In July 1994 I was invited by Zinzi Khulu to narrate a documentary she was producing of five well-known ex-political prisoners who returned to Robben Island to reminisce about what it was like almost thirty years before when they were incarcerated there. This assignment required that I go to the island ahead of everyone to investigate the environment and make some impressions which I would use during the interviews.

The day before our reunion I journeyed on my own with the documentary crew by ferryboat to the once-too-familiar intimacy of Robben Island. It had been twentysix years since I was released from the island to return to life on the mainland of South Africa.

The water changed into a clear turquoise as we approached the tranquil beauty of what appears to be an idyllic island paradise. I heard the breakers thunder against the rocky coast. My eyes watered involuntarily as we approached the cream, sandy shores. My saline saturated mouth felt heavy with numerous words that I couldn’t utter all at once. With trembling lips, I felt an unfamiliar anxiety, accompanied by the whispers of the ghosts I thought I had put to rest two decades before. I wavered at the possibility of the past being revoked.

Robben Island still possessed that dark, ominous, foreboding atmosphere of a fortress. I shuddered and clasped the railing of the ferry in remembrance. Seals splashed and squealed their welcome to bring me back to the present. I heard the soothing sounds of nature accompanied by the inhabitant seagulls and colonies of penguins.

We alighted on the dock under the bright blue sunshine of the western coast of South Africa. From where I stood, I could see Table Mountain shielding the receding city of Cape Town from the harsh gales of the sea, to which we were totally exposed. I remembered the agony of being able to see the mainland, the island so positioned as if to taunt us with real life just ten kilometres away. We could look at the mainland and remember soft gentle voices and smells of females, which always brought a gentle breeze inside my heart, especially when I thought of my mother's generous kindness.