With the exception of a couple of the Afrikaners whose support for apartheid was clear, all the newspaper men I met were blind, blind to what was going on in their country. Their political outlook as far as I was concerned was “See no evil.” And then I met Neels.
I flew to Cape Town for the meeting, which was at the Cape Daily Mail’s offices. I was curious, but not hopeful. I knew of the Mail’s reputation for uncovering scandals, but then Neels had an Afrikaans last name, and by that stage I had low expectations of newspaper owners.
He attracted me the moment I saw him. He had power over women. He had it then, when he was in his late thirties, and he still has it now even though he is over fifty. It was, or is, a kind of strength, strength that can protect rather than threaten, a self-assurance that falls short of vanity. Broad shoulders, square jaw and those piercing, honest eyes. I was smitten.
He wasn’t, or not at first. Oh, he paid attention to me, men did in those days. He explained how he, an Afrikaner, came to be the owner of the second largest English-speaking newspaper group in South Africa. He told me about his father’s little paper in Oudtshoorn. How he was one of five children, how he got a scholarship to the University of Stellenbosch and with his father’s encouragement a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. How he met Penelope there, and how she had forced him to focus on what he always knew to be the case: the injustice of apartheid. They were married. Her family were English-speakers, wealthy investors in gold mines with a mansion in Parktown in Johannesburg, and suspicious of the Afrikaner from the Karoo. But they soon warmed to Cornelius, and her father funded him to buy a bankrupt newspaper group that included the Durban Age, the Johannesburg Post and the Week in Business. He turned all three papers around and a couple of years later bought the Cape Daily Mail. He was just thirty at the time.
He answered my questions with passion and in detail. His view was that the most effective opposition to apartheid was the press, in particular the English-language press. His role as owner was the guardian of that voice of opposition and sanity.
I came back at him. How could the press in a country like South Africa ever be truly free? And if it wasn’t, if his journalists were locked up for telling the truth, wasn’t he merely supporting the system by working within it?
Neels told me I was suffering from the same lack of understanding as all the English-speaking liberals. This was the fourth time I had been told this, and I just lost it. I was fed up of being patronized by white Nazi racists. I railed on. Then I suddenly noticed that Neels was trying to suppress a smile. Not only that, but he was interested in me. Not as a twenty-something blonde with long legs, but as a woman. As a person. This angered me more, but also disconcerted me and so I shut up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to insult you. Let me tell you what I did mean.” He fixed me with those piercing blue eyes of his. “The fatal flaw of the apartheid regime, what will ultimately bring about its downfall, is its certainty that it’s morally right.”
“How can apartheid ever be morally right?” I interrupted.
“It’s a twisted morality, backed by a twisted understanding of Christianity. But if the regime is to continue to believe that it is legitimate it needs to maintain some semblance of justice, of right and wrong. There has to be an independent judiciary, a parliament where opposition is allowed to speak, and a free press.”
“But that’s incompatible with a government that’s elected by a small minority of the country, that locks people up and tortures them without trial!”
“Precisely. As time goes on that incompatibility will become more and more apparent until the majority of the National Party can’t hide from it anymore. Then they will hand over power. Voluntarily.”
“So you’re just playing a part in the charade of a fair government?”
“No, not at all. It’s Afrikaners like me who will bring this regime to a peaceful end. It might take ten years, it might take fifty years, but it will happen. Independent judges, critical politicians, a free press, lawyers who believe in justice, doctors who tell the truth about the injuries they treat. In time we will be able to show our countrymen that they cannot support apartheid and still think of themselves as moral human beings. Blowing up a railway station won’t tell them that, quite the reverse. And I don’t want to see my country go up in flames in a bloody revolution.”
I was silenced. Neels smiled at me. “How long are you in South Africa?”
“A week.”
“Well, why don’t you spend that week in the Mail’s offices? You can write an article or two on America for us. And you’ll get a better idea of how the press in South Africa really works.”
So I stayed a week. Then extended it for another week. Then a month. He persuaded me. And we fell in love. There was his wife — but I don’t want to think about that now.
I am glad I have written about when we met. It’s brought back to me not just the ideals which we shared then, but how much I loved him. Still do love him.
Which makes it all so much more painful when he betrays me.
July 12
Neels is back from Philadelphia, although it’s only for a few days; he’ll be going back there on Friday. Which makes me wonder, why does he spend the weekend there and not here? As usual these days he went straight into the office from the airport and didn’t get back here until nine at night. He looks exhausted. He’s been very distracted these last few weeks. I assumed that it was to do with our marriage or with Hennie’s death, but thinking about what Benton told me perhaps there’s something else. I decided to find out.
I asked him if I could pour him a drink. He glanced at me quickly, checking for signs of sarcasm I suppose. Not seeing any he gave me a weary smile. “Yes, please,” he said.
I poured him a brandy and Coke and myself a glass of wine, and we sat down by the fire. The scent of the blue-gum firewood hung in the air.
“Is the Herald deal not going well?” I asked.
Neels checked again for signs of gloating, but he could see my concern was genuine.
He sighed. “No. I thought we had it in the bag. But it looks as if I can’t raise the money they’re asking. The junk-bond markets are still tough. The crash last October has scared everyone; they all think I’m too big a risk.”
“Do you have to use these junk bonds?” I said. “They always sounded pretty awful to me. Can’t you just borrow money from a bank?”
Neels shook his head. “The bankers are just as scared as the bond investors.”
“Never mind,” I said. “There will be other opportunities.”
“I’m not so sure Zyl News will be around to see other opportunities, liefie.”
This is the first time Neels has admitted what Benton hinted to me: that Zyl News is so overstretched it’s on the point of bankruptcy. It’s also the first time we’ve spoken about the company since he told me he’s planning to close the Cape Daily Mail. Before, in the old days of our marriage, we talked about the business all the time. Discussing what was going on with the newspapers was his way of unwinding, and I was always interested. He is an astute businessman and I like to hear about his exploits.