(2 of 2)
On the Thursday evening before New Year's Eve, Woods' wife drove the family car to the outskirts of East London. On the floor in the back lay Woods, his silvery hair dyed black and his features concealed by a false mustache and thick glasses. When they were safely out of town. Woods jumped out and began a 185-mile hitchhike to a town near the Lesotho border. An accomplished mimic, he told one curious motorist that he was an Afrikaner. To another driver he explained that he was an Australian poet, and to a third a German engineer. "I fully expected," he admitted, "to find a roadblock beyond every turn." He crossed the border on foot, hiking twelve miles over thickly wooded terrain. After seeking help from three blacks, who told him, "Don't worry, we'll help you—you're one of us." Woods reached the rain-swollen Telle River and forded it to safety.
In the meantime, Wendy remained quietly in East London, fearful that the police might pay the family a visit at any time. Then, on the night after Donald left, she bundled her children into the car, telling friends that they were off on a brief coastal holiday. Instead, she drove straight to Lesotho without attracting the attention of police, crossed the border routinely and joined her husband in Maseru, the Lesotho capital.
Some observers speculate that the South African government might have deliberately allowed Woods to escape in order to free itself of a political nuisance. If so, this was an odd miscalculation, since the eloquent Woods aims to establish himself as a critic in exile. "Whenever [a government spokesman] pops up to sell South African soap abroad," he told McWhirter last week, "they'll have to deal with me on the same platform." Until recently. Woods added, "I had gone along with the belief that South African politics should be left to South Africa to sort out. But I am now convinced that these outrages are the responsibility of people everywhere."
Woods has no regret at having chosen exile. "Even if I had been released," he reflected, "I would always have felt that they had just lifted the blade an inch or two before they let it drop again."