“I was raped by a group of black men nearly two years ago. They broke into the farmhouse I was visiting with my father and raped me. They set fire to the house and we barely escaped with our lives.”

The accusation in his eyes doesn’t fade. “You do realise that your individual suffering does not weigh in the balance against the systemic and historical suffering of my people over many generations—three hundred and fifty years, to be precise?”

“I do realise that. But I can’t control my visceral reaction when a black man approaches me. Something inside me flinches. My therapist calls it a form of PTSD. It is the thing I resent most about having been raped—the fact that it has turned me into an emotional racist. I know I was already the beneficiary of a racist society that privileges my skin colour above all others. But now I have become a visceral racist as well, and I resent that.”

“This isn’t about you,” he says. “It’s about me. You are attempting to hijack this narrative—to recast it with yourself in the starring role.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“Would you like to buy a stick-on holder for your licence disc?”

“No, I would not.”

“Then your sorry-ness extends to words only. You are not sorry enough to pay a few rand that would make very little difference to you, but a great deal to me.”

The traffic light changes to green, and I drive on.

At the Mowbray police station, there is no sign of my father’s car. I wonder if he really is here. Perhaps I only imagined that he phoned me. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Then I remember that he was arrested. They probably went to his flat and made him get into their vehicle. They would have driven him here.

My father’s car might not be here, but a gleaming BMW seems to be waiting for me. When I get out of my car, a middle-aged woman climbs out of it. She introduces herself as Abigail Nkabinde from the attorneys’ firm.

“I’m here to ensure that your father’s rights are protected. We will try to secure the best possible outcome for him.”

I thank her, and try to ignore the misgivings plucking at me.

If I am a reluctant, post-traumatic racist, my father is an enthusiastic, dyed-in-the-wool one. He believes that the elevation of any black person to a position of responsibility is “political correctness run mad.” To say that he will not be happy to have a black woman representing him would be a dim understatement of the case. But it is a Saturday afternoon, and lawyers are thin on the ground around here.