Tracing Ambassador Nathi Mthethwa’s last steps in grey Paree

In a city filled with majestic buildings, the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile is not one of them.

A somewhat soulless-looking skyscraper, it is buttressed by a grey shopping centre. But the hotel’s most distinctive aspect, one which you grasp already blocks away from its base, is its height: it towers above every other structure in the vicinity, stretching 34 stories into the sky.

This is, in fact, its claim to fame: it is known for being one of the tallest buildings in Paris.

It was at this hotel that South Africa’s ambassador to France, former Cabinet minister Nathi Mthethwa, checked in on Tuesday, 30 September after making a booking there some 10 days previously. According to police reports, he reserved a room on the 22nd floor. After forcing the window open with scissors, he jumped to his death in the hotel’s internal courtyard.

In a country as conspiratorially minded as South Africa — and to some degree with good reason, with ongoing inquiries sketching a picture of alleged collusion between senior police figures and criminals stretching to the highest political levels — the story has been greeted with sadness and scepticism.

Has a high-ranking South African politician ever committed suicide before? In conversation with colleagues, the only recent-ish case we could recall was that of the Inkatha Freedom Party MP Mario Ambrosini, who, with late-stage cancer and no outcome but excruciating pain in sight, reportedly ended his own life in 2014. A seemingly very different set of circumstances.

There were rumours that Mthethwa, a former police minister, was set to be exposed in some way by the Madlanga Commission. He had previously been implicated in wrongdoing, in the Nkandla cover-up scandal by the Public Protector, and in the Marikana massacre by the Farlam Commission, and appeared to have strolled away unscathed, like so many others.

Could a policing inquiry in which he would presumably only be tangentially fingered — having left the security cluster in 2014 — really have sent him over the edge?

What about the prospect that it was not suicide, others whispered. Pushed over a hotel balcony, or forced to jump: such tactics are not unheard of by certain authoritarian governments. Exactly what motive such a murder would have is never explicitly stated: corruption, vaguely. Who knows what shadowy dealings?

Five South African police investigators have now been sent to Paris to join a French inquiry. But in truth, based on what is known so far, there is no evidence to believe the death was anything other than what it looked like: the suicide of a 58-year-old man, far from home.

Paris police, who presumably have no reason to cover up any South African skulduggery, have said there is no trace of anyone entering the hotel room before or after Mthethwa. They have also said that Mthethwa sent a farewell message to his wife.

The hotel 

The Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile has the reception area of any large business hotel in one of the world’s major cities: a vast, tiled floor dotted with pillars, lounge furniture and light installations. But the impression it gives is not one of overwhelming luxury; many of the patrons walking through with wheelie suitcases seem to be middle-aged American couples, rather than top diplomats.

Approaching the hotel’s concierge desk, I catch the attention of a young, bespectacled Frenchman who asks how he can help.

“I am a South African journalist,” I say, and then pause meaningfully for effect.

“Perhaps you already know what I’m going to ask?” I ask, staring deep into his soul.

I am hoping to cut to the chase to avoid the conversational taboo of explicitly citing a suicide, but his only response is to give me a confused look and murmur: “Noooo?”

I sigh internally and get on with it.

“Three weeks ago,” I begin, “there was an … incident here involving our ambassador…”

The confusion on his face lifts.

“Ah! Yes,” he says, but as he says yes, he simultaneously begins to shake his head “no”, in a compulsive manner. No, no, no, no, like someone with Parkinson’s.

I persevere. Is there anyone here who might be able to…? No, no, no, no, no, he shakes.

Might I, I venture, feeling a rush of shame for the journalistic ghoul I undoubtedly am, be able to photograph the internal courtyard where…?

He continues to shake his head mutely.

“I am very sorry, Madame,” he says, while ushering me gently but firmly towards the door.

Later, I wonder if it would have made a difference if I had discreetly pressed a €20 note into his palm, but this is an unethical media practice and also, to be honest, I do not have a €20 note to spare.

The residence 

The official South African ambassador’s residence in Paris is an easy 20-minute stroll from the hotel where Mthethwa’s life ended, and a beautiful one, under chestnut trees canopying the banks of the Seine. I wonder if Mthethwa ever did this walk, and stopped to admire the water glinting off the great river, or if the life of an ambassador is one undertaken entirely in black-tinted diplomatic cars.

Leaving the Hyatt, the environment quickly relaxes from a sterile business district into something more green and opulent. Quiet streets, stately multifloored buildings. Here, near the Arc de Triomphe, is where the world’s diplomats make their home in France’s capital.

Crossing down into Rue Cimarosa, I quickly spot the residence I am looking for, because a South African flag flutters bravely above it, and I feel a sudden, sharp pang of sorrow.

Opposite the Argentinian embassy, it is a handsome three-storied building bearing the plaque: “Residence Officielle: Ambassade D’Afrique Du Sud”.

Across the road stands a luxury wellness centre called Maison Epigenetic, offering “Longevity & Performance for a Better Life”. Among its offerings: a “Biohacking and NASA room”.

While I am skulking outside the South African ambassador’s official residence, trying not to look like someone who may have just robbed the Louvre of the Napoleonic crown jewels, a blonde woman walks past and suddenly pauses, clearly struck by the South African flag, and stops to take a photograph.

I realise she is probably a fellow countrywoman, but cannot bring myself to enter a conversation about whether or not she is aware, in her moment of apparent patriotic affection, that the man who lived in this residence recently killed himself in an incident which made international headlines.

There appear to be lights on in rooms on the second and third floors of the building, casting a warm glow inside from the dull day, but am I imagining them? Are they a reflection from the building opposite?

Either way, when I ring the bell, nobody answers.

As I step off the road away from the residence, a soft rain falls.

The embassy 

By the time I reach the South African embassy in Paris, a further 20-minute walk away, the rain has intensified to a torrential downpour and, having brought nothing useful that would equip me against easily-predicted weather, I am sodden and dripping.

“Welcome/Bienvenue EKHAYA, South Africa’s home away from home”, reads an installation outside it, probably erected in honour of Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s recent state visit.

“Home away from home” is not precisely the welcome I receive when I approach the embassy reception, but perhaps my drowned-rat appearance has something to do with it.

I ask to speak to someone “about the late ambassador”.

My sole audience is a French woman who looks frazzled within an inch of her professional life, and who seems to be juggling 15 phone calls simultaneously. How can the South African embassy in Paris possibly be receiving this volume of telephonic contact on a random Monday afternoon, I wonder. Is she running a call centre on the side?

She suggests, landline phone tucked under her chin like a secretary in a ’90s sitcom, that I leave my details for someone to respond to me in due course.

I explain that I am here for a very limited time and ask if it would be possible at least to see the condolence book that the embassy laid out, in which people could write messages of condolences for Mthethwa.

“They took the book away!” she cries, throwing up her hands, as if my mere presence is a thorn in her side she has been battling since birth.

“What is it exactly you want to know?” she asks, pen at the ready for her notebook.

I pause. What do I want to know?

I want to know why someone who was given the chance to live a life of astonishing privilege in one of the world’s most enchanting cities would feel that no existence at all was better than the one that he had.

I want to know why this one South African politician, a man implicated in past wrongdoing but also described by those who knew him as intelligent and gentle and reflective, would feel there was no possible way out.

I want to know what it is about the human condition that makes this one precious life seem so unbearable, so unendurable, that sometimes there feels no choice but to end it, on an autumn day in Paris, with the chestnut tree leaves turning to red.

Instead, I say: “I want to know how the embassy is coping.”

She dutifully writes it down. Nobody calls me back. DM

Rebecca Davis is in France at the invitation of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend the 4th Ministerial Feminist Foreign Policy Conference.