and justice
A dossier that Richard Motasi painstakingly built to prove his assault case did not bring him justice. But it captured the imagination of writer John Miles, who told his story
In 1988, author John Miles was given, by Lawyers for Human Rights, a Checkers packet filled with documentation relating to the case of a black policeman, Richard Motasi, who had been assaulted by a white officer (called Colonel van Niekerk in this excerpt).
The assault – which took place in 1984, as the Vaal townships blazed – left Motasi deaf and in constant pain. He laid a charge against his superior, but justice was denied him, despite his persistent attempts in the face of ongoing obstruction and harassment. He overestimated his colleagues’ decency and commitment to the law, and the affair culminated in tragedy.
Setting aside a work-in-progress, Miles decided to make a novel of the story. He counterpoints the tale of the policeman he calls Tumelo John Moleko with the tricky business of making fiction out of fragmentary fact. As the writer in the novel puts it: “It touches us all, in one way or another.”
Published in 1991 in Afrikaans, Kroniek uit die Doofpot won the CNA Literary Award, the M-Net Book Prize and the Helgaard Steyn Award. It has now been translated into English as Deafening Silence (Human & Rousseau), and will be screened as a television series later this year.
`Someone hit me on the ear,” he said to the doctor, dabbing at his left ear with his handkerchief. The old man looked at him as if he were considering how to react, decided to smile, and said:
“Yes, well, when that sort of thing happens to other people at work it’s an accident, but with you police it’s quite usual. Is it this ear?”
He tilted Tumelo John’s head.
It had all gone too far, Tumelo John thought, hopelessly too far. That was all he’d been able to think the whole afternoon: it had all gone too far, hopelessly too far, but whose fault was it? Possible he may even have spoken his thoughts out loud. He must at least have said something about the terrible pain in his head, because at some stage after the colonel had stormed out of the duty room, Nomsa had put a glass of water and two Grandpa headache powders down on the table in front of him.
“But Uncle …” Tumelo John had wanted to say, only there was a rushing in his ear like wind whistling round a corner, infuriatingly.
That was also after Captain Welgemoed had come striding into the duty room.
“Moleko, hand over your service pistol!”
Tumelo John had got to his feet. “But Captain…” He wanted to say it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair; it had gone too far, but it hadn’t been his fault.
“I didn’t so anything wrong. Ask the constable.” He pointed at Nomsa behind the counter.
Welgemoed was a big man and agile, but when he was angry the pupil of one of his eyes began to turn towards his nose as if both eyes were trying to fuse into one penetrating stare.
“Hand it over. It’s an order, from the colonel.”
It’s getting worse, something had whispered to Tumelo John. It isn’t over yet.
“What did the colonel tell the captain? You know, he hit me. He broke police rules, not me.”
“Who do you think you’re talking about?” Welgemoed was squinting fiercely. “For the last time, in case you’re deaf: you’re being ordered by your superior officer to hand over your pistol.”
Behind the counter Nomsa – the visitor she’d been attending to having fled – was trying to shrink into invisibility.
If Welgemoed were going to shoot him, he’d have to get rid of her also.
The door, he’d wanted to scream, close that damn door, the wind will drive us crazy but, when he’d glanced past Welgemoed, he’d seen the door was already shut.
He’d done as he’d been ordered, with clumsy, reluctant fingers.
“You don’t deserve to wear that uniform, let me tell you!” Welgemoed had gestured with Tumelo John’s pistol, his lip pulling up towards the eye that wasn’t squinting. “Did you ever hear such cheek?” He seemed to be addressing Nomsa.
At the door he’d turned back to look at Tumelo John once more. “You’re nobody, just nobody. By Monday you won’t even be in the police. You’d better get used to the idea.”
An image of his house flashed by Tumelo John; and he’d promised his family on the farm that Kopiki could stay with them until he’d matriculated and he’d found work for him.
“Captain, I have a big favour to ask. My ear’s very sore. Can I please get off early?”
Welgemoed was looking at him with two eyes again: in dealing with him you had to know how to arse-lick.
“Finish the entries in the O.B. I’ll be back just now for inspection and then you can go.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Tumelo John had said, and added, “You know, Captain, I was hit really hard.” Welgemoed had stiffened and his eye had begun to squint again.
Tumelo John had swallowed the Grandpa powders, drunk the rest of the water, and opened the occurrence book. He’d been aware of the holster, empty on his hip, an emptiness he didn’t deserve … if only the noises in his head would go away.
That afternoon when he’d stopped his car behind his house, he hadn’t got out, but had slammed both his hands down on the steering wheel … the humiliation! To be treated in front of your juniors and total strangers as if you were a criminal, a murderer … treated like trash, like a kaffir.
Grimly he’d switched the engine on again and driven to Temba police station. It was already past four o’clock, because he’d had to stay on duty until the end of his shift, Welgemoed having refused to let him leave early. That was after, during his inspection, he’d come to the second-last page of the occurrence book and read the entry about the assault. With a dismissive flick of his hand he’d refused Tumelo John’s request to be allowed to go to the doctor’s. “If you’re going to be cheeky, I’ll have to teach you a lesson,” he’d said and shoved the occurrence book aside as if everything it contained had been contaminated by Tumelo John’s insolence.
Tumelo John had parked his car beside a group of defence force riot vehicles and crossed the yard to the charge office. It was a more peaceful place since Captain Molope’s transfer. Molope had though he could root out political unrest with an iron hand, but the more savagely he and his special riot unit had behaved, the greater the resistance they’d aroused. It wasn’t that since his transfer there was less dissatisfaction; it was just that, because one man was no longer there to beat people to death, everything had quietened down considerably.
However, Tumelo John hadn’t been concerned with such matters at that stage. He’d just taken two more Grandpa powders. He knew there was something badly wrong deep down inside his left ear: he was completely deaf on that side, the wind was throwing him off balance. He knew he should get home as quickly as possible to lie down, but Welgemoed’s spite had suddenly made him see clearly exactly what he was up against. They must know Colonel Van Niekerk could be in bad trouble, therefore they’d maintain that he, the sergeant, was lying. They’d cook pages in the occurrence book, they’d make it disappear completely… anything was possible, they’d get their own witnesses, there were always arse-lickers enough, Mabe would play along.
“A charge of assault,” he’d said to the young constable on duty. “Open a file. I want to make a statement.” After all, he thought, I live in Temba. I’m entitled to make a statement here. They musn’t think I was born yesterday. If I lay a charge here, they won’t be able to wriggle out of it. Bophuthatswana is independent. They won’t find it so easy to work me out of the force. Van Niekerk will discover exactly who it was he hit. We all have to obey the rules of the police force.
He wasn’t even halfway through the statement when he’d felt something wet running down the side of his face. When he wiped it away with his handkerchief he’d seen it was blood. The young constable on duty had begun to look flustered, and to write faster.
“Hi, Moleko! What are you doing here?” It was Sergeant Makgato. Tumelo John simply hadn’t heard him come in. His eyes had widened when he heard Van Niekerk’s name: real trouble, for sure. “Listen, wa rra, have you been to the doctor? You must go at once. Go right now to see old Dr Mabena. He’s on duty today. I’ll phone him and tell his nurse you’re on your way.”
“I have to go to hospital in GaRankuwa,” he said to Busi when he got home. “Dr Mabena wants me to go in for treatment. I have a burst eardrum.” He was holding his handkerchief to his left ear, she was looking at him with frightened eyes, little Tshidiso was clinging to his legs. He had to restrain himself from kicking him off: it was his own child. He bent down to loosen his arms, but Tshidiso couldn’t understand: usually his father was so pleased to see him when he came home from work.
“I’m going to lie down for a bit. Give me something for a headache.”
“Papa … pistol!” Tshidiso was pointing at the empty holster.
The whole business had got entirely out of hand: it kept running through his head as he fell onto the bed, uniform and all.
He must have slept for a while. He didn’t feel any better when he woke up, but at least he was somewhat calmer, possibly because of the pill Busi had given him. She said something about the Nkosis not being at home. She didn’t know anyone else she could phone to take him to hospital. Wouldn’t it be better for him to call a taxi? He didn’t answer her, but got to his feet and began to change his clothes, with Tshidiso watching him wide-eyed. He drew aside the curtain at the window. It was dark outside but he could sense the wind had dropped. When he looked back into the room Tshidiso was on the bed staring at a bloodstain on the pillow. Busi came into bandage his head. As she finished he looked up to see Kopiki and a friend, frightened, watching him from the doorway. Busi motioned to them to go away.
Only when he was in the car and his wife asked him – he had to twist his head round to hear what she said – why the colonel had hit him, did he remember Letshoene. He’d completely forgotten about the old man. Only Sithebe, looking subdued, had come to the duty room after the last unit had left for the Vaal Triangle, and nobody had commented when Tumelo John hadn’t even stood up.
At GaRankuwa’s Casualties on Saturday nights you had to be more than patient. While they waited Tumelo John fell asleep with his head on Busi’s shoulder. He woke with a start to Busi’s apologising: Tshidiso was so restless. He was hungry, thought Tumelo John, and suggested she bought something to eat outside.
At last it was his turn. The doctor was young, her hair tied back in a pony-tail. He would have to have an operation, but not immediately. They should wait a bit. One must be careful with ear trouble. He must come back in a week. The doctor gave him medicine and the nurse gave him some water. Was he going back to Temba right away? He really shouldn’t drive.
In the passage the nurse who filled in the patient forms laughed: “I’d rather not know what you’ll do to the bloke that bashed you on the ear. Poor man, he’s facing a lo-o- ong stretch!”
That night he dreamed he was driving his Mazda through sandy bushveld. He stopped in the middle of the road, near an old man sitting beside the road – the car had probably stalled in the red-brown sand. He was laughing. He pointed at the label of a full bottle of brandy he took from his car.
“Can it be true?” he asked the old man. “It says here,” and he read the Afrikaans words under the red picture of a white-bearded man: “Good for warmth, but is no chairman.”
The old man didn’t answer. Tumelo John laughed harder: “What sort of brandy do you have around here!” Then he looked where the old man was looking: the farmer of the land, dressed in khaki, was walking towards them through the sand. Tumelo John, spluttering, showed the bottle to him also. The farmer said nothing. He looked at it, turned round and walked away between two pastures, with Tumelo John following. Apparently he must have said, “Come, I want to show you.”
A little further on, the farmer stopped and pointed to his house, high against a ridge, and red-brown like the soil. Suddenly Tumelo John was unbearably hot. He knew there was somebody with him, but he couldn’t see who. Feverish and soaked with perspiration, he jerked awake. On going through to the bathroom he found his skin was covered with little bumps.
“It’s that medicine,” said Busi, when he’d woken her and she’d looked at him in the light. “You must be allergic to it.” In the mirror he saw his eyelids were swollen, as if he’d been out on a binge.
That Sunday he was admitted for observation to the small Temba hospital where Busi was a student nurse. He stayed there for two days and was booked off work for 16 days.
One morning, about a week after that Sunday, he woke without a headache for the first time since his injury. After he’d dropped Busi off at the hospital and Tshidiso at the nursery school he drove to the chemist.
“The infection is probably beginning to clear up,” said the chemist. `From now on you should improve quickly. I hope so. You can’t go on indefinitely taking the medicine they’ve prescribed for you.”
“I hope you’re right, Mr Roux. I’ll be glad to get rid of this bandage.”
Tumelo John talked to the chemist for a while and then went out on to the stoep. One of his uncle’s neighbours stopped to ask him how he was. Someone was beckoning him from the other side of the street.
It was Sergeant Makgato from the Temba police station. He apparently had been on his way to Checkers but had turned back when he caught sight of Tumelo John. When Tumelo John joined him he said, without looking at him, “Yesterday the college sent someone to fetch the file containing your statement.”
Tumelo John was completely taken aback. “They can’t do that. That’s not allowed.”
“What are you talking about, wa rra: not allowed?”
“Who was it?” Tumelo John moved around to the other side of Makgato, to hear without having to turn his head the whole time. Why was the man walking so fast, and why was he being so secretive? Anyone would think they shouldn’t be seen together.
“It was Mabe, on the orders of the brigadier himself. Brigadier Botha says there’s no one at Temba police station senior enough to investigate a charge against Van Niekerk. They want to handle it themselves.”
“Did you just give it to them?”
“You know very well Mabe wouldn’t ask me for it. What’s the matter with you? It was the lieutenant, naturally, who handed it over.”
“Thanks, wa rra. Thanks for telling me. It’s important for me to know.”
“Anyway, how are you? What did Dr Mabena say?”
Tumelo John thought how stupid he’d been to believe that if he laid the charge in Bophuthatswana the whole business couldn’t be covered up. However, he hadn’t expected this from Brigadier Botha, the man who was so fond of his dogs!
“You’d better get well fast: you need to be fit. I think you should withdraw the charge. Why don’t you all talk the whole thing over, instead? It’s not worth it; they’ll kick you out. And then you must …”
“Never!” A sharp pain pierced Tumelo John’s head. “Never. They won’t be able to kick me out and I won’t withdraw the charge. Don’t you understand: Van Niekerk’s in the wrong. How do you think … what would happen to me if I were to hit one of my own men? You know what that Radifeisana van Niekerk’s like, always quick with his fists. But not against his own men: he can’t get away with that.”
“I was afraid this would be how you’d take it. You’re a difficult man to have as a friend, Tumelo. We all want to get on in life, we can’t stay in one place. Some things can be sorted out later. You can’t fix everything in one go: one man can’t do it all alone and you must remember – you’re still only a black man.”
Tumelo John didn’t answer, but only because the pain in his head was so bad.
Makgato stopped a little way from his light-green police van. “I’m telling you again: go and talk to old Radifeisana. And, wa rra, watch out for Mabe. You know what he said as he walked out with the file under his arm? Guess.”
He wished Makgato would just get into his van and go. He’d heard enough for one day and Mabe’s opinion was of absolutely no interest to him.
“He said it was a pity Captain Molope wasn’t here any longer. That’s what he said. It was a pity Molope wasn’t here any longer: he’d soon put little Moleko firmly in his place, one-two-three.”
The same day he went to see the attorney.
Deafening Silence is published by Human & Rousseau