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ROBERT
My father is a complete mystery. There are so many questions about his life that I still cannot
even begin to answer.
Where’d he grow up? Somewhere in Switzerland.
Where’d he go to university? I don’t know if he did.
How’d he end up in South Africa? I haven’t a clue.
I’ve never met my Swiss grandparents. I don’t know their names or anything about them.
I do know my dad has an older sister, but I’ve never met her, either. I know that he worked as
a chef in Montreal and New York for a while before moving to South Africa in the late 1970s. I
know that he worked for an industrial food-service company and that he opened a couple of
bars and restaurants here and there. That’s about it.
I never called my dad “Dad.” I never addressed him “Daddy” or “Father,” either. I
couldn’t. I was instructed not to. If we were out in public or anywhere people might overhear
us and I called him “Dad,” someone might have asked questions or called the police. So for as
long as I can remember I always called him Robert.
While I know nothing of my dad’s life before me, thanks to my mom and just from the
time I have been able to spend with him, I do have a sense of who he is as a person. He’s very
Swiss, clean and particular and precise. He’s the only person I know who checks into a hotel
room and leaves it cleaner than when he arrived. He doesn’t like anyone waiting on him. No
servants, no housekeepers. He cleans up after himself. He likes his space. He lives in his own
world and does his own everything.
I know that he never married. He used to say that most people marry because they want
to control another person, and he never wanted to be controlled. I know that he loves
traveling, loves entertaining, having people over. But at the same time his privacy is
everything to him. Wherever he lives he’s never listed in the phone book. I’m sure my
parents would have been caught in their time together if he hadn’t been as private as he is.
My mom was wild and impulsive. My father was reserved and rational. She was fire, he was
ice. They were opposites that attracted, and I am a mix of them both.
One thing I do know about my dad is that he hates racism and homogeneity more than
anything, and not because of any feelings of self-righteousness or moral superiority. He just
never understood how white people could be racist in South Africa. “Africa is full of black