Nadine Gordimer - My Son's Story

At two o'clock in the afternoon, in Court B, Aila was charged with four offences under the Internal Security Act. — I think of her as 'Aila' since I saw her appear in court, that day, heard her names called out to identify her. The charges included terrorism and furthering the aims of a banned organization. Aila was accused of being a member of something called the Transvaal Implementation Machinery, responsible for acts of terror in the region, and connected to a high command named Amos Sebokeng. She was alleged to have acted as a courier between Umkhonto weSizwe in neighbouring countries and a cell in the Johannesburg area, to have attended meetings where missions for the placing of explosives were planned, and to have concealed terrorist arms on the rented property where she resided illegally.

She came home with us. The lawyer eloquently produced all the good reasons why my mother — that exemplary wife and home-maker whose retiring nature and virtues as a conscientious worker were attested to by the highly-respected medical practitioner by whom she had been employed for years — should be granted bail for Aila. The prosecutor's objections were overruled and ten thousand rands were paid; the lawyer had Dr Jasood's blank cheque ready, as the doctor's bandages had been there, in my father's absence, to bind up Baby's slashed wrists.

I have lived with Aila all the time while he, my father, was living his secret life and I have never heard of this 'Machinery' or this code name for some high command: the secret life she was living. I've been the cover for both of them. That sticks! She didn't even need to confide in me; the silence she kept, for my protection, made me her conspirator, just as I've been his.

Aila happy for battle.

No-one knew better than Sonny that it is always a good thing to let warders and policemen see you laugh. It is difficult for them not to have some respect for one who can laugh while in their hands. But where did she get this from, know how to conduct herself, how to talk to her lawyer, put up a front that gives nothing away — not even to an old political lag who also happened to be her husband. Prison-wise. Aila prison-wise. His Aila; he made the claim to himself. In himself he ignored the crevasse of years he had opened between them and thought of them as Aila-and-Sonny, who together learned how to live, to whom nothing was faced, decided, dealt with that was not conjoined in the little house outside Benoni.

Hannah would sit him down to coffee, now, when he arrived, or offer a glass of wine. They were placed again as they were that first day in a coffee bar, before anything began, where it might never have happened — been rewritten. — How is Aila? Is she in a state of shock? — She's home. They granted bail. Ten thousand. — Hannah's downy pink face tightened painfully. He and she knew that a high bail price meant the prosecution's confidence that charges would be upheld. — What's she supposed to have done?—

— Internal Security Act. The lot. Missions, a cell, courier. — Yes, those trips to Lusaka that set him free to spend whole nights in this room, on that bed, behind them now. — And the storeroom find, of course.—

The silence hung. Suddenly the blue of Hannah's eyes intensified as it did with tears. Whether Aila was a revolutionary or not, whether she had joined the struggle — and who should not rejoice at her choice if she had? — or been naïvely led by the daughter to acts she didn't understand, or was a victim of trumped-up charges and Security Police plants, the quiet, beautiful wife with the curtain material she'd sewn now used to wrap hand-grenades and mines was betrayed, betrayed.

Sonny was amazed; intruded upon. Hannah wept. The tears moved slowly down her broad cheeks and she did not turn from him or cover her face in decency with her hands. She had no right to weep for Aila!

— For god's sake, Hannah.—

But the tears welled and found their way over the contours of that dear face. She tried to speak, had no control of the muscles of her throat, swelling like the throat of a bird. Terrible, terrible, she managed to get out, again and again, flailing her head so that the tears flew. Some fell on his hands. He rose and across the table clasped her in his arms, they clung to each other in wild awkwardness, knocking over cups and sugar bowl.

When they lay on that same bed on the floor, close to the earth as they had liked to be, wakeful, the tides of blood flowing down behind their closed eyelids were washing them apart, the red waters of being widening between them. She did not speak but surely he could hear: this won't happen anymore.

Sonny knew a dire displacement. The wild embrace across the table belonged to the meeting in the booth of the courts' anteroom.

I wonder when she went away. I didn't take much notice at the time; I suppose the signs were there in him but they passed for something else. The house, our life, was centred round Aila; if he were at home, where else should he be, now? Aila had to report to the police twice a day. Could he let anyone else take her there? One did as much for any comrade, put him first, before personal desires, in any crisis.

Not only the life of our house centred round Aila, the attention of the leadership focused on her now. My father's comrades were frequent visitors again — to see her, to give her reassurance of their support. Arrangements had to be made for her defence in the Supreme Court, from what sources the money would come, what counsel would be best for this case. A woman on trial — there was the question of what judge she might appear before, a punishing misogynist or one likely to be positively influenced by refinement, maturity and beauty, and how best the Defence might take advantage of such a possibility. The women's Federation brought cakes and the trades union Congress sent flowers.

It was through these visitors in the liberation movement that I heard she was gone — my father's woman. Quite by chance. Someone from Cape Town remarked in our living-room, ignorant of any connection between her and Aila's husband, that Amnesty International and other groups concerned with political imprisonment ought to be given more details about Aila. — We shouldn't wait for the trial to begin. Getting people overseas to know the background, telling them what kind of woman we have here, in Aila… I tell you who's the best person to do this, Hannah Plowman, she's great— And someone interrupted: —But she's not here any longer, man. She's got some fancy job with the UN High Commission for Refugees, North Africa somewhere.—

So he was the good husband, the good comrade because that woman was gone. He was alternately business-like and atten-tive — Aila's side-kick, Aila's entourage, Aila the hero, now— and morose, sitting alone at the kitchen table late at night, not because my mother might go to prison for ten years (I pestered the lawyers to give me an estimate) but because there was no more big bed on the floor, shameless as you walked in, a whore's room.

Aila's mark was awesome on me: the little girl I sleep with treated me like an invalid, when fellow-students saw me, they saw the headlines in the papers: HAND-GRENADES IN GARAGE HOUSEWIFE LIVING ILLEGALLY IN WHITE SUBURB ALLEGED HARBOURED TERROR CACHE. My mother's indictment in the guise of Aila had given me respite. I had stopped thinking about his woman, about him; the stranger's remark suddenly reminded me.

And now I, also, did something shameful. I couldn't resist the compulsion. I don't know why; I went again to the cottage. What did I think I was going to see there? Maybe I just wanted to make sure, sure. Maybe I couldn't believe it; he, she and I have been bound so long. The side gate was padlocked. I climbed over it. The dogs at the main house heard nothing, didn't appear. I went up the steps of the stoep as if to announce myself to her. I stood in front of the sagging screen door but did not touch it because I remembered it squeaked. A carton that had contained wine bottles lay split among dead leaves, holding two rain-swollen telephone directories. A window was broken and the glass had fallen inwards.