Open: An Autobiography

We don’t know if Mandela’s going to be there, he says.

If there’s even a remote chance, I’m in.

Gary calls right back. Good news, he says. You’re going to get to meet The Man.

You’re kidding.

He’s confirmed. He’s coming to the event.

I grip the phone tighter. I’ve admired Mandela for years. I’ve followed his struggles, his im-prisonment, his miraculous release and stunning political career, with awe. The idea of actually meeting him, speaking to him, makes me dizzy.

I tell Brooke. It’s the happiest she’s seen me in a long time, which makes her happy. She wants to come. The event happens to be a short flight from where she stayed while filming her Africa movie, back in 1993, when we first started faxing.

She immediately goes shopping for matching safari outfits.

J.P. shares my reverence for Mandela, so I invite him to join us on the trip, and bring his wife, Joni, whom Brooke and I both love. The four of us fly to South America, then catch another plane to Johannesburg. Then we hop a rickety prop plane into the heart of Africa.

A storm forces us to make an unscheduled landing. We batten down in a straw-roofed hut in the middle of nowhere, and over the sound of the thunder we can hear hundreds of animals run for cover. Looking out of the hut, over the vast savannah, watching storm clouds whirl along the horizon, J.P. and I agree this is one of those moments. We’re both reading Mandela’s memoir, Long Walk to Freedom, but feeling like heroes in a Hemingway novel. I think about something Mandela said once in an interview: No matter where you are in life, there is always more journey ahead. And I think of one of Mandela’s favorite quotes, from the poem Invictus, which sustained him during those moments when he thought his journey had been cut short: I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

After the storm passes we pile back into the prop plane and fly to a game reserve. We spend three days on safari. Every morning, before dawn, we climb into a Jeep. We drive and drive, then abruptly stop. We sit for twenty minutes in pitch dark, the engine running. As the dawn slowly breaks we find that we’re on the banks of a vast fog-covered marsh, surrounded by dozens of different kinds of animals. We see hundreds of impala. We see at least seventy-five zebras. We see scores of giraffes as tall as two-story buildings, dancing around us and gliding among the trees, nibbling from the highest branches, a sound like celery being crunched. We feel the landscape speaking to us: All these animals, beginning their day in a dangerous world, exude tremendous calm and acceptance - why can’t you?

With us are a driver and a shooter. The shooter is named Johnson. We love Johnson.

He’s our African Gil. He stands guard. He knows we love him, and he smiles with the pride of a crack shot. He also knows the landscape better than the impalas do. At one point he waves his hand at the trees and a thousand small monkeys, as if on cue, fall to the ground, like autumn leaves.

In South Africa, on safari with Brooke, late 1997, days before meeting Mandela

We’re driving deep into the bush one morning when the Jeep shudders, swerves, and we go spinning off to the right.

What happened?

We nearly ran over a lion sleeping in the middle of the road.

The lion sits up and stares with an expression that says, You woke me. His head is enormous. His eyes are the color of lemon-lime Gatorade. The smell of him is a musk so primal that it makes us lightheaded.

He has hair like I used to have.

Do not make a sound, the driver whispers.

Whatever you do, Johnson whispers, do not stand up.

Why?

The lion looks at us as one big predator. Right now he’s afraid of us. If you stand, he’ll see that we’re several smaller people.

Fair enough.

After a few minutes, the lion backs away, into the bush. We drive on.

Later, returning to our campsite, I lean into J.P. and whisper: I need to tell you something.

Fire away.

I’m going through - well, a tough time right now. I’m trying to put some bad stuff behind me.

What’s the problem?

I can’t go into it. But I wanted to apologize if I seem - different.

Well, now that you mention it, you do. You have. But what’s going on?

I’ll tell you when I know you better.

He laughs.

Then he sees that I’m not kidding. He asks, Are you OK?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

I want to tell him about the depression, the confusion, the time with Slim, the pending suspension from the ATP. But I can’t. Not now. Not until it’s all farther behind me. At the moment it feels like the lion, still inches away and glowering. I don’t want to give voice to my problems, for fear of rousing them, making them pounce. I just want to alert J.P. to their presence.

I also tell him that I’m doubling down on tennis, and if I can pull through this tough time, if I can come back, everything is going to be different. I’m going to be different. But even if I can’t, even if I’m finished, even if I lose everything, I’m still going to be different.

He says, Finished?

I just wanted you to know.