Seventy-Nine

Chris is seen waving the CD again.

It is the birthday gift that Roland had given to a lawyer to be given to him.

"So, I watched this movie that Roland, my brother, left me," Chris says, and there is an almost savage edge to his voice now. "You see, my parents and everybody else have been blaming me for killing my brother, and I believed it. Do you know why? Roland told me he and his three friends were going to pray, and so I should lock the door of the tree house from the outside, and come back in thirty minutes to open it. I just wanted to go for some food, and so I did what he asked me. I was in the kitchen eating when I heard the screams. The tree house was burning. And I felt responsible! I didn't know what happened, how the fire happened... and I felt so guilty!"

Chris stops speaking. Once again, the eleven-year-old girl reaches out and gently touches his arm.

"So when I received this video CD Roland made for me, I was so scared at first. Well, I watched the video, and it was made by Roland and his three friends. Rollie told me he and his friends planned it all. You see, they had petrol and matches in the tree house, and they had this medicine Rollie made from chemicals. Rollie was bright, you know, a genius. He could make all sorts of things. Well, on the video they all said they were sorry. You see, they had decided to end their lives, and so they would drink this chemical Rollie had created, and then they would set the tree house on fire with the petrol and matches. But the medicine would kill them before the fire burned them, you see, so it would be like they died in the fire but actually they died peacefully. They didn't want to come out, you see, so that is why Rollie asked me to lock the door from the outside. In the video he said he knew people would blame me, and that I would be hated, but he was sorry. He wanted me to know that he loved me, and he would always love me. He said I was his favorite person on earth. He didn't want me to blame myself and that was why they made the video, but he begged me to stay quiet. He didn't want me to tell our parents. He just wanted me to know the truth, but I should keep the truth! And do you know why four brilliant little men killed themselves inside that tree house? It was because of Ruben Essel, my mother's only brother, my uncle! He was sexually assaulting them! They felt so guilty because they knew it was wrong, but he told them that if they mentioned it to anyone, they would die! He had been raping them for a long time! You're young, Sylvie, and I know you don't understand any of this, but I have to get it off my chest! That is what happened! Ruben, that sick, old, bastard! He was doing really bad things to my older brother and his friends! And that is why Roland and his three friends killed themselves!"

Chris is shaking now. His face is screwed up with pain, and he cannot keep his pain away.

"So, that is why you beat up that old man?" Sylvie asks, and tears shimmer on her cheeks.

"Well, Effe, my wife, like I said earlier, had a fight with me in the morning, and after that there was the incident with Elaine, her best friend. I watched Roland's video in the hotel, and I went home to Effe. Only she could calm me down. But I found her with her mother, and she was saying a whole lot of things about how she wished she wasn't in love with me, and then she called her lawyer and told him she wanted a divorce immediately so he should come and bring her initial divorce forms," Chris says painfully. "I guess she was terribly hurt when she saw me with her friend, and so I don't blame her so much. I was on the porch, and I heard everything. Well, if Effe didn't want me then there was no use being around because I was living for her and my son. I went to my father's place, and I found old Ruben in the living-room, and I remembered how he had made Roland lose his life... and I beat the living crap out of him. I would've killed him if my old man hadn't come in. I fled from the mission house, and I called my friends, and I met them, and we were going to the night club when the car hit you. I don't know what will happen to me. I mean, I beat that old man bad, and I'm sure I'll be arrested. I'll be happy to go to prison, you know, so that I wouldn't see Effe leaving me. Anyway, that's what happened to me, Sylvie, until this moment. My life has been absolutely horrible today!"

The video glitches and spikes, and comes to a sudden end. The studio is absolutely hushed. The camera pans and settles on Elaine, who is sitting down completely absent-minded. The camera quickly moves to the audience, and a studio extra runs to Elaine and frantically shakes her.

She looks up dazedly, and then she quickly adjusts her microphone and gets to her feet. She walks to the middle of the studio and waits as the camera slowly settles on her again.

"How wrong can we be?" Elaine asks, subdued. "How horrendously have we wronged the man called Mr. Chris Bawa? Sentenced for ten years for being drunk and for using drugs, and for horrifically beating up an old man, and for assaulting a man of the law. Are there any more surprises for us before we discuss what we have seen today?"

She moves to the side of Mr. Wachipa Sey and looks at him.

"And this truth would never have come out if you hadn't put your cameras along that stretch of road. I still can't believe it. Do we have any more videos?"

"Oh, just a final video," Wachipa says with a chuckle. "It is about the arrest, and how that police officer got his eye busted. Just a very short video, really, and then we're done."

"I see. Well, go on then. Let's watch it, and then we will discuss the substantive issues."