In addition to trying conventional law cases, Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman oversaw real estate transactions for African customers. Walter brought the firm clients who needed a mortgage. The firm would handle their loan applications, and then take a commission, which it would split with the real estate agent. In fact, the law firm would take the lion’s share of the money, leaving only a pittance for the African real estate agent. Blacks were given the crumbs from the table, and had no option but to accept them.
Even so, the law firm was far more liberal than most. It was a Jewish firm, and in my experience, I have found Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice. The fact that Lazar Sidelsky, one of the firm’s partners, would take on a young African as an articled clerk — something almost unheard of in those days — was evidence of that liberalism.
Mr. Sidelsky, whom I came to respect greatly and who treated me with enormous kindness, was a graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand and was in his mid-thirties when I joined the firm. He was involved in African education, donating money and time to African schools. A slender, courtly man, with a pencil mustache, he took a genuine interest in my welfare and future, preaching the value and importance of education — for me individually and for Africans in general. Only mass education, he used to say, would free my people, arguing that an educated man could not be oppressed because he could think for himself. He told me over and over again that becoming a successful attorney and thereby a model of achievement for my people was the most worthwhile path I could follow.
I met most of the firm’s staff on my first day in the office, including the one other African employee, Gaur Radebe, with whom I shared an office. Ten years my senior, Gaur was a clerk, interpreter, and messenger. He was a short, stocky, muscular man, fluent in English, Sotho, and Zulu, expressing himself in all of them with precision, humor, and confidence. He had strong opinions and even stronger arguments to back them up and was a well-known figure in black Johannesburg.
That first morning at the firm, a pleasant young white secretary, Miss Lieberman, took me aside and said, “Nelson, we have no color bar here at the law firm.” She explained that at midmorning, the tea-man arrived in the front parlor with tea on a tray and a number of cups. “In honor of your arrival, we have purchased two new cups for you and Gaur,” she said. “The secretaries take cups of tea to the principals, but you and Gaur will take your own tea, just as we do. I will call you when the tea comes, and then you can take your tea in the new cups.” She added that I should convey this message to Gaur. I was grateful for her ministrations, but I knew that the “two new cups” she was so careful to mention were evidence of the color bar that she said did not exist. The secretaries might share tea with two Africans, but not the cups with which to drink it.
When I told Gaur what Miss Lieberman had said, I noticed his expression change as he listened, just as you can see a mischievous idea enter the head of a child. “Nelson,” he said, “at teatime, don’t worry about anything. Just do as I do.” At eleven o’clock, Miss Lieberman informed us that tea had arrived. In front of the secretaries and some of the other members of the firm, Gaur went over to the tea tray and ostentatiously ignored the two new cups, selecting instead one of the old ones, and proceeded to put in generous portions of sugar, milk, and then tea. He stirred his cup slowly, and then stood there drinking it in a very self-satisfied way. The secretaries stared at Gaur and then Gaur nodded to me, as if to say, “It is your turn, Nelson.”
For a moment, I was in a quandary. I neither wanted to offend the secretaries nor alienate my new colleague, so I settled on what seemed to me the most prudent course of action: I declined to have any tea at all. I said I was not thirsty. I was then just twenty-three years old and just finding my feet as a man, as a resident of Johannesburg, and as an employee of a white firm, and I saw the middle path as the best and most reasonable one. Thereafter, at teatime, I would go to the small kitchen in the office and take my tea there in solitude.
The secretaries were not always so thoughtful. Some time later, when I was more experienced at the firm, I was dictating some information to a white secretary when a white client whom she knew came into the office. She was embarrassed, and to demonstrate that she was not taking dictation from an African, she took a sixpence from her purse and said stiffly, “Nelson, please go out and get me some hair shampoo from the chemist.” I left the room and got her shampoo.
In the beginning, my work at the firm was quite rudimentary. I was a combination of a clerk and messenger. I would find, arrange, and file documents and serve or deliver papers around Johannesburg. Later, I would draw up contracts for some of the firm’s African clients. Yet, no matter how small the chore, Mr. Sidelsky would explain to me what it was for and why I was doing it. He was a patient and generous teacher, and sought to impart not only the details of the law but the philosophy behind it. His view of the law was broad rather than narrow, for he believed that it was a tool that could be used to change society.
While Mr. Sidelsky imparted his views of the law, he warned me against politics. Politics, he said, brings out the worst in men. It was the source of trouble and corruption, and should be avoided at all costs. He painted a frightening picture of what would happen to me if I drifted into politics, and counseled me to avoid the company of men he regarded as troublemakers and rabble-rousers, specifically, Gaur Radebe and Walter Sisulu. While Mr. Sidelsky respected their abilities, he abhorred their politics.
Gaur was indeed a “troublemaker,” in the best sense of that term, and was an influential man in the African community in ways that Mr. Sidelsky did not know or suspect. He was a member of the Advisory Board in the Western Native Township, an elected body of four local people who dealt with the authorities on matters relating to the townships. While it had little power, the board had great prestige among the people. Gaur was also, as I soon discovered, a prominent member of both the ANC and the Communist Party.
Gaur was his own man. He did not treat our employers with exaggerated courtesy, and often chided them for their treatment of Africans. “You people stole our land from us,” he would say, “and enslaved us. Now you are making us pay through the nose to get the worst pieces of it back.” One day, after I returned from doing an errand and entered Mr. Sidelsky’s office, Gaur turned to him and said, “Look, you sit there like a lord whilst my chief runs around doing errands for you. The situation should be reversed, and one day it will, and we will dump all of you into the sea.” Gaur then left the room, and Mr. Sidelsky just shook his head ruefully.
Gaur was an example of a man without a B.A. who seemed infinitely better educated than the fellows who left Fort Hare with glittering degrees. Not only was he more knowledgeable, he was bolder and more confident. Although I intended to finish my degree and enter law school, I learned from Gaur that a degree was not in itself a guarantee of leadership and that it meant nothing unless one went out into the community to prove oneself.
I was not the only articled clerk at Witkin, Sidelsky and Eidelman. A fellow about my age named Nat Bregman started work shortly before I had. Nat was bright, pleasant, and thoughtful. He seemed entirely color-blind and became my first white friend. He was a deft mimic and could do fine imitations of the voices of Jan Smuts, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. I often sought his counsel on matters of law and office procedure, and he was unfailingly helpful.
One day, at lunchtime, we were sitting in the office and Nat took out a packet of sandwiches. He removed one sandwich and said, “Nelson, take hold of the other side of the sandwich.” I was not sure why he asked me to do this, but as I was hungry, I decided to oblige. “Now, pull,” he said. I did so, and the sandwich split roughly in two. “Now, eat,” he said. As I was chewing, Nat said, “Nelson, what we have just done symbolizes the philosophy of the Communist Party: to share everything we have.” He told me he was a member of the party and explained the rudiments of what the party stood for. I knew that Gaur was a member of the party, but he had never proselytized for it. I listened to Nat that day, and on many subsequent occasions when he preached the virtues of communism and tried to persuade me to join the party. I heard him out, asked questions, but did not join. I was not inclined to join any political organization, and the advice of Mr. Sidelsky was still ringing in my ears. I was also quite religious, and the party’s antipathy to religion put me off. But I appreciated half that sandwich.