Palace of Justice

41

After Antoinette and her parents had left the courtroom I stepped up the registrar’s dais and sat down in her chair. I tried not to think about the case. I was bone weary, tired to the depths of my soul. I sat back and wished I had never laid eyes on Court C. I was looking up at the skylights when reality slowly returned. It was a truly magnificent courtroom. I closed my eyes and searched for an escape, anything to take my mind off the trial, but there was none. I looked at the room from the front, taking in the registrar’s view of the proceedings. I had been working with my back towards two-thirds of the room. I took in the features of the room. I was in awe of the quality. Even though the whole building was badly in need of a facelift, the underlying class was there in every fitting, in every decorative feature and in the roof lights and glasswork. I was a little surprised that I had noticed only the decay earlier.

I looked down from the registrar’s chair. The registrar’s dais was two steps up from the floor, but not as high as the ornate bench behind it, and had the second best view of the courtroom. Below the registrar’s desk was a smaller desk where the court stenographer sat with her machine. We had microphones at every position, including the dock. Sound wires crisscrossed the floor.

The jury box was to my right, against the wall. It was also on a raised dais, and enclosed. There were two rows of wooden benches in the jury box, with seats of red leather. To my left, hard up against the registrar’s throne, was the witness box. There was no comfort there; it had no seats and imprisoned the witness in a space no more than one square metre. Behind the witness box were the old press boxes, now occupied by the usher and the investigating officer.

The room was empty and I thought I would be able to just sit there in peace. I tried hard not to think about the case, about what I had done, about what the Judge was going to do, but there was no escape. I imagined the Judge’s view of the courtroom. What did he see from above?

Immediately in front of the registrar’s dais there were six curved tables, arranged in three rows of two. These were for the lawyers. The furniture was of heavy, solid hardwood with turned legs and beautiful carved patterns. The tables had working areas inlaid in maroon leather and the seats of the chairs were similarly covered.

Underfoot the carpet was pale pink; it had once been maroon or dark red.

The Warrant Officer had been sitting in the same position every day in the row immediately behind the prosecutors, but there were no papers on his table. He was a man of sparse habits, I thought, a man of secrets. I wondered how many young men he had broken in for duty as gallows escorts and how many of those had been broken as a result. I noted that the defence table, the witness box and the Judge’s chair formed a perfect triangle, each leg about five paces.

The dock was situated behind the rows of lawyers’ tables and effectively divided the room in two as it ran virtually the full width of the room. A steep and narrow staircase connected the courtroom to the cells below. That would be the route Labuschagne would take, if we lost.

Take the prisoner down, Judge van Zyl would say.

Antoinette Labuschagne kept superimposing herself on my random thoughts. She had reaffirmed what every woman in my family had taught me over the years.

Men are scared of other people’s pain, but women rush in to help, to cradle and to comfort.

I shook my head to banish Antoinette from my thoughts and shifted my attention deeper into the room. Behind the dock was a waist-high wooden barrier extending across the room, with small gates where it abutted the walls on either side. The public had hard benches arranged in rows with an aisle down the middle. There was more seating in a balcony at the back of the room.

There were distinct shadows under the tables and benches. As I looked up to find the source of light I saw a row of lights along each of the side walls. Then I counted ten large lead glass windows on either side above the light fittings. These had intricate patterns and let in copious amounts of natural light through their ivory, green and turquoise panels. The higher I looked, the more light there was. Beautiful though these windows were, they were outshone by the large copper chandelier and the two skylights overhead.

The glass in the windows was dirty and needed cleaning.

Wierda was the first to return to court. He came in, saw me in the registrar’s seat and without a word went to our table and sat down. He didn’t make eye contact with me. I joined him when the cell sergeant brought Labuschagne up from the cells; I was annoyed that the sergeant also avoided my eyes.

The court quickly filled up in anticipation of the cross-examination. There was excitement in the spectator benches.

I had been on my feet for nearly three days and would have the opportunity to take the weight off my feet and to rest the tired muscles of my lower back. But I would have to keep up the concentration.

This was where our case would be subjected to the scrutiny of cross-examination, where its improbabilities and inconsistencies would be exposed.

Cross-examination is the greatest tool to discover the truth, someone had said once. It might have been something of an overstatement, but in many cases it was true.