would have an informed opinion after having engaged with them, and even though he occasionally changed an opinion by offering correct information, they never parted feeling hostile. Seeing so many familiar faces in Qunu made me think of many such occasions and how he courted them with his charm. He loved sharing information with the media and appreciated the fact that they had a job to do. This set-up was so different – the media being kept away and information withheld as a show of where power resided.
* * *
On Sunday we woke up at 4 a.m. to get ready for the funeral. I tried to manoeuvre a plan to get George Bizos to the house so that he didn’t have to get into a bus. He is old and struggles to walk. He is frail. Ironically again, one of Madiba’s ex-bodyguards, Piet Erwee, helped us to get him there, fighting us through the roadblocks and police checkpoints, without any accreditation himself but paying his last dues to Madiba. Piet was employed by Rory Steyn, his ex-police commander and one of Madiba’s close confidant bodyguards from his Presidential days. Rory now has a very successful security company and his story is another of how you become successful as long as you serve your passion in life.
Arriving in Qunu it was only proper that George Bizos would go to the house and greet the family. We entered through the kitchen door as they locked the front door and refused us access. Makaziwe’s daughter was standing on the inside shouting that the door would not be opened for anyone no matter who. I led Advocate Bizos and his son through the kitchen door at the back and through the dining room. Makaziwe passed and barely greeted us. As Madiba became more frail it was clear that they didn’t approve of his choices. Not in staff and not in friends. And such was George Bizos. Makaziwe had challenged his appointment as trustee to one of Madiba’s trusts earlier in the year and a public mud-slinging followed in which Makaziwe’s daughter insulted and belittled Advocate Bizos. None of us were welcomed in the house.
We greeted her in a civilized manner and she walked into the kitchen. In the kitchen I could see her making a determined turn around and she stormed back into the dining room. ‘Zelda we don’t want you people here. Now that Uncle George is here, he can stay but we don’t want you people here.’ I responded by saying: ‘I am happy to oblige Makaziwe if someone could just give us direction of what to do with people like Uncle George.’ She repeated her instructions: ‘We don’t want you people in the house.’ Isaac was watching and I turned around and left. Uncle George and his son walked past her and went into the lounge where others gathered.
Shortly after us Tokyo Sexwale, an ex-colleague of Madiba’s from Robben Island who had served in Madiba’s government, arrived and he was also shown the door. Tokyo’s appointment by Madiba as trustee on the same trust that George Bizos served was also questioned by Makaziwe; he too was aligned with the wrong side of the family. These people were appointed by Madiba to serve on his trusts for a very good reason. When he became ill and unable to speak for himself the family started challenging his decisions and it was clear that once he was gone, they were going to do that on all fronts. It was also clear that if you were friends or aligned with anyone outside Makaziwe or Ndileka’s camp you were not welcome in the house. I was not the only one to be chased out.
I found it difficult and emotionally challenging to reconcile his last years and what we had experienced for sixteen-odd years with what was happening now. To say it was in complete contrast would be putting it mildly.
Qunu is a valley-like community sunk between the majestic mountains in the Eastern Cape. Madiba’s farm itself is small but in comparison to that of his neighbours quite lavish. Although the house he and Mrs Machel built in the early 2000s is in stark contrast to the living standards of the surrounding area it is modest in comparison to those of people of similar or close stature. The huge dome erected for his funeral first shocked me. It wasn’t just a big tent but a dome, probably the size of a small aircraft hanger. I heard that the dome had been stored away for years to have it ready when the ‘life event’ occurred. It had been bought from Germany, I learned, and thought that it was probably only Madiba’s funeral that could get away with something like that being bought from Europe; the unions would have argued that it could have been a perfect job-creation opportunity to have it made in South Africa. Many years ago we had bought t-shirts in bulk from the East for one of Madiba’s campaigns and got a good lashing from the media and public for not supporting the South African textile industry. I guess the funeral was different. From the house to the dome was probably a good 1.5 km. The road that connected the house to the dome was a simple gravel road. To take either the front road or the back road towards the dome one got a pretty good sense of the size of the property and you saw the cows Madiba was so proud of.
I started making my way up to the dome where the funeral was to take place and simply kept Madiba in my thoughts and heart. He would not have approved of the fact that I had been asked to leave the house. He would not have approved of the ostentatiousness of this huge dome on his farm. A few years ago when he was able to take decisions and voice them himself he insisted I be in the house with them for the final ceremony when Makgatho passed away. Now I was being excluded because he could no longer insist on my presence. On occasion Madiba chased people out of the house, as recently as in December 2009 and regardless that I joined in trying to convince him to be more lenient to them; his voice had been silenced.
In these trying times, I had to remember some of Madiba’s greatest lessons . . . my relationship was with him and no one can ever remove that from me. People die, relationships don’t die and my relationship with Madiba will never die.
Arriving at the dome – where more people were gathering, shepherded in buses from Umtata, almost an hour’s drive away – I heard that Oprah’s bus had not been allowed onto the premises. We had had great difficulty obtaining landing rights for her plane in Umtata as only heads of state’s planes were allowed to land there. It was understandable – until I heard that exceptions had been made already for other planes to land there too. The bus she took from the Umtata airport was not accredited to enter the farm and she was offloaded at the main house. She had to walk up to the dome on the dusty roads, past the cows. Rory, Madiba’s ex-bodyguard, managed to get a minister’s car to transport her and her delegation the rest of the way to the dome. She had visited Qunu twice before and the last time she joined us and hosted a Christmas children’s party for more than 25,000 children in the village and surrounding area. Madiba had also asked her to build a school once, as part of his school-building project, and she established the Oprah Winfrey Academy close to Johannesburg. One of a kind in private schools in South Africa. Madiba had great appreciation for her and her support for underprivileged children in South Africa. He was also entertained by her wealth and repeatedly told people about her generosity to buy all the attendees at her show cars. He would end the sentence with: ‘can you imagine that?’
While Oprah, Stedman, Forest and Gayle were making their way to the dome, I tried to find seats for Advocate Bizos, Richard Branson and others. Whenever someone arrived at the door that I knew I ushered them to an area where Bridgette Radebe and her brother Patrice kept open seats for Madiba’s friends.
Mum was still in the main house, getting ready to accompany Madiba up to the dome and his final resting place. I could see on footage the day before that she was brutally exhausted. They were preparing Madiba for his final journey up the hill on his beloved farm in Qunu.
Once I had managed to seat all the guests I felt responsible for I couldn’t find a seat myself, unless I was prepared to go and sit among the military people who were part of the proceedings. I was too ashamed because I was so emotional so I left and found a spot on the grass outside to sit close to Robyn Curnow, my friend who was reporting for CNN from inside the premises. From there I could hear the proceedings on a SABC speaker and see visuals on a close-by screen attached to the back of a satellite truck. The hearse arrived – with Madiba’s coffin on the back of a gun carriage, draped in the South African flag. There was more irony. I was outside and even though I felt shut out, there were very few people left outside and it strangely provided another almost personal opportunity to say goodbye. When the military procession moved past, I couldn’t breathe from the sobbing. At first I saw Mandla in the front of the military vehicle, still guarding his grandfather, and after Madiba passed Mum’s car followed and I could see her through the window. I so badly wanted to hold her to give her comfort, but also for her to hold me. Madiba was afforded full military honours for his funeral, which meant that all or any ceremony and protocol from the military applied to his burial.
A furore about Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s attendance at the funeral played off in the media 48 hours before the event. He was shunned as no proper arrangements were communicated to him. When he arrived at the dome with Trevor Manuel I could see his own pain and sadness. I hugged him for as long as time allowed. I wanted to console him but I also wanted consolation from him. Madiba was so fond of him.
A stranger, a black man, saw me shivering from pain and walked up to me, put his arms around me and said ‘Zelda don’t worry sisi [sister], it will get better.’ I felt like collapsing in his arms but I knew that I had to compose myself and thanked him with a hug. Weeks after I tried to recall this man’s face, tried to remember who it was and whether I could trace him again. I wanted to thank him again for doing that. It wasn’t just a hug and trying to console me. He genuinely cared. It touched my inner core when strangers, black people reached out to me in this way. How far we had come!
The service started and the stage was beautifully decorated with ninety-five big candles, one for each of Madiba’s years. I should have been able to just pay my respects and pray. But I was worried about admin again – and particularly about how we would get Oprah and her delegation back to the house. Rich and famous and people I’ve never seen or heard of in nineteen years were given accreditation to the burial site. Only 400 of the 4,000 guests were accredited to go to the burial site. I was shown what the accreditation cards looked like but I was not given one.
Ahmed Kathrada, Madiba’s long-time friend from prison, delivered the most moving speech during the ceremony. He paid tribute to Madiba and said Madiba had joined the ANC A-team in heaven. He was so emotional and it was sad to see him like that. Kathy, as we fondly refer to him, had been friends with Madiba since before his imprisonment. They spent eighteen years together on Robben Island in addition to the time in Pollsmoor after being moved from the island.
Soon the ceremony was over – speech after speech. Some of the speakers were touching while others wanted to make sure they basked for the last time in Madiba’s bright light. The only thing that really reminded me of Madiba was the song sung by children. ‘Rolihlahla Mandela’ is a song written to Madiba, and Mrs Machel asked Mbongeni Ngema, a prominent South African artist, to record the song with children the week prior to the funeral. Madiba’s infectious smile was vivid in my mind when I heard it. I could so well imagine his liveliness at the sound of these voices. But that was all gone now. This and the 95 candles in the dome depicting Madiba’s life were the only requests from Madiba’s widow that were adhered to.
While waiting for the proceedings to come to an end I read the obituary in great detail. None of the Mandela legacy institutions that Madiba personally created were mentioned in any obituary, tribute or vote of thanks. As if they never existed.
People started making their way to the burial site. People walked past me, many of Madiba’s friends and of course all the family. Some of Madiba’s friends asked whether I was not going to the site and I told them that I had not been accredited. Some of Madiba’s friends wanted me to put up a fight to get access. I knew that I had said my goodbyes. My relationship with Madiba was not defined by whether I stood next to his grave or not. It was way, way more than that. Rory Steyn, who was looking after Oprah during the funeral, joined me and Robyn outside. Robyn, Rory and I, three white South Africans whose lives had been changed by Madiba’s leadership and personal love, stood together and watched the proceedings on the screen. My relationship with Madiba was not about being at his side at key moments in his life. It was defined in the ordinary moments I spent with him. Rory, Robyn and I held each other and knew this was a moment in history where we were on the frontlines. Saying goodbye in person to a great man in our respective ways, our Khulu, our Tata and our Madiba.
We were standing watching the proceedings on the screen and when the twenty-one-gun salutes were fired it sounded like a barrage of tears into the sky. And the fly-past, helicopters with South African flags flying in unison, low over the hills of Qunu, followed by the fighter jets. The sound of those machines shuddered through my body. It finally sank in. It was over. I burst into loud tears, sobbing on Robyn’s shoulder while Rory was holding both of us, consoling us while we shivered from pain. The tears cascaded down my face again. Robyn was not on air at the time and she was just being my friend, but unknown to both of us, her microphone was still connected live. My gasping sobs were heard on CNN across the world as pictures of his last journey were aired. Robyn says the studio in Atlanta shouted in her earpiece, ‘The microphone is hot!’ She knew my tearful breakdown had been broadcast to millions of people. I didn’t. At the same time she felt the dilemma of letting me go. She knew she couldn’t let go of me and held on even tighter, consoling me. A few minutes later she stepped back to the camera and described the scene around her and mentioned the powerful sense of departure and sadness, her eyes clearly red from crying with us. She described how I, Madiba’s longtime assistant, had burst into tears, explaining to all those listening who had been the person crying. It was only two weeks later that she told me what had happened and what she had reported. I didn’t feel betrayed. I needed my two friends Rory and Robyn to hold my heart together from falling apart. I felt I wanted to share my pain with the world and unknown to me I had, but at the same time I have never felt so lonely. I was haunted by loss and the emptiness made me convulse.
They were still busy at the gravesite when I started making my way back to Madiba’s house. I had to get home. First to the hotel and then I was determined to get back to Johannesburg as fast as possible. I couldn’t take any more and I needed to be home, alone with my dogs. I’d walked halfway down to the house when one of Madiba’s bodyguards, Sam, gave me lift in a golf cart. I cannot imagine what I looked like but as we drove past familiar faces, people who had served Madiba in different capacities noticed me on the back of the cart, stopped the cart and had a few words. I felt like a bag of washed out clothes. I had no energy left in my body and I no longer controlled any of my emotions. Old ANC colleagues of Madiba’s who were all sidelined or withheld from going to the burial site stopped me to chat. I was tempted to go into the house to have a last look at the empty yellow chair in Madiba’s lounge but I was rushing to find transport and decided that today was not a good day to expose myself to more sorrow. I knew I would be back soon.
By the time I left, I had managed to arrange transport for Oprah and her delegation from the dome back to the house where they would find their bus. Richard Branson was sorted and I left transport behind for Advocate Bizos. There was nothing else I could fix. I had made sure everyone was OK and it was time to let go. I left for the hotel and got into bed with my funeral clothes still on. I was depleted in every possible way. I slept for two hours and when I woke I learned that my dearest colleague, Yase, had managed to change my flight to enable me to return to Johannesburg the same night. He just grasped that I wanted silence and solitude and pulled out all stops to change my flight. And so I drove the 260 km in rain to East London where I got the plane back to Johannesburg. I got home after 1 a.m. and it took me some time to fall asleep.
* * *
The next few days were spent on paying accounts. The funeral was merely ten days before Christmas and suppliers had to pay staff before the holidays.
I had the rest of my root canal work done, attended Douw Steyn’s sixty-first birthday dinner, which was somewhat of a sombre affair as he was also ill at the time, and had some other physical problems attended to that manifested themselves as a result of all the stress of the previous week. In June I thought I had sustained an injury during a gym session at around the same time Madiba was hospitalized. I constantly had a pain in my hip and sometimes it crossed over down into my knee. No matter how I stretched or how many painkillers I took, I couldn’t get rid of the pain. On 19 December I woke up in the morning thinking that I had become paralysed. Both my legs were numb. I could feel the same pain in my hip as before but my upper legs were both numb. I called a physio friend back from holiday to help me as I was desperate. After much treatment she managed to get rid of all the spasms I had been walking around with since June. As was the case over the years, whenever Madiba suffered physical distress, the stress and worry that caused me also manifested itself physically in my body.
Finally on Friday, 20 December I made my way back to Umtata. I wanted to go and say my last goodbye and pay my respects at Madiba’s gravesite. In the days prior to this trip I had wondered much about the meaning of life, about mortality, and even though we did not discuss it much, as he considered it a very personal matter, what Madiba really believed about life and death. We tried to shelter Mrs Machel from as much as possible over the preceding two weeks but she knew I hadn’t been there when he was buried. I was not the only one who wasn’t allowed at the burial. Meme, the housekeeper, and Betty, one of the household assistants, had also been pulled out of a row and were prevented from going to the grave, or even being in the foyer of Madiba’s house when the casket Arrived from Johannesburg, yet they too had been loyally serving him for years.
The hills of Qunu were back to the slow pace of life. The dome had been removed and sprinklers watered the newly planted grass where the dome was previously erected. The cows and goats were roaming freely as before, unaffected by the change in life. I went straight to the farm to greet Mrs Machel. This would be the first time I had seen her since the Thursday before the burial.
I wanted to know specifics from her about his burial. Did he go in one of his favourite shirts? She said he didn’t. It wasn’t one of his favourites. He went with some of his personal items, some of the few things that were so dear to him. I asked about his walking stick. An ivory stick he got from Douw Steyn made from the tusks of a bull elephant that had died on Douw’s farm Shambala, where Douw had built a house for Madiba to use to write the sequel of Long Walk to Freedom. Sadly but not surprisingly I was told that the stick had not been found. I took time with Mum talking about the stick, tracking its journey to the house in Qunu and then to Houghton where we last saw it. Neither of us had the energy or the emotional strength to start looking for the stick and I put her mind to rest that the stick will eventually one day surface, and hopefully one of us will still be alive. Or someone will read this and discover it perhaps. It is clearly marked ‘To Madiba, from Douw Steyn’ and one of its kind. A solid white ivory walking stick. Madiba should have left with it.
Driving back after 10 p.m. from Qunu to Umtata that night, the most beautiful moon rose over the hills of Umtata. The brightest orange moon I had ever seen. It dawned upon me that here this white Afrikaner girl was driving from Qunu to Umtata all by herself. Madiba would have insisted that security accompany me, being concerned for my safety. Thinking about that made me smile. But I kept my eye on the moon and realized that he had removed all fear from me. I had finally grown up. Almost twenty years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of driving this road by myself at night. But the Transkei, as it was formerly known, gets under your skin. The place becomes part of you. I was fearful of so much twenty years ago – of life, of black people, of this black man and the future of South Africa – and now I was no longer persuaded or influenced by mainstream thinking or fears. I was my own person. Madiba had given me peace and freedom too. He had freed me from the shackles of my own fears. He not only liberated the black man but the white man too. I felt light, free and thankful that my teacher was Nelson Mandela. As much as I grieved for him, I had gained so much and I spoke to him in the car on my way back to Umtata, keeping my eye on the bright moon.
We ended up going to the grave on Sunday morning. We were scheduled to leave around midday. Shortly after 8 a.m. Mum, Josina, Meme, Betty and a few other workers, security and I drove up to the burial site. We had ordered fresh flowers the previous day and we started cleaning the graves of Madiba and his three children. We were quiet and the mood was solemn. The tombstones all had the family crest on them, that which had become familiar to me through its appearance on the House of Mandela wines. We removed the old flowers, bunches of white flowers that had been laid on his coffin and placed around the tombstone, orchids and roses. Now scattered in the wind and damaged by the sun. We replaced the flowers with fresh ones, after which Mum called us together and she asked Meme to pray. Meme said a beautiful prayer and I was shuddering as we were holding hands during it. Meme prayed in Sotho as well, during which my thoughts went off to Afrikaans prayers and my mind wandered, trying to send a message to Madiba. I thanked him again and told him like so many other times how much I appreciated him but that, most importantly, he should remember that I love him.
* * *
Shortly after noon it was wheels up from the Umtata airport. It was the longest fifty-five-minute flight from Umtata to Johannesburg of our lives. It was all over. Final. And the next chapter would be harder. I knew that a battle was brewing over the will and Madiba’s estate and control over his legacy. It was like they say, a sign of the times. I knew that it was also time for me to start moving away. My duty was done. The last days and months reminded me of the story of Tolstoy. Ironically there were a lot of similarities to the life of that great Russian writer whose work Madiba also loved so much. How crowds gathered before his death, but also the contest for control over his legacy and his estate.
I was seated closest to the door in the small aircraft, facing the back of the plane. It was much better and more convenient than a commercial plane but we all felt somehow exposed, naked, as there was nowhere to hide our emotions. I could feel Mum’s pain as I watched her breaking down in tears when our plane slowly made its way through the thick clouds. And eventually we all just broke down, crying in our seats. Me, Mum, Josina, Celina – Mrs Machel’s sister-in-law – Betty and Cordier the bodyguard. No one spoke during the flight.
Mum is normally so stoic, so strong. But breaking through the clouds, flying away from him, leaving him alone we all shared a sense of abandoning him, deserting him. The only thing we never wanted him to feel and the one thing I promised him I would never do. But what do we do now? He is home and heroes never die. He will be present in those beautiful hills for ever and I now know he will be even more powerful in death than he was in life.
His image, his legacy must be protected.
I don’t know what I will do for the rest of my life. His prolonged illness had forced me to grow up. It has taught me some of the most valuable lessons of life and showed me what not to expect of people. Madiba did not only unify a country once again even through his illness and in death, but he taught us more than we ever bargained for. I will allow life to take its course with me and I now know that I will always be at the place where I am supposed to be at any given point in time. I have no plans other than annually honouring him through Bikers for Mandela Day. Maybe I will find another job and perhaps I will find a man to spend time with, one who knows and will respect that a piece of my heart has already been taken . . . given to an old black man who was once my people’s enemy and is now lying, like an ancient King, deep in the soil of South Africa’s golden hills of Qunu.
We will see him in every sunset and every sunrise. We must keep looking for him. He will look after us if we remember his lessons.
And slowly we climbed above the clouds, reaching the sunshine and the warm light of the African sun shining through the windows of the plane, eventually heating up our faces and drying away the tears. Whatever happens now, I know we did our best.
Tot weersiens Khulu! Until we meet again.
To be continued . . .