Going to the Mountain Page 9

  “In that day,” Grandma Evelyn used to read from the Old Testament, “the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

  This passage paints a beautiful picture of a peaceful world, but it doesn’t come with an instruction manual. Madiba provided a blueprint. He established a new paradigm for forgiveness that could only be explained as a gift from God, but I see now that the gift wasn’t some saintly ability to forgive and forget. God’s gift to Madiba was the wisdom to understand forgiveness as part of a leadership strategy. As an economic principle. As a key component to reconciliation, which is the only true way forward for any society or any family. Another key component is justice, and you can’t find that looking back, only looking forward.

  Under the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994, the government bought land from white owners and restored it to black people who’d farmed it for generations before apartheid. In 1998, Madiba went to KwaZulu-Natal for a ceremony where eighty-five black families received 600,000 hectares. He said, “Our land reform program helps redress the injustices of apartheid. It fosters national reconciliation and stability.” Meanwhile, the president of Zimbabwe had just laid down notice that white owners were going to be sent packing without compensation. His vibe was, “I’m not going to buy my own Rolex from the pickpocket who stole it.” Some people thought Madiba should get rough and expel the whites, but he pushed for patience and peace. Twenty years on, both are getting hard to maintain. There is a compassionate, equitable way to structure land redistribution, and when we find that working business model, we will have found the key to forging peace and equality on a global scale, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  In 2018, World Bank’s Gini Index, a standard tool that measures economic inequality, ranked South Africa dead last of 149 countries studied. Dead. Last. The recent report says the top 1 percent of South Africans (predominantly white) own 70.9 percent of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 60 percent (predominantly black) own about 7 percent. It’s an obvious artifact of colonialism and apartheid. My black brothers and sisters can’t sit in bitterness or pretend that it relieves them of responsibility for their own lives, but my white brothers and sisters can’t deny that they still enjoy the benefits of apartheid. There has to come a time when we children of apartheid, black and white, say to each other, “Look, my grandparents were not right with your grandparents. My parents were not right with your parents. But I want to be right with you.” We have to be the generation who understands that racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry—inequality in all its ugly guises—splinters the most powerful asset available to humankind: unity.

  6

  Ulwazi alukhulelwa.

  “One does not become great by claiming greatness.”

  Among the old stories the Old Man loved to tell were several that involved a hare outwitting bullies far bigger and physically stronger than himself.

  “You must think like the hare,” said Madiba. “That hare was a trickster.” And then he’d launch into one of Hare’s many exploits, like the time Buffalo invites Hare to accompany him on a long journey. Since Buffalo can intimidate all the other animals into doing whatever he wants, Hare thinks this is the side to be on, until Buffalo says, “Since I’m letting you hang with me, Hare, I expect you to carry my sleeping mat.” And he piles this heavy bedroll on poor Hare’s back. They travel for a day or two, and Hare is really over this sleeping mat thing, but he’s afraid to say anything to Buffalo, who could step on him and end any argument right there. So he says, “Buffalo, you must be hungry. You go ahead, and since I’m a lot faster, I’ll dash into these woods and pick some fruit for you and catch up later.” Buffalo knows Hare would not dare try to run off, so he agrees and goes down the road. Hare darts into the woods and picks a few apples, but he’s really looking for a honey tree, and he finds one. He rolls out Buffalo’s sleeping mat, uses a long stick to spread it with honey, lets the bees swarm onto it, and rolls it up again. He and Buffalo get to their destination, and Buffalo goes into a hut where they’re supposed to stay, and Buffalo is like, “No, you sleep outside. This is my hut.” And Hare’s like, “No worries. I’ll lock the door after you go in so nobody bothers you. Don’t forget your bedroll.”

  You can guess what happens when Buffalo unrolls the sleeping mat full of bees. Madiba’s depiction of the big bully in a subsequent world of hurt made us laugh our heads off. His storytelling skills improved with the arrival of Mbuso and Andile, because they were still little enough to believe in magic rivers and talking trees. He loved to make them laugh with silly voices and big gestures. The Old Man had softened somewhat since my arrival, and honestly, those two were quite spoiled. Rigid discipline was still very much the rule for me, but all that seemed to fly out the window when it came to Mbuso and Andile. He seemed to click to the idea that there was more pleasure in storytelling than there was in policing an immaculately clean room.

  Mbuso and Andile were “born frees”: children who had no memory of apartheid. Madiba liked the idea of this new generation learning about apartheid in school someday, scratching their heads and saying, “That is whack!”—or whatever they would be saying in that era. During this era, because we watched a lot of In Living Color in the late 1990s, the expression was usually, “I don’t think so!” or “Homey don’t play dat,” and then you’d wallop the other person with a sofa pillow.

  But back to Buffalo and Hare.

  “You see, it’s about strategy,” said the Old Man. “Like boxing. On the battlefield, Buffalo wins, because he has the brute strength. In the boxing ring, Hare has a chance, because boxing is science. Boxing is an art form. It’s physics and geometry.”

  Madiba and I watched the first Tyson-Holyfield “Finally” fight in 1996. It was the middle of the night, so I was bleary-eyed but excited to be out of bed and in on the action. The fight raged on to a much-contested finish, with Holyfield retaining his title and Tyson complaining bitterly about head-butting the ref had declared accidental. The rematch in June 1997 was sold on pay-per-view as “The Sound and the Fury,” and there was plenty of both. It was a major event at our house.

  “Ndaba, wake up.” Mandla came into my room and rousted me out in the middle of the night. “Come down to the lounge. It’s starting soon.”

  The match began at 6:00 PM on a Saturday night in Las Vegas, which made it stupid o’clock Sunday morning in Johannesburg. I think it was about 3:00 AM. As a general rule, the Old Man was early to bed, early to rise, and I still had a 10:00 PM curfew (in theory, although there was seldom anyone actually policing it), but he was not going to miss this fight and neither was I. Mandla and I posted up in the lounge with the Old Man, eating Provita with Beefy Bovril (way better than Vegemite), waiting for the big event to begin, and listening to our granddad wax philosophical about the egalitarian nature of boxing. He appreciated any moment when race, social status, and money fell away, leaving only the true nature of a person.

  “In the ring, you’re thinking only about strategy,” he said. “How to protect yourself. How to best your opponent. You circle each other, probing strengths and weaknesses. Not just the physical, but what is in this man’s eyes.”

  Madiba’s love of boxing is well documented. He was good at it when he was young, and while he was watching the prefight show, he couldn’t help adopting a sort of punchy posture in his wingback chair, with fists balled up and elbows tucked in tight against his ribcage.

  “In the ring, you see a man’s true character,” he said. “The very first time I went to the US, I met Holyfield. I met the champ. Many Americans offered words of support. He was one of those who knew that words are not enough. We needed resources for the cause of freedom to win.”

  Round One commenced. Holyfield and Tyson went at each other, and it looked like it was going to be a long, brutal fight. Round Two was paused over an accidental head-butt that left Tyson with blood streaming down from a cut over hi
s eye.

  “Tyson is being bullied in there,” the announcer said. “Holyfield is really taking the fight to him.”

  “Yes, yes!” Madiba was on his feet now. “This is where they summon an amazing will. When they start to feel the pain.”

  The bell clanged. Two rounds gone, and it looked like Holyfield was going to beat the living crap out of Tyson. But in Round Three, Tyson came hammering back. The dialogue from Mandla and me mainly consisted of “Oh. OH! Whooaaah,” and so forth. The Old Man seemed to have a running conversation with the announcer.

  “Tyson catches fire!” said the announcer. “He’ll really have to show character.”

  “Absolutely. Character is key. Now watch, Ndaba. See there? The footwork? This is how—oh!—What—What is this now?”

  Mandla and I were on our feet in front of the TV next to the Old Man, all three of us shouting, “No way! No way!” Holyfield broke away from Tyson, jumping up and down in a circle, clutching the side of his head. Blood oozed through his fingers.

  “He bit him! He bit him!”

  The crowd at the MGM Grand went berserk as the ref came between the two fighters. Holyfield turned to go to his corner, and Tyson shoved him from behind.

  “Bad form!” Madiba declared. “This is far outside Queensbury regulations.”

  “Oh, that’s some nasty stuff in there,” said the announcer. “That looked to be a bite almost.”

  “Almost?” A slow motion replay clearly showed Tyson spit a chunk of Holyfield’s ear on the floor. “YHO! YHO! YHO!”

  The fight paused for a few minutes while they tended to Holyfield’s ear, dowsing it with a water bottle.

  “Granddad, do you think they’ll go on?” I asked.

  “Man, it’s hard to say.” Madiba shook his head. “There’s a lot of money invested in this fight. A tremendous pressure to succeed.”

  The announcer made a wry comment about Holyfield’s wife being a pain management specialist. The bell clanged. To everyone’s surprise, the fight was going on.

  “This is a real grudge match now,” said the announcer, and another minute or so in, Tyson proved this correct. He bared his teeth and went for Holyfield’s other ear. We were all on our feet again, hollering in five different languages.

  “Hayi-bo! Yho!”

  “Outrageous!” Madiba said. “This is not a cockfight. Show some decency! Be a man and abide by the rules.”

  It was all over now. Totally out of control. Dozens of people surged onto the ring, punching, bellowing, or struggling for the best camera angle. Mandla and I found all this enormously entertaining, but Madiba sat quietly in his wingback chair, observing the chaos.

  “They must disqualify him,” he said with genuine sadness. “I don’t know if anyone has ever been disqualified from a heavyweight title fight, but they must disqualify him. No matter how much money they’ve spent, this cannot be allowed to continue.”

  The announcer pointed out that with the cut over his right eye, Tyson couldn’t have gone on much longer anyway. “That may have been the panic setting in,” he said.

  “What do you think?” I asked Madiba. “Did he panic, Granddad? Or was that his strategy? Like, he would lose, but people would still think he’s tougher.”

  The Old Man shook his head. “We can’t know what’s in another man’s mind, Ndaba. I do know that unrestrained violence is neither toughness nor strategy.”

  The event went down in boxing history as “The Bite Fight.” In the subsequent posturing, Tyson claimed that he’d bitten Holyfield’s ear in retaliation for the previous head-butting he didn’t believe was accidental. He got a lot of attention, but Holyfield was the champ. Not long after the Sound and the Fury fight, Holyfield came to our house in Houghton to see Madiba again.

  “Champ! How are you?” Madiba went out to greet him on the front stoop. “So good to see you!”

  I always tried to hang back when a lot of cameras were around, but I craned my neck for a closer look at that half-healed ear—and yes, there was a healthy chunk of cartilage missing.

  AFTER MY DAD FINISHED school, he began practicing law. Something to do with the insurance business, I think. The Old Man got him a house in an upscale Jewish neighborhood in Norwood, less than five minutes from Houghton. Very decent. Very nice. It was a three-bedroom house with a swimming pool. My brothers and I stayed with Madiba and Graça. I don’t recall any conversation suggesting otherwise. At that point, I’d spent more years with Madiba than I’d spent with either of my parents. I’d seen my mom only a couple of times since I was ten. I saw my dad at family events where I saw all my extended family. Christmas and Easter. Birthdays. That kind of thing. Functionally, on a day-to-day basis, Madiba was my father—my provider, my guardian, my everything—the one who stepped up to do everything you hope a father would do.

  Sometimes I found my granddad’s high standards and stiff rules hard to live with—probably because I was such an unruly little shit in my early teens. Madiba brought the structure and boundaries that were missing from my early childhood. Every once in a while, when he was tasking me about studying harder or grilling me for mouthing off, I would start to say something stupid and immediately realize that I wouldn’t change my circumstances for anything. I was ridiculously fortunate, and I knew it. It wasn’t easy for either of us, but for the first time in my life, I felt solid ground under my feet. When I look back on those years, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.

  After Graça and Madiba were married, we moved one street over to a bigger house with more room for the expanding family, and sometimes when school was on holiday, we’d all decamp to the presidential residence in Pretoria. During apartheid, the place was called Libertas, after the Roman goddess of liberty. So that was a little ironic. When Madiba took office, he renamed the place Mahlamba Ndlopfu, which literally translated from Xitsonga is “the washing of the elephants,” but it actually means “the new dawn”—the time when elephants come to the water.

  Whether we were in Pretoria or at home in Houghton, Graça insisted that we all have lunch and dinner together at the table. If Madiba was traveling away from home, we might hang out in the kitchen or eat in front of the TV, but when he was there, we were all at that table, on time, all together. These family suppers were nothing like the silent meals Madiba and I shared at the long dining room table when I was in primary school. Conversation was irreverent and full of laughter. We kidded each other and even teased the Old Man when he was in the mood for it. We celebrated holidays and birthdays with big loud parties, and on the regular days, the house was bustling with comings and goings and activity.

  One change that Graça made immediately was to get rid of the dinner table bell. Ringing that bell was not her style, and I was glad. When I first arrived, I thought it was great, and I was excited to ring that old bell myself, but as I got older, I started getting a vaguely colonial master kind of vibe off that bell, and it made me uncomfortable. I see now that it was one of the artifacts of Madiba’s imprisonment; he didn’t know certain things about modern manners because he’d missed this large chunk of life. He used to say, “It will probably shock many people to discover how colossally ignorant I am about simple things the ordinary person takes for granted.” He’d grown up in a rural area, and then he was in the crucible of apartheid, and then he was in jail. He was very cultured, very careful about etiquette, but because he’d lost his freedom at a time before etiquette became more relaxed, he still carried himself with an old school sort of courtliness.

  One day when we were eating lunch, Mama Xoli brought the phone to the dining room and handed it to him. “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth would like to speak with you.”

  “Put her through,” my granddad said. He took up the phone and said, “Hello? Hello, Elizabeth! How are you? Good, good. Oh, yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

  Graça and I looked at each other, startled to hear him address her so informally. The call went on, a casual chat from the sound of it. After he hung up and Mama Xoli took the phone
away, Graça said, “Madiba, you can’t just call her Elizabeth. You have to say Your Highness. There’s protocol.”

  “What are you talking about? She calls me Nelson. We always call each other by our first names. Don’t forget, I’m royalty.” He smiled at me sideways like Recognize. “I’m a Thembu prince.”

  Graça laughed and said to the contrary, “You are so ungovernable.”

  Madiba liked to tell the story about how he first met his friend Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace years ago. “We had lunch, and after lunch we walked and walked, and then we had tea. We spent the day getting to know one another.”

  He finally told her, “Well, I’m going back to my hotel to rest.”

  She asked him, “Where are you staying.”

  He said, “I’m staying at the Dorchester.”

  “There’s no Dorchester tonight,” she decreed. “Tonight, you’re staying here.”

  And he was like, “Oh. Okay.”

  That’s how the story went, anyway, and it was a story he clearly relished telling.

  “But you’re not actually a prince, are you?” I said.

  “Oh, yes. We are from the Royal House of the Thembus,” he told me very seriously. “The first wife of the king is the great house. The second wife is the right hand house. The third wife, the left hand house, and so forth. Each house is with a different wife. The first son from the first house is the heir, but each house has its mission. The role of the second house is to step up and do anything the first house can’t handle—whatever is delegated when the first house gets too busy. The third house has to get in between them sometimes because wherever men get a little taste of power, battles will be waged, and so it’s gone on through the ages. We are descended from the fourth house. Our role is to be mediators who counsel the king, so when I was a young man, I was assigned to be trained as a royal advisor.”