Dada 149

‘Please instruct your client to be quiet. His comments are to be struck from the record’ the Judge said. My lawyer nodded in agreement.. The prosecutor said, ‘Here we have an example of this man’s heartlessness, was there a word of sympathy in any of his narrative, or that last soliloquy, for his victims, was there one moment of doubt given for their suffering families in the home of democracy. He does not even know the age of his grandfather, the visit to the bathing pool with his friend, the purpose of the visit to the pictures, the day at the beach house with Shabela and his good wife; all these were motives for his own gratification. His voice sank as he rehearsed again the laws of this land and the offences committed between men. He turned quickly as if to move away from those who had helped in this judicial proceeding to my friend Iskra. Here the lawyer showed a certain deftness, a card sharps speed, away from the ‘crimes’ Mo and I had committed in our time together and back to the perpetrator’s aquaintences. All he said had sounded quite plausible. It was true I had written the letter in collusion with Iskra so as to entice his Mistress to his room and so to let her be punished . But it was pushing the boat out to call him a ‘dark creature of the night, one who deals with drugs and with women and sordid café’s as if he has been born to them’ Full of drugs I had provoked a brawl with Iskra’s enemies in the course of which Iskra was wounded. I had then asked for his knife. With one sole intention I drove with Mo and Iskra to town in a night full of wind, stars and rain and purposely engineered a fight with the poor white boys. When they refused my advances and stepped back, I challenged them and hunted them like animals before stopping and mercilessly slaying one then the other. After the first knife wound where the victim lay prone beside me , I pursued his friend and then in frenzy stabbed and stabbed again until there was only stillness!!! ‘That is my case, ‘the prosecutor said.