Читать книгу The State Vs Anna Bruwer - Anchien Troskie - Страница 7

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The constable who comes to fetch me is a large woman. Her stockings make an irritating sheesh-sheesh sound with every step that she takes. I want to scream, out of irritation, exhaustion.

We walk down a different passage, through a side door leading onto a veranda. Thank goodness they did not handcuff me. Was that because I gave myself up?

On the left, a pathway with neatly trimmed lawn on both sides leads to a row of doors all looking exactly alike. Cheerful-looking flowers in the garden. On the right is another building, with blankets thrown over the fence. Wet blankets: I can smell them.

The constable calls someone and a man in uniform appears, walking behind us. She takes a bunch of keys out of her pocket, unlocks the first door. Then a gate.

These are the cells, I realise, and every fibre of my being protests. I halt abruptly, but the constable pushes me hard between my shoulder blades. The man waits behind her in the doorway.

It’s a fairly large room. Empty, thank goodness. An open shower in the corner. I look up. No ceiling or roof, just a trellis covered with wire netting. What if it rains?

The constable pushes me forwards, unlocks another door, a thick steel door, and a barred gate. The smell coming from the room is almost tangible. I turn my head away.

Voices start to protest.

“How are we supposed to sleep if you keep on coming in all the time?”

“What now, for God’s sake?”

“Suppose someone is joining us.”

I come to a halt, petrified. “Can’t I stay here?” I indicate the space in which we’re standing. “Please?”

“No.” She pushes me inside impatiently.

I turn around, the man is no longer there, I can run away. And if they shoot me? No, I will have to go in. Because it is the choice I have made.

“Hurry up!” the constable snaps crossly.

I step forward slowly, look back a last time. The man is back, he’s holding out a mattress and a grey blanket to me.

“Make room for her!” the constable says to the vague figures in the semi-darkness of the room.

The door slams shut behind me.

I stand motionless, let my eyes get used to the dim light. Six faces look back at me. In one corner a toilet, partly screened off by a low wall around it. To the right of the door a cement bunk, already occupied by a body.

“A white woman,” a voice whispers.

It moves like an echo through the room. A white woman, a white woman, a white woman.

I look up at the naked light bulb hanging from the high ceiling. This is what my world has shrunk to: a dirty room with graffitied walls. A room I have to share with six strangers. With the smell of urine and excrement hanging thick in the air.

All I can feel is exhaustion. My entire body feels dead. My head is foggy, my eyes are burning.

“It’s a small price to pay,” I say aloud. “It’s a very small price to pay.”

“You’re telling me, girla, you’re telling me.” The woman nearest to me grins.

She beckons me towards her, clears a space for me next to her. I let the mattress drop to the floor, fold the grey blanket over double and double again for a pillow, curl up on my side. The mattress is so thin that I can feel the cold cement through it.

I’m cold, I think vaguely to myself, it’s summer in the Free State and I’m cold. My eyes close by themselves.

Bulldog waits patiently for the clock on the microwave to say 07:50. Then he puts a lid on the sausages sizzling in the pan, switches off the stove plate and breaks six eggs into the pan on the next stove plate. Four for him, two for his wife. Not a healthy breakfast, he knows that’s what she is going to say. But this morning he needs something to give him strength.

Just as he removes the pan with the eggs from the stove and lets the toast slide onto a plate, she walks into the kitchen.

“Not a healthy breakfast,” she says and kisses him on the cheek. “What are you doing home this time of the day?”

“Couldn’t stand being in the office a moment longer. And I’m hungry. Did you have a good walk?”

She nods.

For how long has she been going for a walk every morning? he wonders. Five years? Ten?

He will finally retire in November. Perhaps then he’ll start walking the five kilometres with her every morning. He brings the plates to the table. Takes juice from the fridge, pours the filter coffee.

She smiles at him. “Thanks, Leon, it looks delicious.”

When he moves his empty plate away, she turns to him. “What’s worrying you?”

“Worrying?”

“Yes, I can see something’s troubling you. Tell me.”

This is what attracted him to Marie in the first place, apart from her appearance, naturally: her interest. In him. In what he is thinking. In what he is feeling.

“It’s this case,” he sighs.

“A new case?”

He nods.

“Tell me.”

This is another reason he found her irresistible from the very beginning: she does not interrupt you. She gives you a chance to tell your story. She listens to every word and only then starts asking questions. As she does now.

“But is this not an open-and-shut case?”

“It is,” he sighs. “Admission of guilt, fingerprints on the murder weapon – I assume, because we’re still waiting for forensics. Blood on her clothes, on her body. A witness. It is an open-and-shut case, but . . .”

She waits quietly for him to formulate his thoughts.

“But for the first time in my professional career I feel sorry for the murderer. Do you think I’m getting old?”

She laughs. “You will never get old, Leon.”

“Anna Bruwer believes that it was her fate to kill her stepfather, that she had no choice. She drove eight hours to shoot him – twice, in front of a witness. She knelt down by him in his blood to make sure he was dead.”

“Revenge.”

He looks at her for a long time. “Yes,” he finally nods. “I’m presuming that he abused her sexually. Raped her. Her and her sister.”

“Then it’s just as well he’s dead.”

He shakes his head. “No, murder is murder. In all my thirty-five years of service I have never had to shoot to kill. Warning shots, yes, but . . .”

“There are cases where it’s unavoidable, Leon, you must admit.”

“No. You can wound someone, you can threaten them, you can try to reason with them, but murder? No, as I said to Anna Bruwer: You always have a choice.”

It’s still not properly light in the cell when I wake up, although the sun is already high up in the sky. If I turn my head a certain way, I can see it through a small window.

I don’t wonder where I am. I am not disorientated. The sounds, the smells, the absolute sense of desolation leave me in no doubt. In hell, that’s where I am. And it’s through my own doing. My own choice. Did I make the right choice? Why am I having doubts now?

No, it’s just because I’m frightened. I did make the right choice. It was my responsibility to bring an end to it all.

I turn carefully onto my back. The right-hand side of my body is numb. I’ve lain motionless for too long, sunk in a deep sleep. The sleep of death. A word one uses how many times a day without thinking. I’ll kill you, people say. But how many people have the courage to really kill someone, put them to death?

I never threatened him with death. Only that I would tell my mother. Not that that helped. But with death? Never. Wished that, yes. Dreamed about it. Fantasised. Usually imagined a grisly, bloody affair. I wanted to hurt him, as he hurt me. As he hurt Carli. I wanted to humiliate him. Grind him into the dust of the earth. But never, not for one moment, did I think I would kill him. Not me. Not obedient, law-abiding Anna. And yet, here I am, lying on a dirty mattress with a stinking blanket for a pillow, my body sore and cold.

I turn my head slightly. The other women are also all lying on their mattresses, apparently asleep. Could it be after lunch already? Does one get three meals here: breakfast, lunch, supper?

I try to move away as carefully as possible from the strange bodies touching mine, but no matter which side I turn to, there is a body pressing against mine. I want a toothbrush, some mouthwash. My bladder is full, even though I’ve had nothing to drink. This makes me realise I’m thirsty. For anything to drink, but preferably coffee.

What’s the time? Out of habit I look at my wrist. Nothing. No watch, no cellphone. Gingerly I lift my body into a sitting position. The toilet is going to be a problem. It’s not enclosed. And it’s dirty.

The woman who made place for me next to her also sits up and yawns loudly. “What you in for, sugar?”

She leans so close to me that I can smell her sour breath. I recoil instinctively, then feel embarrassed about my reaction. Shake my head.

“You don’t want to tell me?” She sniffs, looks me up and down. “Can’t be for prostitution, nobody would look at you with those baggy clothes and no hair. Why’s your hair so short?”

When I don’t answer, she says: “I’m in for prostitution. Third time. If it carries on like this, I’m going to lose customers.” She sounds quite resigned.

I avoid looking at her, hoping that she will get the message that I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to talk to anyone, just sit here. And think. And pray. And hope.

She sniffs again, whispers loudly: “My old-timer’s fault. He used me and abused me. You could say he raised me for the trade.”

I turn my head away from her. I don’t understand this. How is it possible that there are women who have been sexually abused and yet are ready to have sex for payment? How can they have sex at all?

Yet a small part of me does understand. Didn’t I sleep around at school? Have sex left, right and centre without the benefit of payment? And even though I have been living for years in self-imposed celibacy, the knowledge is always there: you were also like that. You are no better than a prostitute.

“Murder.” I turn back to her. “I’m in for murder.”

“Did the bastard rape you?”

I nod, surprised.

“Then it’s good that you stabbed him.”

“I shot him.”

“Good for you,” another voice says. “I used a knife on my man, he beat me up. Won’t ever do it again, though.”

Everyone is now sitting up, yawning, patting down rumpled hair, scratching an itchy spot. I begin to link the voices to faces.

“I’m in for robbery.”

“Drunk in the street.”

“Drugs.”

“My name is Violet,” says my prostitute neighbour. “What’s yours?”

“Anna. I’m thirsty.”

“Come.” She stands up, groaning, pulls me up by the arm. “Let me show you.”

Next to the toilet there’s a hole in the wall and a nozzle from which water is dripping. “Look,” she shows me, “you pull the little lever and water squirts out.”

I do this, drink huge gulps of water.

“Want to pee?”

I nod.

“Hey, look away,” she tells the others. “She wants to pee without being watched!”

“It’s so dirty, maybe I’ll just wait.”

“How d’you think, till when? We don’t have any cleaning stuff. If we had a blanket, we could put it on the ground, then at least your feet would stay dry. If it was winter we could have, then we get two blankets. But now . . .” She shrugs her shoulders.

“Pass my blanket.”

She shakes her head. “No, you going to need it tonight, it gets cold. So you better just pee.”

I sit down on the toilet, shudder at the wetness under my feet, and also because the bottom edges of the tracksuit pants are now going to be soggy.

“Shame, not even any panties.” One of the others shakes her head.

“Shaddup, you!” Violet hisses at her. She looks at me. “Mary,” she indicates with her head, “acts holy as the Virgin, but she drinks herself silly. She has never even seen a panty, never mind worn one.”

“Fuck you, Violet!”

“Fuck you too, Mary.”

Thank goodness there is toilet paper. I sigh and pull up my pants.

I turn around, look for the handle to flush the toilet, but Violet says: “It’s broken. Broke long ago.”

From outside comes the sound of keys, the squeaking of the gate. The cell door opens.

“About time, I’m fuckin’ hungry!” someone says.

A woman stands in front of the barred gate, plates in her hands. Someone behind her passes more plates on to her, she passes them on to us.

I go and sit on my mattress, look at the enamel plate in my hand. No knife, no fork. Watery, overcooked chicken on mushy rice. Green veg. Spinach? Green beans? Could also be peas cooked to a mush.

I am hungry. When last did I eat anything? I look down at the food. Jail food.

No, I decide, I’m not this desperate. Also not this hungry.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” Violet’s eyes are fixed on my food.

I shake my head and hold the plate out to her.

“Please, Supe, these are old people and they have driven far,” Joubert van Heerden says. “Just ten minutes, here in your office, under your supervision. They are very worried about her, and I’m worried about them. Let them just see that she’s okay.”

Bulldog ponders the request, sizes up the other man.

“Supe knows me.” Now the lawyer is pleading. “I would never ask for something like this unless it was really necessary. Please.”

How many times have the two of them not battled each other in court for what is right and just? Bulldog asks himself. He considers the options. This is not normally done, she is a suspect. But really, he cannot think of her as a murderer. What difference will ten minutes actually make to him? For her, on the other hand, it could mean a great deal.

“Fine,” he hears himself saying. “But only ten minutes. And tonight at eight, when there aren’t so many eyes around here.”

As Van Heerden leaves the office with a grateful smile, Bulldog shakes his head. He is getting soft in his old age.

He picks up the phone, dials his home number. “I’m going to be late tonight,” he says to Marie on the other end. “I let that little snot-nose lawyer talk me into allowing the murder suspect to receive a visit. Tonight in my office. I think I’m losing my edge.”

“What you are doing is humane, Leon. Compassionate.”

He grunts and replaces the phone on the cradle. Seeing he has to stay at the office until late, he might as well keep busy, he decides, and pulls Anna Bruwer’s dossier towards him.

Him, Bulldog Webber, compassionate!

I lie on the mattress, arms folded under my head, stare at the ceiling. Try to work out how much time has passed since lunchtime. Try to imagine that I am somewhere else. That I can’t hear the shouting and swearing and complaining around me. That I can feel the sun on my skin. That I am not hungry. Not thirsty.

If I get up to drink water, they will want to talk to me again, and I don’t want to be talked to. No, rather stay thirsty.

I close my eyes, see blood, open them again quickly. Don’t think about his body lying there. Don’t think of all the blood. Don’t remember that you slipped in the pool of blood forming next to him, how you ended up in it on all fours. Don’t remember how you stretched out your bloodied hands to his bloodied neck to feel his pulse. Don’t think of his lifeless eyes. Think of something else.

Such as? Such as: Is it possible that one’s sense of smell can become blunted over time? Or does one simply get used to the stench, so that it starts to smell normal? Is it possible that I, who have to shower twice a day, sometimes more often, can actually smell myself and dismiss it as of no importance?

His lifeless eyes . . . No, think of something else!

Will it be better in jail than here in the detention cell? There will surely at least be something to do? They will probably keep me busy? Even try to rehabilitate me?

The clinking sound of keys heralds someone’s arrival. It’s the same constable who brought me here this morning.

“Come,” she says, “you lot have an hour.”

An hour for what? To shower?

She leaves the door open, walks to the outer door, locks it carefully behind her.

An hour: the thought hits me. An hour in the spacious outer enclosure, where you can at least feel the sun on your body. An hour to stand around, because there’s nothing to sit or lie on.

Supper is soup and almost a quarter of a loaf of bread. Dry, no butter. A mug of coffee. I’m dying for coffee. I love coffee, but the smell of this brew revolts me.

I hold out my food to Violet, who seizes it eagerly.

I look up at the little window, see it’s already dark. Shut my ears to the slurping and gulping sounds around me. One feeble little light on the ceiling to dispel the gloom. And not doing a very good job of it. “Do they turn the light off at night?”

Violet stops slurping, burps loudly. “Never ever, darling. That light burns day and night.”

The door squeaks open again, a different face appears. “Bruwer, come with me.”

Why? I want to ask. Where to? But Anna who always remains silent just stands up, follows the woman.

She locks the door behind me. “Hold out your hands.”

“Why?” I ask, despite myself.

“I must handcuff you.”

“Why?” I ask in a fright.

“So that you don’t run away. Hold out your hands in front of you.”

“I won’t run away.” I look down at my hands, see that there is still dried blood under my fingernails.

“Doesn’t matter, I must anyway.” The cold handcuffs slip round my wrists, click shut. “Come.”

I recognise the way to the superintendent’s office. Before she opens the door, I make sure that my mask is firmly in place. He must not see how frightened I am.

But as the door opens, I see the three people whom I love the most. I feel my mask slipping. I keep my eyes cast down while the woman unlocks the handcuffs. I want Marnus to take me in his arms. Want him to be the one to hold me, comfort me. Know it cannot be.

That’s why I go to Auntie Miriam to be taken into her open, waiting arms. I let her head rest on my shoulder, I hold her shaking body tightly against mine. I become the one who comforts.

Uncle Retief’s hand rests heavily on my shoulder. “Anna.”

In that one word I hear so much. Love, acceptance, tolerance. Despite everything.

I turn to him. “I had to do it, Uncle Retief. I could not do otherwise. For Carli, for myself.”

“Shhhh,” he says and holds me tightly to him.

When he lets me go, I can turn to Marnus. Can step into his embrace. Know that this is what I have been waiting for all the time. That this is right, although it is at the same time completely wrong.

“Oh, my child . . .”

It’s Auntie Miriam who leads me to a chair, offers me a sandwich, pours me sweet coffee from a flask. I eat and drink, grateful for their presence. Auntie Miriam looks unhappy and anxious, but she’s pleased that I’m enjoying the food so much. Uncle Retief looks worried. Marnus . . . I don’t know what he is thinking, I’ve never found it easy to read him.

Superintendent Webber stands to one side, next to the lawyer from earlier. It is impossible to tell from their faces what they are thinking. I realise they are wearing the masks of professionalism.

“I want you to do something for me, Anna,” says Uncle Retief.

I nod.

“I want you to trust Joubert as your legal representative.”

I look up quickly at the large man. “I am guilty, Uncle Retief.”

“And that’s the other thing, my child. You must plead not guilty when the trial begins.”

“But I am guilty. I shot him, I wanted to, I had to.”

“Guilt is a relative concept, Anna. And you are a fighter. What has become of your fighting spirit?”

“Did I fight for Carli at the time? For myself?”

Before I can stop myself, my eyes fill with tears. “No, I preferred to run away, to come to live with you and Auntie Miriam, to pretend that nothing had happened. I forgot about Carli, I failed her.”

“You cannot take responsibility for what happened to Carli, Anna!” Auntie Miriam’s voice is sharper than I have ever heard it.

“Who else will take responsibility for Carli?”

Marnus comes to squat in front of me, takes my hands in his. “Please, Anna? Accept Joubert’s help.”

I look for a long time at the beloved face in front of me, then nod. I know that I need help.

Uncle Retief clears his throat. “Joubert, who is the state prosecutor?”

“A woman called Vicky Gouws.”

“Have you two come to an agreement about bail conditions?”

“Yes, she won’t oppose bail. The one thing that she does feel very strongly about, though, is that Anna should not be permitted to leave the city boundaries.”

“She is not a flight risk, and she has a business in Knysna. Did you explain that to her?”

In response the lawyer just raises his eyebrows.

Uncle Retief smiles weakly. “I’m sorry, obviously you would have.”

“All we need,” Joubert van Heerden looks at me, “is a sworn statement from Miss Bruwer.”

“I have already given a statement to the superintendent.”

“This is something else, Anna,” Uncle Retief explains. “This statement declares where you are going to live, that you will not try to escape, that you can look after yourself, and so on.” He turns to Joubert. “Can we do this right now?”

“Already done. I got her details from the police statement. She just has to read through it and sign.”

Why doesn’t he talk to me? I hold my hand out for the form, but it’s Superintendent Webber who takes it from the lawyer. He indicates that I must follow him.

I walk meekly behind him to the charge office. He beckons to a constable.

“If there are any mistakes, draw a line through them and correct them.”

I jump slightly at the voice behind me, I had not realised that the lawyer had followed us. I read through the statement quickly, look up at the constable as I swear the oath and sign in the designated space.

Back in the superintendent’s office, Auntie Miriam hands me some clothes. Jeans, tackies without laces, underwear, a blouse, light jacket. Soap, no shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush, no toothpaste, towel.

“They took the shampoo and the toothpaste, worried that you might drink it or eat it. Also your laces.”

I nod.

“Superintendent Webber says you may have a shower before you go back.”

“You can shower in the cell.” The superintendent talks to me for the first time. “I’ll see to it that you get toothpaste.”

I stand still outside the door. I turn around so that I can stare at the three faces. So that I can burn every detail into my memory. Am I doing the right thing? Shouldn’t I . . .?

No, I mustn’t. I am doing the right thing.

The constable locks the first gate carefully, leaves the door open. “Shower and get dressed, I don’t have much time.”

I turn on the tap, the water is cold. Stand shivering and naked under the meagre trickle of water, wash my hair, soap my body. Hold the toothbrush out to the constable so that she can apply some toothpaste. Brush and brush to get the sour taste out of my mouth.

She hands me the towel. I dry myself, pretend that I do not feel her eyes on my body. Spray deodorant. Dress.

“Thank you, Constable.”

She takes the redhead’s gym clothes, holds out her hand for the toiletries and the towel. “I’m going to need them tomorrow,” I protest.

“Not allowed to keep them. I’ll see that you get them back. Come.”

She unlocks the cell door, the gate. When she wants to shut the door behind me, I stop her by placing my hand on her arm. She does not draw back, she does not draw her service pistol, she just looks at me with something like sympathy.

“Are the lights switched off at night?” I ask to make sure.

“No,” she answers softly. “Here it never gets completely dark.”

That’s good, I don’t like the dark.

When I lie down on the mattress again, this time with everything, even my tackies, on, I allow myself to cry for the first time. Allow myself to hope for the first time. Tomorrow the lawyer is going to apply for bail.

Auntie Miriam said, “This time tomorrow you will be home.”