Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Tandia walked slightly ahead of Mama Tequila as they entered the door, which was only just large enough for the big woman to fit through. She went into the room, brightly lit by four lights which ran down the centre of the ceiling. Taking up the middle part of the room was a huge, scrubbed-pine table above which, from a large circle of iron suspended on heavy chains, hung all manner of pots and pans. A huge cream AGA cooker with two giant covered hotplates sat in a whitewashed alcove. The walls of the kitchen consisted of wooden shiplapped cupboards of a soft yellow wood which stretched up from the floor to a ceiling turned a deep honey colour from a couple of generations of cooking vapours. The room was scrubbed and spotless and smelt of a mixture of blue carbolic soap, floor wax and linseed oil, with just a hint of ground coffee and yesterday's stock-pot added. Its red painted cement floor was waxed and shining. To one side, though commanding a clear view of the entire room, stood a very large leather club chair with a coffee table beside it, on which stood a black bakelite telephone.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo pulled a chair from the table and indicated to Tandia that she should sit. Tandia lowered her aching and exhausted body into the chair. She gave a small sigh and rested her arms on the table and, still clutching Apple Sammy in one hand, she placed her head in the crease of her right arm. Within seconds she was asleep. Apple Sammy fell from her grasp and clattered to the floor. Juicey Fruit Mambo, without bending his knees, scooped up the little doll and placed it back on the table. Then he lifted Tandia carefully into an upright sitting position, placed his ear to her chest and pulled one of her eyelids up to examine her eye.

  'I do not think she will wake up tonight,' he said as he rearranged Tandia's arms carefully on the table, making sure that her wrists were not pressured. Then he lowered her head to rest on the upper part of her right arm once again.

  Mama Tequila came over to the table to look at Tandia. She spoke quietly in Zulu to the tall African. 'This one is a great prize; you must take good care of her.' She turned and walked slowly towards the large armchair.

  'I hear you, Mama Tequila.' Juicey Fruit Mambo replied softly, his expression serious. 'She is like a young tsamma melon ready to be picked. I think, for the white man, this one, she is very beautiful?'

  Mama Tequila gave a soft sigh, but made no reply as she shifted her huge weight down onto the leather armchair. A slow protesting 'pffft' of air escaped from the leather upholstery.

  'I will make coffee and bring you some Cape brandy?'

  'No, first you must wash the girl and bandage her. Put her in Hester's room for tonight. She's gone to the Drakensberg with her Boer from the Free State.' Mama Tequila fanned herself absently with a Japanese fan. The design on the fan showed a demure little geisha girl peeping from behind a fan of her own. 'Also, the way she walked, I think she been raped. Make sure she's clean at the back and is not hurt in the front.'

  Juicey Fruit Mambo lifted Tandia's limp form from the chair and carried her from the room. Mama Tequila reached into her bag and found a cork-tip, but after taking only a couple of puffs she ground it impatiently in the ashtray beside her and reached for the telephone, which she placed on her lap. She dialed a number and sighed heavily as she waited for someone to pick up at the other end. 'Cato Manor Polise Stasie,' a sleepy voice answered.

  'Sergeant, you the best, you hear! This little baby, she the greatest po-ten-shal I ever did see!' Mama Tequila gushed.

  Geldenhuis switched to English. 'Ag, it's you, Mama Tequila. Everything is all right then?'

  'You done me a good turn, Sergeant,' Mama Tequila paused for effect. 'My mama always told me, "Child, one good turn deserve another.'" She waited for the policeman to make his demand.

  'Not now. Some other time. I'll let you know,' Geldenhuis said.

  Mama Tequila grimaced in annoyance. She liked things clean-cut, that way you knew where you stood. She chuckled. 'Your pleasure is my pleasure, Sergeant. You come any time, you hear?'

  'Ja, okay, so long, Mama Tequila.'

  She heard the click as he replaced the receiver. A lot of cops came to Bluey Jay. The law of the one-eyed snake was stronger than the Immorality Act forbidding sex between whites and coloured or black people, but she always felt uncomfortable when Geldenhuis arrived. He would sit in the small parlour bar and sip a beer and talk to the girls but he'd never partake, never leave the bar and slip quietly upstairs with one of them to return, in the timeless brothel tradition, half an hour later to slip into his seat unseen and unseeing as if nothing had happened.

  There was something wrong with that one. By this she didn't mean that Geldenhuis was a corrupt young cop. Mama Tequila was completely resigned to that. After all, if there were no bad cops she wouldn't be in business, or at the very least, business would be a damn sight harder. It was more than that, and she wondered if it had been him who had raped the girl. She made a mental note to get to know Geldenhuis better. Until you knew a man's special weakness, that thing which would indict him in his own eyes, you were vulnerable. She was smart enough to know that the old-fashioned type of policeman, the good old guys who came for an occasional quickie and who you paid with a fiver every week and threw in a few quid as an annual donation to the Police Boys' Boxing Club, were on the way out. The Geldenhuis era had arrived.

  FOUR

  Tandia could hear Hester coming down the upstairs corridor. Hester wore scuffs which slapped against the back of her heel and then hard against the polished yellowwood floor boards. 'Hey, Tandia, guess what!'

  Tandia raised her pen from her work. It was simply amazing how Hester could get noise, even a sort of rhythm, out of wearing a pair of scuffs. All the girls wore them when they were not working but Hester's scuffs went 'slap, schliptt, slap, schliptt, slap, schliptt!'

  'How does she do that?' she thought. Though she had to admit it was typical of Hester, who did everything loudly and with drama. Hester was a noise factory. She just couldn't help herself. She even slept loudly, for she suffered from nasal polyps and snored so badly that Mama Tequila had given her the room at the end of the corridor with the bathroom in between it and the others.

  Mama Tequila had also stopped booking her out on dirty forty-eights. Too many customers were returning her to Bluey Jay after one night demanding their money back. None of her clients ever complained that Hester didn't deliver. She delivered all right! That was part of the problem. Hester was so good at her job that she quickly exhausted even the most virile of her mostly middle-aged clients, who, attempting to renew their vigour with a couple of hours' shut-eye, would find themselves trapped in a room where the very walls seemed to vibrate with Hester's bronchial sonority.

  Only the big Boer from the Free State didn't seem to mind. He'd get completely blotto on VSOP Cape brandy and then he'd giggle and take Hester into his arms, arms which were burnt a deep bronze from where the line of his short sleeves ended. 'Come, my little beauty, let me grow some grass between your two beautiful dark hills,' he would say, burying his great ginger beard between Hester's big brown boobs. 'Together we'll snore the night into little pieces smaller than matchsticks.'

  With a sigh Tandia replaced the cap on her Croxley fountain pen. Hester's arrival always demanded her full attention. It was the end of her school work for the moment. Hester's long pink fingernails appeared around the door. They were followed almost immediately by her head. Hester was a back-slidden Pentecostal and she would explain that the Lord didn't mind pink nails, pink nails were all right, almost natural; it was the long, shiny red ones like Sarah's that He was very against.

  'Hey, Tandia, listen to this!' She walked over to where Tandia sat at the little table that served as desk. 'You going to get some new school uniforms, man. It's true! Only just now I heard Mama T calling on the telephone to Sonny Vindoo.'

  'Sonny who?' Tandia was delighted at the prospect of the uniforms.

  'Vindoo, he's the Indian tailor who makes us special things sometimes, when Mama T want
s to put on a bit of a show for an important new client.' Hester brought the tips of the fingers of both hands to her lips and her eyes grew large. 'They pink!'

  'What's pink?'

  'The school uniforms, they going to be pink, God's honour!'

  Tandia buried her face in her hands as Hester continued, 'You know how she's mad about pink? I'm telling you, jong, Mama T is having pink gym frocks made. I heard her tell Sonny Vindoo to find three pairs of pink stockings and a pink beret also.' Hester put her hand on Tandia's shoulder. 'I swear on my mother's grave, it's true!'

  'She can't do that! They won't allow it. The colour is brown. The colour for Durban Indian Girls' High School is dark brown!'

  'I dunno about that, jong. All I can say is I heard her clear as anything.' Hester put her fist up to her ear and brought her hand onto her ample dark bosom the way Mama Tequila did when she made a phone call; then she started to mimic Mama Tequila. 'Listen, Mr Dine-o-mite, I want you should go to John Orrs. Tell them Mama Tequila she want seven yards pink gaberdine. Okay, lover? Also four yards pink cotton poplin. Nice, you hear? Pretty rose pink.'

  Sonny Vindoo liked to be paid in kind, so Mama Tequila maintained her customer persona when she talked to him. The little Indian tailor looked a little like Mahatma Gandhi and affected a dhoti and round steel-rimmed glasses to emphasise the likeness. The very first time he had done any work for Mama Tequila he'd handed her an invoice on which he had written in his neat, clerical hand:

  For services rendered please render the services of:

  1 only Blonde Bombshell.

  Which is how Sonny Vindoo got his name, Mr Dine-o-Mite, and at the same time got Sarah chosen for him, the frizzy, ginger-headed Sarah being the closest the Bluey Jay establishment could get to a blonde at the time.

  Hester could mimic Mama Tequila down pat and despite her concern, Tandia was forced to laugh. But then she looked worried again. 'Oh no! What am I going to do?'

  Tandia, who had never spent a day of her life in bed, woke very late on the Saturday after she'd been rescued by Mama Tequila. She felt too weak too move; her whole body seemed to be burning and her mouth was dry. She ran her tongue over her lips which were cracked and swollen. Her eyes had difficulty adjusting to her surroundings; the room hummed and seemed to spin slowly above her head, and the air around her had a fractured luminosity, like used cellophane paper. Slowly the humming ceased and the room grew steady but the cellophane nature of the air persisted so she could not very clearly make out the tall, dark shape standing quietly beside her bed.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo smiled his sharp, golden-toothed smile and Tandia, feverish and disorientated, screamed and then began to sob. It was the Master of Evil from the underworld and he was going to bite her with his golden teeth. 'Don't bite me! Please don't bite me! Please, please! I don't want to have your baby!'

  Juicey Fruit Mambo bent over her and placed his' hand on her shoulder and Tandia became hysterical and tried to beat him off with her fists. The shock of finding herself confronted by the Master of Evil lent her strength. She rose up and, standing on the bed, beat frantically at the black man's chest. He brought his arms around her and held her tightly until what little strength she had gained from the sudden shock had spent itself. Exhausted, Tandia wept against his chest, blood running from her lip where she'd bitten it. Finally she lost even the strength to weep.

  'Shhhh! Missy Tandia, no more now, you heah? I am not bite you. Shhhh! You very sick but not to' die, I tink. No more for you cry, Missy Tandia.' After a while he laid her head gently back onto her pillow where Tandia, her eyes red from weeping but still bright with fever, stared up at him in catatonic terror.

  Mama Tequila heard Tandia screaming but her progress up the stairs was painfully slow, although she was hurrying and was panting fiercely as she came through the door. 'Jesus! What happened?'

  Juicey Fruit Mambo shook his head slowly, then he brought the' palm of his hand against his forehead and wiped across it, flicking the imaginary sweat from his brow. 'She has the hot sickness, madam,' he explained.

  'Go get some ice from the bar fridge. Also a towel. Quick, man!' Mama Tequila lowered her body onto the side of the bed and lifted Tandia's unresisting form from the pillow and held her tightly to her bosom.

  To Tandia, in her state of confusion, Mama Tequila was almost as great a shock as finding the Master of Evil hovering over her. She was wearing a huge pale pink silk kimono which was embroidered in the elaborate oriental fashion with brilliantly coloured roses, peonies, hummingbirds and butterflies. To Tandia in her state of confusion she looked like a garden dancing in the air with a grotesque disembodied head floating above it.

  Tandia believed that she was beyond help. She had been carried to the underworld by the Master of Evil who had bitten her, not only on the chest but all over, so that now her body hurt terribly. Too weak to resist or even to sob, she lay helpless against Mama Tequila's heaving breasts as the huge woman rocked her, making soft shhhing sounds. After a while, when Tandia's breathing had grown more steady, Mama Tequila laid her back on the bed. Tandia felt sure she was about to die. Horrible as this seemed, it was strangely painless and an end which she welcomed. Patel would never forgive her if she had the Master of Evil's baby. She must die! It was very important! He wouldn't love her if she didn't die to save his fragile ego from destruction. A man like him who was known in the best white circus.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo returned with a small enamel basin filled with water into which he had placed a couple of trays of ice cubes; a small towel was also draped over one arm. He placed the basin beside the bed and dug into his trouser pockets to produce a bottle of pills. Then he rinsed the towel, wrung it out to make a small square parcel of it, and placed it against Tandia's fevered brow.

  'Hold her head up,' Mama Tequila said, shaking two small pink pills from the bottle. Juicey Fruit Mambo lifted Tandia's head from the cushion and Mama Tequila slipped two tablets into her mouth. The pills tasted bitter and Tandia swallowed eagerly from the glass of water Juicey Fruit handed her, drinking its contents down completely. 'She is thirsty, I will bring some more/ he said, and left the room.

  The effect of the barbiturate soon sent Tandia to sleep and it was late in the evening when she wakened again. The fever in her still raged and she could hear someone singing, 'Lay that pistol down, babe…lay that pistol down!' It seemed to be coming from a long way away and she opened her eyes slowly. 'Pistol packin' Mama…' The electric light was on in the room and this time Or Louis Rabin was at her side. Tandia knew then that Patel knew. Knew for sure!

  'I'll give her a shot of Pen-G to fight the infection. Her pulse is very slow, which is probably from the shock; she is undoubtedly somewhat traumatised.' He didn't speak again for some time, his finger touching her lightly in various parts of her burning body. 'Hmm, from the contusions this little lady has been through a bad time.'

  Then what seemed like ages later she heard his voice again, as though he was speaking in an echo chamber. 'Now Tandia, I'm going to roll you over, I'm going to give you an injection in your bottom. It's not very nice, I know. But it will fix you. So you be a brave girl now, you hear?'

  She felt his cool, strong hands on her hot skin as he rolled her onto her side, then a sudden jab of pain from the needle, followed almost immediately by a slow, welling, almost unbearable pain as Dr Louis Rabin pressed down on the plunger and ran the dose of penicillin into her system.

  Tandia started to cry again. The injection seemed to exacerbate all the other pains in her body… Patel knew about the monster baby, that's why he had called Dr Louis Rabin. 'I don't want to have the baby!' she sobbed, 'Please, Patel, it wasn't my fault! Please, please, I didn't do it!'

  Dr Louis looked at Mama Tequila. 'What's this about a baby?'

  Mama shrugged her shoulders. 'I think she was raped, doctor.' She turned to Juicey Fruit Mambo who nodded his head to verify her opinion.

 
Doctor Rabin spun round to look at the tall black man. 'You? You raped her?'

  A look of astonishment crossed Juicey Fruit Mambo's face, then he shook his head and laughed grimly. 'No, doctor, I cannot do dis ting.'

  'He's impotent,' Mama Tequila said quietly. 'We got a tipoff from the police and found her on a bench on the railway station very early this morning.' She pointed to Tandia's bandaged wrists. 'Han'cuffs done that. I think the police probably raped her.'

  'Did she tell you that?'

  Mama Tequila sighed, 'No, doctor.'

  Doctor Louis started to unwind the bandage on Tandia's right wrist. 'Then let's not go around accusing people before we know, hey.' He removed the last of the bandage and gently lifted the boracic lint Juicey Fruit had placed around her wrist. What he saw caused him to give a low, spontaneous whistle. 'Not good. You're right, these lacerations could have been made by handcuffs.'

  Juicey Fruit Mambo spoke quietly, 'I am sure, doctor.' He held both his arms together, wrists upwards, both his hands balled into a fist which he held out for Dr Louis to see. A deep welt of shiny scar tissue slightly less than a quarter of an inch thick made a complete bangle around both wrists. It was almost as though the scar had been carefully and deliberately fashioned. He laughed bitterly, 'I know dis ting, doctor. Same like me, she has the bracelets. I tink dis is a bansella for the black people from de policeman.'

  Mama Tequila could smell trouble. Or Louis wasn't afraid to take on the police on behalf of any of his patients. He wasn't scared of anyone; a man like that could make a lot of trouble for a person.

  The doctor had removed the bandage and liniment from Tandia's other wrist and was probing the deep wound softly with the pad of his forefinger. 'You are right, doctor,' Mama Tequila offered, 'we don't know for sure, do we? Maybe a rope could have done this also? There are many, many bad people around these days.' She looked up at Juicey Fruit Mambo and shook her head almost imperceptibly, indicating that he shouldn't interfere again. He sniffed and pulled at the top of his nose with his forefinger and thumb and then rubbed his hand twice across his mouth as though trying to remove from his lips any further chance of spontaneous comment.