9. Pretoria, 1987 - Soft targets

In which Eleanor confronts the choices that apartheid, fear, and family place before her.

Oct 31, 2024

∙ Paid

South Africa burns. A bomb could be anywhere. Eleanor has a choice to make.

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Eleanor

I get on the bus, excited. I have Graceland playing on my Walkman. I have money in my purse from Mum. I’m headed into town—alone—to do some shopping. Without Mum! Yeah! Finally!

When Mum takes me shopping she is always pushing me to get ‘ladylike’ clothes. I have nothing vaguely fashionable in my wardrobe. It’s all good quality, serviceable and respectable. I want to be braver, like Natasha. I want a little more excitement, something that says, “This is me, I have my own taste.” This is my opportunity, and I’m going to make the most of my newfound freedom to shop by myself, and listen to the music I want to—without commentary from Mum to turn it down. Or turn it off.

I wonder downtown, humming along, happily window gazing, popping in and out of shops. Mum has the ones she goes to, I investigate the ones she would never go into, where the style is bolder, brighter, tighter. Through the music I can hear Mum’s disapproving voice in one ear, and Natasha’s laugh of encouragement in the other.

I come out of one of the stores, a bag on my arm. So far I’ve picked up a gorgeous red Indian scarf, shot through with gold threads, and a pair of stove pipe leggings. Most decidedly Mum would not approve.

Now I’m hungry, so I head to Van Der Walt Street to find a sandwich shop.

And while I’m standing on the corner of Pretorius and Van Der Walt Streets, on an innocuous winter day, pale blue sky overhead, regular weekday traffic in town, I am suddenly rooted to the spot in terror. Absolute, gut wrenching terror. I look around me wildly, suddenly realizing, there could be a bomb, literally anywhere. It could be there in that bus shelter. Or there in that trash can. Or there in that parked car. Or there in that bag that person is carrying. Or there in that shop.

I suddenly remember all that’s happened just in Pretoria over the last few years. David Miller, the father of one of Tig’s friends, blinded by the bomb outside the South African Air Force Headquarters in Pretoria1. How many did it kill? I can’t remember, but a lot. Air Force headquarters is just a few blocks away.

Then a few months ago, the bomb that exploded outside of the movie theater2. The movie theater we all go to. That’s a few blocks away in the other direction.

Lately there seem to be near daily news reports of bombs found at ‘soft targets’ all over the country: banks, shopping malls, restaurants and fast food outlets3. The apartheid government says the bombs are the work of the banned “terrorist” African National Congress (ANC), and uses the bombings as an excuse to conduct brutal raids in the townships, and mass detention without trial of black protestors. Nelson Mandela from prison, and Oliver Tambo in exile—the two most senior leaders of the ANC—say the government is using agents provocateurs, and that it is apartheid, and its increasingly vicious and violent enforcement, that are the real culprits.

South Africa is in upheaval. Mum and Dad say it’s becoming ungovernable4. Sanctions are really starting to bite. The pressure on the apartheid government is mounting from within and without.

We talk about it as a family over dinner most nights. Mum and Dad explaining what’s happening, answering questions, explaining why they support Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s call for sanctions. His call last year polarized the Anglican community, with half of the congregation of our church leaving when Father Robert endorsed Tutu’s call. We weren’t one of the families to leave.

Mum and Dad talk about how they’re conflicted between supporting the protests and uprisings against the apartheid government, but decrying the violence and the targeting of white civilians. We talk about the latest family that we know who is emigrating to Australia or the UK. “South Africa is our home,” Mum and Dad say. “We’re not leaving.”

The townships are already ungovernable. On the news I see the Casspirs5 rolling in; the police tear-gassing, beating, kicking, shooting, killing—killing people, people with black skins, the state of emergency giving them almost unfettered powers. But in the Pretoria suburbs, at St Anne’s, life goes on as normal. Our lives are untouched, while brutality and oppression rain down elsewhere. It’s always “out there”, not “in here”. It’s on the pages of the newspapers, on the news at night. Real, but not real. Happening to others, not to us.

For now, at least.

Tig has, as expected, and like all white males when they turn 18, received his call-up papers for compulsory national military service. But as he already has his admittance to University, his conscription is delayed by at least four years. So with the exception of David Miller, it’s never come close to touching us personally or directly.

Mum had a vicious argument with her brother some weeks back. The apartheid government is using the powers it’s given itself under the state of emergency to call up people who did National Service to supplement the Police. Uncle Charles had been called up and was on the fence. “We are not butchers,” Mum had yelled at him, furiously. “We do not police apartheid. We do not suppress protest. If you go, I will never talk to you again. And what if something happens to you. What will happen to your family? You have a moral duty, to your family, to your country, to refuse this call-up.”

Mum’s perpetual state of being seems to be anxiety. To see her angry like this—my mouth had dropped open and I’d stared at her in silent awe. This is Mum? Who is this woman?

So here I am, standing on the corner of Pretorius and Van Der Walt Streets in Pretoria, seat of the apartheid government, on an innocuous winter day, riveted in place by terror.

There really could be a bomb, I think.

Anywhere.

It could go off at any time.

For what seems like an eternity I stand there, frozen in terror.

And then, just as suddenly, it passes. Another voice whispers in my head, “Yes, Elle, there could be a bomb anywhere. It could go off at any time. And what are you going to do about that? You have a choice. You can stay home and afraid. You can succumb to the fear that both sides want you to live in. Or you can say: ‘Screw it. This is my country. If it’s my time to die. It’s my time to die.’ You can live your life on your terms. Or on theirs. What is it to be?”

And just like that, I shrug off the terror, put my headphones back on, and go about my shopping.

The answer is not in doubt.

I choose living on my terms over living in fear.