RSA: The Republic of South Africa

4 January 1974
Friday
Petrus says his goodbyes in the night. I am going to miss you so much, my friend. He leaves without saying goodbye to my parents. Didn’t understand until later.

This is a day of fear. I wander along the beach, swim, sunbathe and make a journey through the city centre. He is gone, for years. And my parents detest me for this past night and for tomorrow and maybe also for years. They spied on us. They know about the nights that we spent together in the tent. I feel dirtied by their thoughts. Something precious shattered. Madonna and whore. The ancient story.



7 January 1974
Monday
Thank you to my god that I didn’t walk the heavy road for nothing. He made me realize
things. What those things are, I’ll find out and understand through the course of my life.

22 January 1974
On holidays at my sister Henrika and Andreas’farm, Plettenberg Bay, Cape Province, South Africa:

I hope that I will always remember this evening, the time that we went for a walk. And now I sit here in an unlit room, the only light piercing in from the passage. Because I am afraid that someone will come in here ans spoil the holiness of the moment and of the words. So many times it has frustrated me because I cannot find any words to describe the mystery of the observation.

My sister’s farm just after sundown revealed many things to me. It was not the most beautiful landscape that I have possessed in my soul and neither was it my most emotional moment. I just realised what I have to be thankful for. Oh yes I saw how the scene enchanted me, but I rather saw the beauty of the whole of South Africa through that. I realised that I am entering a mad rush this year. Maybe I am fooling myself, and added to this, maybe I am by nature too doubtful and that’s why I say ‘maybe’ ‘maybe’. I mean, in the evening, just before dark, you can mislead yourself. Everything is softer, duller then. And yet not unrealistic. Not with an unnatural layer of feathery down. One still smells the hedge flowers, and the wild cucumber still reminds sharply of real home cucumbers when you open them. Treasure this my soul!



26 January 1974
Saturday
I am not a schoolchild anymore. I am not going to be afraid of my parents. I am going to be independent for once and follow my own head. Even if I bump it. I will still feel satisfied. Nobody is going to push his finger on me and say: ‘Do such or do such.’ My future is mine. It does not matter how I am going to fulfil my heart’s wishes. The most important thing is: I want to, I can and I am going to. As far as my appearance is concerned because I feel so neutral towards all those I “belong” to and therefore also so brave, I am solely going to work for my own interests, forget them, and put them outside me. Oh no, I am not going to be rude towards anyone. I am just going to be ruthlessly hard and unbreakable, steel myself against my own temptations, just like I am going to harden myself against them. I am going to walk decently, take care of myself and look neat. I am going to give them no reason to moan about something. Above all, I am not going to oppose them. I am going to be sweet and endearing as much as I can. Keep my tears for myself and Petrus. I will also pray when the last little grain of something is gone from me. My god understands me. I should never grow soft. One day, when I am an adult, I may, even if it is then too late. What happens from now on happens in the country of fate, but as much as I can, I am going to control that fate and rule over it.

All this I promise to the future.

Indeed, I must admit that love is the reason why life exists. WHEN I exist. But what if the concept of love does not exist for me anymore if it has become a hollow life of hatred or inferiority complexes? Then love becomes the turning point in life, the axis around which life turns. Around which I turn. And only then do you think it crazy that people have become so emotionally blind that they have started seeing love as the pulse, the heartbeat around which life turns. I would like to have it like this too. But it is just not like that. You, do you understand that something else could have become the focus of being human? Around this sentence, the almost eighteen years that I have lived, revolve. And that is why you, hateful you, whom I so badly want to love, don’t understand this

1 February 1974
If only life could gift me something it would seriously give me only one thing. And that is to be alone for a whole week. In the mountains or in the field. Where there is no reflector that can show me what I look like and how the world looks. My spirit, my body, would be eternally grateful towards life.

11 February 1974
Monday
Today I feel out of sync with the rest of the world, because it is my first work day at Butlers Pharmacy in Grahamstown.
Afternoon:
If one could talk about small moments of happiness, then this is it for sure. All the new faces are healing ointments for long-term wounds.
This evening I start my typing lessons at the Technical Institute.

The Coerzes are nice people.

1 March 1974
Friday
In every place where I am going to work in the future, I will act in such a way that people will remember me as pretty, good, friendly and decent. This is how I want to go through life and I don’t want to become part of the youth’s effort to represent a symbol of rubbish.

7 March 1974
Thursday
John Reed comes to pick me up and I join in with playing table tennis at the Leveys’ home, where I meet the American Richard.

8 March 1974
Friday
Hello Richard,
I had to write something down this night, meant for myself, but it is for you. I must admit that I have not met many young people, so perhaps I am wrong. But you are different. Not because you are American or you prefer classical music. You have a lot of sense in that head of yours, without being too serious-minded like me. I know that what you speak is worth listening to, worth keeping. I may be wrong. I have been wrong many times during my seventeen years of living. I’ve been too naive, too prepared to trust people and to see only the good in them.

So to end this rather unexpected letter, I can only say that, as a person you’ve made an impression on me.
I’m a bad talker, a willing listener and an eager writer. That explains my letter.
Bonne nuit
Hermien

10 March 1974
I go to Heidie, a schoolmate, in the afternoon.
This evening we go to the Rhodes University Barefoot dance. I meet Mat Mawson of
Rhodesia.

28 March 1974
I spend the evening with the Leveys. Richard, the American, is an exceptional person but too serious by far.

1 April 1974
Mammie plays April Fool with me about my job. I am sleeping in my brother’s room.

2 April 1974
You must never forget: To go overseas means that you can get rid of all your ghosts and make a new beginning. There nobody knows about the past and you may not inform them either, so learn from the beginning to communicate differently with your fellow human being. If you feel you can make better friends there by being more personal and taking someone in your trust, do, but never mention a word about the “inferior side” and one part of your past. Here in South Aftica I got stuck in a groove just because of that. There you are not allowed to make the same mistake.

Photo taken in Drenthe, the Netherlands, with an aunt 1974

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The above are further teenage musings, written in the early seventies by me, Hermien Zwiers. Names have been changed to protect people’s privacy, except for my own name.

#teenager