Behind Bars

       

I live in a little house on a hill. It has a magnificent view of a mountain range to the south of our world-famous Table Mountain. It also has an uninterrupted view of the sky, and I’m privy to the most breathtaking sunsets. It’s something I know my soul will crave, no matter where life may take me.

Unfortunately, the house has a front door that is easily accessible to passersby, which, in our country of extremes, with its pathologically high unemployment rate, means we have, on a daily basis, people coming to the door to beg for whatever it is they need: food, money, water, clothes, shoes, etc. It’s interesting to me how few people, these days, offer to do something in return. Before, they’d take one look at my garden and offer to clean it up for me, in exchange for something they wanted. Nowadays, people are so deep in survival mode, that they cut straight to the chase and don’t even pretend there’s going to be reciprocation of any sort.

Yesterday afternoon, I was marking at my favourite writing spot in the house – my kitchen table – with the sun streaming in through the window, and my Happy Trudy sensations all abuzz, as I made my way through successive exam scripts. Earlier, I’d mentioned to my mom, who was spending a few days with me, that opening our curtains served as an invitation to passersby, but that with the sun being so warm and lovely, I’d do it anyway.

While I was marking, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a figure passing by. I looked up, thinking it was a neighbor, and as I started nodding my head to greet, I realised I was looking right into the eyes of Wilfie (not his real name), one of our regulars. He was still in the street at the time, and I desperately wished he was just passing by, but no…. about a minute later there was that unmistakable knock on the front door. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t home (I have to do that sometimes – I’d need a third job if I wanted to feed everyone who came to my door), so I resigned myself to helping him quickly, and then resuming my marking.  

But Wilfie doesn’t come just for food, clothes or money – Wilfie comes to update me on his life, which has all the makings of a bestselling novel. The truth is, his stories are always dreadfully sad. My belief that ‘people are people’ means I listen to Wilfie’s tales of woe in the same way that I listen to anyone else in my life. How can I not? He’s also a person, and he also needs to tell someone what’s been happening.

Over time, Wilfie and his ‘meisie’ (girlfriend) have been coming to my door and telling me all kinds of stories, ranging from mildly disturbing to deeply tragic. Like the time Wilfie was shot in the stomach and didn’t come to my door for months, because he was in hospital. Almost devoid of what I consider ‘normal’ social boundaries, he insisted on showing me his scar, when he returned. Eish!  I’ve also had to hear about who was killed in their neighbourhood (they live in a gang-infested area, a few kilometres from where I live), and how he had to flee for his life, and how all his money and possessions were stolen by people he knew. Apparently, he lives in a shack, and when he’s out, people break in and help themselves to whatever he’s managed to accrue. I felt really sad when he told me that a really nice pair of boots my son had given him had been stolen. I look at him, I want to believe him, but I’m not blind to the possibility that he’s a drug addict and that he flogged the boots at the merchant. Kind of ties one’s hands, in terms of giving him things. 

But yesterday’s story broke my heart. His ‘meisie’ had been raped, a few weeks ago. Worse, it was by someone she’d gone to primary school with, and someone who’d been living in her neighbourhood for years. Apparently, when he dragged her from the shack, to wherever he was going to commit the horrible deed, he told her he’d had his eye on her for years. Oh my God! No matter what Wilfie may have spun me in the past, I could see that this was the truth. The pain in his eyes was unbearable for me, and I thought about how much worse the feeling must be for him. He told me all the details about going to the police station, and how he suspected the cops were in cahoots with the gangs. I asked if his girlfriend had had counselling, and at first he didn’t seem to know what that was, but then I asked if he knew what a psychologist was, and he did. We converse in Afrikaans (not my first language), so I was impressed that he knew the word, ‘sielkundige’. (Come to think of it, I’m impressed that I knew the word.) He told me  she’d been counselled by a psychologist at the police station, on the night.

He must’ve felt really reflective and confessional, because he then proceeded to tell me about his past. He told me that he’d been a gangster, and drew my attention to the many tattoos, all over his body. (Yes, Wilfie, I thought, those markings had not escaped my keen Virgo eye, the very first time I met you.)  He told me about how he and a few friends used to wait until people were out and then break into their houses. I felt the blood drain from my face, when he gesticulated to my house and said, “Huise soos die” (Houses like this one). I’d had two burglaries within six months of each other, many years ago - the second far more devastating than the first, because they’d obviously had a long time in the house, and had overturned every bed (breaking mine) and emptied every single drawer in the house (breaking my chest of drawers), strewing their contents. Not a nice experience. 

I’ll be honest, the irony of his own break-in did not escape me.  

He told me about how he’d been wrongfully arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, and about his years in prison. He said he’d eventually found a lawyer to prove his innocence, and he was released after having served six of his sixteen years.

I listened to this man - this tall, thin man, this man whose life had been filled with so much pain, this man who could tell me about his return to God, after answering an altar call at a “handeklap” (hand-clapping) church in such a vivid way, that it took me back to my own experience of it, when I was at high school. It happened at a time when my family life was in turmoil (funny how we don’t see it that way when we’re experiencing it), and ushered in a period of about three years during which I left the Anglican church and hung out with people who attended  the ‘evangelical’ (handeklap) churches. For those three years, I regarded myself as ‘saved’, and was an insufferable fundamentalist, who basically saw it as my mission to try to get everyone into Heaven. 

There was always that possibility that I’d go in the opposite direction, in my search for a feeling of belonging, but I didn’t. I still have an aversion to drunk people, although that may have more to do with how often I’d seen my father lose his dignity, through his own excesses.    

By the time Wilfie had finished his long story and I was about to look for my purse to forage for some loose change, I took in how his body language had changed, during the course of our conversation. He was, by now, standing on the step, right outside my front door, with a mere metre separating us, his back casually resting against the side wall, his eyes a lot more peaceful than when he’d first pitched up and had sat, anguished and fidgety, on the path.

It occurred to me that, with the safety gate between us, his view of me was exactly the same as mine of him – to each of us, the other was behind bars.