The Hollow Man

2008-05-01T21:58:00Z

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The Hollow Man

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Published: April 30, 2008

THESE days, as I watch Robert Mugabe tighten his 28-year-old stranglehold on Zimbabwe while the forces of opposition try to pry away his fingers, I can’t help thinking back to a conversation he and I once tried to have about T. S. Eliot, poetry and the month of April.

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Rodrigo Corral and Chris Brand

Times Topics: Robert Mugabe

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Let me explain.

At the time, nearly 30 years ago, Mr. Mugabe was an unknown leader of a guerrilla movement trying to overthrow white rule in what was then Rhodesia. I was a New York Times foreign correspondent covering Africa. And Rhodesia itself was a delusional outpost of colonial living in which many of the 270,000 whites appeared blissfully unaware of a war being pressed on behalf of the seven million blacks. They sipped sundowners beside swimming pools, played bowls on a clipped lawn in Salisbury Park and listened to a daily radio broadcast to pick up snatches of the Shona language like “Take out the garbage.”

I first heard mention of Mr. Mugabe in May 1976 in the Quill Club of the Ambassador Hotel, a watering hole where Prime Minister Ian Smith’s police, guerrilla sympathizers, reporters and agents from various factions suspended normal antipathies for the sake of gossip. We foreign correspondents used to toss around names of the ultimate leader of the emergent new country like miners testing gold nuggets: Would it be Joshua Nkomo? Ndabaningi Sithole? Jason Moyo?

A Guardian correspondent named James McManus, who looked particularly dashing in the safari suits we all wore, pulled me aside and said he was putting his money on a new man called Robert Mugabe. No one knew much about him, he said. But he was a Shona, which meant he belonged to the largest tribal group. He was said to be operating out of Mozambique, then notorious as Rhodesia’s hard-line communist neighbor. And most intriguing of all, he was an intellectual, a teacher who loved the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Understandably, this last bit of information got to me.

Quite a bit later, I found myself in Maputo, the lovely seaside capital of Mozambique. I made inquiries, met a few people and traded a dinner of prawns for a valuable phone number: that of Mr. Mugabe’s office. I tried calling for an appointment, but the phone was not working. I went back to my contact for an address and soon found myself walking up the stairs of a dreary high rise on the city’s outskirts. I knocked at the door and was admitted to a room in which a young woman sat, chewing gum, at a desk that was largely empty save for the non-functioning phone. I explained my mission and was shown to a couch, where I waited for some time before being ushered into Mr. Mugabe’s presence.

He was in the one other room of the apartment. It, too, was largely bare, though guerrilla posters were taped to the walls and it had, as I recall, a tiny balcony overlooking a grim courtyard. Mr. Mugabe sat behind a large, uncluttered wooden desk. He did not stand to greet me but nor did he hesitate to shake my hand. He seemed surprised to see me, though I learned he had heard of my desire to meet with him. He was not averse to granting an interview to the Western press and I gained the impression this was among the first he had given.

I looked him over. He was thin, dressed in a simple short-sleeved shirt and trousers. (No camouflage uniform in evidence.) He was disappointingly nondescript in appearance, with small eyes hidden behind large glasses. He was unsmiling but polite; he offered me a cup of tea and took one himself. The cups were brought in by the receptionist-secretary. He took small, cautious sips.

He answered all my questions slowly and seriously. He said that it would be a mistake for the United States and Britain to lift economic sanctions against the Rhodesian regime (that was a rumor at the time). He quietly called a government offer for the guerrillas to lay down their weapons, “ridiculous.” Speaking of weapons, he mentioned that his particular faction had been getting them from the Chinese but had hopes of switching to Moscow as a supplier. “We can only request, as we have been requesting all along,” he said disarmingly, holding his palms up. “They haven’t said no, but they have not yet said yes either.”

As the interview seemed to be drawing to a close — he was looking frequently at his watch — I couldn’t repress that unsatisfying feeling that I had won a headline but hadn’t really learned anything about the man himself. He was expressionless. His voice hadn’t risen. His small eyes hadn’t broken through the mask of placid assurance and even, it seemed, remote indifference. Surely there must be a key to unlock this enigma.

“So,” I said. “What is it exactly that attracts you to T. S. Eliot?”

He gave me a blank look and stood up.

“You know,” I added, “‘The Waste Land.’”

For the first time incomprehension crossed his features, maybe even a flash of irritation.

I persisted. “April is the cruelest month ...Eliot. The poet. You know.”

As he ushered me to the door, his bewilderment seemed to turn to anger.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” he said, closing the door firmly behind me.

John Darnton, a former foreign correspondent for The Times, is the author of the forthcoming “Black and White and Dead All Over,” a novel.

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