Life, not Death

The police presence was already visible as I stepped off the bus in Church Street to go to my work at the Department of Information. From Church Square the barking of police dogs cut through the cold morning air. It was the 12th of June 1964, the day many had been waiting for: the day of sentencing in the Rivonia trial.
As I stepped into the elevator the anticipated news of the day was on the lips of my colleagues. The sentence was expected around noon.
“Do you think there’ll be riots?” Stella from the library asked Mr de Kok.
“I doubt it. The police have Church Square tightly cordoned off. And only a few have permission to gather, family and friends. But then, they’re all Communists and agitators. Who knows what they’ll do?”
Stella inspected her long red nails.
“Well, if they’re stupid enough to try anything, they’ll get it right there before the statue of Andries Pretorius. I hope the police left their rubber bullets at home today.”
The overpowering scent of her Chanel no 5 added intensity to her vengeful sentiments. She looked around to poll the occupants of the lift for agreement. I kept my eyes to the floor, knowing she would notice and earn me a black mark. We all knew Stella was a scorekeeper. I was glad when the elevator let us both off, she to the library filled with factual information to support the activities of the journalists and information officers working for the department.
I was not a journalist; my job was to provide a special kind of information:  Every morning I read newspapers sent by South African embassies in Anglo- and Francophone countries. This was what my BA degree in English and French enabled me to do. It was an orderly process: I marked up articles on South Africa, Daniel or Joseph collected the papers, clipped the articles, pasted them on sheets of 8 by 11, stamped the date on them and brought them back to me for sorting and indexing. To this process I brought the default qualification of my upbringing in the Afrikaner heartland and my limited exposure to ‘outside influences’.
On my desk, in front of a large window, were two sets of index cards, two trays and a pile of newspapers. One set of index cards contained the names of journalists and the other subjects they were most likely to address such as Pass Laws, Bantu Education, Bantustans, the Immorality Act, 90-Day Detention. Apartheid was classified under S for Separate Development and One Man One Vote under D for Democracy. The trays were colour coded blue and red. The blue tray was for those who were for us, those who praised our wild life, our scenery, our hospitality and our fairness. Blue was for those who loved our wine and could find no fault with the ramifications of Separate Development, those who agreed that ‘our Bantu’ were better off than any in the rest of Africa and should be grateful. Blue was for turning a blind eye to the injustices of the system and the harsh discriminatory laws. Journalists whose articles landed in the blue tray were quoted in the South African Digest, the mouthpiece of the Department, and had their names placed on a list for future invitations to diplomatic parties and exchange programs. The list also facilitated their visa applications and diminished the need for Security Police supervision when visiting the country.
The opposite was true for those of in the red tray! My boss thought that tray was exactly the right colour for ‘ those ignorant and prejudiced commies who dare sneak into our country, spend a week here, talk to the wrong people and then go and lie to the world.’ There was no doubt in his mind, and in that of the majority of the people I had known until then, that these red tray people were bad. They were subversive agitators who merited the red tray. They deserved never to get a visa, never to be invited to anything and to remain on a black list in perpetuity. Because Apartheid was going to last that long. And because we were right and they were wrong. Our truth was supported by the Bible, their lies sprung from their atheistic ideology. And we would go to heaven. So I was told.
It would have been simple if it were just a matter of red and blue, if I were not suffering from an astrological handicap. I am a Libra, by nature obliged to give the benefit of the doubt, see both sides and choose the middle way. Many a day I felt in need of a purple tray, a tray of the middle way where I could place the articles of reasonable criticism and objective analysis. Since the beginning of the Rivonia trial in April, South Africa had become a hot topic in the international press and had increased my volume of work double fold. For the first time I read uncensored reports and opinions about my country and its government. I was used to accusations of ‘totalitarianism’, ‘fascism’ and ‘police state’ levelled at the USSR, China and Hitler’s Germany; now I found them applied to the very system I was supposed to support. I found myself hesitating before many of the articles that should have gone straight to the red tray.  My confusion was the subject of a heart to heart with my boss who was a kind man with a soft spot for girls with a flair for fashion. He had done spot checks and was aware of my dilemma. He offered to ease my burden by vetting ‘doubtful’ articles himself. This he did with a quick scan of the text for adverbs and adjectives, sending them back marked ‘neg’ in red and ‘pos’ in blue. He was not a Libra; he did not need a purple tray. He also he made life easier for me by instructing me to send all articles listing the grievances of the ANC or quoting Nelson Mandela’s speech directly to the red tray.
That June morning I sat down as usual with my coffee to sort the incoming foreign newspapers. Most were already more than a week old but all were filled with anticipation of that day. Would Nelson Mandela and the other Rivonia accused receive the death penalty? What would be the moral justification for this? Too much purple tray material! The barking had unsettled me. I marked them and gathered the pile to deliver to my boss. I saw him down the corridor at Daniel and Joseph’s cubicle. Officially these two were ‘Bantu messengers’. They used the service lift and kept a respectful low profile. Their office was a box room with a narrow window, a counter and two stools. Here they did their gluing and stamping, hardly challenging for two individuals possessing matriculation certificates. Despite the fact that they ran errands for the senior personnel, they seemed to have a lot of spare time on their hands. This they used to study for the correspondence courses he was doing through the University of South Africa, an academic option to many who were denied the luxury of campus life. The virtual campus of UNISA offered tertiary education to all, regardless of colour. It passed muster with the Apartheid authorities because the student body was dispersed and was in no danger of actually mingling and forming ‘undesirable’ social attachments.
Daniel was the serious one. I had not doubt that, along with his Shakespeare, he also made a careful study of the red tray articles. He was shy and unwilling to be drawn into conversation, always on the threshold of the office door, ready to escape at any time. Only once was he spontaneous when I questioned him about his tribal identity. According to the prevailing ideology all blacks had a clear and undisputed ethnic identity.
“So, Daniel, to which Bantustan do you belong?” I asked naively.
His round face broke into a broad grin, his eyes mixed with amusement and pity at my ignorance.
“I was born in Mamelodi, here in Pretoria. My mother is Tswana and my father Zulu. I don’t belong in a Bantustan!”
He never used an honorific for me and I never knew his surname.
And he never did mention that he saw me one day coming out of the High Court on Church Square where the Rivonia Trial was in progress. But then what was he doing loitering around there? Had he been in the Black gallery while I was in the White? Had he seen the same smile on the face of the Black Pimpernel, that elusive defender of African rights, now sitting in the dock with nine others, accused of sabotage and likely to receive the death penalty? Had he come to see history in the making, to take with him an image of the hero? Or had he been instructed to follow me ‘to the bank’ where I said I was going? Was I being watched as well as watched over by my boss or the ‘uncle’ upstairs who gave me the job because of my father and made me swear on the Bible to keep secrets?
I waited for the shoe to drop, to be accused of the subversive detour I took on my way to the bank but nothing happened. We were wrapped in a conspiracy of silence.
The narrow window in the messengers’ cubicle faced in the direction of the Church Square. Despite the cold, it was open. From the Square, the rousing sound of protest singing made the barking seem unimportant.
“The forces are gathering,” said my boss ominously. “The sentence will come over the telex as soon as it is given. We’ll be the first to know. They should hang him, of course. Dead the world will soon forget him but alive he will continue to be the focus for their rallying cry.”
I was aware of Daniel’s gaze on me. I think I must have blushed as I quickly escaped back to my office.
Long before noon people were beginning to position themselves close to the telex room. Some loitered aimlessly in the library, pretending not to be too eager for the result. These were subjected to the opinions of Stella. It was clear to me that Stella and I did not share the same nightmares about death row, the gallows and the irreversible fact of hanging itself.
I managed to manoeuvre myself into a place by the window in the telex room. This window, too, was open. Over the roofs of adjacent buildings I had a partial view of Church Square. The singing protesters were toi-toing and clapping while police and dogs patrolled the perimeters of the crowd. Black Mariahs were parked along the square in preparation for the expected arrests. The mechanical click-clack of the telex machine added a third voice to the chorus of that day. As noon approached the volume of shouting, singing and barking increased. No shooting – so far so good. And then it came:
“Life! Mandela got life!”
Disbelief flooded the faces around me. I saw Daniel at the door, smiling.
“Ag, sies,” said Stella, “they should have hanged him!”

Long after the crowds had left the Square and everyone in the Department of Information was back at their desks, Daniel appeared at my office door. He just stood there awkwardly, expectantly.
“I’m glad they’re not going to hang him, “ I said simply.
“So, am I,” he mumbled.
For an instant our eyes met, confirming our mutual joy and relief.  Then, true creatures of the police state in which we lived, we returned to our work.