Student Comrade Prisoner Spy by Bridget Hilton-Barber

Author:Bridget Hilton-Barber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-77022-801-6
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2016-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

15

Pak jou goed

‘HILTON-BARBER, PAK JOU GOED.’

An ugly, officious warder barks out this command. We are all inside our cell. It is my fourth week in the Rooi Hel – I’ve been here since July the 6th, after three days at Alexandria police station, and we’ve all been given signed papers extending our fourteen days to ‘indefinite’.

‘You are being let go,’ says the warder, and we stare in disbelief.

‘Me?’ I ask. Why me?

‘Ja, pak jou goed, ek kom haal jou oor ’n uur.’ I will fetch you in an hour.

Ann is the first to hug me, ‘Oh, Bridgie, go well, take care, try to get us news of what is happening.’

I give her a pair of red leopard-skin leggings that I have made myself. I parcel out a jersey and a T-shirt. They are part of the bag of clothes I left at Alex’s place, where I spent the last night of my freedom. ‘If I get picked up,’ I told him, ‘get these clothes to me somehow, okay?’ He seemed terrified, but agreed.

My girlfriends pray for my safety and strength. The warder arrives and I give away some more clothes. I am bewildered at being separated from the pack.

I follow the warder down the long passage, past cells where other white women, convicted criminals, sit staring at me as I pad past. I am quiet as a mouse as I walk the passages of this strange Victorian-style prison.

We go downstairs to the grey-walled reception area with its red floors and shiny-leafed pot plants – sword ferns and aspidistras and maidenhair ferns – and notices neatly pinned to a board. Standing in front of the desk is a young ginger-haired security policeman and his blonde colleague, both in casual clothes, jeans and trainers.

‘Hilton-Barber,’ he smirks, ‘ha, we’re not really releasing you, you are coming with us to East London.’

My heart begins to pound.

‘Ja there’s another girl that must come here in your place,’ he says. ‘Julie, she’s freaking out there, so you two are being swapped around.’ And then he chuckles, ‘Ag, sorry hey.’

The blonde gives a satisfied smile.

They take me outside to a white Toyota Corolla and she opens the back door for me. I get in and they lock the doors and we drive away from the prison, up a stretch of road along the coast, the shipwreck coast, towards Port Alfred, over many rivers, Swartkops, Sundays, Bushmans, Kariega, Kasouga, Kowie, Rietrivier, Wes Kleinemonde, Oos Kleinemonde, the Great Fish, the Hamburg, Mpekweni, Mtati, Mgwalana, Keiskamma, and the Buffalo.

We stop for petrol in Port Alfred.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ asks the security cop.

‘Fuck you,’ I say.

He laughs and gets out of the car and slams the door.

The blonde and I sit in the car.

‘You know what you’re doing is wrong?’ I say to her.

She pushes her sunglasses up and looks ahead as she shifts in her seat. We are the same age, I guess. I wonder what she’s thinking.

‘I haven’t been charged with anything,’ I say. ‘Do you know what detention without trial means? We can’t even go to court.

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