43

DURING THOSE FIRST few months underground I lived for a few weeks with a family on Market Street, after which I shared a one-room ground-floor bachelor flat with Wolfie Kodesh in Berea, a quiet white suburb a short distance north of downtown. Wolfie was a member of the Congress of Democrats, a reporter for New Age, and had fought in North Africa and Italy during World War II. His knowledge of warfare and his firsthand battle experience were extremely helpful to me. At his suggestion I read the Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz’s classic work On War. Clausewitz’s central thesis, that war was a continuation of diplomacy by other means, dovetailed with my own instincts. I relied on Wolfie to procure reading material for me and I fear that I took over his life, infringing on both his work and pleasure. But he was such an amiable, modest fellow that he never complained.

*    *    *

I spent nearly two months in his flat, sleeping on a campaign stretcher, staying inside during the day with the blinds drawn reading and planning, leaving only for meetings or organizing sessions at night. I annoyed Wolfie every morning, for I would wake up at five, change into my sweat clothes, and run in place for more than an hour. Wolfie eventually surrendered to my regimen and began working out with me in the morning before he left for town.

MK was then practicing setting off explosions. One night, I accompanied Wolfie to an old brickworks on the outskirts of town for a demonstration. It was a security risk, but I wanted to attend MK’s first test of an explosive device. Explosions were common at the brickworks, for companies would use dynamite to loosen the clay before the great machines scooped it up to make bricks. Jack Hodgson had brought along a paraffin tin filled with nitroglycerin; he had created a timing device that used the inside of a ball-point pen. It was dark and we had only a small light, and we stood to the side as Jack worked. When it was ready, we stood back and counted down to thirty seconds; there was a great roar and much displaced earth. The explosion had been a success, and we all quickly returned to our cars and went off in different directions.

I felt safe in Berea. I did not go outside, and because it was a white area, the police would probably not think to look for me there. While I was reading in the flat during the day, I would often place a pint of milk on the windowsill to allow it to ferment. I am very fond of this sour milk, which is known as amasi among the Xhosa people and is greatly prized as a healthy and nourishing food. It is very simple to make and merely involves letting the milk stand in the open air and curdle. It then becomes thick and sour, rather like yogurt. I even prevailed upon Wolfie to try it, but he grimaced when he tasted it.

One evening, after Wolfie had returned, we were chatting in the flat when I overheard a conversation going on near the window. I could hear two young black men speaking in Zulu, but I could not see them, as the curtains were drawn. I motioned Wolfie to be quiet.

“What is ‘our milk’ doing on that window ledge?” one of the fellows said.

“What are you talking about?” replied the other fellow.

“The sour milk — amasi — on the window ledge,” he said. “What is it doing there?” Then there was silence. The sharp-eyed fellow was suggesting that only a black man would place milk on the ledge like that and what was a black man doing living in a white area? I realized then that I needed to move on. I left for a different hideout the next night.

I stayed at a doctor’s house in Johannesburg, sleeping in the servants’ quarters at night, and working in the doctor’s study during the day. Whenever anyone came to the house during the day, I would dash out to the backyard and pretend to be the gardener. I then spent about a fortnight on a sugar plantation in Natal living with a group of African laborers and their families in a small community called Tongaat, just up the coast from Durban. I lived in a hostel and posed as an agricultural demonstrator who had come at the behest of the government to evaluate the land.

I had been equipped by the organization with a demonstrator’s tools and I spent part of each day testing the soil and performing experiments. I little understood what I was doing and I do not think I fooled the people of Tongaat. But these men and women, who were mostly farmworkers, had a natural kind of discretion and did not question my identity, even when they began seeing people arriving at night in cars, some of them well-known local politicians. Often I was at meetings all night and would sleep all day — not the normal schedule of an agricultural demonstrator. But even though I was involved in other matters I felt a closeness with the community. I would attend services on Sunday, and I enjoyed the old-fashioned, Bible-thumping style of these Zionist Christian ministers. Shortly before I was planning to leave, I thanked one elderly fellow for having looked after me. He said, “You are of course welcome, but, Kwedeni [young man], please tell us, what does Chief Luthuli want?” I was taken aback but I quickly responded. “Well, it would be better to ask him yourself and I cannot speak for him, but as I understand it, he wants our land returned, he wants our kings to have their power back, and he wants us to be able to determine our own future and run our own lives as we see fit.”

“And how is he going to do that if he does not have an army?” the old man said.

I wanted very much to tell the old man that I was busy attempting to form that army, but I could not. While I was encouraged by the old man’s sentiments, I was nervous that others had discovered my mission as well. Again I had stayed too long in one place, and the following night I left as quietly as I had arrived.