/ 9 April 2010

My ET encounter

My Et Encounter

In June 1994, soon after the first democratic elections, a friend and I had to drive two cars from Botswana to Johannesburg, through Ventersdorp.

With me 50m ahead of my friend, our two-car convoy had just passed the dorpie when a trucker driving in the opposite direction decided to stick to the middle of the single-lane road. I was almost claimed by the gravel to my left but just managed to hang on.

A kilometre later I realised my friend had disappeared from my rear-view mirror. (To this day he does not remember the truck, which didn’t stop.) I turned back and found the mangled wreck of his car upside down and 70m into a mealie farm.

I took my unconscious friend to the Ventersdorp hospital, where I was told he needed overnight ­observation; he had a broken wrist but would live.

I asked the all-white nursing staff if there was a hotel where I could spend the night. I should have picked up the hint when they looked at me strangely, exchanged furtive glances and said there was none. They then offered me the hospital bed next to my friend, who, perhaps because of the colour of his eyes, had been given a ward all to himself. I accepted.

Then, needing a stiff one after our close encounter with the truck, I sneaked out to find a watering hole when the nurses weren’t watching.

The call of whisky
A few blocks away I found the Ventersdorp Hotel. As I was about to find out, this was Eugene Terre’Blanche’s lair, and the nurses had hidden its existence for my own safety. Good souls, these white sisters, I later realised.

I should also have noticed the large number of 4×2 vehicles and other bakkies parked outside the hotel. But I suppose I had been stressed enough for one day and the call of whisky blinded me to danger.

As I walked into the bar, I knew I had made a potentially deadly mistake. Every patron, including two women who were playing pool, was wearing khakis and a side arm. But I had gone too far in already and when the whole place froze, I decided to walk up to the bar. All eyes followed me as I tried to construct the most painfully difficult grin my face had ever been subjected to. I croaked: “Double Bell’s on ice, please.”

Nothing moved, I swear.

The barman (who, I later learned, owned the hotel) just looked at me, mouth open, and slowly turned his face towards the corner. There, wearing the same khaki uniform and smoking a pipe, was a burly, bearded, brown-complexioned white man. It was ET and all eyes turned towards him.

At that point I should really have peed my pants, thanked my ancestors for my only son and awaited my fate. Then something happened. Without consciously thinking about it, I turned and walked towards his now menacing stare (dare?) and stretched out my hand.

“You are Mr Terre’Blanche, aren’t you, sir?” (Yes, I said sir!) “I have seen you in the papers. How are you?”

What followed was the longest minute of my life while this man decided which way to go.

“Where are you from?” The room was now watching and listening and I knew that everything came down to me and my Zimbabwean ­upbringing.

“Zimbabwe.”

Another minute.

“Are you Matabele or Mashona?”

I knew I had won. Well, survived.

“Matabele.”

“You are a Zoeloe [Zulu],” he bellowed. “Zoeloes are our people. They are like us.” The room relaxed.

One-sided conversation
What followed in the next 30 minutes was almost surreal. After being served my own order, I was plied with another five double whiskies — on the house! — while I “engaged” in the most one-sided conversation I have ever had to endure.

Terre’Blanche gave me a brief history of Afrikaners, their betrayal by FW de Klerk and so on. He called the barman over, introduced him as the owner of the hotel and offered me a place to sleep at the hotel. I declined with thanks and a mention of the generosity of his people and told him about the hospital bed.

When I left, even the pool ladies gave me a friendly wave. For some reason, I needed desperately to go to the township and tell my story. When I did (at a tavern, where I also had a proper drink), they could not believe what had just happened. They told me about black people who had been severely assaulted at the same bar.

When I eventually returned to the hospital, my absence had been noted. I told my story to the nurses, who explained that they had tried to keep me away from the hotel. I think one of them was crying.

Back at my (then very) verkrampte workplace I recounted the story in my work newsletter (Mossnet) and it was subsequently picked up by Die Burger and Beeld.

I was the toast of several right-wing fellow employees and others from previous jobs, who seemed to think I was very privileged to have shaken the hand of The Leader.

Arggh — But this was back in 1994 and such stories are no longer ­interesting.