What the heck kind of a name is ”Henry Nick” anyway? The young white prince found wandering in the forests of Mpumalanga, who turned out to be neither young, white nor, in fact, a prince, claims that he has finally discovered the true story of his heritage. Formerly known in the South African press as ”Happy Sindane”, it now turns out that his true name is Abbey Mzayiya. To their abiding shame, the newspapers got it all wrong from beginning to end.
Unfortunately for Abbey aka Happy, this might not yet be the end of the road. His mother has been identified as the late Rina Mzayiya, and so he has now chosen to take her surname as his own, dropping that of his adoptive mother Betty Sindane. So far so good.
But it has now been revealed that his father was ”probably” a shady German character who hung out on a smallholding at Fourways, just outside Johannesburg. The only record the police will admit to is that this German father (and Abbey’s mother was probably neither the first nor the last black woman in the neighbourhood who received his attentions) rejoiced in the name of ”Henry Nick”.
Which is why I ask the question: What the heck kind of a name is ”Henry Nick” anyway?
I am worried that Happy/Abbey’s tribulations are far from over, if this is all he knows about the man who fathered him in a moment of illicit passion with his part-time cleaning lady. Furthermore, Happy/Abbey now says that he ”will try my best to find my father, if he is still alive”.
Where will he start? The Johannesburg telephone directory lists a ”Nick Flooring”, ”Nick Transport Services” and ”Nick’s Fishmongers”, but nobody who admits to the surname of ”Nick”. Most of these ”Nicks” would probably turn out to be south Johannesburg merchants of Greek origin anyway, and the man our intrepid Happy/Abbey is looking for is supposed to be a German.
The way things work in this bitter racial space called South Africa, one can surmise that the gentleman in question probably told the unfortunate Rina Mzayiya that his name was Henry, but she could call him ”Nick” for short. Being nothing more than a black woman, and a housemaid to boot, she would have assumed that she had to call him ”Mr Nick”, even during moments of intimacy. Thus ”Nick” stuck in the minds of the locals as the man’s proper surname, whereas it was probably nothing of the sort.
The police, of course, are too busy to care about details like this. As far as they are concerned, the case is closed. They would far rather be busying themselves with making sure that their car hijacking syndicates and little bits of this and that involving drugs and prostitution on the side are functioning smoothly and efficiently. Who can blame them? This Abbey has been an unhappy headache of paperwork, overtime sleuthing and unexpected moral dilemmas for several months now. Enough is enough.
The white press (replete with its complacent, newly appointed black editors in their wide and noisy BMWs) is also about to drop Happy/Abbey for the hot, brown potato that he has turned out to be. Now that there is no fairytale ending to look forward to, with the possibility of Happy/Abbey as a lost white prince finding a white princess anxiously waiting for him somewhere in Randfontein or Krugersdorp who couldn’t sleep on a township bed if there was so much as one pea underneath the mattress, Happy/Abbey is rapidly becoming a non-story.
So it behoves the few of us who have always been truly concerned about his future as an ordinary human being, regardless of race or gender, to pursue the Happy saga to the bitter end.
Happy should be so lucky. How many black, brown or indeterminate children are there out there whose German, Swiss, Russian or pukka British fathers have refused to acknowledge them (not to mention the legions of irresponsible darkies)?
At least the paint company Dulux has admitted some responsibility and has allegedly established a trust fund worth R100 000 to support him for the next few years. Elsewhere it has been reported that he has a future as a radio disc jockey, simply by virtue of being himself.
Not since Monica ”Splash-my-dress-so-I-can-kiss-and-tell” Lewinsky has fame and fortune come so quickly and easily. But unlike Lewinsky, it seems unlikely that Happy/Abbey will actually get his own TV chat show on prime-time television, even in South Africa. (And prime-time television is where the real money lies.) To begin with Happy/Abbey’s command of pseudo-American-English, so desirable for black prime-time chat show hosts in South Africa, is far from being up to scratch. So radio it will have to be (if that).
But things could be worse. There is a top-notch public relations company that is looking after all the details of just exactly what Abbey is going to need to remain Happy for the foreseeable future.
Yes, things could be much worse. We recall, for example, that Happy/Abbey’s sad entry into the world began when his mother’s common-law husband, one Thomas Banda, refused to accept him into the household because he was the son of a white chap, and told his mother to send him away into the wilderness — rather like a certain young man who was abandoned by his own mother, only to be found by Pharoah’s daughter and given the name of Moses.
That wasn’t a bad beginning for the boy called Moses.
Imagine — if the unpleasant step-father had accepted Abbey/ Happy into the homestead, he might have had to be content to go through life being known as plain old Abbey Banda, with no prospects whatsoever.
As it is, he might yet go on to lead us all into the Promised Land.
Every cloud, however black it might seem to those who are gazing up from the ground, does, after all, have a silver lining. There might yet be a Happy ending after all.