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Yair crouched down, his nose virtually touching the back of the boy-man crouching in front of him; to his right was another crouching man, his nose touching his knees; to his left, an old man whose groan didn’t disguise the creak of his arthritic knees as he assumed the crouching position. Yair hoped the old man, whom all the prisoners called Madala as a token of pitying respect, wouldn’t fall over again. That would just infuriate the warders who were trying to identify which of the hundreds of men crouched in the corridor before them were due in court within one hour.
Yair kept his eyes fixed on the boy-man’s threadbare, sweat-stained, once-green T-shirt. He had learned early in his sojourn at the notorious Johannesburg Prison that looking a warder in the eye, even inadvertently, was asking for some form of retribution. Madala groaned, louder this time, and leaned against Yair’s shoulder. He stank, but despite his screaming instincts to shove the man away, Yair felt a frisson of pity – and self-preservation. If the old man collapsed and fell, he would be beaten by the frustrated warders who wouldn’t be too mindful of where their batons landed. The roll call was already way behind schedule, so the warders would be more tetchy and vicious than usual. They didn’t give a damn that making Madala kneel on his swollen, deformed knees for any length of time, let alone more than an hour, was nothing short of torture. Yair had tried to intervene on the old man’s behalf – once. He never did so again. He was a fast learner.
When the van transporting him from Norwood Police Station to Johannesburg Prison had turned off the M1 highway, Yair had caught a glimpse of the rolling green hills that framed the southern parts of the city and his heart started hammering. The police officers at Norwood had heralded his departure with hoots of derision and dire warnings about what lay ahead. ‘Hey Mhlungu, hope you got lots of money with you’, ‘They going to just love your pretty white arse – remember to keep your backside to the wall’, ‘Have fun, enjoy your wedding night’.
Many of his Norwood cellmates who had come and gone in the weeks following his arrest had spent time in the ironically nicknamed Sun City: all had advised him to do his utmost to stay out of there. Even Ché Guevara had shed some of his bluster as he acknowledged that he had been incarcerated there several times while awaiting his various trials over the years. ‘It doesn’t get any better,’ he’d said. ‘The only way to survive is money. Everything is for sale in there, everything. You a pretty boy so if you get sent there, make sure you have lots of money, or you will not be as pretty when—if—you get out.’
But none of the tales his Norwood cellmates had shared, none of the warnings Darryl and Henti had issued, had prepared him for the reality of what awaited him behind the face brick walls and barbed wire fencing. A warder had led him down a peeling beige corridor and shoved him through the grated door of his cell, slamming it behind him. It felt as though he had been transported into one of the lower levels of Dante’s Inferno. The heat was intense, the smell of unwashed clothes and bodies overpowering. Nine metal bunk beds were bolted to the concrete floor but they were barely visible beneath the seated forms of what appeared to be dozens and dozens of men. Later Yair would establish that there were forty-nine men in the cell, all awaiting-trial prisoners, some of whom had been there for years. Johannesburg Prison, he soon realised, was nothing more than a poorly administered and operated human warehouse.
He’d squeezed himself between an old man—Madala—and a boy seated on the floor near the cell’s only toilet, leaned his head against the filthy wall, closed his eyes and watched Zivah dance, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind, her white skirt swirling as she twirled around and around. He smiled.
The blow across his cheek took his breath away. His eyes flew open and fixed on a pair of brown cargo pants standing inches away. He slowly allowed himself to gaze upwards, into the malevolent eyes of one of the darkest men he had ever seen. His skin was rich ebony, his bared teeth gleaming white.
‘On your feet, white boy. Who gave you permission to just come in here and sleep?’
Yair scrambled up and tried to ignore the anticipatory titters of the men crowded into the cell. He had a sinking feeling that the men were hungry for something to break their routine boredom, and he knew that Ebony was about to use him to provide it. Ebony raised his hand to strike Yair again, and Yair tried desperately not to flinch even before the blow landed.
It stuck with such force that Yair literally saw stars. He cried out in pain and shock as his head crashed back against the wall, and then he crumpled to the floor. A Nike-clad foot tore into his stomach and Yair felt bile rise in his throat. Ebony reached down and dragged him up. Yair wobbled, trying to maintain his balance, but his legs had turned to jelly. The black fist crashed into his chin, jerking his head back and sending him down to the floor again. From a distance Yair could hear jeering and catcalling. He folded himself into a foetal position in a vain attempt to protect his stomach and balls from the incessant Nike kicks. Then he was vertical again, pinned against the wall by his throat. He couldn’t breathe. A glob of something wet landed just below his left eye and slithered down his face. Another blow smashed into his jaw and he crumpled once again.
***
Now Yair crouched and waited. He knew his name would not be called. His court date couldn’t too far off and he just had to survive until then.
It wasn’t so bad, he reassured himself. Not now that he had been assigned a single cell. The warders had apologised profusely, Darryl had told him when he’d visited him in the Sun City sick bay. They’d acknowledged that they’d made a mistake placing a ‘pretty white boy’ in one of the overcrowded, awaiting-trial cells. The problem was that there were just not enough single cells for all the ‘vulnerable’ prisoners. A monthly ‘rental fee’ equivalent to that of an upmarket three-bedroom apartment in Sandton had ensured a vacant single cell was rapidly procured.
The new accommodation the grinning warder had escorted him to after his discharge from the sick bay was barely large enough for the single metal bedframe with its thin, stained mattress, the miniscule basin and cracked toilet. Yair had to stand sideways and shuffle along the length of the bed to move between the grated cell door and the toilet. But it had an attraction no swish Sandton apartment could offer – a modicum of safety for the twenty-two hours he was confined within its grimy beige walls. He just had to be extremely vigilant during the one hour spent in the exercise yard—when it wasn’t raining—and the other spent getting food or showering. It meant he was able to sleep – which was a luxury far greater than the other awaiting-trial prisoners were afforded. Yair thanked his lucky stars for this most tangible manifestation of his white privilege.
The boy-child who crouched before him—his mother had optimistically named him Promise—seldom got a full night’s sleep. His services were in high demand throughout the prison. Yair was horrified to learn that prisoners paid the chief warder, a brute of a man who everyone called Nkosi, to bring Promise to their cells when they felt the urge.
‘They think because I am still young that I don’t have HIV,’ Promise had told him as they’d walked together around the exercise yard. ‘I have not been tested since I got here you see. Anyway, I’ve been here for a year already so Nkosi is making a nice lot of money off me.’
‘Why have you been here for a year? That’s crazy!’
‘Well I don’t have a lawyer and every time I go to court, they lose my docket or the police need to do further investigation. But I think Nkosi is bribing the prosecutors to make sure I stay here.’
‘Why? What are you in for?’
‘Solicitation,’ Promise said, a tiny grin quirking the corner of his mouth.
‘Solicitation! But the prisoners think – you mean you could have HIV?’
Promise laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. ‘I know I have HIV. I was on ARVs before my arrest. Nkosi still sometimes gets me medicine but he won’t let me join the HIV programme because everyone would find out that I’m sick and that would mean I’d no longer be useful to him. I don’t mind. When I am no longer useful, Nkosi will arrange for me to be killed. I hope, maybe, I will be free before then.’
‘But if you don’t get ARVs, you’ll die!’
Promise shrugged. ‘No one will care – except maybe the men who pay for me.’
Yair didn’t know what to say.
‘They’ve tried to pay the warders for you too,’ Promise confided, and giggled at the look of horror on Yair’s face. ‘But I think you pay the warders too much. Just be careful. Nkosi, he is greedy and cruel. If he gets angry with you, he will take your money and give you to anyone who gives him twenty bucks.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ Yair protested weakly, but he’d seen the big warder in action. Nkosi, he’d learned soon after arriving at Sun City, supplemented his meagre public servant’s salary by running the narcotics and dagga supply line to the awaiting-trial prisoners. Yair hadn’t been aware that he pimped the younger prisoners too until Promise’s revelations, but he’d seen how anyone who fell behind on their payments was soon viciously assaulted by another prisoner who, Yair suspected, was on the Nkosi payroll.
The demand for drugs in the prison was huge. Yair suspected most of the prisoners were high most of the time. He couldn’t really blame them. Because they were awaiting trial, they weren’t included in any prison rehabilitation activities. When Yair had asked if he could get books from the prison library or even teach in the prison school where many of the convicted prisoners received the only formal education they’d ever had, he’d been laughed at. He had to do what the other awaiting trial prisoners did – stay in his cell and twiddle his thumbs. So the prisoners bought whatever anaesthetising substances Nkosi shipped into the prison to try and escape their boredom. The most popular was dagga: the weed was plentiful and relatively affordable. When he’d first smelled the unmistakable sweet odour wafting down the corridor, Yair had sat up on his bed and breathed in deeply. He hadn’t had a joint in years, and—as advised by the psychologists and councillors at the rehabilitation centre—he’d stayed away from any environment where illicit drugs were likely to be present. It hadn’t been as easy to avoid alcohol, but he’d never been a heavy drinker. He’d preferred dagga, and cocaine, and—very occasionally—Molly. He’d tried PCP once, but had found its effects terrifying. And he wasn’t stupid enough to try crystal meth.
It was ironic, Yair thought, that the rehab centre had consistently warned that if he didn’t kick his habit he’d end up in jail. Now here he was, after four years of being clean and sober, behind bars where it would be far easier to feed his drug addiction than on the outside. And it was becoming harder and harder to resist Nkosi’s generous offers of a ready supply. The boredom and solitude were eating away at his brain, and living in a perpetual state of fear was starting to make him long for the tranquilising effect that the first inhalation of quality dope would bring. Nkosi was also making it very clear that he wouldn’t continue to accept Yair’s polite refusals of offers of his product for much longer. Yair knew that the big warder could ‘accidentally’ have him locked in a communal cell at any time, or turn a blind eye should he be attacked and/or raped in the showers, or in the exercise yard, or the dining hall.
Yair didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep it all together. How would he cope if he were sentenced to at least fifteen years—and more probably twenty-five—behind bars? But he had to. Zivah wouldn’t last a day in this environment.
‘Back to your cells,’ Nkosi yelled as soon as roll call finished and the prisoners who were to be transported to court had trooped off down the corridor to be fingerprinted, counted and loaded into police vans. Yair stood slowly, easing the stiffness out of his thigh muscles. He helped Madala to his feet, gave Promise a friendly punch on his shoulder, and headed back to his cell for the next seven hours of solitary boredom.
***
‘But that’s another three months!’ Yair said.
Darryl nodded. ‘I know. Sorry. We tried to get an earlier date but there just wasn’t one available. The court has set aside two weeks for the trial and trying to find a time when everyone will be available over that period, well, it wasn’t easy.’
‘Why two weeks? What’s going to take so long?’
‘The prosecution doesn’t want to risk another Oscar Pistorius fiasco. They want to ensure they get a watertight guilty verdict and a hefty sentence. That means they’re going to be parading out a long, long list of witnesses. I haven’t seen it yet, but it looks like most of the people who were at your party are going to be called.’
Yair slumped in the metal chair. ‘Darryl, I don’t think I can last in this place until May.’
His friend looked at him anxiously. ‘Bru, you have to. We can’t bring another bail application without new evidence – and at this point, we don’t have anything. No, that’s not quite true. We do have something, but... .’
Yair’s heart rate rose. ‘But what? If you have new evidence let’s use it. I’m telling you bru, I can’t take much more of this.’
‘I hear you, but you won’t let us use it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because – it’s Zivah.’
‘Zivah? What about her? I told you to leave her alone!’
‘Look Yair, it actually had nothing to do with me. I haven’t been near her so calm down.’
‘Is she okay? What’s happened to her?’
Yair listened incredulously as Darryl explained about the psychiatric and psychological tests Zivah had undergone at the behest of Aviva and Carol Aronowitz.
‘They had no right to send her for these tests. None at all. No one asked me,’ Yair said.
‘Actually, they didn’t need your permission – or Zivah’s either for that matter. It seems Aviva went to see Ms Aronowitz about her suspicions and she—Ms Aronowitz—suggested that Zivah have the tests because as surprising as it may seem, she’s never been properly diagnosed.’
‘She doesn’t need to be diagnosed. She’s a human being, for fuck’s sake, not a thing to be pushed and prodded around like some sort of laboratory specimen.’
‘Yair, listen. The tests have been completed and Zivah has been diagnosed as having foetal alcohol syndrome.’
‘That’s crap! She’s beautiful.’
‘Apparently not all foetal alcohol syndrome victims have those flat noses and other distinctive facial features. She has many of the symptoms including a low IQ – low enough for her to legally be considered mentally handicapped. Apparently, she has some other mental illnesses too.’
‘She’s not. She hasn’t. She’s just a little slow sometimes...’
‘Oh Yair, she’s more than that. You know that. You’re not doing her any favours by refusing to face the truth.’
‘What’s the point of all this anyway? What does it matter what her IQ is or whether she has foetal alcohol syndrome or is mentally ill?’
Darryl hesitated. Yair glared at him, daring him to say what he knew Darryl was going to say, and dreading hearing the words from his lawyer.
‘Yair, don’t bite my head off, okay? Listen carefully. We think that Zivah was possibly responsible for your mother’s death – no, don’t interrupt, just listen. We also think she might have had something to do with Tiffany as well.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. And we think you think so too. That’s why you tried to plead guilty.’
‘Bullshit. You have no proof, nothing...’
‘That’s true. But there is strong circumstantial evidence against Zivah.’
‘Well, the evidence against me is circumstantial too – and you keep saying that I’m innocent. Why not Zivah?’
‘Because, we know where Zivah got the insulin that killed Tiffany.’
‘Bullshit. That’s crap.’
‘It’s not! Carol Aronowitz said...’
‘I don’t care what Carol Aronowitz said. I’m not going to let you make Zivah take the blame for this. I won’t let you.’
Darryl shrugged. ‘Sorry bru – it’s not really up to you. It’s up to the National Prosecuting Authority to determine whether or not to charge Zivah, and to drop the charges against you. But at this point, that doesn’t seem likely. As I said, it’s all pretty circumstantial and the NPA is taking the view that we are just trying to shift the blame onto Zivah because of her mental disability.’
‘Don’t tell me you told the NPA about this crap about Zivah. I swear, Darryl, I’ll fire you right now...’
‘Chill bru. It wasn’t me. From what I understand, when a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker—when any of those people suspect a patient has committed a crime, they are legally obliged to report it. And it seems they all think Zivah probably committed a crime. So they had to report it.’
Yair buried his head in his hand. ‘No. No. I won’t let anything happen to her. I won’t.’
‘Well, much as I’d like Zivah to be blamed, because that will get you off the hook, I don’t think it will happen. There’s no way, at this point, that the NPA will risk charging Zivah because she could be found to be unfit to stand trial. The tests she has undergone so far seem to indicate that this is the case – but the prosecution would obviously want their own experts to examine her. As it’s highly likely that the state psychiatrists will concur with ours, who would be held to account for Tiffany’s murder?’
‘Zivah can’t be made to take the blame for this. She’d never survive jail.’
‘Chances are she’ll never go to jail, even if she were charged, tried and convicted, so I wouldn’t worry about that. Anyway, that’s all moot because I really cannot see her being charged. As far as the NPA is concerned, someone has to be held to account for Tiffany’s murder thanks to all the media attention on this case. So they’re certainly not going to let you go without a fight. That means no bail for you. I’m really sorry bru, but you are just going to have to hang in there until after your trial.’