Law – PurplePretoria

It was going to be the case of the century. Not really, no – it was the case that defined the past three years of her life. It drifted with ease past the stacks of blue plastic files and black permanent markers to the cold wooden planks under her bed.

It had taught her a few things though; One- As she had come to realise five years before, there were things between two people that only they would ever know, right down to the grave. The more you tried to unravel, the less you understood. Two- in life, there were two types of actors; the ones caught on film and the ones who read Robert Greene’s Laws of Power, internalised them and applied them religiously. In a character analysis, they would easily rival Judas -the Judas who planted a kiss of death to direct the huntsman’s mark.

This case would undo, some of the very important rules of Greene’s charades- of subtlety, of disguise. Study your master and give him what you think he wants, except, do. not. outshine. him. Play whoever needs to be played. If it gets you what you want. Fortune tastes better when its cunningly outwitted from those who do not deserve it.

So enchanted by the magic of Greene’s exquisite writing, they were unable to realise that the shadows they practiced under had been written for an audience who too were under the same dizzying spell of power or who had the infantile psychological makeup of King Louis XVI – unable to discern the projections of a maneuverer. It was like watching a game – a ridiculous one.

The girlish games had run their purpose- it was no longer as exciting to splash elaborate amounts of money to buy every person in the office a personal gift for the Christmas party except that one person; and to garishly make a display about reading out the gifts so that they would point out an intention which could have been understood by a bystander. It was now more enticing to throw them off the scent of the antelope, only to come back with sweat on their brow and have to share the entire animal.

The street corners had been like running in slow motion in a dream where you could not escape what was chasing you. Carrying arguments and records of things, in an unattended court file registry room with her eye on the door as the staggering clerk with alcohol on his breath leaned towards her and finally watching it all sink right down to the bottom like The Titanic. With every word, the masked messenger had trashed and undone the delicate layers of her preparation in half a minute. It meant absolutely nothing to him. It showed. He reminded her of Scovid, the maid who always bent forward in a show of servitude but in her eyes you could see the self confident assurance of someone who knew exactly what she was doing. She must have studied the Laws of Power too.

What did she expect- the freshly-cut-grass smell of money, carefully stacked reputations, the trembling expectations of what ‘good connections’ might produce, the allure of respect and affluence, a lifelong hunger for expensive tastes and preferences. This profession was a masked ball.

“I learned more about who I was from my [enemies] than I [learned] from myself. “

She wanted to be like everyone else. She didn’t understand that she never would. She was not just his perceived eyes and ears, she spoke too. And most times, she spoke as if she dared not say too much.

It would always be hard to tell whether a smile was meant for her or her father, whether it was for a calculated purpose or a genuine acquaintance. Any careless remark she made could be used against her in the unofficial office group. Isn’t it the trend on Whats app,to have side chats about group chats and groups about groups? Her careful demeanor did not help matters because she always seemed to sit in judgment over them as they spoke.

There was also a thumping of chests you know. Some who shunned the smiles and came straight for battle. They wanted her to know, that she was not her father and they would never bow to the Lion’s cub.

And so she waited in vain, that one day some conversations would not be reserved for when she left the room and that one day she would not have to prove her right to be there. But this was a privilege of those for who had not received either a silver plate or spoon. They comforted themselves with the belief that they had worked singularly to be where they were. They allowed themselves and their kind, the chance to learn, to make mistakes. They were allowed not to know, some things, but for her not to know, it was damning, eternally damning and crudely satisfying.

Now, the boss was a well known man, well known among his peers, well known in his field and well known to his long time friends. It was this well known man from whom, in her adult life, she had created a caricature of who he might be; generous, humble, kind and good at what he did. As a child she and her siblings had seen him watch CNN or Sky Sports during late evenings when he came home from work. On the way to school, when he took them to school, only BBC Africa spoke. Sometimes, he commanded them to stop being lazy and do some housework. But most of the time, they only peeped at who he might be, when he sat among his friends and in a confusing state of awe when he danced, because it was the only time he let himself be free, with joyful abandonment.

It is therefore easy to see why, when he, for the first time spoke about what her destiny would be, she had listened. She was not cut out to be a journalist, no, she was too quiet and calm. What would she do with a Literature degree- her mother had piped in- “A professor of English perhaps?”

In a few seconds, for he never spoke longer than a few minutes to them, the past ten years of her life came to pass- a Bachelor’s degree in Law.

When she chose her electives, she did so like someone who, having committed to the Historical Foundations of Roman Dutch Law continued to receive kisses on the mouth from Poetry, Literature and Foreign Language. But after darting from class to class, she found herself intrigued by both the introspective dissection of the human condition and an introduction to the external machinations of the world.

She realised quickly in the first week of work as a lawyer that uniformity, conformity and YES SIR was more important than self expression. If she could just blend in and maybe even disappear within the multitude of grey coats, she would have done very well. As a comment to an opinion she had written about regulations for a nuclear power plant, she had told the boss that she did not believe that the country was ready for a nuclear power plant. It was too dangerous an attempt. He laughed. Not in a loud boisterous way, not in a prolonged pretentiously-amused way, but like a scoff that said she had a lot to learn.

At first, it was hard to be the kind of person who was interested in another people’s business. At first, she read the notes, letters and papers until she dosed off. Four years had come to this, she thought, 6:00 a.ms, coffee, a uniform and always having to please. That was how she was initiated into the working-life cycle.

Money was, …well, she had no idea what to do with it and when it did increase, it made her fearful. What did it mean? Had she done enough to deserve it? Money had always been intangibly in the vicinity- building houses, paying school fees and plane tickets, buying cars- but now that it was in her hands, it made her wonder just how much she weighed in money.

For a long time, she remained a stranger in the workplace, not knowing what role she was there to play, not sure what she was supposed to be fighting for or if she was supposed to be fighting. It was strange, she thought, that all this time we took in school without knowing why.

She had been an intern in another work place before, during University holidays. The money was a token, the work- non-existent, smiles abundant and she had made more friends in three weeks than she would in 5 years at the Boss’s place but she had not been the Boss’s daughter (1). She had been just another intern.

Quote by T.D Jakes from Don’t Let The Chatter Stop You.

Tag: Law

The case of the century

The Boss’s Daughter (2)