‘I have to get to Prince Albert,’ you lied.
‘This road isn’t safe after dark. Quite apart from the road itself, and the size of your truck, there have been hijackings. You’re welcome to stay here with my friend and me. I’m Timothy. He’s called Lionel. You and your boy can have our tent. We’ll sleep outside. It won’t rain up here tonight. You don’t need to be afraid of us’ — an easy assurance, one you would have been foolish to accept at face value, but Timothy’s voice and his accent (if not his eyes) reassured you, as did the tablets with a brand name you recognized, triggering an unbidden memory of an advertisement, an animated graphic of a simplified digestive system, angry red, turning reassuringly blue.
‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’ You caught yourself again, doing what you did not intend. Had you lost the capacity to say no, or did you sense some kind of salvation in those men who presented themselves like angels, and believe in their beneficence?
~ ~ ~
*
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
4 JUNE 1996, CAPE TOWN
VICTIM: Louis Louw
VIOLATION: Injured in ANC Bomb Attack
TESTIMONY FROM: Louis Louw
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you for your patience Mr Louw. I believe the microphone is working now. Please would you just lean forward and be good enough to speak into it clearly.
MR LOUW: What do you want me to [indistinct] or what?
CHAIRPERSON: That’s fine, Mr Louw, the microphone is working now and I [pause … indistinct] begin again. No, there is still a problem. The translators are having difficulty. A moment while they make an adjustment. There it is? Okay? Is everything in order now? Good. We may continue. My apologies, Mr Louw. You may take your time, there is no hurry. Now, are you comfortable as you are?
MR LOUW: As comfortable as I will be.
CHAIRPERSON: Very well. You will tell us please if you need anything, or if you want to take a break. We all appreciate how difficult this can be. Have you been following the other hearings, and the testimony of those who appeared earlier today?
MR LOUW: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: So you know the kinds of questions we might ask and the kinds of things we will want to hear from you, or that you might tell us about yourself, to give us a, a better sense of this, of the terrible impact of this event on your person and on your life and on the lives of your loved ones, your family, I mean, and those close to you.
MR LOUW: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: Could you tell us something about yourself, about who you were, and where you had come from, so to speak, at the time of the bombing?
MR LOUW: You see, I was just an ordinary man. I had grown up here, gone to the schools here, member of this very church. I was baptized in this church, and so were my brothers and sisters. My people have always been here, you see, for hundreds of years.
CHAIRPERSON: Please, can we have quiet in the room. Please. Mr Louw must be allowed to speak. If there are any further interruptions I will have to clear the room. Please continue, Mr Louw.
MR LOUW: I was just a clerk at the time of the attack. I pushed paper back and forth, you see. I was just only a clerk at the time. I had never raised a hand in anger at anyone in my life.
CHAIRPERSON: Did you not fulfil the national service requirement?
MR LOUW: Yes, but that was orders. I’m talking about in everyday life you must understand. This attack happened in everyday life, me just minding my own business, and in everyday life we always got along with everyone, our family. We were always good to the people. I married just before I got the job as clerk and at the time of the attack we had a boy aged three and a baby girl, just turned one. We had a little house over on Weymouth Road and everything was good. My parents were proud of me because I had a good government job. I had been not such a good student at school and I think they were worried that I might not do so well in my life, that perhaps maybe I was on the wrong path when I was a youth but I decided to turn my life around after my national service and I was committed. I was a very hard worker at the time then. So you see what it was I lost in the terrible thing that they did to me and others. I had my family, my livelihood, a good job. So what I want to know is, what is this committee going to do to make up for what I lost? What are you going to give me? Because I did nothing to deserve this.
CHAIRPERSON: Can you tell us, Mr Louw, about the day of the attack and what exactly happened on that day?
MR LOUW: Ja, it was a long time ago now, almost a decade, and because of the medicine I take the doctors say I have places that I black out, my memory has holes in it and so I cannot say that it is that I remember everything clearly you understand from that day itself. If you don’t believe me you can ask my doctor here what the names of the medicines are and he will tell you they keep me from making bad memories of that day. It’s very special medicine this stuff. You can ask if you don’t believe.
CHAIRPERSON: That won’t be necessary, Mr Louw. We believe what you’re saying.
MR LOUW: It is all a little too confusing in my memory for me to know that I remember it as it happened so you will forgive me if there are gaps in my story but I am trying my best to help and to cooperate with this here today because I hope that maybe the government is going to be able to do something to give me back what I lost on that day.
CHAIRPERSON: We understand, Mr Louw. You have been diagnosed with PTSD, treatment for which is ongoing.
MR LOUW: I’m getting treatment, yes, but I don’t think I’ll ever be cured you see, and as I say the medicine they give me might be affecting my memory and other things also.
CHAIRPERSON: That is all understood. Perhaps you could begin with what you remember from that day.
MR LOUW: I remember getting up and already my wife had breakfast ready. And I remember standing at the sink in our kitchen and my two children there at breakfast looking happy and that was a wonderful thing that day, a wonderful feeling that started that day, and I thought things are good, the family will go on, continue. You may think that is funny some of you, but it was important to me that I maintain the family line if you like, and it was good to look at my two healthy children who looked like me and my parents and my wife and her family there that morning. That is a good memory and the doctors say I should try to focus on that, so I remember the orange housedress my wife was wearing and that I had eggs and bacon for breakfast because it was the end of the week and it was a treat. But it is also a sad memory too because it was the last time we were like that, the four of us. After breakfast I had a shower and put on my uniform that my wife had ironed and I drove to work. It was a slow morning and a very hot morning, I think, it must have been at least thirty-five degrees that day. If you don’t believe me you can check with the weather records and they will show you that it was hot and you know what it is like when the weather is that hot, you have difficulty thinking quickly, clearly, that’s the way it was that day. Your brain does not work so well on hot days. I think perhaps there were forms to fill out or a memo to write at the office, an end-of-the-week report or an internal memo of some kind but that’s something I don’t remember clearly any more you see, what exactly I had to do on that day. You understand you are asking me to remember what the doctors have tried to help me to forget and I am trying [indistinct] I am trying very hard to help you with this because I want people to know what happened to people like me.
CHAIRPERSON: Would you like to take a break to compose yourself, Mr Louw?