Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Tandia looked up in alarm. 'No, sir! It is true! I will swear on the Bible!'

  The white man had the distant look in his eyes again, as though he could read things dancing in the air. When at last he spoke his voice was quiet. 'You a whore. A black whore who does it for money in the cemetery. Sies, man. Did you do it in the cemetery next to the grave where your father was buried?'

  'No, no!' Tandia cried. And then she froze and her eyes widened in alarm. It had taken all this time to sink in. The voice, the frightening voice after the boot had rested on her neck as she lay at the foot of the marble cross, it belonged to the one in the graveyard who had been called Geldenhuis. It was Geldenhuis who was questioning her.

  Tandia knew she was utterly and devastatingly beaten, that if she admitted she knew him she wouldn't leave the police station alive.

  Geldenhuis changed tack suddenly. 'This money, you said you had to pay for a new gym frock? Where did you get this money?'

  'It was mine, sir. I saved it for ten years.'

  His voice suddenly boomed above her. 'You got this money from being a prostitute! You went to the coolie cemetery before school, most likely lots of times, and you did it there! You think I am stupid or something?'

  'No, sir. It's not true, sir.'

  'What is true and what is not true is not for you or me to say, it is only for the magistrate to decide. Where is this five pounds?' he said suddenly.

  'I have it here,' Tandia whimpered.

  The policeman stretched out his hand, 'Give it here,' he demanded.

  Tandia knew she was badly trapped. 'I cannot show it to you, sir,' she whispered.

  'You have this money concealed on your person, but you cannot produce it? Let me ask you a question. If you went to the lavatory, could you produce it then?'

  Tandia said nothing.

  'I see, the police know about these things. It is called a body search. Do you know who keeps their money in such a place?'

  Again Tandia remained silent.

  'Whores! That is the place prostitutes keep their money!'

  'It is not what you think!' Tandia blurted out. She was distressed beyond tears. Geldenhuis had completely broken through her defences. If she took the money out of her bloomers right there in front of him, it would prove very little except that she was brazen enough to lift her skirt and put her hand down her pants. In his eyes this would only condemn her further. Tandia turned to look towards the black constable, but he immediately averted his eyes. She was beyond his help.

  Geldenhuis lowered himself from the table and walked round to sit on the chair opposite her and called for the black constable to place the typewriter in front of him.

  From a drawer in the table he removed a charge sheet and rolled it into the typewriter. He typed 'PATEL, Tandia', deliberately, using only two fingers, stopping when he had completed the two words. He then looked up casually at Tandia. 'Your address, what is your address?' he demanded.

  'I have no address, sir,' Tandia replied.

  'Vagrant,' the sergeant said, typing out the word slowly using only one finger to select each letter. 'No fixed address,' he said again deliberately pecking out the words on the typewriter. Then he looked up, leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. 'Do you know what I'm doing?' he asked.

  As he typed Tandia had tom off a length of toilet paper and blown her nose and attempted to wipe her tears. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen and her pretty little face was bruised and sore. She nodded her head in reply to Geldenhuis.

  'I'm charging you with a one seven five, soliciting in a public place.' He shook his head as though regretting the need for what he was doing. 'It's so easy, you know. All you got to do is tell me the truth and you can go.' He cleared his throat, 'Look at me please,' he instructed. Tandia looked up at Geldenhuis across the table. He smiled and spread his hands and turned his palms upwards. 'Just tell me you did it in the cemetery and got paid for it, that's all. I'm a man of my word, just say, "Yes. Yes I did it, sergeant," and we won't lay a charge, you hear. You can leave the station with no police record. You know what it means to have a police record, don't you?'

  Tandia's hands were on her lap curled around several messy scrunched balls of toilet paper and now she fixed her eyes on her clenched fists and remained silent. If she told a lie and said she was a whore, she was free, her life could begin again. If she maintained her innocence who was going to believe her? Who would believe that over ten years she had saved every penny, tickey and sixpence she had earned at Patel's printing shop, for getting the lunches for the men or running an errand or writing a letter for someone who couldn't write until she had five pounds of her own? If she admitted the truth, that it was two policeman who had raped her and that Geldenhuis was one of them she would not be alive for long, that was for sure., She was conscious of the white man looking down at her, fixing her with his pale eyes, eyes which she now perceived as more deadly than a snake. Tandia raised her head slowly until she looked directly at Geldenhuis. 'I will say it,' she said, and began to weep softly.

  'No, man, saying it is not enough. I will write it down and then you will sign it, you hear?' Geldenhuis tried hard to conceal the triumph in his voice. He had broken her. He felt his erection grow almost to the point of release. Maybe she was only a schoolgirl but she wasn't stupid. What he had done required skill, real brains. He had won. It was better even than boxing.

  Tandia knew she was hopelessly trapped. The last time she had refused to sign she had been hit and kicked unconscious and thrown into that foul-smelling cell. The thought of what Geldenhuis would do to her if she withheld her signature was almost more than she could bear.

  This time the keys rattled along at a fair pace. He stopped once near the end. 'What is your Christian name, Matembu?' he asked the black policeman at the door.

  The black constable straightened up. 'My name is Joshua, sir.'

  Geldenhuis typed and removed the paper from the typewriter. He handed it to Tandia across the table. 'You read it first, then you sign it,' he said lightly.

  Tandia, her hands shaking visibly, started to read the confession.

  I, Tandia Patel, whose signature appears below, do knowingly and freely admit, in the presence of Sergeant J. T. Geldenhuis, a police officer stationed at the Cato Manor Police Station, that I did solicit for the purposes of sexual intercourse, two male persons unknown to me in the location of the Clairwood Indian Cemetery at approximately 6 a.m. on the 17th day of October 1952. And I further state that I did perform sexual intercourse with one of these men in return for the payment of the sum of five shillings.

  Signed: (Miss)………………………………………….

  Tandia Patel. Date:…………………………………….

  Witness: (Sergeant)…………………………………….

  Jannie Teunis Geldenhuis Witness:

  (Constable)……………………………………

  Joshua Matembu

  As Tandia read the piece Geldenhuis had written she couldn't think beyond the fact that it spelled freedom. She had been raped, violated and beaten. She was exhausted and humiliated and her body ached from the beating it had taken over the past eighteen hours. The niceties of moral rectitude taught so steadfastly at Durban Indian Girls' High School had no validity in her present circumstances. A refusal to sign the confession would do nothing for her self-respect not did it even serve the useful purpose of adding to her hate. She became aware of Geldenhuis staring at her and when she had finished reading she looked up into his pale blue eyes. 'I will sign it,' she whispered again.

  Geldenhuis said nothing. He was in control of himself again. He merely handed her his expensive fountain pen.

  Tandia's chair was too low for her to sign the paper while seated…She released the sticky balls of toilet paper in her hand and dropped them beside her chair and wiped her hand surrepti
tiously on the back of her shift. Then she rose and, crouching over the table, shakily signed the confession.

  Tandia remained standing as Geldenhuis reached over and lifted the paper. He drew it towards him as though he was going to kiss it, but instead, he blew briefly on Tandia's signature and then waved it in the air. He then took the pen and signed the document himself. He called over to the black policeman, 'Hey, Matembu, come and sign your name.'

  The black constable walked reluctantly over to the table. 'I not want sign this paper, sir. This bad paper.'

  The white sergeant didn't look up. 'Sign it, man, you a material witness,' he said impatiently.

  'This 'paper, sir, it not for charge sheet. I do not want sign this paper,' Matembu persisted.

  Geldenhuis shot from his chair, 'I'm not bladdy asking you, I'm telling you! It's a fucking order, you hear!' He proffered his pen and moved Tandia's confession over to the edge of the table where the black man stood.

  The black policeman took the pen and slowly signed his name and returned the pen to the sergeant. 'I will get her things, sir. The umFazi has a basin. I will get the keys from the desk sergeant, sir?'

  'Ja, orright, also a police car, tell the sergeant I need a police car for only one hour.'

  The black man turned to go and then turned to Geldenhuis. 'It is very, very late, sir. I must ask the desk sergeant for a police pass if the umFazi is going to be released on the street tonight.'

  'Just get her things, you hear? She will not need a pass.' Geldenhuis folded Tandia's confession carefully. The black policeman looked hesitant. 'I'm telling you, man, she won't need a pass!'

  'Please, sir, I have signed the paper. You said you would let me go if I signed that paper,' Tandia begged.

  Geldenhuis stood with his hands on his hips. 'Where would you go? You have nowhere to go.' He glanced at his watch. 'It is one o'clock in the night, there are bad people out there.' He undid the button on the right breast pocket of his tunic and took out his wallet, then he carefully slipped the folded confession into it. 'I will keep this, you hear? I can use it any time I want, you understand? Any time. It is a legal document.' He spoke quietly with no threat in his voice, which, to Tandia, now seemed more threatening than had he shouted at her.

  Geldenhuis placed the wallet back in the pocket of his khaki tunic and fastened the polished button. 'Sit,' he commanded, indicating the bigger chair once again. 'Sit, I want to have a nice little talk with you.'

  Tandia did as she was told. She was filled with despair. She'd signed his paper and now he wasn't going to let her go. Or was he? He'd asked Matembu to get her things but he wouldn't authorise a late-night pass. Geldenhuis again sat sideways on the table, one elbow resting on the typewriter. He was relaxed, even friendly. 'You know something, Tandia?' It was the first time he had used her name in conversation. 'You are what in the police we call a swart slimmetjie, a clever black. And your kind, the swart slimmetjie, your kind we hate the most. You got a bit of education, you too smart for your own bladdy good. If I let you just walk out the station tonight, I'm telling you, jong, you'll be back in no time flat.'

  'No, sir, I won't be back. I do not ever want to see this place ever again!'

  Geldenhuis sighed, as though he was trying to explain something to a backward child. 'Ag, ja, man, you can try, but I'm telling you, it will be no good. No matter how hard you try, we will bring you back. We keep our eye on all the clever ones. You see, sooner or later they join the ANC. I'm telling you, jong, a black kaffir with an education is a dangerous person in the hands of the ANC.'

  Tandia looked down into her lap, afraid to meet his eyes, the blue eyes that saw everything.

  Geldenhuis tapped the wallet in his breast pocket. 'Now you know why I got this piece of paper. That's one reason.' He paused and then said, 'Look at me.' Tandia lifted her frightened gaze to his face. 'I want to help you. You want to know why because?' Tandia did not reply and once again lowered her eyes. 'Look at me, dammit,' Geldenhuis rapped. Then, as suddenly he smiled again. 'Natkin Patel showed me a lot of things that made me a better boxer.' He paused and brought one leg up so that his heel rested on the edge of the table, his hands capping his knee. 'Do you know about boxing?'

  'Only a little bit,' Tandia sniffed. Geldenhuis nodded and continued, 'Next month I fight a Zulu boxer called Mandoma. He fights in the Transvaal and he's very good. Patel trained me for this fight which is for the South African professional welterweight title. He has seen Mandoma fight lots of times and he thinks I can beat him. I think so also.' Geldenhuis stopped talking and seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

  Tandia knew what Geldenhuis was talking about. Some years previously Patel had been called up to Johannesburg to referee a fight which took place in Sophiatown under unusual circumstances between Gideon Mandoma and a white schoolboy. Though both fighters were only in their teens at the time, Natkin had been impressed with what he saw. From that point on he had followed Mandoma's career in the ring.

  If Patel had been helping to prepare Geldenhuis for a fight with Mandoma, Tandia thought, then the white policeman must be a very classy fighter. What's more, he had the hate. Patel always said that to be a champion, a boxer has to have the hate. Tandia knew at first hand that Geldenhuis had the hate.

  Geldenhuis spoke at last. 'You see, I owe Patel. So I will help you. I will pay my debt, you hear?'

  'Thank you, sir,' Tandia said, trying to conceal the fright in her voice. She wanted nothing more from the monster who sat on the table beside her. No matter how dangerous it was outside on the streets, it was better than being in this room with this white man who totally controlled her.

  'I will help you, and you can help the police. Would you like to help the police?'

  Tandia did not reply and Geldenhuis took her silence to mean that she would co-operate. 'You see, if you help the police, then you safe, as a swart slimmetjie, you safe.' He grinned suddenly. 'You on our side, man!'

  Tandia waited for the trap to close. 'What must I do, sir?' she asked in an uncertain voice.

  'Ag, easy stuff. I will take you to this place where you can stay. They will give you work also. It is a woman who owes me a favour.'

  Tandia sensed the plan Geldenhuis had hatched in his head was important to him and she grew a little bolder. 'What must I do for the police at this place?'

  'People will come. Sometimes Indian people, rich Indian people. Sometimes white people. Also important rich ones. You will watch and you will learn who they are and you will tell me what they do and say.'

  'What kind of place is this place?'

  'Ag, you know, it is place where they have women, where men go sometimes.'

  The trap had been sprung! Geldenhuis was going to find her a place in a brothel. Tandia looked up at the white man, her distress plain. The police sergeant had a smile on his face and he absently tapped the outline of his wallet in the breast pocket of his tunic.

  He jumped from the table and straightened the tunic of his uniform by pulling it down first from the front and then the back and smoothing the waist with his palms. 'I will speak to my friend.' He beckoned to Tandia. 'Come, I must take your fingerprints and then we go hey?'

  THREE

  The clock on the charge office wall showed a quarter to two when Tandia finally lifted the large basin to her head and started to walk out of the Cato Manor Police Station. She kept her eyes downcast and followed Geldenhuis out into the dark street. As she passed through the door the black constable whispered, 'Hamba khashle, intkhosatana, go well, young lady.'

  'C'mon! I haven't got all bladdy night!' Geldenhuis called. Tandia walked slowly towards the police car. He stood beside the open boot and indicated she should put the basin in and then slammed it shut. 'Climb in the back, be quick!' he snapped, the authority now back in his voice.

  Tandia's relief at leaving was so great that she hardly noticed which way Geldenhuis drove. They s
eemed to drive for some time through the dark streets of the township and then onto a tarred road with street lights. It was not until they reached the lighted street that he spoke to her again.

  'I can't take you to the place where this woman is, so I'm taking you to the train station. There are no more trains tonight but you must wait there.' He offered no further explanation and shortly afterwards they drove up to the Cato Manor railway station. 'Wait in the car,' he said and then walked up the steps into the station master's office.

  He returned quite soon with a sleepy looking railway official and told Tandia to get out of the car. The man from the railway was the first person other than policemen Tandia had seen in what seemed to her like a lifetime. To Tandia he represented the normal world she had once known and she immediately felt more secure. The official wasn't wearing the coat of his blue serge uniform; his waistcoat was unbuttoned and his tie knot pulled down, which made him look friendlier. A bluish rash of stubble covered his jowls and he scratched at his crotch absently as though he was not yet properly awake.

  In a manner common to South African whites, Geldenhuis spoke to the railway official as though Tandia wasn't present. 'Look, man, I want you to let this girl sit on a bench until the first train.' He paused. 'By the way, when is that?' The railway official automatically reached for his pocket watch. Forgetting that his waistcoat was unbuttoned he dug his thumb and forefinger into the roll of fat where his fob pocket ought to have been. 'Ten minutes to five,' he said automatically, looking down into his empty hand. 'Ja, okay, she will be gone before then.'

  The railway official looked at Tandia for the first time. 'Has she got a pass?' He pointed at her and turned to Geldenhuis. 'She looks like she's been in a fight. She's not a tsotsi's girl is she?' The idea of her being a street hooligan's woman seemed to wake him up and he wagged the finger at Tandia. 'I don't want any trouble from a bladdy coloured or kaffir gang, you hear?'

  'No, man, no trouble,' Geldenhuis said impatiently, 'Jus' let her sit on a bench, okay, hey?'