Marius Scholtz. Breyten se reis na vryheid vanuit Pollsmoor

 

My vertelling begin by ’n boekgeskenk van my pa, Merwe Scholtz. Voorin die boek skryf hy:

 

Vir Marius

Met Liefde

Van Pa,  Kers 2003

 

 My pa se gesondheid het vroeër dié jaar ’n knou gekry en hy is kort voor Kersfees in 2005 oorlede. Rapport het Breyten Breytenbach genader vir ’n na-doodse insetsel oor hom en al wat Breyten glo sou gesê het, was dat my pa ’n knap analitikus was. Hy wou verder geen kommentaar lewer nie.

Breyten het ná sy vrylating vir my pa ’n baie besonderse tekening geskenk.

 

 

Die skets hang sedert my pa se dood in my huis – tans in my werkkamer op Prins Albert waar ons woon. Die gelykenis van my pa in die geskenkdoos is in die kol.

Wat onmiddellik tref, is die skêr van die sensor met ’n stukkie versnipperde teks naby die punt. Die skets het my ontstel. My pa was soveel meer as net ’n sensor – dié het hy in 1963 geword op aanbeveling van N.P.  Wyk Louw. In lyn met dié se benadering van “lojale verset” het hy aangedring dat my pa ’n sensor word ten einde te help verseker dat werk met literêre meriete nie verban word nie. Die feit dat my pa ’n sensor was, het hom vervreem van die meerderheid van die skrywerskorps in Suid-Afrika.

Die geskenkboek wat my pa vir my meer as 20 jaar gelede gegee het, was Breyten se The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (1984). Tot my groot spyt het ek dit onlangs eers gelees, terwyl ek in die Kalahari was vir alleen-boekleestyd. ’n Klein deel van waaroor Breyten skryf, is van ’n besonderse vriendskap tussen twee mans met totaal verskillende (of miskien tog nie) lewensuitkyke. Daarby gee Breyten se skrywe ’n onstellende blik op die gebeure van daardie tyd.

Ek herleef hierin Breyten se reis uit die Pollsmoor-tronk in Breyten se woorde, met tussenwerpsels hier en daar.

Op bladsy 274 beskryf Breyten ’n besoek van Van Zyl Slabbert aan hom in Pollsmoor:

Only afterwards was I to realise how particularly kind he’d been to Yolande, making it possible for her to pursue her efforts to have me liberated. He is a discreet, efficient man, always following up the initiatives that have been started.

 Breyten vervolg dan:

Thanks partly to him I was now also allowed access to receive the visits of a man of letters. Professor Kharon … was allowed access to my manuscripts, and afterwards we could discuss these. For the first time in nearly seven years, I now talked literature to an enthusiast. For me  it meant that these writings were resuscitated. Kharon is an intelligent man, with wide-ranging and sensitive literary interests. The exciting experience was that I could talk about really important matters to someone who would disagree absolutely with what I’d done with my life and the notions which inspired me. Despite these differences, although I was a bandiet (and would remain one in my mind) and he a man moving in the vicinity of the powerful, sniffing the heady scent that I would find nauseating, I could sense a true affection developing between us.

 Ná verloop van heelwat tyd waarin my pa vir Breyten gereeld in Pollsmoor gaan besoek, vind die gebeure hieronder totaal onverwags plaas.

 

Die gebeure van 1 Desember 1982

Op 1 Desember word Breyten uit die bloute geneem om “The Man” op die elfde vloer van ’n hotel in Kaapstad te ontmoet.  “The Man”, wie se identiteit Beyten onderneem het om nie te openbaar nie, was Kobie Coetzee, die pas aangestelde minister van Justisie, wat sy voorganger, die erg verkrampte Louis le Grange, vervang het.

Breyten word gevra of, indien hy onvoorwaardelik vrygelaat sou word, hy onderneem om nie betrokke te wees in politieke verset-aksies ná sy vrylating nie. Hoewel dit nie direk betrekking het op die reis na vryheid nie, haal ek Breyten se woorde in dié verband aan. Dit getuig van die man se helder denke in ’n situasie van buitengewone stres.

Hier is Breyten se woorde op bladsye 288 tot 289:

Basically I think it boiled down to: if we release you it will only be if we are sure that you will not rally the dissidents (students and intellect-chals) around you; that you will not embarrass the government by insisting on staying in the country with your wife … All of the before-going was  presented in a carefully wrapped package of political blah-blah: the possibility of change in the country, the need to strengthen the forces of reform, the resistance to reform from certain quarters, the difficult path to be followed by those in power at the moment because if you want to beat a dog any stick will do and how easy it is to upset the apple-cart.

My answer was simply that I would want to get away as far as possible from this country and rejoin my wife in Paris to continue my writing and my painting, that I had a life to catch up with, that I could not expect it of my wife and myself to stay in South Africa even if things were “normal” as we’d always be “in the eyes”, that I’d liked to be allowed to return to it from time to time because my father is aged and infirm and my heart beats for him and oh but your land is beautiful, that I think I know what would be waiting for me abroad, the pitfalls, the tunnel-vision of exile, the temptations of simplification, that much moral outrage covers political string-pulling and twisted patronising, or ethical ineptitude, that man uses man, that I could only tell what I know, that I will be solicited by many who don’t care a damn really about South Africa the land of hope and tragedy, that I could not say that I had been physically tortured, no, because it is not true. No. I did not make a speech. I did plead for other prisoners. I did say that any man after five years in prison is no longer a man. The Man was shocked at my prison language.

Breyten hoor dan dat daar met hom geskakel sal word.

 

Die gebeure van 2 en 3 Desember 1982

Om ongeveer eenuur die middag van 2 Desember word Breyten van sy werkplek, die stoorkamer van die tronk, na die tronkhoof se kantoor vergesel.

In Breyten se woorde (bladsy 293):

De Fortier then turned to me, took off his cap and said: “As from this moment you are free unconditionally.”

Two things happened … my ears immediately went dead – I could hear nothing but the distant silence – maybe the blood had risen to my head – and a thought slashed my mind: “Fuck-it there goes my Christmas order!”

Then I thought: free. Then I thought: what a joke. Then I thought: if I don’t say anything it may come true. I was at the window. A white cloud pursued its quest for silence above the mountain.

I looked at de Fourier and to my astonishment saw tears in his eyes. I said: “What time is it please?” He said: “It is now fifteen minutes past one.” Kharon stood behind him, not knowing what to do with his hands or his paleness.

Die “Chrismas-order” is ’n verwysing na die feit dat die Pollsmoor-“bandiete” vir die eerste keer  toegelaat is om hulle eie Kersetes te bestel!

Nadat Breyten se karige tronkbesittings gepak is, word hy deur my pa in sy “racing green” Peugeot 404 na ’n huis in Nuweland geneem waar Yolande tuisgaan. Voor hulle vertrek na Nuweland is Breyten se manuskripte aan hom oorhandig en is hy gevra om daarvoor te teken.

Saam met Yolande neem my pa hulle dadelik na ons huis in Kaapstad, waar die reis bespreek sou word.

Breyten vertel (bladsy 295): From the time we arrived there I was absent to the world.

Die plan was dat Breyten vir ’n redelike tyd alleen sou agterbly in Suid-Afrika om die publieke beeld te skep dat hy volkome vry was, terwyl Yolande intussen sou terugkeer na Parys waar Breyten by haar kon aansluit ná die verloop van a decent period.

Yolande was egter glad nie hiervoor te vinde nie. In die woorde van Breyten:

 Kharon, a man of traditional and conservative Afrikaner stock, did not expect this opposition, he especially did not take it kindly coming from a small non-Afrikaner woman. “Understandings” were being questioned here. Commitments to higher-ups. The poor man – after the tension of the previous days, and his own emotional investment, he must have felt thwarted. So, he raised his voice the way patriarchs and prophets do. But when he branded his voice, she told him that she would not be spoken to in such a fashion (had I been with-it I could have told the unfortunate man so before, heh-heh) and that he was to contact the minister and tell him that we were leaving together that Sunday.

So gesê, so gedaan. In antwoord op my pa se argument dat sy reeds vir meer as sewe jaar gewag het en dat ’n paar ekstra dae geen verskil sou maak nie, verwerp sy sy argument prontuit deur te sê dat dit juis is waarom sy nie bereid was om langer te wag nie. Moet sê haar argument was beter as syne.

Vele oproepe is dié middag gemaak. Daardie aand keer hulle terug na die huis van Yolande se vriende en die volgende dag bring ’n polisie-kaptein hulle terug na ons huis. Ek was nie teenwoordig tydens enige van die besoeke aan ons huis nie. Ná ete het hulle die Kaap verlaat in my Alfa Romeo Alfetta. Die enigste voorwaarde wat Breyten gestel het, was dat hy sy pa, wat ’n ernstige beroete gehad het en in Grahamstad was, kon gaan groet.

In Breyten se woorde (bladsy 297): This was the start of the death yourney.

Breyten se keuse van die naam “Kharon” vir my pa betrek vir Charon, die bootman in die Griekse mitologie wat gestorwenes na die onderwêreld neem. Hier neem Kharon die “gestorwe” Breyten op die begin van sy reis na vryheid en sy hervatte lewe.

Ek lees die verwysing na die “death yourney” ook as na die spoed waarteen my pa in die Alfa na alle waarskynlikheid die reis aangepak en deurgevoer het.

Nadat hulle oorslaap in ’n gedeelde kamer in Humansdorp, begin hulle vroeg die volgende oggend verder reis. Breyten verbreek die vertelling met die volgende sin in hakies op bladsye 298 tot 299:

(I believe he had a special dispensation from the minister to drive as fast as he wanted to.)

My Pa het nog nooit spesiale vergunning van die minister of enige iemand anders nodig gehad om so vining te ry as wat hy wou nie! Hy het met die beskeie erfporsie van sy pa, ook Merwe, in lewe ’n akademikus, drie Alfa’s op ’n ry gekoop. Die Alfa’s het ons oneindige plesier verskaf. Ek dink dit was sy voorkeur-ontladingswyse om van die stres en angste in sy lewe ontslae te raak.

So ses of sewe jaar nadat ek begin werk het, het ek die Alfetta tweedehands gekoop – na bewering was die Alfa deel van die pryse van ’n vorige Mejuffrou Suid-Afrka.

My pa kon nie ’n vierde Alfa bekostig nie en het toe noodgedwonge die Peugeot 404, waarna hierbo verwys is, gekoop. My pa was versot op die Alfetta. Breyten sou moontlik ’n rustige rit in die Franse voertuig verkies het, as hy geweet het wat vir hom wag!

In Port Elizabeth het Breyten sy suster, Rachel, gebel … to ask her to have our father brought to her house for the meeting. I could not show my face in public. I was not released yet. No, not a word (bladsy 299).

 By Rachel se huis aangekom, vertel Breyten verder:

Kharon diplomatically went off to phone from somewhere in town, leaving me time, that first time, that time which cannot be wrought in words, leaving me time to enter and see my father.

He was sitting in the living- room wrapped in a blanket and his eyes were very alive and black and fully aware. His paralysed hand was hidden under the blanket. With the other one, the left one, he grabbed me. There was still strength left in that arm. But I could see the praying mantis thinness of his limbs, the stillness, the low flame now quivering over the ashes. His mouth was soft. And he wept unashamedly. He tried to talk to me. He mumbled pain and happiness. My sister explained that he had not been able to pronounce any word at all up till then, but now he spoke my name and even a few more syllables. He said “Klaar!” And then he clicked his tongue in frustration at not being able to continue. His eyes never left my face. His eyes are there forever. I live with my face lifted up to his eyes. Every once in a while, he would say: “Magtag” (bladsy 300).

 Rachel het vir professor Andre P. Brink, ’n vriend van haar, gevra om te help om haar pa na haar huis te bring. Breyten vervolg:

And he (met verwysing na Brink) being clever, had deduced quite correctly that I was coming. He now walked in and announced that it had been arranged that we should all have lunch at his place. There was a slip-up there. I had only three hours left to see my father. I was selfish. But I could understand that my sister was overtaken by the events. Kharon walked in too, and the two professors – they are not quite bosom friends – circled one another with raised neck hairs. And so we went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, to Brink’s baronial mock-Moorish mansion overlooking the domain of Grahamstown ………………. We lunched and swam in the lord’s swimming pool. My sister cut up my father’s meat in edible pieces. My father was ill at ease. He was ashamed at being out in his pyjamas When one has lost so much one doesn’t want others to see. He had no choice. The wine was good. The food was good too. The two professors circled each other warily. It was time to fly (bladsye 300-301).

 Hulle ry terug na Port Elizabeth en ná ’n swem in die see (ironies genoeg by ’n strand vir swart mense) laai my pa Breyten af by die lughawe, en groet Breyten “the good Professor Kharon”.

Om te sê dat my pa en Brink nie “quite bosom friends” was nie, stel dit op Breyten se gelaaide wyse sagkens!  Brink het nie my pa daar verwag nie en sy enigste siening van my pa was dié van “Die Sensor”.

Ter afsluiting wil ek ‘n paar uitlatings maak oor die belangrikheid van hierdie boek wat Breyten ná sy vrylating aan Yolande gedikteer het om dan te versorg. In ’n nota agterin die boek skryf hy: I had to write it. I had to purge myself, and this I had to do before memory itself becomes obscured by the deformation of time (bladsy 307).

Die gebeure en die impak van die destydse bestel, wat Breyten in detail beskryf, is baie ontstellend. In ’n INSERT op bladsy 216 skryf hy:

“The System” is historically defined and conditioned, and the people come like words from the belly of the system. It cannot change by itself. It is structurally impossible for those who are bred from it to modify the system significantly from within. The structure must be shattered by violence … And violence will be blind because its eyes will be useless from the despair of having seen too much …

In effek ’n bloedige revolusie dus wat die bestaande orde uitwis. Die boek is in 1984 gepubliseer. Die “possibility of change in the country, the need to strengthen the forces of reform” waarna Kobie Coetzee verwys het in die samekoms van 1 Desember 1981, was nog ver in die verskiet. Trouens dit sou eers nog slegter gaan – dink veral aan die Groot Krokodil se sogenaamde Rubicon-toespraak op 15 Augustus 1985 wat die hoop op verandering, waarvan daar destyds sprake was, onder ’n swart kombers van teleurstelling en depressie toegegooi het.

Maar mettertyd het die verandering gekom en Suid-Afrika het sy rug op die sisteem van onderdrukking gedraai.

Baie faktore het ‘n rol gespeel – volgehoue internasionale druk en die uitwerking van ekonomiese en ander sanksies. Nadat die ANC ontban is, het onderhandelinge gevolg wat op ’n nuwe bestel met ’n sterk grondwet uitgeloop het.

Ek sal nooit vergeet hoe ek in 1995, tydens ’n besoek aan Engeland, in trane gekyk het na Nelson Mandela in sy nommer-6-trui en Francois Pienaar in sy trui met dieselfde nommer wat die wêreldbeker omhoog hou terwyl my groep Joodse vriende, wat jare vantevore uitgewyk het London toe, die vertrek van ’n huisie in Fulham verlaat. Dit was nie veronderstel om so uit te werk nie.

Nelson Mandela en F.W. de Klerk het die Nobelprys vir vrede gedeel. Mandela se ongelooflike grootmoedigheid was dit wat die rugbyskare op Ellispark op hulle voete gebring het. Dat ons 30 jaar later nog steeds ’n komplekse samelewing met geweldige uitdaging is, bly so – maar daardie moment in ons geskiedenis bly enig.

Wat my ontslape pa met sy vele fasette betref; ek dink steeds met liefde en verlange aan hom.

 

– Marius Scholtz