TRAITOR

“Your honour, I would like to call the witness to the stand,” Says a short woman with thick hips and a stern look on her face: they call her Brenda. She is  Tanya's lawyer, and the reason why one more pedophile will be rotting in jail. She wishes the system would put them on the electric chair instead. She couldn’t help but feel 20 years was not good enough. Tanya approaches the witness stand. She is eleven, and her face  has slowly been morphing to show her journey out of childhood into a teenager. She faces the crowd and her dad who is seated with his lawyer on the defendants’ side. She notices the foreboding look on his face, and for a minute she is overcome with guilt, but she remembers she must do as her mother said.

“Would you mind telling us your name young lady?” Brenda asks.

“I am Tanya madam,” the little girl says.

“How do you know the defendant Tanya?” Brenda continues. 

“He is my father.”

“Would you tell us what happened  on the 5th of July this year?”

“I came home from school at 4pm,and when I went into my bedroom to change my uniform, dad came into my room.”

“What happened next?”

“He asked to touch my breasts, and when I refused he said he would kill my mother.”

“Is that all that happened Tanya?”

“He also forced me on the bed,took off my panties and raped me,” said Tanya with quivering lips.

 “Thank you Tanya for being strong and speaking up, you are a very strong girl.” Brenda says and is now looking at the judge. She pulls out a sheet of paper from a file she is holding. 

“Your honour, here are the results from the medical examination Tanya took after this horrific ordeal,” Brenda hands the evidence to the Judge. She reads the documents, it states the young girl had ulcerations on her vaginal wall from forced entry and bruises on her arms and legs. She puts down the paper and looks up again.

“That is all your honour.” Says Brenda as she gives Tanya the cue to move from the stand.

Tanya walks up to her mother who is smiling at her. She moves a bit and lets her daughter sit. She squeezes her little hands, something she always did when she wanted to show her approval. She is sure she has already won the case, she noted the  Judge’s face was full of anger when she read the doctor’s report. Who wouldn’t be angry with a man who takes away a young girl's innocence. She feels grateful that her doctor friend did not ask too many questions when he was asked to falsify that damning evidence: the pay was too good to turn down.

The defendant’s name is Peter: a short and simple name pulled straight from the good book. He was a man in his mid forties ,with dark skin and a face that was once jolly. He looks like somebody has just punched the air out of his lungs. This was his daughter. He was there the day she was born ,and now here she is  preparing to end his life. Still, his compassion for her is  still untouched because he knows this is not her own doing. It must  be his viper of a wife pulling the strings. The woman said she would get rid of him someday, he did not know she was going to bring their child into this.

The courtroom is quiet ,and the judge is giving her verdict. Peter is sentenced to 20 years in prison ,and is now looking at his child. She is crying and despite his efforts to be strong he is breaking down. He tries to fight off the officers who are dragging him on the floor towards his cell but he loses this fight :just like he lost his daughter and freedom.

Tanya is back home with her mother. She wants to ask her mother why she made her lie about being raped by her father. She is too scared, mostly because there is a strange man who has been sleeping in their house. Her mother says she should call him dad, but she wonders how she could have two fathers. They are all sitting watching TV, her new father touches her thigh. She is confused, but mostly scared. She wants to tell her father Peter, he was the one always defending her. He is not around,so she is silent just like her mother who pretends she did not see what has happened.