I am one of those defence lawyers who get called in, purveyors of the meagre legal meals. I have been doing this for some years now, and, at the age of thirty-three, I alternate between spikes of energetic commitment to my clients, anger, exhaustion and a laconic cynicism that I try to disguise. Alarmingly, I sometimes experience a number of these states simultaneously. I see my clients at their weakest and most vulnerable. They speak to me of their fears and frailties, their relationships, childhoods, prejudices and insecurities.
Try visiting detainees who are in solitary confinement once every two weeks for years and you end up discussing very little law – not much point when they are detained under draconian security legislation that allows little room for legal movement. We spend the time talking about politics, family, how they feel, their conditions. I give them some idea of what’s happening outside and verbal information gets relayed. I understand it from their point of view. I know how I would behave: with double their vulnerabilities and half their courage.
When they are finally released, there is often a sense of embarrassment when we meet ‘outside’. Is it me or my client who becomes distant? Or do we both withdraw to our secret places, neither of us digging too deep, the revelations never mentioned? Perhaps it interferes with their reconstruction. You never want your therapist at your party.
Uncomfortable thoughts as I hunch over the steering wheel at high speed driving to Pretoria Central to meet four new clients, worrying that I might not have the energy to stay the course.
2
It was close to midnight when Jabu Masina jolted awake, the glare of headlights filling the room. The car slowed and stopped in front of the school classroom where Jabu hid. He checked his handgun, a Tete pistol, and stuck it back in his belt. His shirt was wet with sweat. Surprise was his only ally against a man like Orphan ‘Hlubi’ Chapi.
This was the second time he had come back to get Chapi. He’d tried a month ago but Chapi was too well protected and always alert. He’d followed him for two weeks and never got close enough, eventually returning to base in Swaziland shortly before his Swazi passport expired. A passport supplied by his commander, Solly Simelane.
After completing basic military training in the Funda camp close to Luanda, Jabu had been taken to a safe house in that city. There he was told he would be posted to Swaziland to join a unit that would specialise in assassinations – the ‘Icing Unit’, as it came to be known.
Before Jabu left for Swaziland, Oliver Tambo, the president of the ANC, visited him at a safe house in Luanda. The two men met alone in a sparsely furnished room. Jabu felt honoured to be sitting with a man he revered so much. The president asked about his training and where he’d grown up. Jabu spoke of his home in Rockville and life in South Africa before he left. The meeting ended with Oliver Tambo shaking his hand and wishing him luck.
On 11 June 1978, Jabu was given two hundred rand and a passport, with a visa valid for fourteen days, by his commander Solly Simelane. He was instructed to enter South Africa and ‘sanction’ Chapi, a policeman notorious in Soweto for atrocities against his own people. Jabu knew of Chapi. The man was a legend in Soweto and boasted that he had killed a number of students. Always armed, he rode seemingly invincible through the township in the company of his fellow policemen. Bullet proof.
There had been previous attempts on Chapi’s life. All had failed. People were terrified of him. Quick to use his gun, he had the reputation of being an outstanding marksman.
Crossing through the Oshoek border post, Jabu arrived in Soweto at seven the same evening. Again, he spent his days and nights tracing Chapi, but with little success. Although he knew where Chapi lived, he did not want to be seen too close to the house. On those occasions he ran a stakeout, the man was nowhere to be seen.
The days passed. Jabu became desperate. On the morning of the fourteenth day, while waiting at a traffic circle near the Anglican church close to Chapi’s Rockville home, the policeman’s brown Ford Grenada pulled up close to him. Two women got out. Jabu walked quickly towards the vehicle, reaching for the pistol tucked into the front of his pants and covered by his loose blue shirt. Suddenly a police van turned the corner and stopped next to Chapi’s car. Jabu paused. This was too dangerous. Moroka police station too nearby. He walked away slowly. From a distance he watched the Ford Grenada drive off. The hit would have to be that night. He would need cover of some sort.
In the late afternoon, Jabu returned and checked the area around Chapi’s house once again. The houses were bigger here, not the small matchboxes that dotted Soweto. The property was larger too, and Chapi’s house had a drive-in garage. Comparing it to his own house fuelled Jabu’s resentment, justified his intention. This man was enjoying the fruits of collaboration, and everything had a price. Jabu made his plans.
The Ndondo school opposite Chapi’s house would provide good cover while Jabu waited. Once night fell he entered the school and took up a position in a classroom facing the street. Previously he’d avoided this option, thinking it too obvious. But this was his last chance. Because of the tension, the waiting was long and tiring. Eventually Jabu sat down, propped himself against a wall, and drifted into sleep. He would jerk awake, chide himself, but a heaviness behind his eyes sent him back to sleep.
Then the headlights flooded the classroom. It was Chapi’s Ford Grenada. Now he had to make his move. The car stopped opposite Chapi’s house and a man got out, walked towards the yard gate and opened it. In the dull orange light cast over the township by the ‘Apollos’ on their tall masts, Jabu realised that the man was Chapi. Quickly, he left the classroom, keeping to the shadows. Chapi’s house was on his left, the Grenada on his right. Chapi was opening his garage door. Jabu hurried towards him. Hearing footsteps, Chapi spun round, his gun in his hand. So fast, Jabu knew he wouldn’t make it. He staggered drunkenly and lurched across the road towards the policeman. He was close now, level with the car. Chapi lowered his gun, asked if he was okay. Jabu slurred a reply. Simultaneously, he drew his pistol and shot Chapi high in the body on the right. Chapi fell to a crouch and lifted his gun. Jabu squeezed the trigger again. It jammed. Chapi levelled his weapon. Jabu cursed, dived over the Ford’s bonnet, trying to fix the gun. Chapi was firing now, six shots or more. At each explosion Jabu expected the shock of metal tearing into his flesh. He scrambled to the front of the car as the wounded Chapi moved to the rear: the hunter suddenly become the hunted. It was true what they said about Chapi: he couldn’t be killed. The shots were deafeningly close. This is it, thought Jabu, the end. And then silence. He raced wildly down the street. Alive. Once round the corner, he walked slowly up the street behind Chapi’s house and, jumping a fence, hid in a garden.
He pushed the gun into his pants. To think that such a small weapon could take the life of a man, although the indestructible Chapi would surely survive only one bullet. And then the police would hunt him down. Yet Jabu couldn’t move. The night was filled with sirens as police vans accelerated from Moroka police station. Anyone on the streets would be stopped and questioned. He wouldn’t stand a chance. He knew that no one would leave their houses. The brave might peep out a window, but no one would go further than that. This was Soweto and what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. An hour passed. Another. Until early in the morning, cold and scared, he was finally able to creep away.
The next day Jabu made preparations to get out of the country. His passport had expired. He would have to jump the border. This presented dangers of its own. Another possibility of arrest. To add to his anxiety he still knew nothing of Chapi, of whether his mission had been successful.
Jabu decided to cross the border into Botswana as he had been instructed to do if something went wrong. Mozambique was out of the question as it would be an embarrassment to the Mozambicans if he were caught.
At Johannesburg’s Park Station that afternoon, the Sowetan’s billboards proclaimed the death of Chapi. Jabu bought a copy. He read that the residents of Soweto had ‘danced in the streets’.