She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me (24 page)

One day about three months ago in September I came home early, about 6 p.m. I usually get home at 7 p.m. I went to my bedroom and found the door locked. I called for the accused to open the door. Faith opened the door. When she opened the door, she was tidying her clothes. She was straightening her dress. When I asked them to open the door it was done immediately. The accused was also in the room, in bed, covered with blankets. Faith looked upset. I said “what is going on?” and she did not reply. The accused was under the influence of liquor. Faith left the room.

Q:
When sober I was quite devoted to you and children.

A:
That is so.

Q:
We were happy.

A:
Apart from the drinking, yes.

Q:
You had no complaints in any way.

A:
Not whilst you were sober.

Q:
When intoxicated there was a change of behavior in myself.

A:
Yes.

Q:
I became a different person.

A:
Yes, correct.

Six months later, the witness noticed a light on in the bathroom and got up to switch it off. She looked in the children's bedroom and saw her husband lying in the bed that two of his daughters shared. She told him to go back to his own bed and that he shouldn't be there. Later that month, he took the children on an outing to Robinson Lake, in Randfontein. The witness decided to stay at home. Her family returned at five p.m.

I noticed that Faith was upset. She came and spoke to me and said the accused took her into the trees and pushed her down on the ground. I was upset and took the children and ran out of the house. When the accused returned from Randfontein he was not sober, he could not walk straight. I told him he should leave the girls alone. He said he was lonely. When I said he must not touch them he said he was living by the laws of nature. When he said this he was drunk. Three months ago Pauline complained to me and said the children must not stay in the room alone with the accused.

Q:
You forbade me to have liquor in house.

A:
Yes.

Q:
You warned me that unless I stopped drinking you would take action against me and have me put in an institution or a work colony.

A:
I suggested treatment for alcoholism.

Q:
On two occasions the children found alcohol which I had hidden.

A:
I don't know.

Q:
Did you know that I hid alcohol in the girls' bedroom?

A:
No.

Under reexamination, the witness said the accused had assaulted her, but not in the past year. When under the influence, he was, she said, “unreasonable with children.”

This was the sum of her testimony. It was a bare-minimum account, but it was unequivocal. A surgeon then appeared to confirm that he had examined both the twelve-year-old and her seven-year-old sister. There were signs of hemorrhage in the former, he said, consistent with forceful intercourse with penetration. Asked to describe the examination as either easy or painful, he replied, “Painful.” He described the seven-year-old as showing signs of “interference.” It was the euphemism my mother always used. This seven-year-old was then brought to the stand, warned to speak the truth, and asked if she understood what that meant. She confirmed that she did. She named the town where her family used to live and explained that because her mother worked, she wasn't always home when they got back from school. Sometimes, she said, their father was home. She was then asked if she remembered the day the doctor saw her. Yes, she said. The exam had been painful. It was noted in the court papers that, at this point, the prosecutor could get no further replies to his questions. The seven-year-old witness was unable to continue.

The twenty-four-year-old was of limited value to the prosecution, since she was far too old to provide any medical evidence, and her testimony was short. She confirmed her mother had died when she was two years old. She confirmed a series of addresses where the family had lived. “We stayed at Dannhauser, Natal,” she said,

and whilst there, as far as I can remember, it started. I cannot say for sure. I was about 15 years old when we stayed at De Deur, Vereeniging. Whilst staying there I had intercourse with my father. It happened very often. As far as I know the accused had full intercourse with me. Whilst at Witpoortjie I stayed with my father. He was always mixing with the children and touching them. None of the children ever complained to me, but because of my experience I was suspicious of my father. Shortly before I left Witpoortjie, at the end of August, I warned my stepmother. She made a report to me. I said I was not surprised.

The accused had no questions for his adult daughter.

The defendant's eleven-year-old daughter, Doreen, was brought forth to testify. “During July holidays I was at home one afternoon,” she said. “Mother was working, my father was at home.” Her father called the witness's seven-year-old sister to come into the room with him.

I know the smell of liquor. Father smelled of liquor. My sister went into the room with my father and he locked the door from inside. I was in the kitchen. I heard my sister crying. I went to the door and asked my father to open it. He opened the door a bit afterward and my sister came out. I asked her what happened and she said nothing.

We were doing homework and father told me to go to the shop. Faith followed me—she did not want to go to my father's room. One day Faith was in the room and the door was locked and I knocked at the door and said I wanted a tissue. My father opened the door and Faith came out. It looked like she was crying. Her eyes were red and she was busy fastening her shirt. I asked her what happened and she said nothing.

I woke up on several occasions and found our father in our room. I heard Faith say, “leave me.” In my father's bedroom, when Faith was in there with him, I heard the bed squeaking. It sounded like Faith was crying.

A prior witness statement was read out to the court, in which the eleven-year-old confirmed she had never been molested.

The only boy to testify was the defendant's sixteen-year-old son, Tony, who spoke plainly and matter-of-factly in defense of his sister. He said:

Whilst staying at Witpoortjie I noticed Faith used to go into the accused's room. Usually the door was locked from the inside. On one occasion I knocked at the door and asked him to open it. Faith opened the door. She looked cross. I have told my father not to take the girls in the room and lock the door. I did not want the girls to go in his room when he had been drinking.

One afternoon my mother came home early. I knew Faith was in my father's room and the door was locked. My mother went to the door and found it was locked. When I got out of the bath my mother said she wanted to speak to me. I thought she was going to speak to me about the locked door and I reported it to her.

For over two years my father had been taking the girls into his room, that is since we stayed at Zwartkoppies. Faith did not like going to my father's room. Once I asked Faith what was going on in the room. She did not reply.

The accused had no questions for his son.

Finally, it was the plaintiff's turn to testify. Fay spoke in a voice so clear and confident it is hard to believe she was only twelve years old. Her courage makes a mockery of her image as saint to Doreen's devil. Fay stood up in court, and as her older sister had urged her to, spoke up to confirm her name, her age, and her temporary address—with friends on Konig Avenue—and her former address “at Witpoortjie, Corlett Avenue, with my father and mother.”

One afternoon, she said, her father asked her to help him add up figures in the book they kept for recording the groceries. She was sitting on her mother's bed; he was dressed in his pajamas. While she was adding up the columns, he locked the door. She tried to open the door, but he wouldn't let her. He pushed her onto the bed. The twelve-year-old told the court:

His private part was in my private part. I felt pain. He was moving his body up and down. I wanted to call my brother but he put his hand over my mouth and then left me. My mother was at work. That night I told my mother that the accused had intercourse with me. My mother went to the room of the accused. I don't know what she said.

Three weeks earlier, her mother had come home early from work. It was three or four in the afternoon. She was locked in the bedroom with her father. Her mother had shouted, “Faith, open the door.” Her father had put his pants on and opened the door. Her mother was at the door. She told her mother he had locked the door, lain on top of her, “and then he put his private in mine. Mother went and spoke to my father.”

Three or four days later, the accused called her to help him with a puzzle. It was something, he said, with which you could win a car. She said she didn't want to, but he said she must. He got up and said he was going to get something, but instead he locked the door. He pushed her onto the bed. Her fifteen-year-old brother came and said, “Open the door.” Her father opened it and asked Tony what he wanted. Tony said he shouldn't lock the door when there was a girl in the room. She left the room. Tony told her mother, in her presence, and her mother asked her if he did anything to her. She said no.

About a week later, the ice-cream cart came by. Her father told three of her siblings to go and buy ice cream. She wanted to go, too, but her father forbade her and asked her to get tea ready. While she was pouring water into the teapot, he pulled her away from the stove and the water spilled. She put the kettle down, and the accused took her to his room, left the door open, and pulled her pants down to her knees. She tried to get away. She hit him on the arm, and the accused hit her on the leg with his fist. He then let her go. The accused told her she must not be cross with him; he was not going to do anything, he was only playing.

The same night she told her mother. She told her mother on all these occasions. She could not tell the court when the first time had happened. She said she never agreed to him doing it.

On November 17, their father took three of them—the witness, her seven-year-old sister, and her eight-year-old brother—to an air rally near their house. They were playing. At some point in the afternoon, her father asked her to accompany him to where he said the airplanes landed. She told him she didn't want to go. He took her arm and pulled her away and said he didn't want to go alone.

She didn't smell alcohol on his breath. She didn't think he knew where they were going and told him to ask someone. He said he already had, and led her down a path into a wooded area, still holding her arm. He dragged her off the path and pushed her to the ground. She got up, pulled her arm away, and wanted to run. He got hold of her arm again and pushed her to the ground. She told him she would tell her mother. Her father said that if she did that, she would cause a lot of trouble, and she had caused enough trouble already. She asked him to leave her alone, and he told her not to shout, as someone might hear. She got up from the ground, pulled her pants up, and walked away. She tried to shout, but the accused put his hand over her mouth. He asked her not to tell her mother, and she said she would. “I am going to,” she said. He said he knew she wouldn't. He then asked her if she wanted to go and look for where the airplanes landed. She said no.

When she got home, she told her mother, and they fled the house.

The court recorded only a brief segment of the cross-examination. The transcript conflated the two opening questions, so it was unclear which one she was answering.

Q:
Have I ever been unkind to you or beat you or hurt you, we have always been fond of each other until now.

A:
Yes.

Q:
You always asked me to join your games.

A:
Yes.

Q:
I always joined in.

A:
Yes.

Q:
I have always given you what you have asked.

A:
Yes.

Q:
I was nearly always drunk.

A:
Lots of times.

Q:
Was I just as kind then.

A:
Yes.

Her father's defense, of diminished responsibility through alcohol, was not successful, and at the end of the weeklong hearing the magistrate found him guilty of the charge “that he did unlawfully assault, and then wrongfully and unlawfully, violently and against her will did ravish and casually know [the victim] and being asked what he will say in answer thereto and being at the same time cautioned that he is not obliged to make any statement that may incriminate him and that what he shall say may be used in evidence against him.”

Jimmy replied, “I have nothing to say.”

The magistrate committed him for full trial at the High Court. The accused requested that he be tried by a judge and no jury. It took place four months later and lasted ten days.

As far as I'm aware, he was kept in jail for the entirety of those four months. He was not able personally to intimidate the witnesses. What, if anything, provoked his wife to change her testimony is unknown, although having to go through the entire ordeal again, this time before a High Court judge in full wig and robes and with journalists on the press bench, strikes me as more than sufficient. None of Marjorie's children can remember what she said; what was revoked and what of her original testimony survived. Only my mother remembered, and I had been too afraid to ask her. I can't summon any particular animosity toward Marjorie. At this distance the failure of the action seems secondary to the fact that something was said and done in the first place, that it is a matter of public record and that my aunt and I, all these years later, are having dinner tonight and talking about it.

Doreen remembers very little of the High Court trial. It's extraordinary, what the mind does to protect itself. Sometimes only the smallest things stick. The strongest single image she retains is from the morning before it started. For those ten days, she says, her sisters and her mother were accommodated at the state's expense in a hostel in downtown Johannesburg, and that first morning they sat in the dining room and had breakfast. Although it was a weekday, the girls were made to wear their Sunday hats for court, and a horrible boy in the breakfast room laughed at them. “Why are you wearing hats?” he said, and Doreen, as her mother had instructed her, replied, “Because we are going to the dentist.”