Mkhulu and the AMG

Soon after the light first appeared in the rearview mirror – faintly blue-tinted and exceptionally bright – it crested the horizon and transformed into a pair of headlights, moving incredibly quickly and approaching from behind… JIM WARD relates a tale that is truly strange, yet profoundly poignant.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was heading back to Johannesburg from KwaZulu-Natal, having spent several days in supplier meetings and fleet inspections. The roads were quiet; I was cruising along at the national limit, about to be overtaken by something travelling almost twice as fast. The blazing headlights in my rearview mirror grew rapidly, until I could discern the front of a black Mercedes flying along the N3 behind me.

The car shot past me like a missile, making that characteristic sound only made by an AMG 53 Mercedes-Benz. Anyone who owns one or has driven one will know: they sound  like a sports car racing at Le Mans, crackling and popping on the overrun.

Sometimes, when a supercar goes past at speed, it’s best to just lower the window and listen – sit back and watch. The black sedan, planted on the tarmac like a bull terrier, disappeared over the next hill without even drawing breath. I had just enough time to read the badge before it was gone from sight, with only the exhaust noise remaining. 

Apart from being something to liven up a long drive, I didn’t think much of it, and carried on as before. A few kilometres ahead, however, the same black AMG was parked on the lefthand side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere. Well, that’s not strictly true… we were traversing the unspoilt indigenous tree veld between Mooi River Toll and the Bergville offramp.

My first thought was that maybe they had lost a tyre. If so, I decided I would stop to see if they needed assistance. Then, I thought: “Wow… This could be big trouble.” If they’d been caught by KwaZulu-Natal traffic cops, travelling at over 200km/h, the car would be impounded and the driver arrested. I was wrong on both counts.

Slowing right down, I saw the youthful driver, wearing a baseball cap, leap out and run round to the back of the car. At that moment, as if from nowhere, a wizened, skinny, dusty, old man appeared from the surrounding bush, clutching his knobkerrie and fighting sticks, a small travel bag in one hand. He was wearing full traditional Zulu attire: the animal hide chest cover, Umqele (headband) with a tuft and feathers above his forehead, and (from what I could briefly see) the traditional Ibheshu ‘apron’ over the lower regions. He had a distinguished grey beard and a cap of woolly white hair and wore the white cow tufts they call Amashobaaround his thin arms.

The old man was clambering with some difficulty over the Armco barriers, rather like an elderly stork. His Imbadada (rubber sandals) kept snagging on the barrier. The driver took the sticks from Mkhulu (a respectful term for one’s elder or an important man) and was helping him into the rear passenger seat. I acknowledged them as I passed, and watched in the mirror as the sticks were loaded into the boot.

After a couple of minutes, the same car came up behind me again, still going like the clappers with headlights blazing, albeit at a slightly reduced speed (around 180km/h, possibly out of respect to the elderly passenger). It blasted past with a quick double flash of hazards to say “Cheers!”

Then they were gone, and I never saw them again.

I have thought about this event many times since. Mkhulu had emerged from the bush precisely as the car was arriving. They must have been liaising by cellphone. I wondered if he was an elder being summoned to someone’s deathbed, or an Inyanga (traditional healer) called to collect troubled spirits from somewhere and bring them home. It was such a slick operation, and the incongruity of the R1.5-million sports car collecting this obviously important, deeply traditional person from rural KwaZulu-Natal was profound. I would have loved to know what the emergency was, how the collection was arranged, and where they were headed. They were clearly in a hurry to carry Mkhulu somewhere as fast as possible, but it wasn’t the kind of situation where you drive with the hazards on. What better car to use for such a mission?

We live in a dichotomous society here – one that never ceases to surprise. You step out of the world-class Gautrain into the spotlessly clean Marlboro Station, then drive straight onto the rat-infested and potholed streets of Alex, possibly into a mandatory loadshedding period. The train service itself is occasionally crippled by organised cable theft or power outages as the national grid randomly collapses, causing travellers to OR Tambo to miss their flights. It’s a case of first world needs clashing with developing nation challenges. 

Without intending to sound judgemental or make sweeping generalisations, one might more easily imagine the elderly gent hitching a ride in an old 2.4 Hilux on a farm road somewhere, clambering onto sacks of fertiliser and sharing the load bed with two goats and a tractor tyre. 

Instead, he was collected at a place convenient to him – near his kraal but far from anywhere else – in a privately chauffeured, extremely expensive German automobile. He mattered enough to someone that he was treated like a CEO – just a CEO wearing Umqele. What a privilege it is to live in a country steeped in ancient cultures, where we don’t all look the same, sound the same, or behave in the same way!