Brutal Legacy

by Tracy Going

  So I kept myself steady as I watched him approach.

  But, as I drew him to me with my eyes, I knew I was also desperately searching for some sign of remorse. I wanted so badly to know that he was sorry for what he’d done. I only needed a peek, a glance, a quick acknowledging look. There was nothing.

  He strode past me, his attorney alongside him, as though he had no need for explanation or apology.

  I stepped back, unable to hold my stance, shrivelling inside. From under lowered lashes, I followed his steps, along the gleaming floor, parallel to the painted black trim leading out into the courtyard. I saw how, once outside, he fumbled in his pocket, then bent his head and lit his cigarette, before tossing his shoulders back, lifting his chin and inhaling deeply.

  My mother took my arm. Her words touched the emptiness in me.

  “How you feeling?”

  “I’m okay.”

  My answer sounded hollow, even to me.

  We stood, quiet.

  “State versus Ngwenya,” an unfamiliar voice broke our silence.

  It was the court orderly calling out another name into the corridor.

  We were surrounded by constant movement as an endless stream of people silently shuffled in and out of the courtrooms. Occasionally, lawyers would pass by: ethereal beings moving in the opposite direction, heads down and purposeful, their black gowns swishing importantly and rubbing gently at what lay beneath.

  Still we watched and waited.

  Suddenly all the doors along the passage opened, as though a siren had screeched a silent alert. The noise was thunderous as people squeezed themselves out, shoving and pushing in their rush to be free. We stepped back to avoid the milling stampede.

  “What’s happening?” I asked Sheryl, my voice a little high.

  “It’s 10:45.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s tea time,” she trilled.

  Tea time. Another uninvited ritual.

  Tea time soon ended. Raised voices dropped quickly and the passage around us emptied as courtrooms sucked the now-subdued back in. Then Prosecutor No. 2 hailed us to the door. Signalling us inside, he instructed us to take a seat on the benches and to wait for our matter to be called. There was only one other case ahead, he assured us. It really wouldn’t take long.

  The court was smaller than I’d imagined it would be. Untidy. Mismatched chairs all over the place as though they’d been thoughtlessly discarded. Dark, wooden tables stood to one side. They were skew.

  It was even darker than it had been out in the corridor. And noisier too. The condensed coughs, shuffling shoes and rustling papers seem to press together loudly. To me it lacked any sense of order: it was hard to think justice would prevail in the chaos.

  The magistrate entered and took his place behind the high teak-wood railing, his gown sagging heavily forward, pulling his shoulders round, as he peered down from his raised bench into his shadowy domain.

  Nothing was as I had expected.

  I had never been in a courtroom before. There hadn’t been a need. Although I had spent a morning outside one many years previously.

  After twenty years of marriage my mother has finally found the courage. My parents are getting divorced and I have agreed to testify. I am in court as a witness, to take an oath swearing to my father’s shortcomings. All that is required is that I hold my hand up and solemnly swear to tell the truth, the simple, short truth. But perhaps the truth is never simple.

  I am eighteen years old and I am more than willing to do it.

  I am with my mother at the High Court in Pretoria. It has taken much to finally get there.

  I am the one who phones to have my father removed from our home. It has been a while since he has been able to care for himself. He has become so unhinged over the years that he is now a threat, not only to himself and to us, but to others too. I call the police but they aren’t able to help. Then I phone the hospital. They agree to send an ambulance to collect him and clean him up. But when the ambulance personnel arrive, my father refuses to go.

  “What’s going on, my girl?” he asks, the panic clouding his eyes.

  “You have to go, Dad.”

  “What’s happening?” he says, confused and uncertain.

  “They’re taking you away.”

  He doesn’t ask why.

  “I’ll only go if you take me, my girl.”

  I nod and turn from him. I know his game, but still … I don’t want to see the tears on his sunken cheeks.

  There are no flashing red lights as I slip in behind the ambulance and follow it to Brits. We are at the admissions desk before my father announces that he will not allow himself to be admitted without an overnight bag. He insists that he needs toiletries and clean clothes. What for? Why the need for dignity now? I bristle. But after some negotiation and a promise that he will return, I drive him all the way back to collect his few belongings.

  After his brief stay in hospital, it is agreed that he needs further psychiatric observation. His mental and physical collapse, and ultimately his complete disintegration, follow.

  I go to court to share the story of my father’s shame.

  It isn’t that he didn’t want things to be different. He has, over the years, in his own indomitable way, tried to pull himself together. There have been failed stints at rehabilitation at Castle Carey, in Akasia, a suburb in the north of Pretoria. And each time he packs his suitcase to go, we believe that this time it will be different, this time he’ll make it. But he doesn’t. He can’t. We aren’t enough. And, eventually, it is easier for all of us to simply let go.

  That’s when we stop seeing him.

  He gets lost in and around and past us. He lives among us like a drunken ghost.

  He stops caring too. About us. About himself. About anything. And in between he even loses the urge for his angry, violent binges. It requires too much. And from there he slowly disappears into his drunkenness until he is in a permanent state of steady insobriety. If he staggers, and falls, he remains where he is. He picks himself up only when he wants to. Or when he is finally able. The blood dries unevenly on his face, until it is cracked and flaked, and remains unnoticed. It works better that way, because then we can pretend we don’t notice either. We don’t have to worry that he is unwashed and dirty or that his hair has grown long and hangs in neglected strands. It means we didn’t have to care either. Or be ashamed.

  In the end, there are few words between us. It seems a lifetime ago since he last found me in his glassy eyes.

  “Yesh, my girl,” he slurs, his words coming out before he can find me, his look always delayed. Coming after. Too late. Trying to focus. “You shink I’m a rubbish.”

  “Yes, you are, Dad. You are a rubbish.”

  I spit my words, unkind and uncaring; knowing that my father is still conscious enough to flinch.

  But I know that when he steps into the High Court in Pretoria he will have cleaned himself up. He would have needed one or a few to calm his nerves, but he would have washed, combed his thinned hair into place, using his hand to flatten a few hairs over the dome of his head. He would have shaved the peppery-grey stubble from his drawn cheeks. He would have worn his beige, polyester trousers – the pair with the cigarette burn, because they don’t crease – and he would have tucked his faded, short-sleeved, checked cotton shirt tightly into the back of his trousers, but it would have still crept out. He would have pushed it down with his thin arms before entering the court, leaning forward into his unsteady gait, holding his briefcase tight.

  My mother had given the briefcase to him as a gift many years earlier, and he is seldom without it, especially towards the end. He carries it about as if its hollowness is packed full of papers of great importance, as though the shiny, tanned leather bag is tangible proof of a prosperous life, one that has been well lived. We, his children, mock him behind his back for his empty briefcase. Our father: slumped in his chair in the lounge, the curtains half-drawn, the tired afternoon sun casting its we
ak rays over him like a spotlight on a vacant stage, his hollow briefcase beside him.

  But today in court that briefcase won’t be empty. It will be filled with significant legal documents. I have been told to wait in a small room opposite the courtroom. The details have faded in my memory, but I remember that when proceedings finally get underway, I drift over to lean casually against the frame of the courtroom door, pretending that I am not trying hard to decipher the muffled words on the other side. I hear nothing that makes any sense.

  Twenty years. Why? Why has it taken so long for my mother to find the courage?

  In the end, that judge decides he is able to grant the divorce without putting me through the ordeal of testifying.

  The magistrate I was facing now would not spare me, I knew that much. I knew, too, that my ordeal would not be today. Today was procedural. Today we’d agree to go to trial and the court date would be set for after Christmas. We would let the holidays come and go. We would start in March. Five months after the event.

  I heard the next matter being called.

  “State versus Dlamini.”

  I looked up to see a slight young man being called to the front.

  I recognised him.

  I’d seen him outside. Between the weak smiles and the mumbled pleasantries, our greeting had hung delicate and brief.

  Now he was standing opposite the magistrate.

  I listened carefully.

  A hijacker?

  A hijacker!

  I had smiled at a hijacker. I’d been giving a hijacker knowing, sympathetic glances all morning. And not only him! Each time anyone stood up outside in the passage, I silently wished them all the very best as they entered the courtroom. How many out there actually deserved their freedom? Were they all criminals? Not just petty thieves. Hijackers. What else? Murderers? Rapists? All sitting, slouching and standing about. And we’d been milling between them all morning.

  Victims and violators.

  As though we weren’t already all wretchedly forged into one.

  Seventeen

  I walked out into the sweltering afternoon, knowing that this was only the beginning. The midday sun hung heavy. The shadows beneath the steps had blistered and gone. I felt the burn on my face. It was hot and dry, but as I stepped out into the heat, I calmed myself with the thought that everything was finally in motion and that in three months’ time I would be testifying and telling my story. Then he would take the stand to defend himself and it would quickly be over.

  I had been so afraid to see him, afraid of being put back into harm’s way. I knew that I should be safe in the courtroom but, even so, I wasn’t entirely convinced. He’d scoffed at the restraining order, he’d broken his bail conditions and had warned me repeatedly that he wouldn’t leave me alone.

  “I’ve put a hit on you …” he’d said. “You have a child … Six months, one year … I’ve got time.” He continued: “I have money. I have power. You have nothing.”

  And, so far, he’d given me no reason to doubt him.

  Even though I hadn’t been alone with him in that bleak courtroom, it had been unnerving to be so near. I was intimidated by his presence, his long strides, his loud voice and his rough laugh. But most of all, I was frightened of what he could still do.

  We had hung back after the court session: my mother, Sheryl and I. I wanted to speak with the prosecutor to get a clearer understanding of what lay ahead. But I also wanted to delay my exit. I wanted to avoid bumping into him in the parking lot outside. I’d seen enough of him already and had been left shaken and as afraid as I had ever been.

  I left for home utterly exhausted.

  I fetched my son from school and we spent the afternoon indoors.

  My life had become significantly smaller, more secluded, over the previous few months, shrinking to just beyond my house and its high exterior wall. I lived inside, the doors and windows tightly shut. Apart from the court appearance, the early-morning trips to the radio station and the occasional TV shoot, my life had narrowed to a terrifying two-kilometre radius.

  When I drove my son to his school or to his therapist, I looked ahead and behind, my eyes constantly darting to the rearview mirror, down side streets. When I needed to go to the supermarket just a few streets away, I crept along the aisles. Otherwise Wilhemina went over the road to the Texas café for the basics. I kept myself hidden, between destinations dictated by necessity. I went nowhere unless it was imperative and I always made sure that I was home before dark descended.

  I knew that my fear of him was changing who I was.

  So my son and I spent the evening locked indoors and because the morning in court had worn me thin, we went to bed early. My eyes had long since drooped from exhaustion when, just before midnight, my phone woke me.

  Please don’t let it be him.

  Half asleep, I stumbled down the passage.

  “Hullo,” I said, my words coming out in a choked whisper.

  “I’m a reporter from The Star.”

  Another reporter.

  “Yes?” I managed.

  “Do you have any comment about the charges that have been laid against you?”

  Charges? He’d laid charges against me.

  “No,” I said dropping down into the chair, trying to understand his words, heavy with an Afrikaans accent.

  “No, I have no comment … What’s your name again?”

  “Jack Hide.”

  Jack Hide from The Star.

  A reporter? So late.

  Jack Hide …

  The name had a ring to it though.

  Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde.

  Dr Jekyll, the fictional character who takes a potion to become the animalistic Mr Hyde? Was this another tale of a man with an alternate personality? Was it him conspiring to terrify me or was there really a Jack Hide writing for The Star?

  Charges laid against me.

  It was too much to take in.

  As his words settled over me, I stayed where I was. I knew I couldn’t sleep. I sat there all night until the darkness finally lifted. Only then did I get up and go to work.

  As soon as my radio show was over and I was alone, I called The Star.

  “Do you have a reporter by the name of Jack Hide?”

  They didn’t.

  “I have the details,” said Investigating Officer No. 1.

  When I had received his threatening call at 00:40 a few weeks earlier, I had contacted Investigating Officer No. 1 to report it. I had no physical evidence of the call so he suggested that a call-tracer be activated on my phone line. That meant that all incoming numbers could be identified if necessary.

  “I’ve traced the call,” he announced. “It’s an unlisted number.”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  “I’ve traced it to the Norwood Police Barracks …”

  The police!

  “… to a Detective Potgieter.”

  Potgieter? The name sounded familiar.

  Pottie.

  I remembered how he’d gone to meet Pottie to borrow a trailer for a delivery. I hadn’t thought anything of it when he laughed and said that if he was ever in trouble, he always had Pottie. Clearly, it seemed, Pottie had met his expectations.

  I didn’t know Pottie. I had no idea what he looked like and no understanding of what he was capable of doing, but I couldn’t leave it be. My silence would be a weapon for him and the accused.

  I phoned the Norwood police station. Not there.

  I phoned the Hillbrow police station.

  I made an appointment to see the station commander. His office, 10:00. I parked in the street, one littered with plastic, shards of broken glass and cigarette butts. I crossed over the road, away from the urban slums and their underworld of crime, and made my way into the police station. I sat opposite the station commander at his desk and I told him of the intimidation, the restraining order, the court case, the bail conditions, the calls, the threats … and now Pottie.

  I didn’t tell him of my crippling
fear, of the interminable sleepless nights, my inability to eat. I didn’t want him to know any of this. I wanted him to believe that I would take this matter further if it was not dealt with appropriately.

  The station commander phoned me a week later. In his deep voice, he informed me that there had been a disciplinary hearing. Detective Potgieter had initially dismissed my complaint and denied any involvement but, on hearing that the call had been traced to his lodgings, he changed his story. He adapted it, suggesting he was concerned about me and that he had actually phoned to warn me.

  “But he didn’t phone to warn me. He’s lying,” I said.

  “Well look, that’s what he said.”

  “But it’s not true,” I insisted.

  “Umm, well … I’ve done what I can,” the commander mumbled into the receiver.

  At my continued insistence, he finally agreed that it was a questionable explanation. He denied, however, that he was closing ranks, and assured me that Pottie had been sufficiently castigated, and presented as resounding evidence the fact that Pottie had received a small, monetary fine.

  But a policeman phoning me late at night, pretending to be a reporter, was not such a cheap matter for me. This was another violation, and I felt even more threatened than I had before.

  My home had long stopped being a carefully constructed sanctuary. My sense of safety had been dragged out of me many months earlier when I had been hauled down the passage and into my room with a hand fisted tight around my hair.

  I’d learnt long ago that danger comes from within. That it watches us as we bath. It holds the knife when we cook. It dangles the telephone cable as we talk. It strides down the passage when we sleep.

  But Pottie was different.

  Detective Potgieter was not a threat from the inside. He was on the outside and I didn’t know exactly where that was, what that meant. He had taken an oath, sworn to uphold the law, but clearly he thought he was above it, he could threaten and intimidate me. Now I had reported him, I had taken him on, challenged him.

  I had to shield myself – from both of them.