The pen is truly mighty

“Words sully,” I tell the three Belgians over a prawn curry.

It’s a word – sullied as it is – they don’t understand. Language, I think.

One had four cameras up my nostrils the whole day, the other gently taped a mike between my boobs and the third asked the sullied words, lots of them.

They came to find “the South African story” of a man who killed, defrauded and was allowed to hide in this country for more than 10 years – before I wrote the words that, 15 years later, saw him locked up for 35 years in a Belgium prison for exactly that murder.

Words are powerful when it rolls off the presses, I realised.

À la Al Capone, my simple facts in print forced not only the police and our justice system, but also international relations to own up treating one man as protected game.

Uncomfortable questions were asked and, with nowhere to hide, answered – and printed.

Forget that he thought he was untouchable and as a boykie owned the corrupt blue line. Forget that Interpol, embarrassingly run at that time by a South African, looked the other way when he was red-flagged coming in Gupta-style at Wonderboom.

Forget all the top brass in the Saps gathering around his braai.

He signed one document in his own name he shouldn’t have – and I had him. My words carved away at a man who thought he stood strong.

I’ve spent two intense days with that film crew who woke up memories I’d rather forget.

My throat ran dry. Yes, I was a drama queen for the four cameras. Yes, I can tell a story; a good one.

But it’s the “would you do it again?”, “were you scared?” that got me.

I will and I was. Unadulterated fear, especially for my kids, I remembered.

“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” I tell them.

But six hours later over a prawn curry I question the power of the word. They don’t understand how I can feel “dirty”, need a bath to wash that seedy energy right out of my hair.

I do. It’s like a rape you’re forced to remember.