Читать книгу Robert McBride: The Struggle Continues - Bryan Rostron - Страница 7

Invitation to a Wedding

‘Attend my fable if your ears be clean

In fair Banana Land we lay our scene –

South Africa, renowned both far and wide

For politics and little else beside.’

Roy Campbell: The Wayzgoose

It was Paula’s wedding day, a bright, crisply autumnal morning in May. Milky clouds hung in the pale turquoise sky. It was certainly the most unusual wedding in the history of this strange land: the ceremony would be held behind locked doors.

It was not a land renowned for love; no one knew who they could trust.

The whites lived behind high walls, always with half an ear cocked to their electronic surveillance devices. They kept guns in their briefcases and handbags. Even the elderly slept with a firearm under the pillow.

They did business, played tennis, swam in their voluptuous swimming pools, and nervously waited. The longer they waited, the more nervous they became. Rumour, the worm of doubt, slithered through the affluent white suburbs. No one knew what to believe.

Murmured confidences circulated: terrifying accounts of maddened guerrillas on the rampage, of whites in outlying areas silently and horrifically slaughtered, and of unspeakable deeds visited upon the innocent. They also confided that the authorities were suppressing news of these abominations in order not to create panic.

They waited, listened, watched. What was out there, lurking, biding its time? They had no idea. The emergency regulations, midnight arrests and censorship – which they had been assured were indispensable to save them from the threat – prevented them from discovering exactly what it was. In this vacuum, the apprehensive whites manufactured a monster from their own worst imaginings. They created the very thing they feared.

Not, to be sure, the atmosphere for love. In this land (where lemons hang like yellow moons ashine, And grapes the size of apples load the vine) there were strict laws regulating that too. After all, it was for the suppression of love, if little else beside, that South Africa was renowned both far and wide.

Paula came from a wealthy white family; her fiancé was a revolutionary. The date was set for May 10, 1989. She was to be driven to the ceremony by her mother.

Paula lived with her brother John, a disorganised pop musician, and three cats, Murphy, Lurgy and Gormy, in a quiet, tree-lined suburb; a neighbourhood of pink, green, blue and white bungalows snug behind high walls, draped with extravagant cascades of pink, purple and violet bougainvillaea. Almost every other home posted prominent signs boasting their security system. Some had the emblem of a sword, others of a pistol. Opposite was a vivid yellow plaque: WARNING – PROTECTED BY 24 HOUR ARMED RESPONSE.

Paula occupied a small white cottage at the back of her brother’s house. It had been converted from either a garage or servants’ quarters and now had a large picture window with a jaunty yellow awning. There was a cramped study, scattered with papers and files relating to her fiancé. The narrow bedroom was disordered and there were no decorations, although among the rumpled folds of the unmade bed, along with the telephone directory and yesterday’s newspapers, could usually be found a chunky romantic novel and a large fluffy, powder-blue toy elephant.

She was 30, five years older than the man she was about to marry. She had light tawny hair, grey-blue eyes and spoke softly, hesitantly, picking her words carefully. When she’d completed what she had to say, she’d often smile apologetically and look away, which was deceptive; Paula was unshakeably determined.

Normally she wore jeans, pullovers and no make-up. But for her wedding day, Paula had borrowed a fawn linen suit from her sister. She collected all her documents and checked they were in order.

Her mother drove over at eight a.m. to pick her up. Annette was the only member of the family accompanying Paula. Her father, Peter, a director of the South African conglomerate Anglo-American, and of its powerful diamond mining subsidiary De Beers, had gone to the office as usual; so far he had not met his daughter’s fiancé.

From the capitalist frenzy of Johannesburg to the Calvinist primness of Pretoria is only 58 kilometres. The temperature rises two or three degrees. The terrain becomes rougher, there are scrubby patches of dry red soil, the waist-high camel-coloured grass is dotted with stunted bushes and sparsely shaded by pine and eucalyptus.

Approaching Pretoria, English gives way to Afrikaans. Grandiloquent names for modest suburbs evoke the old Afrikaner sense of destiny: to the east, Verwoerdburg, named after the fanatical professor of Sociology, one of the icons of the volk and the guru of apartheid; to the west, Valhalla, in Norse mythology the place of immortality, inhabited by the souls of heroes slain in battle.

On both sides of the motorway is a vast militarised zone with barbed-wire fences, reinforced concrete walls and watchtowers.

The road narrows and sweeps down, round a final curve. There, sedate and stolid in a hollow of the Magaliesberg hills, is Pretoria. The first building, a mile or so before the outskirts, is a windowless fortress, squatting at the roadside like an infernal toll-gate. It is Pretoria Central, the largest prison in South Africa.

The guards at the blockhouse were already raising the boom. Pretoria Central is like a small walled city. Annette and Paula drove along the main street, Klawer, which is lined on one side by pretty red-roofed bungalows, whose uniform gardens are enclosed behind symmetrical white picket fences. These picturesque rows of well-disciplined suburbia are the white warders’ homes. Opposite is the windowless brick mammoth which houses over two thousand prisoners.

Annette and Paula passed Oasis Road and the warders’ trim club-houses and sports fields. A chain of black convicts shuffled by. To the right was a dusty expanse of ground with patches of sun-scorched grass, skirted by a road named Wimbledon.

They turned left into Gedenk Street, following a glistening white wall up a slight incline. At the top was the splendid mansion of the kommandant-general of South African Prisons, set well back in an undulating rich green lawn. Shaded and screened by trees and pink-flowering shrubs, the two-storeyed villa was approached up an elegant white spiral stairway.

The two white women followed the curve round to the right, where at the summit of the small hill the road came to an end. The car drew to a halt outside the massive battlements of Maximum Security. Its thick walls were six metres high, and all around were lofty floodlights and closed-circuit TV monitors. At each corner was a glassed-in watchtower.

This was as far as the bride’s mother was going. Annette could see no hope – she couldn’t understand why Paula wanted to get married. ‘Why condemn yourself to certain unhappiness?’ she had asked. But Paula was unwavering, and Annette knew she could never change her mind. She now accepted it, although the prospects looked bleak. She watched as Paula walked towards the huge electronically controlled gates. That ominous black portcullis, however, was not the visitors’ entrance. The usual black warder checked Paula’s name and authorised number on his clipboard. To Paula’s greeting, he half-smiled, before leading her through a small side door with a large sign in four languages: NO FLOWERS OR BOUQUETS TO BE LEFT FOR ANY PRISONER.

Death Row stood on the highest vantage point of the prison, overlooking the entire complex – this was the most secure citadel in the country. There were 294 men on Death Row and 280 of them were black. It was very quiet up there. The other prisoners called it Beverly Hills.

The steel side door slid shut behind them. It was dark and cool in the small bare chamber. Paula was inside the first circle.

A skinny young white warder gazed sleepily from his chair. He had close-cropped blond hair and big ears. No one said a word. From behind a large one-way mirrored panel they could hear voices crackling over an intercom, speaking Afrikaans. The black warder, clipboard in hand, led the white visitor back out into the harsh glare.

In the second circle, between the outer wall and the square block of Death Row, was about 30 metres of open ground. Sunlight reflected off the concrete. On the flat prison roof a guard with a rifle overlooked this bleak no man’s land.

Set back to the left, by the side of a small pond, was a wide thatched sunshade. In the centre of the grassy knoll stood a plump palm tree and a tall cluster of bamboo shoots. There were guinea fowl, chickens and ducks. Once there had been a couple of deer. Now a pair of baby rabbits nibbled at the succulent turf.

The gateway to the next circle, the Death Row building, was a massive teak door with polished brass fittings. By its side stood an expansive hibiscus pouting with downy scarlet flowers. It was an impressive, baronial entrance.

The black warder rapped hard with the big brass knocker. The Judas eye slid open: from inside, the visitor was scrutinised. Then the huge door swung back and Paula and her escort stepped into the third circle.

It was clean and quiet and well lit by strips of fluorescent lighting. There was a faint whiff of detergent.

Pinned on the back of the door was a colourful day-glo poster advertising a barbecue, with Castle beer, jumbo hamburgers and a beautiful baby competition. Nearby on the stark white wall was a green plaque, cautioning: TERRORIST WEAPONS, LOOK AND SAVE A LIFE. Life-size plastic reliefs showed SPM limpet mines, PMN anti-personnel mines and hand grenades.

The circles were narrowing. To proceed they had to wait for a warder to unlock the grilled gate. Beyond that was another foyer, and another grille; one gate had to be relocked before the other could be opened. Limbo succeeded limbo, scrubbed and deathly – the only sound was the constant jangling of keys.

Right at the centre of Death Row was a sunlit courtyard. On one side was the section for black inmates, on the other the section for whites. The courtyard was peaceful, like a cloister. On either side, like monks’ cells, were the visiting rooms where families spoke to the condemned through thick, barred glass partitions with the aid of microphones. They were never allowed to meet face to face or touch, not even on the eve of execution.

In the middle of this secluded yard was a strip of grass with flowers round the border: light gold cosmos, pink roses, the white canna lily, as well as dahlias, geraniums, snap-dragons and marigolds. At the far end was a chapel. This was where the coffin was placed after a hanging. It was a spruce, sparse room, illuminated by a lustreless brown and blue stained-glass window.

Immediately above the chapel were the gallows. Here, the hour come, the final circle: the noose.

Paula came to the prison every day. Normally she would have gone straight into the courtyard, but today she was taken down a side corridor, into the black cell section. A senior officer accompanied her down a bare white passage to a small room used by consulting lawyers. The wedding was to take place here – the first ever to be permitted on Death Row.

Her fiancé was waiting. He smiled at Paula. Robert McBride was not in the usual Death Row kit of dark green fatigues. Today he wore a white shirt and grey trousers. He was over six feet tall and slim. He’d lost a lot of weight in prison, but he kept himself fit. His face was soft and round, his complexion sallow.

He had been waiting 756 days for his execution.

For the first time the couple were allowed to embrace.

Paula and Robert were stepping into a potentially hysterical arena. The law forbidding marriage between people of different colour had only recently been repealed. Mixed-race marriages were still an exotic rarity, disapproved of by many whites and particularly repugnant to a large proportion of Afrikaners. Even if the McBrides would not consummate their marriage, it was the very thought of such a liaison which upset the khaki-clad white paramilitaries that Paula sometimes saw outside the prison. For them, it was against nature; contrary to the will of God. She was betraying the sacred commission of white women: it was an abomination. That was why they stared at her with such hatred.

To the authorities, the marriage was also bizarre. The young couple had been subjected to a challenging examination of their psychological states and motives. A prison major conducted the interview with Robert. A social welfare worker had visited his home. ‘What do you feel about your child marrying a person of a different race?’ she had asked.

Doris McBride, Robert’s mother, had replied, ‘Why should I have any objections? Paula’s lovely. I couldn’t have asked for a better girl for my Robert.’

‘But how do you feel about your son marrying a white person?’

Doris was a stocky, proud woman, with a round, humorous face. She could be quite belligerent. ‘Look, we don’t hate all white people, just because white people have done such terrible things to us.’ She was not going to be intimidated because all this would be read in Pretoria by some Boer. ‘We have white friends in the movement. There are whites who are working just as hard as us for liberation. Some have died in the fight, you know.’ The welfare worker had diligently written it all down. ‘I did ask Robert if he thought it was fair for him to marry Paula,’ said Doris. ‘I mean, even if you get out, I said, you’d have nowhere to live, no job, no prospects. You know what he said? “I don’t want to marry anybody else. I don’t want any other woman.” Well, there’s nothing I could say to that.’

Most of the questions had concentrated on colour. ‘I don’t think there’s any difference.’ Doris was weary of this question, the mesmerising preoccupation of South Africa for over three hundred years. ‘Robert can mix with anyone.’ The interview had lasted 45 minutes. ‘Look,’ said Doris, ‘even if they allow Robert to live, even if one day – please God – he gets out, I’m going to be dead. It will not be my problem to see how they live. They must be allowed to live their own life, you know.’

The wedding was a very private ceremony. Robert and Paula had no guests.

Derrick McBride, Robert’s father, was unable to attend. He was locked up on Robben Island, the bleak island penitentury for political prisoners, 14 kilometres off the coast from Cape Town. Robert’s closest friend Gordon Webster might have been best man, but he, too, was on Robben Island, serving a 25-year sentence.

Doris McBride was unwell. Since her husband had been incarcerated and her son sentenced to death, she had suffered a mild stroke, and she was soon to endure two more which would leave her paralysed and imprisoned in a wheelchair.

It was a small, bare room. There was a table and two chairs. Robert and Paula sat together on a bench. Three warders stood to one side, coughing nervously and shuffling their feet, not sure where to look. One picked his nails.

The black priest, Father Mabena, did not have a permit to perform inter-racial marriages, so Father Ambrose, the white chaplain, had been assigned to conduct the ceremony. It lasted fifteen minutes.

Paula hardly heard a word. Then Father Ambrose was saying, ‘I now pronounce you man and wife.’ The warder who had been picking his nails smiled.

The honeymoon lasted 40 minutes. The newlyweds stayed in the lawyer’s consulting room, squashed together on the bench.

The major stayed with them for the first 20 minutes; a warrant officer took over for the second shift. They each stood by the door and pretended not to look. Robert and Paula held each other for the very first time. Then the honeymoon was over.

‘Time’s up,’ said the warrant officer. ‘I’m sorry.’

He held the door open and waited patiently. Robert had read about a man in England who put super-glue on his hand. It had become their private joke. He whispered, ‘We should super-glue ourselves together, then they’d have to pull us apart.’