RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

110 | denis beckett
order-papers and compromise, and complaining about the
apathy of the masses. What would it matter whether Mabuza
was a Swazi or a Zoroastrian? Those who wanted would vote for
him; those who did not would not; and the whole bunch would
be chained to the effects of a sound political foundation.
after rattling about in Mabuza’s cupboard and finding no
skeletons I prepared a batch of questions. a plot was forming.
I was sick of finding feet of clay beneath the “positive” stories
which kept coming up in the newspapers. Drum magazine,
for instance, ran a feature called “Masterpiece in Bronze”, to
demonstrate black success. Once the chosen success was a
youthful entrepreneur who wore white suits and white shoes
and drove a white rolls royce. The story was lyrical about the
reach of his business empire but was coy about the nature of
the empire, which was mandrax and extortion. My plot was to
do a real success story, whole and unmistakable: Mabuza.
unfortunately, the sleuthing involved more momentum
than planning, and what with ambling along back roads and
overnighting at a farm and dawdling at villages I lost track of
the Karos hotel at Kanyamazane where I was to meet Mabuza
at 12.30.
Mid morning I found myself driving faster than sanity or
speedcops permit and then my car sprang a nervous tic in its
timing, giving an almighty backfire every few minutes. I hurtled
through the wondrous hills of the eastern Transvaal like a
constipated kangaroo on steroids, wreaking damage to my
spinal cord but mindful of the social error of keeping the chief
Minister twiddling thumbs in the heart of his own bailiwick.
Mabuza was still there when I hopped up the Karos drive
an hour late, and greeted me with every iota of his ineffable
courtesy. He gets my vote, anywhere, anytime.
I never finished the Mabuza article. It got on top of me. This
was a frequent fate of the stuff I was keenest on. I’d get three
quarters through and think it had to be better, it had to be fuller.
Practicalities would intervene and particularly the practicality
called “paying the printer”. Drafts of the articles I liked too