December 6, 2013

Nelson Mandela Dies at 95

As soon as she woke up her demeanour had changed. She became alert and businesslike, put her clothes on, knotted the scarlet sash about her waist, and began arranging the details of the journey home. It seemed natural to leave this to her. She obviously had a practical cunning which Winston lacked, and she seemed also to have an exhaustive knowledge of the countryside round London, stored away from innumerable community hikes. The route she gave him was quite different from the one by which he had come, and brought him out at a different railway station. "Never go home the same way as you went out," she said, as though enunciating an important general principle. She would leave first, and Winston was to wait half an hour before following her.

Nelson Mandela, who rose from militant antiapartheid activist to become the unifying president of a democratic South Africa and a global symbol of racial reconciliation, died at his Johannesburg home following a lengthy stay at a Pretoria hospital, the government said Thursday. He was 95.

She had named a place where they could meet after work, four evenings hence. It was a street in one of the poorer quarters, where there was an open market which was generally crowded and noisy. She would be hanging about among the stalls, pretending to be in search of shoelaces or sewing thread. If she judged that the coast was clear she would blow her nose when he approached; otherwise he was to walk past her without recognition. But with luck, in the middle of the crowd, it would be safe to talk for a quarter of an hour and arrange another meeting.

In a state television address, President Jacob Zuma said Mr. Mandela had died that evening after a long illness. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father," said Mr. Zuma, dressed in a dark jacket and reading his statement in deep somber tones. "Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss."

"And now I must go," she said as soon as he had mastered his instructions. 'I'm due back at nineteen-thirty. I've got to put in two hours for the Junior Anti-Sex League, handing out leaflets, or something. Isn't it bloody? Give me a brush-down, would you? Have I got any twigs in my hair? Are you sure? Then good-by, my love, good-by!'

In a somber statement from the White House, President Barack Obama said Mr. Mandela "achieved more than could be expected of any man. Today he's gone home and we've lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth."