His Own Liberator

In this extract from his memoir, My Own Liberator, former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke tells the story of how, after being imprisoned at the age of 15 and spending 10 years on Robben Island, he saw his dream girl become his wife.

NEARLY two years before my release, I took out a subscrip­tion to DRUM mag­azine. The covergirl of the first issue of DRUM that I received was a young woman from my hometown, Atteridgeville. The write­up explained that she was a student nurse at Baragwanath Hos­pital. Besides her stunning looks, she was in the media because of a drama piece she’d written and produced called The Pride of the Family. The piece lauded the life of a young student nurse who avoided the indiscretions of youth in favour of her training and future career as a health caregiver.

I wrote three carefully worded letters to the covergirl, Kabonina, and sent them off– a bit like hurling a stone into a deep pond. I received no reply to any of them. I gave up my amateur fishing session and forgot about the target of my attention.

As Kabonina entered the room, I looked again, but I still could not remember who she was. I wondered how she knew about the date of my release. There she was – neither one day earlier, nor one day later. She came despite the scary news of my banning order which, I was told, spread quickly across our township. The story went something like this: “Dikgang is out, but not quite out. He is still locked up in his home.”

Once I had made the connection, I also wondered why she would care to visit now when she had not bothered to reply to any of my letters. “I was so interested to write and yet so scared,” she explained in a soft, husky voice. “I received all three of your letters, but they had big red prison stamps all over the brown envelopes. I was truly afraid to write a letter to someone in prison.”