A Just Defiance. Peter Harris

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      You really have to admire these guys for their attention to detail. They occupy the lowest level of the security apparatus and they wear a mud-brown uniform. But the buttons shine, the boots gleam and the belt buckle is a beacon. There are, incongruously, three straight lines ironed across the middle of the back of their shirts. Having done my military service in 1974, conscripted at the tender age of seventeen and ending up a platoon commander with the rank of lieutenant, I know that these lines, so painstakingly ironed into the back of the shirt, serve no purpose whatsoever other than to indicate that some cretin, wishing to impress his superiors, has spent a precious extra two hours ironing them in. Welcome to the logic of South African military life.

      To me, these men with their chests puffed out and their brown shirtsleeves rolled the regulation three fingers above the elbow, when the arm is extended, are familiar animals. Warder van Rensburg is in good shape. Tall, broad shouldered and fit, he regards me as dirt. I am used to this. He nods and ushers me to a yellow line one metre inside the room. I move quickly and stand on the line, knowing that if you don’t step smartly, you run the risk of being crushed to death by the massive steel door as it silently swings closed. What a mess. Sometimes, they close the door while you’re entering and when you curse they fake irritation with their colleague who is operating the system but they never apologise. This is all part of the game.

      As the door shuts behind me, the barred steel door in front of me opens. Cameras mounted high on the wall watch as my briefcase goes into the metal detector. I follow Warder van Rensburg through the doorway, pick up the case, wait for yet another barred door to open and enter a brick-lined passage with steel mesh walkways above it. Warders patrol the walkways. At roof height are triangular windows of bottle-green glass behind which sit more warders. It always makes me think of those advertisements for luxury resorts, which claim to offer great service by virtue of having five staff members for every guest.

      I have been to this prison many times and should be inured to its charms. But I’m not. The cold hostility of the building and the warders depresses me. This place is not about rehabilitation, this is confinement, a fortress in a war with no foreseeable end. And that is a lonely thought.

      Warder van Rensburg carries that most essential item of equipment, a large bunch of keys, attached to his belt by a length of olive-green nylon cord. He uses the keys to unlock a succession of steel-barred doors as we go deeper into the prison and finally reach the consulting room. In fact, it is not a proper legal facility: it’s the prison doctor’s consulting room and surgery. I go in and the door slams shut behind me. Warder van Rensburg and I have not exchanged a single word.

      I am alone, except for the small square window in the door at which the head of my host, like Banquo’s ghost, appears periodically. He stares at me intently.

      This is what is called an ‘in-sight but out-of-sound’ consultation. It will be some time before they bring my clients. These warders are in no rush, and why should they hurry? Prisons are about spending time.

      It may seem strange that a prison should have no consulting room, but I suppose when it was built no one could imagine prisoners affording legal advice, or that such advice would be allowed even if they could. Not this type of prisoner anyway. But here I am and I have to be accommodated, and so the surgery suffices.

      On another occasion, I consulted in the garage into which the top security prisoners were driven in escorted armoured vehicles. Once, seated at a table in the middle of the cold and echoing space, I was talking with clients who faced charges of sabotage and high treason when the garage door rumbled slowly open. We faced the street, stunned. Jaws dropped. Freedom beckoned, but where to run? Was it a trap? Would they be waiting outside and open fire as my clients ran into the road? Was it just a mistake, a trick, a game? Then wild shouts and swearing sounded above and the door slowly closed. No one said a word except me. ‘Shit!’I said.

      Consulting in a doctor’s surgery inside a prison may bother some attorneys, but I rather like it. It makes a pleasant change from the dull tranquillity of a lawyer’s office. Maybe it’s because I admire doctors greatly. I feel that if I were a doctor, I would do something useful. I suppose that because I am constantly afflicted by a variety of illnesses which require serious and immediate medical attention, I have real respect for doctors. I admire someone so learned that he can listen calmly to my complex and disturbing symptoms then nod sagely and prescribe Streptomycin twice a day for the bacteria, Clarityn at night with dinner, an Imovane sleeping tablet to assist my slumber, and then an assortment of Myprodol and Stopayne at breakfast for the pain and generally to see me through my day until I can get to some refreshment in the evening. Now that’s service. In my book, people who are on first-name terms with the rare illnesses I suffer from, not to mention the remedies for these afflictions, warrant real respect.

      No sign of my clients.

      Bored, I weigh myself. Seventy-four kilograms. Take a look around. This place is not one your average patient would feel at home in. No windows, no air, mean-looking pieces of surgical apparatus lying about, huge needles and steel implements, rubbish bins filled with used bandages and other items too sordid to describe. I so fear these things that I take a white towel from the back of a chair and cover the bin, as if to prevent some dreadful disease from leaping out. I imagine prisoners, warders and a lawyer desperately crawling down the passages of the sealed prison that is to be our common tomb. I need to see my clients before I deteriorate further.

      A metal rattle at the door and Warder van Rensburg’s face at the small window. Then my clients walk in. All four of them. I give them the familiar handshake. Surprisingly, they look in good shape, strong and fit. I am greeted by the one who walked in first. Tall, dark, well built, a handsome man with strong features and a smile curling his lips up at the edges.

      ‘My name is Jabu Masina, we are glad that you have come. It has been a long time. We thought you would come earlier.’

      He is followed by a man who introduces himself as Ting Ting Masango. He is shorter, broader, smiling as he takes a seat at the table. His left eye squints. I have to avoid focusing on it. Lighter in complexion, he wears a spotless white T-shirt, beneath which I can see he is carrying a bit of weight. He has that kind of build.

      Neo Potsane is shorter than Jabu and Ting Ting. Small featured with a pockmarked face, wiry and alert. He’s nervous, constantly glancing around, unlike the first two who seem at ease.

      The last is Joseph Makhura, the smallest and the youngest of the four, seemingly out of place among these older and tougher men. I wonder how he got here.

      I am nervous. The first time you meet clients is always difficult. If they don’t like you from the start, they generally fire you quickly. I’ve never been dumped by a client, and I don’t want that to happen now. At the beginning, we merely need to like each other; the trust can come later.

      I smile and say, ‘I have just weighed myself, but I must tell you, I think they have loaded some extra kilos on this scale just to discriminate against me, these swinish warders.’

      Jabu smiles sardonically, gets up and weighs himself. Just on eighty-three kilos. Satisfied, he sits down.

      With Ting Ting the scales dip and clang and he has to slide the weight along. Exclaiming, he turns to me. ‘I agree with you, this machine has been sabotaged.’

      We burst out laughing in relief.

      ‘I am sorry that I didn’t get here sooner,’ I say, ‘but I only got the call this morning.’

      Jabu raises his eyebrows but makes no comment.

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