THE first time I encountered Glynnis Breytenbach in real life was in a small lift. It was an ancient machine and descended rattle-rattle, shake-shake.
I was still thinking, should the thing get stuck, I would be stuck with Glynnis of all people! If it fell to the bottom, we'd both be dead, going to the underworld together. I was too timorous to speak, and I didn't know the woman personally, but I could tell she was having the same thoughts.
But we got downstairs without incident, and walked noiselessly through the building's hallway to the sidewalk. It was on the main road in Sea Point and the day was a beautiful blue.
She was dressed from head to toe in black, as legend had it she always was, and got on a scooter. With the quick movements of a karate-do expert, she swung her legs over it like on a horse, shook her blonde hair like in a Timotei shampoo advert and in one quick movement nimbly put her helmet over her head.
Did I imagine it or did she set off so fast the front wheel lifted a little? Glynnis, the rider in black, taming her wild bromponie just like she aims to do with the thugs and villains in our politics and the country.
***
Almost like a cliché, Glynnis arrives promptly at 12:30. There are dog's hairs on her left shoulder.
We are sitting in a restaurant in Mouille Point. She lives just around the corner in Green Point. Speaking of ponies and saddled horses, she really loves horses.
“Growing up in Kimberley," she says, “I had access to riding lessons and horses. My father – they wouldn't be able to afford it."
But the De Beers mining company was taking good care of the town, and sponsored those horses and the lessons. She had diamond quality times, she could swim, play tennis, the outdoors was her home.
“Kimberley was a beautiful place, man," she says. “Everything worked, the schools were of high quality, as a child and teenager I could walk carefree and alone through the streets."
Glynnis is an only child. Her father, Jan, worked for the railways and her mother, Lorraine, for mayor Lawrie Shuttleworth. They were loving, ordinary people who didn't travel a lot, or talk terribly about books and such. It was work, home and TV.
When Glynnis started working as a public prosecutor, she bought them plane tickets to England. They spent time in London and in the countryside. Their first trip out of South Africa, ever.
“When they returned, they couldn't stop talking for a year. Later people said, ‘please, we can't do it anymore!'"
“My father wanted a son, my mother a little ballerina, so they ended up with me. My father and Breyten Breytenbach's father were cousins," she says. Breyten was therefore her great-nephew. She tries to show me a message that Breyten had sent her shortly before he died, but she can't find it on her phone.
***
The second time I saw Glynnis in person was a few years back at an art exhibition by Breyten in Woodstock. It wasn't exactly her type of art, she says. The worst was – Breyten then came up to her and offered her a painting as a gift.
Honest as she was, she declined. “I had to say no. This is too macabre, man, how can I live with that?
Still, she loved all the brothers, especially Cloete, she says. Cloete was an accomplished photographer and war correspondent. They got along well and talked a lot.
There was no cinema for white people in Kimberley, only for those regarded as coloured. The Lyric Cinema's management did make an exception when the film Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta was released.
“It was a beautiful building," says Glynnis. “The school arranged for us white children to go and see it. Will never forget it, it was so exciting."
In her biography, Rule of Law, Nechama Brodie writes that she'd already learned to read at three and a half. Children's books, like Noddy.
She made friends with a boy, a neighbour, and they got into wild stuff. Pretend-shot each other, dangled from the clothesline and jumped off the roof of the house or used a sheet as a parachute.
“How come we're not dead I don't know. I did break my ankle. We also went fishing, but in a pool where there was no fish!”
If she couldn't get her way, she and her friend from next door ran away from home, once a week. They promised each other that they would never go back and basta. It was over, done laughing. A new, exciting life awaited them.
However, first they had to stop at the corner café to buy Wilson's toffees. Buttermilk or Candy Cola.
“Those toffees are probably the reason why I have so few of my own teeth left," she says. After consuming the toffees, they would realise they had run out of money. And just went back home again.
Former judge Leonora van den Heever lived behind them and Glynnis played with her children too.
She studied at Kimberley Girls High School. At first they lived nearby, but moved and she then had to ride a bicycle to school. “When it gets cold in Kimberley, you feel it," she says.
She developed winter hands and feet. “I turned blue," she says in her biography. “Everyone thought it was hilarious as hell."
When she was old enough, she got a motorcycle. The principal of the school was not amused. Shortly after, a whole lot of other school girls had gotten motorbikes.
“I was always in trouble," she says. Often in detention because she hadn't done her homework, or because she was cheeky. She taunted her teachers. She still isn't someone to be trifled with.
“I didn't like it when teachers bullied or humiliated children. I have always hated bullies," she says.
Already as a child she loved animals to bits. Horses, of course, but dogs too. At one stage she had a smallholding outside Pretoria where she kept horses. As they died off over the years they were buried right there.
“If one day they need to dig up the place, they will find a lot of bones. It will look like a mass grave." As a child she started dragging a reed around and dubbed it Patches. Patches the reed.
At a loss of what to do her parents got her a dachshund, also called Patches. This dog was her proverbial shadow. I can vouch for that, as a child I had two myself, they won't ever leave you alone.
Glynis tells how she takes bits of droëwors to work for the police dogs. At one of the openings of parliament, she arrived in her car with soft drinks and chips for the police and sausage for the dogs.
As she drove in the dogs made straight for her car, singling it out among all the others, recognising her immediately. They then got their droëwors and the police their soft drinks and chips.
She attends openings of parliament in her characteristic black shoes, trousers and shirt. No swanky dress hangs in her closet.
She doesn't have the time or inclination to decide what to wear in the mornings, she simply buys ten black shirts and trousers when she sees items she likes. The other people (at the openings) can dress up, she is back in black.
As she speaks, a woman walks past the restaurant's window with her overweight Corgi. “Oh Mother, look how beautiful and deliciously fat. I just hope the old little legs don't get scalded by the tar."
Waggle-waggle the Corgi and her human mother walk towards the sea. Glynnis watches them for a good while.
Just then a woman says in a loud voice at another table: “One day when I get married ..." Glynnis turns her head and rolls her eyes so that she almost falls backwards off her chair.
Over the years she has had a number of dogs. There was a mutt – the most intelligent dog she's ever had. There were three Corgis, a Weimaraner, German Shepherds, a Chinese Shepherd and more German Shepherds. Today she has two, once again a German Shepherd and an Australian cattle dog.
Their names are Frisco and Keiko. (Keiko is a female name of Japanese origin meaning “blessed child".) Although she loves cats she can't keep them, fearing that the dogs will bite them.
“When my previous dog passed away, I remember sitting on my bed in my room and crying. I cried so loudly, I could hear people in the street saying: ‘What is going on there?'"
Her eyes fill with tears and I see her move her fringe over her eyes. “Yes, the fringe," she says. “My curtain, so no one can see what I'm thinking."
Hey no, I think, now you're making me sad too because of all the dearly departed animals in my life.
***
There is so much to tell about Glynnis, surprising stuff. Who knew she was a practising Jew?
“Most of my friends are Jews," she says. “My biggest surprise was when my grandmother, Olga, from my mother's side, told me on her deathbed that she was a Jew. Her last name was Cohen and she had to flee from the Nazis.
“I couldn't believe she'd kept it quiet all her life that I knew her. I visited her every day after school, she and I were very, very close. Today there is so much I want to ask her, but I can't. Dammit!”
Although she identifies as a Jew, she says, this does not mean that she admires all leaders or people in this community. She faithfully attends Shabbat services in Temple Israel in Green Point.
It is on the street where I live and their doctrine is progressive reform Judaism. I ask my neighbour who also attends the synagogue if he's seen her there.
“Oh, yes," he says. “We're crazy about her."
***
Glynnis went to the University of the Witwatersrand after school. In her biography, Brodie writes that in her second year she was able to buy a car, a second-hand green Fiat.
“That car could drive for miles and miles on empty," she says. “I started with just an ordinary BA."
She mentions that she had, among others, Ampie Coetzee (Breyten's great friend) and John Miles as lecturers. Actually, she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life, but her parents expected her to go to university. If she had a choice, she would rather not have studied straight after school.
After some time she told her father she no longer wanted to do the BA. “He'd already paid a lot of money for my studies, but he wasn't angry. By that time he had been transferred to Bloemfontein," she says. So naturally he said she should come to Bloemfontein to join the University of the Orange Free State.
“Never," she said, “I will never study at an Afrikaans university, forget it." She got herself an admin joppie at Wits. She soon realised, shucks, no, she couldn't go on with this forever, she would have to do something with her life.
So she went to Bloemfontein after all. Somewhere she had heard about someone in her family who had studied law and that it was quite enjoyable. Still, it wasn't exactly on her radar.
She enrolled for a B Juris and another world opened to her. “I loved it. Couldn't get enough. I was just a lazy student, but what saved me was my good memory, even now [it saves me]."
B Juris is a three-year degree, but because she already had credits from Wits, she completed it within two. In 1986 she completed her LLB.
In February 1987 she started her first job as a public prosecutor in Johannesburg. “There was such a shortage of staff, I had to start prosecuting the moment I walked into court.
That's when it hit her smack on the forehead. This is her dream job. “At university you learn a lot about theory, not about the practical aspects of prosecution."
So she learnt a lot on the job, especially from the police, the magistrates and also the interpreters. One interpreter, Mrs. Mekhubela, says Glynnis, would be a better prosecutor than her and in other circumstances would have been one of the very best in the country. “She retired and I recently flew to Durban for her birthday party."
As the rest of Glynnis' career is in the public domain, I want to know more about her life in Green Point. But briefly about more recent happenings: In 2018 she was on the shortlist for the position of national director of public prosecutions, but eventually withdrew her candidacy.
She expressed concern that the role should be free from political interference and questioned the integrity of the selection process. When she entered politics, it was a new challenge and with decades of experience as a senior prosecutor, the timing was perfect.
When she was still a young prosecutor, one of her bosses called her to his office, saying there was a phone call for her. She was still talking into the mouthpiece when she felt him touch her leg.
She turned around and banged him with the tube on his head, so hard that blood spurted. He was so startled that he ran off to the big chief's office, with her following. Blood spurted all over the floors of the corridors. While he was hiding in his superior's office, she gave him a piece of her mind. It never happened again.
***
How does she keep her head together? “Who says I keep my head together? I'm just fucking on. I like to watch tennis and play golf, I also do water sports and have a gym at home," she says.
Why does she exercise so much? I ask. I can barely walk to the fridge, I'm so unfit.
“Because it's lekker!" she says. “It's enjoyable." She can't cook, not even an egg, so exercise is a healthy option.
What does her day look like? By 03:30 she is out of bed. “I feed my dogs, I drink tea, and I get about 400 e-mails a day. I answer them.”
Maybe she takes a nap again, but at 4:30 she takes her dogs to the promenade where they walk from the DHL Stadium side to the Green Point Lighthouse, make a turn around it, and go back to the car.
“I love that lighthouse, if I could I would buy it, can you imagine the beautiful sunsets? Oh, how marvellous. And one can have a barbecue on the balcony and look at all the ships bobbing on the sea."
When she's done walking, she goes back home, feeds the birds, puts out more food for the birds, picks up the dogs' bollie in the garden, exercises and takes a shower. Then she climbs back into bed with her dogs (they apparently snore and fart terribly at night), drinks another cup of tea and answers further e-mails. By 08:00, her day begins, either in the office or on Zoom.
Her day is obviously full, and only at 23:00 can she close her eyes and go to sleep.
***
After our lunch (boerewors and chips), and just before she leaves, she wishes the woman in a wheelchair behind us a happy birthday. We could hear them singing to her while we were talking.
What stays with me is her sense of the poetic: She spoke about how beautiful the sea is when she goes for a walk with her dogs so early in the morning. “The other day there was a magnificent full moon, yellow, above the sea, with the waves lit up. It was just me and my animals. I thought, damn this now is beautiful.
“On another day there was a big ship quietly approaching, a moerse ship. There was no one on the promenade. Even the seagulls were still sleeping.
“And then they turned on all their lights, sharp, and again the sea became clear, alive in the dark. It was so vivid, even my dogs stood still and watched, barking softly. We almost couldn't believe what we were seeing.
“And then I realised, I am happy here. Me and my dogs. I stroked their heads and they agreed in their own way. Together we stared contentedly at the ocean."
- Her biography, Rule of Law, as told to Nechama Brodie, can be ordered here.
- Watch this informative conversation to hear what Glynnis Breytenbach would do if she were minister of justice.
I asked Dr. Nechama Brodie, lecturer in journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand, and author of Breytenbach's biography, what her experience of her was during the interview and writing process and to give me her own insights about Glynnis as a person.
“In terms of the book, let's just say that we had to edit out a lot of Glynnis's more creative insults – she doesn't mince her words, and she has an extensive, colourful vocabulary for people who have failed to perform in their jobs and duties.
“She takes the idea of duty and justice very seriously, not just in terms of the ‘letter of the law' but in terms of her own ethos. I think Glynnis is a lot more sympathetic towards criminals than she is towards politicians and businesspeople who exploit their power and privilege to steal from/screw over others.
“She's oddly much less cynical about the world than I am; she always used to say how she used to see a lot more of the good of people than the bad, despite all the cases she prosecuted. I still think parliament's gain is the judiciary's loss. I would never, ever want to be on the wrong side of her – the cover of the book has her staring over the top of her glasses while she is cross-examining someone.
“We all saw that same death stare when she was grilling the G4S [private prisons provider] execs after Thabo Bester's escape. The one thing I wish is that I'd had the chance to watch her cross-examine in a courtroom; it must have been excruciating and brilliant.
“Glynnis has continued to be an excellent colleague, and friend, over the years. Because I work in crime and violence research, we do often talk when work interests intersect – she's been great in supporting initiatives to improve journalism coverage of justice-related topics, among many other things.
“I was having breakfast with Glynnis a few years ago and we were talking about legal problems, and the discussion (particularly a phrase she used, about women in abusive relationships being ‘murdered by instalment') inspired me to research and write my most recent book, Domestic Terror, on domestic violence in South Africa.
“I think what's inspiring about Glynnis's approach isn't just how much she knows about the justice system, and about the people in the system, but that she's seriously and deeply committed to making the country better. She's also one of the few politicians I've encountered who really can see beyond party lines when it comes to doing the work to fix things. She's done a lot of good work within her portfolio because of this.”
♦ VWB ♦
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