`Part Of My Soul Went With Him'

For nearly 30 years, Winnie Mandela endured a forced separation from her husband, the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. With Mandela's release Sunday, it would be easy to wonder what life had been like for the 71-year-old symbol of black African resistance to apartheid. In this excerpt from her autobiography, ``Part of My Soul Went With Him,'' Winnie Mandela looks back on her infrequent visits with her husband, tells the world about the inhumane treatment he was subjected to since 1962 and talks about how visits with his children and grandchildren helped sustain him.

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All Nelson lives for - besides of course, the knowledge that he'll come out one day - are the letters and family visits that have played an extremely important role in his life, and one of the things he enjoys most is visits from his children. (Children's visits are prohibited from the age of 2 up to 16.) He didn't bring them up, they had to be introduced to him - one of the most traumatic experiences for all of us. It is not easy for a mother to say: ``Look, your father, he is doing life in prison.'' It is not easy for a child to go and see that father she has heard so much about in those conditions, in that atmosphere. Psychologically, it's a 50-50 sort of thing. You never know what the child's reaction is going to be: either break-down, or the child emerges as solid as a rock from the experience, and proud of seeing father.

Because, how do you bring up a child in this kind of society - you can't have any sense of crime in this country, if you have brought up a child to be proud of parents behind bars. In a child's mind a criminal is in fact somebody who fights for liberation - how can you teach children otherwise?

Zindzi recalls her first visit to her father after she had turned 16:

``I was a bit apprehensive, I thought, Jesus, this is meant to be my father. What am I going to say? Will he be proud of me? Have I lived up to his standards? But he is such a warm person, and he is so tactful. He said, `Oh, darling, I can see you now as a kid at home on my lap' - and I immediately forgot the surroundings, and we started dreaming and dreaming and then I felt so free: and he has this terrific sense of humor, so it went on so well.

``My father is still so much in touch, he knows what's happening. For instance he says to me: `Darling, I hope you won't be paying the increased rents. You mustn't do that.' Or when newspapers are boycotted, he says that I mustn't buy them. He managed to get that across.

``They really respect my father. One of the warders even took his grandchild for a walk during a visit. These people can be humane when they feel like it.

``We were always called in last. We see the other prisoners going out and when they pass, we see them giving the thumbs-up sign. They still look so young, so dignified.

``The spirit of those political prisoners, when you meet the ex-islanders, is so strong. There is so much unity there, and outside there are so many divisions. The same spirit as in the '50s, it hasn't faded. And someone was telling me that Walter Sisulu is considered the confidant - everybody confides in Sisulu when they have a problem; Govan Mbeki is the philosopher; and Mandela is considered the father, the leader.''

Had Nelson not been what he is, he could have been one of the greatest psychologists. He is able to read people's personalities from almost nothing, just from the handwriting. He would tell me, for instance, when you wrote that mistake, when you scratched out that word, you must have been doing this and that, and it will be dead accurate! A mind doesn't make a mistake, just like that. There is a reason. And you have to tell him your state of mind when you made that mistake, so that he could analyze that in order that you don't make that mistake again.

He is a complete lawyer through and through. He is a perfectionist without imposing himself. He philosophizes a great deal. This is his natural self. I hardly lived with him. So I only discovered that side of his life when he was imprisoned on Robben Island, a flat, rocky, wind-swept outcrop of land surrounded by turbulent seas that lies some seven miles northwest of Cape Town.

My husband was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town in April 1982.

I didn't know about it. I was studying at home one day and just sent one of the children to get me the newspaper and there I see the front-page story and I also heard it from television in the evening. Some time later I got a letter from the Prison Department - in the usual cold way - informing me that my husband had been transferred to Pollsmoor Prison.

My first trip there was an unforgettable experience. The drive to the prison itself through the plushest suburbs of Cape Town, the most beautiful scenery with those original colonial buildings - an area I had never been to. I just prayed that he had also seen that scenery, the vineyards, the beauty of this country he was dying for. Because having been confined to the island for 20 years, obviously he had forgotten about the ordinary vegetation, how lovely the country is.

When we arrived we saw this handsome structure; it doesn't look like a prison but like one of those modern technical institutions - a huge complex, more than 6,000 prisoners. From the gates, of course, you realize that you are in a maximum-security prison; heavily armed guards at the entrance, the usual thing. Then we were ushered into a sitting-room to wait for the visit - a completely different scene from Robben Island.

In the section for visits, the glass partition was such that at least you could see him as far as his waist. They have boxes that transmit the sound, not the phone system anymore. The voice gets amplified and his voice came out much clearer.

He looked very, very well. The first question, of course, was why he had been transferred. He had no idea. The most logical reason seems to have been that it was for administrative reasons. He told me that the very day he was transferred, he had been consulting a lawyer from Cape Town about the education of young prisoners on the island. He had just received a check of about 14,000 Rand for their studies. Many of them had been imprisoned after the uprising in 1976; he had been able to help them continue with their studies.

The Prisons Department must have gotten worried about the extent to which he was doing this sort of program. The island became known as Mandela University. Youths who had left school having Standard 6 emerged from the island with degrees. In his absence that program came to an end.

He said the last time he saw a blade of grass was on the island, as he was leaving. Now he can only see the sky. The prison is in a valley. He must be in a part of the prison that is so enclosed that he can't even have the view of the mountains. Isn't it strange that there can still be a difference between nothing and nothing?

That island - which was nothing, which was death itself - suddenly became a paradise. There he had a cell with his name engraved on the door to give him that psychological feeling of eternity, of a total end - this is the end of life. There he had that little garden where he used to till the land with a fork and watch plants grow and he was free to move around in the big yard. The irony of it all! Pollsmoor is a virtual palace when you compare the structure itself with the island. Yet he is certainly worse off there than he was on the island.

He and Uncle Walter and the other four who are confined together - in a cold, damp cell with no privacy for themselves or for their studies - are isolated from all other prisoners. That is soul-killing. In fact, they are subjecting him now to more harassment of the soul than he ever had on the island. Those colleagues there were a community he adjusted to for 20 years. To deprive him even of that! What kind of fear drives people to this type of insanity!

The following year when I took our grand-daughter, Zamaswazi along, it was very painful. She couldn't see Nelson properly on the other side of the barrier and she kept banging on the glass: ``Open, daddy! Open, daddy! I want to come in.'' And Nelson smiled and said: ``Here are the keys, darling,'' pointing to the warders. ``Ask them to open.'' And she became more hysterical, ``Open daddy, I want to sit on your lap!'' Oh, that visit was terrible. I think I even saw tears in the eyes of the warders.

On the weekend of May 12-13, 1984, we had our first ``contact visit.'' Can you imagine! We last touched his hand in 1962. When I arrived at Pollsmoor Prison - my daughter, Zeni, and her youngest were with me - Sergeant Gregory called me to the office. I got a terrible shock, I thought Nelson was sick, because that's very unusual. He said, ``As from now on you will be able to have different visits. I thought I should bring the news gently to you.'' We kissed Nelson and held him a long time. It is an experience one just can't put into words. It was fantastic and hurting at the same time.

He clung to the child right through the visit.

Gregory, his warder, was so moved, he looked the other way. That the system could have been so cruel as to deny us that right for the last 22 years! Why deny that right to a man who is jailed for life?

I look forward to visits so much, but the trip back is awful - I feel so empty. I can't help thinking of all those years of our lives that are going down the drain - our best years.

Of course, what sustains you is the knowledge that one day they will come back to join us. You look forward to the next visit even as you come back. Going there is a fantastic feeling, it's like recharging your batteries. I think it's because they give us so much inspiration, so much courage. Of course they will come back to play their rightful role in a black-ruled South Africa.

(From the book, ``Part of My Soul Went With Him,'' by Winnie Mandela, Copyright, 1984, by Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag Gmb. H, Reinbek bei Hamburg. Published by arrangement of W.W. Norton & Company Inc. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate)