As South Africa marks Human Rights Day on March 21 and commemorates Human Rights Month, we turn to a chapter from the historical fiction novel The Sacred Hills, which vividly portrays the injustices and violations that defined the pre-democracy era
Lebone felt weak and drowsy as the warder led him out of the cell. He had barely eaten since he was moved into The Pot.
“Hey, move fast, man. You think this is your village?” the warder yelled at him as they walked down the passage. But Lebone could not walk fast enough.
“Ei, what’s your problem, boy?” asked the warder irritably.
“My knee. The pain in my knee,” Lebone responded, looking down at the troublesome knee.
“Why is that my problem, boy? I have a lot of work to do here. You think you are special? Huh?” the warder yelled.
“I need to see a doctor,” Lebone said, surprising even himself, for in here men did not make any demands.
They were shepherded like sheep, ordered around like useless beings with no minds of their own.
“What?” The warder stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Lebone, who was lagging behind him.
Lebone stopped to point at his swollen knee.
“Are you mad, boy?” said the warder, a cruel, callous smile spreading on his face. “My knee. I have to see a doctor,” Lebone replied.
The warder broke out in cruel laughter.
“Look, man, don’t waste our time. You have come here to die. You are going to die,” the warder said, staring straight into Lebone’s eyes with his cold and green.
The words shook Lebone. He felt his feet go numb.
“Haak! Let’s go. We have serious work to do here,” the warder said, turning to walk away down the passage.
Lebone limped along, knowing that standing there would be interpreted as a sign of defiance. He had seen enough warders knock out men with batons at the slightest irritation. When they walked into a tiny room down the passage, his knee was throbbing with pain.
A dour old man wearing a uniform slightly different from that of the warders stood by a table with a measuring tape dangling across his neck. He wore thick-rimmed glasses and didn’t say a single word. He looked somewhat bored and disconnected from what he was doing. He held a wooden file clip and a pencil, waiting for the warder to give him the order.
“This shit here,” said the warder to the man. “He killed a White man.”
With lightning speed, the man slapped Lebone with an open hand across the face. The blow’s force sent the young man crashing backwards against the wall. The warder suppressed laughter as he eyed the prisoner, trying to regain his balance. The blow had caught him unawares, and Lebone had no time to even raise his hands in defence. He felt the bitter taste of blood drip onto his tongue from his burning upper lip.
“Kom! Kom! Stand here, you stupid kaffir,” the man who had just struck him with his meaty hand ordered Lebone to step forward. His face still burning from the slap, Lebone hesitated to step forward, fearing another blow would land on his face. The warder pushed him forward, closer to the man who had just beaten him. “Raise your head and stand still, you fool,” said the man irritably.
He took off the measuring tape and strung it carefully around Lebone’s neck, then took it off to write the measurements on the file. The meaning of it all sent a cold shiver down Lebone’s spine. It was only then that he realised he was there to have his neck measured. He felt a churning in his stomach. He did not know they even took the trouble to measure the necks of the condemned prisoners just so they could make sure the noose would fit perfectly around their necks.
“Kom!” yelled the man again. “Hierso!” he said, ordering Lebone to stand on top of the scale. He stood there silently as the man wrote down his weight and then measured his height.
“Voetsek!” The man pushed him out of the room. The warder laughed heartily as they walked down the passage back to the cell.
“You see my boy,” said the warder to Lebone, who was limping and grimacing in pain as he walked.
“Now that man is going to ensure the rope fits nicely around your neck, huh, like a necklace.”
It was only when he lay down on the bed in his cell that Lebone realised he had wet his pants. He was trembling so much that he couldn’t even bend his fingers. Although he knew that he was walking in the shadow of the valley of death, Lebone had, up to that point, not fully comprehended his situation.
He was now in the heart of the monster, in the midst of the death factory, where men were measured and weighed to ensure the process of killing them would be smooth.
He had never before been so utterly frightened. Knowing that he was going to die was one thing. But actually, living through the experience of how he was going to die was something totally different.
He looked up at the metal grill above him to see a warder eyeing him intensely, with eyes that showed no mercy. He fell back onto the bed and cried. © Lucas Ledwaba
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