Afrikaner roots I did not want
Elders Mooiweer en Warm. and André didn’t have time to translate it before the production slot I’d been given. So I offered to translate it myself. I’m not sure what convinced him I was up to the task, but I probably didn’t let on that – apart from winning Afrikaans prizes at junior school – my highest academic qualification in Afrikaans was a third-class pass from the University of Natal. On my next visit to London, I entered South Africa
House and bought an Afrikaans-English Dictionary.
Although it was a student production, the British premiere of Pavane was well received.
The following year I went to
Amsterdam to direct the Dutch premiere of an
Athol Fugard play.
My plan was to return to England afterwards, but I ended up staying for 17 years. When people asked if I had Dutch ancestry, I told them my Akerman ancestors had come to South Africa from England, but then added that I was adopted and so I had no idea about my genetic ancestry. They invariably nodded, studied me closely and said I could quite easily have Dutch ancestry. In 1983, I renounced my South African citizenship and became Dutch.
In the same year, the South African Parliament enacted the Child Care Act, which made it possible for adoptees to search for their biological parents. In 1989, I traced my birth mother, Vera, to Cape Town. She was willing to have contact, but we were only able to meet face to face after Nelson Mandela’s release because I’d recently been refused a visa for South Africa. In the interim we exchanged letters. She told me who my father was and answered questions about my ancestry. The universe also gave me a lesson in irony when I discovered my genetic make-up was predominantly Afrikaner. Something else she wrote gave an ironic perspective on my fierce opposition to Verwoerd in 1960.
“I was the theatre sister when they operated to remove the bullets after he was shot at the Rand Easter Show by David Pratt.”
That caught me off guard. There were other surprising coincidences, but only one is relevant here. When filling her in on the first 40 years of my life, I mentioned that André Brink had taught me and that we’d subsequently become friends. In a letter from her dated 19 May 1989, she wrote: “I know André Brink. In 1959, for a while, I shared a flat with a Mrs Naudé and her daughter Estelle was engaged to André. He often came to the flat & slept over there. When they got married I was her unofficial bridesmaid in that I took her bouquet when he put the ring
on her finger!”
What are the odds? My biological mother had been the bridesmaid at André Brink’s first wedding! André and I hadn’t communicated in a while, but this seemed a good reason to reignite our correspondence. Before I got around to doing so, however, Vera asked me not to tell him. She’d suddenly become concerned about her reputation. I told her I couldn’t think of anyone less likely to judge her than André, but she was adamant and I felt I had to respect her wishes.
When I returned to South Africa, I settled in Johannesburg and André was in Cape Town. Our paths seldom crossed and I felt obliged to keep Vera’s secret – until I came to the conclusion that I was the shameful secret posing a threat to her chaste reputation. So I decided to tell André when I next saw him.
This encounter with Brink was not only memorable because I’d met a famous writer. Most importantly, it made me re-examine my prejudices against Afrikaners
But we only encountered each other on public occasions and the right moment never seemed to present itself. The last time I saw him was 10 years ago at the Johannesburg launch of his novel Philida. We eventually found ourselves alone at a table with a bottle of white wine. But before I could tell him, Beyers Naudé’s daughter-in-law came over to speak to him and the opportunity was lost.
André died in 2015 and Vera two years later. When Vera took Estelle’s bouquet at André’s first wedding, I was 10 years old. Ten years later I walked into the Rhodes Little Theatre and André asked me to hold onto a flying line during a technical rehearsal. He became a mentor and friend and I’m indebted to him for making time for the callow student I was. I regretted I’d never told him about the connection we’d shared before we met. It felt like an unfinished story, a dangling loose end and – for writers – that’s always dissatisfying.
In 2020, I contacted André’s oldest son, Anton Brink. He was amused to hear I’d been the source of the “girly mags” he’d discovered and perused as a teenager. I told him about Vera and sent him a photo of his parents and grandmother with my mother.
If Estelle was surprised to hear Vera had been the mother of a 10-year-old illegitimate son when she was her bridesmaid, she didn’t let on. I still can’t believe I never got around to telling André. It occurred to me that he may not have been all that interested and may not have remembered the 31-year-old nurse who held Estelle’s bouquet while he put the ring on her finger.
But the other day I came across one of his letters that changed my mind. It’s dated 3 October 1975 and in the opening paragraph he remarks – somewhat irrelevantly – that it was his dog’s second birthday. Then he added, “and if I’d never got divorced it would have been the sixteenth anniversary of my first wedding”.