A A PAR '11we Making if a MARY BENSON I&ANkkk 'Moving and entertaining.., what a life!' - Joseph Lelyveld, author of Move Your Shadow 'A true lover of South Africa', Athol Fugard says of Mary Benson. That was not always so, A starstruck teenager, bored by a life centred on the country club, she escaped from Pretoria, first to 1-follywood then, in 194 1, to serve with the British Army in the Middle East and Europe, an experience both comic and harrowing. In 1948, while secretary to David Lean, Marys life was transformed by reading Cry, the BeloVed Country. Now, as she tells her own story in A Far Cry, site recalls how through an amusing correspondence she came to know Alan Paton, and with poignant honesty she describes her long and intense partnership with the Reverend Michael Scott, the selfless, magnetic campaigner for Southern Afiicas dispossessed Africans - 'halcyon days, which ended in painful seplration. In this enthralling book, the darkness of apartheid is illuminated by the indestructible courage and humour of Chief I losea Kutako in Namibia and the other men and women, of all races, whom Mary encountered as she travelled South Africa gathering material 1br her writings and for her lobbying in America. Hier friendships with Athol Fugard, Nelson Mandela, the Sisulus, Brain Fischer, Albert Lutuli, James Calata and Tshekedi Kharna are nemorably pertrayed, and so too N. the search Ir her own identity as a South Aht an actively involved in tile destiny of her country. Exiled Itom South Africa in 19i, Mary Bvn in was allowed home only to watch over her dying fithrei herself watched over by the Se"urity Polite, Writing ot' 'the passion that caused spiritu l amputation in Oxiht; she says, 'even while I agonized over my lather,'s low dying, I Ilt alive, exhilarated at being hak anong people I loved, in the country where the dust and brittle air had the power to move me'. "liot wits in I 96H, She has not been allowed to return to South Afiic, £14.95 1tt A FAR CRY Mary Benson VIKING VIKING Published by the Penguin Group 27 Wrights Lane, London WX 517, England Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, Nev York, New York om, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 28ot John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R rBt Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-19o Wairau Road, Auckland io, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England First published 1989 13 5 79 1o 8642 Copyright Q Mary Benson 1989 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book Typeset in i i. j/I Linotron 2o Bembo by Centracet, Cambridge Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd, Fromne and London A CP catalogue record fur this bouk is available from the lritish Library ISBN O(/oo)8 3s8 Contents Acknowledgements Glossary PAWR I: PSCAPING PART 11: LEARNING PART II: RETURNING PARr IV: iXILE I From Pretoria to Hollywood 2 To the War Alan Paton Michael Scott Tshekedi Khama 6 Treason? A Sacred Trust? 7 The African National Congress 8 To Mississippi and Back 9 Bram Fischer io Athol Fugard and the Eastern Cape II A Threat to the State? iz Thonas Stubbs xi Return to Pretoria Appendix Index Acknowledgements Lines from 'Simplify me when I'm dead' from Ti1 nomfh' Poems of Keith Douglas, edited by I)esmond Graham, reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Lines from Cry, the Beloved Couitry by Alan Paton reprinted by permission of the author. Lines from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. Lines from The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht reprinted by permission of Methuen, London. An adapted version of the chapter on Brain Fischer was published in Granta No. 19 as 'A True Afrikaner', and the chapter on Alan Paton, slightly abridged, appeared in 1he Southern A..ican Review of Books, Summer 1988, as 'Recollecting Alan Paton'. Glossary bmahii'eis brak doek domnpas klcwf kratts kuwcla latteldrost loliajpa potidok S I () e takkies Isotsis barbetc rnongred heudscarf dainned pass ravine Cliff dance yard sthack veranclah tennis Shoes young delinquent PART I Escaping From Pretoria to Hollywood At night when a summer storm crashed open our sleep and drove us from our beds on the verandah, my father was in command. Calmly, he let down the blinds against the beating rain while lightning forked and hail began to pound the corrugated-iron roof. Mom and Poppy and I huddled together on the box ottoman. 'Dad, come away from the window!' How reckless he was as he stood there, marking the seconds between flash and boom, with the lightning getting closer. 'Daddy, you'll be struck!' But from his vantage-point he reported, 'The street's become a river. Good lord, the railway compound's flooded. The natives are out! Just look!' Lightning illuminated black bodies, water swirling about their legs. Next morning the natives were once more invisible behind the compound walls, only the street deep in mud. And we woke to the light of the sun, to a clear blue sky as always. Then I watched my father as he stood at the basin, shaving and singing: She told me her age was five-and-twenty, Cash in the bank she said she'd plenty, I like a fool believed it all, 'Cos I was an M U G. At Trinity Church I met my doom, Now I live in the top back room... Smiling into the mirror as he made pink tracks through the white foam on each side of his Roman nose, telling about Ireland: 'We are descended from one of the kings. Yes, we were the O'Banaghans of Castle Banaghan in County Sligo. More than one of them was hanged.' It was years before I heard the joke about every Irishman being descended from a king. But I believed, for hadn't he frequented the Viceroy's receptions at the 'Cassle', as lic pronounced it, in 1>hoenix Park, 'With the cavalry in full dress, Lancers, Flussars, 1)ragoons, their spurs jingling. And Flora<lora at the Gajety!' Then, with a flourisli of hand and voice, 'Once upon a time, when I was a boyit mny father's school, I fel] from the topinost branch of the old elni trec and broke my arm!' 'liroke your armii!1 'Thiat was before I Knew the 'Frtth.' The Truthi. Perhaps oniy an lrisbiman could at the samie time be an ardent Chlristiian Scie ntist and Scervtary of a hospital and. ftil to see the humtnour of it. ln those carly years hec'd even converted the miatron of thle hospital. Before breakfäst bie sat with his l3ible and Sci'nct' and licail wvith K(,) to thev Scriptures. Mrs Mary Baker Eddy, I wondered, could shec be niarried to G;od? Motes of dust daniced in the suntliglit flooding throughi the svudy window. 7Thy kingdoni is come.' Ile sounded contideiit. 'Thou art ever-present,' Mrs J oubert, who looked like a raisin-eyed Pekinese in black velvet toque and who owned a wireless with iio(rniii,-glory horn, lud actually met Mary B3aker Eddy. '1'he hooter sounding fromii the rajiway yards aeross the street told it was time for breakfast. Ater heniding his Close-eroplped handsonie hecad for a fixal silent communing with God, bec rose refteshied, tall and siling. Soon bc wvould choose a roseblud tir his buttonhiole as lie went throuigh the garden to his office. ln1 Pretoria lie was known as Mr Benson of thec Holspital, I-le doted on mie, of that thecre was% no doubt, and 1 on Iiizn. 11n family quarrels bie and I ganged up on my mothier and 1>ol'py* 'I>ix anid 1, we're suchi pals!' bec liked to say, and I was än cager accomp111,lic, reciting plirases from Mrs Eddy's work', ffr visiting Christiani Science lecvurers and, when leadivig ladies from Qu<e'n l1ii i and No, No, Nanette were broughv hiome to vea, entertaining them with my iartwlieel,% and backhends. Ile played tennis, at which bec was a wiz'ard, slicing the ball this way and that andl cackling with laugghrer as his opponeluvs ran hither and thithier. My mocthier played golf, Year after year bec drove Iloppy and mc past the cemetery, throtigh Mar vba',vad, the 'navive hacation', to) the West End (Colf Club for the final of the aninual elui, oni.iisiip, On the righvernvhi green wc awaited Mont's approach. A last triunphint puitt and, after handing twer club to the small black caddy, she acknowledged the applause always modest, green eyes smiling. She had been christened Lucy Mary, after one of her ig-o settler ancestors, but my father called her Kit. Her funily had a propensity for irrelevant nicknames: though )ad's nani was Cyril and he was dark, they called him Sandy; her sister Ainie was Sal, her brothers Ernest and Cecil were Sonny and Jim; George was Jack and Ina was Georgie; Ronald was 1)ick and Robert was Dickie; our cousins Cecil and Campbell were Toetic and Tiny, while Thora and Mabel were Molly and Bobbie. Our favourite cousin, a lovely young woman with a gentle natur, was 'Bully'.