Thembi asked who Antony and Caesar were. At the time Thembi was only 9. Skip explained, ‘Don’t tell us about people who are dead.’ If I had not been there Skip would have pulled out the child’s bowels, so furious he was. He bitterly complained to me about what he considered to be discourtesy on the part of the boy. I reminded him that in my house I was the patriarch and ruled over the household. But that I had no such powers in the gym; that Thembi had paid membership fees, we were perfect equals and I could give him no instructions.

We would spend about 11/2 hrs in the gym and I was at home about 9 pm. Tired with hardly a drop of water in my body. Mum would give me a glass of fresh and cold orange juice, supper served with well-prepared sour milk. Mum was glow[ing] with good health and happiness those dys [days]. The house was like a beehive with the family, old school friends, fellow workers from Bara [Baragwanath Hospital],4 members of the gym and even clients calling at the house to chat with her. For more than 2 yrs she and I literally lived on honeymoon. I quietly resisted my activity that kept me away from home after office hrs [hours]. Yet she and I kept warning each other that we were living on borrowed time, that hard times would soon knock at the door. But we were having a great time with good friends and we did not have much time for self-pity. It is more than 2 decades since then, yet I recall those dys so clearly as if everything happened yesterday.

6. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL

STENGEL: During this time there was quite a lot of socializing, wasn’t there? You mentioned before, when you first came to Johannesburg, you were taken to parties, Communist Party parties, and you met Michael Harmel,5 and there’s been a lot written about the mixing, in a social way, that was going on with Joe Slovo and Ruth First…6

MANDELA: No actually, it was not something extraordinary; just like anything that was happening in this country both amongst whites and blacks. The only difference is that here you had blacks and whites together.

STENGEL: But that was extraordinary, wasn’t it?

MANDELA:…That mixing was extraordinary, but the parties themselves were something that were very frequent in the country. Yes, it was not something novel. And it didn’t happen with such regularity. The point was that these groups were also used, certainly by the [Communist] Party, for the purpose of recruiting new members.

STENGEL: I see…at least among whites, didn’t they feel that they were doing something that was very daring and exciting by having mixed parties like that?

MANDELA: No, no, no, I don’t think so. Here were whites who were bred in the democratic tradition, in the proper sense of the word, who had committed themselves to the struggle by the oppressed people and therefore they wanted moments of relaxation and invited Africans, blacks.

STENGEL: And you would go to these parties?

MANDELA: Oh yes, yes. I was not a frequent [party goer]. In fact, at one time Joe complained to Walter [Sisulu] that ‘Man, Nelson doesn’t like parties.’

7. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL

MANDELA: I was being introduced to various strands of thought in Johannesburg.

STENGEL: And when you went to the meetings you would just sit and listen?

MANDELA:…I never spoke. The only thing I took part in was debates – not in political meetings but just academic debates. For example, there would be a team from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg; I would be invited to lead a discussion from Johannesburg. That I participated in, but in meetings I never did, until I joined the [ANC] Youth League. Even then I was very nervous. I was really very nervous.

STENGEL: Nervous why? Because it was a big step, or it was dangerous?

MANDELA:…I didn’t know politics, you see? I was backward politically and I was dealing with chaps, you see, who knew politics, who could discuss what was happening in South Africa and outside South Africa. Chaps, some of whom had only Standard Four, academically very humble educational qualifications, but they knew far more than I did…At Fort Hare [University] I did two [BA] courses in History where I went into South African history very deeply and European history.