Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  It was a long way to have travelled in fifteen months, and as Tandia left Patel's grave with its obscene new headstone, she wondered when she would return again. On a sudden impulse she tried to close the cast-iron gate that led into the cemetery but it sagged on its hinges; weed and grass had grown around its base, holding it firmly in place. Patel's influence was not over yet.

  When Tandia reached the Packard, Juicey Fruit Mambo was now genuinely asleep in the back seat. She shook him awake. 'Come on, Juicey Fruit Mambo, we have to get the pies and sausage rolls for tonight.'

  That night at Bluey Jay there was to be a party. From the end of the second week in January to the first Monday in February Mama Tequila closed Bluey Jay. With lots of money in their pockets, the working girls all went on holiday.

  The party was held on the Friday prior to the Sunday when they left, and always began in the same way. Juicey Fruit Mambo would serve them all a glass of champagne, French no less, and Mama Tequila would make her speech.

  This year her evening dress hugged her figure so tightly that it looked like a series of undulations laminated in scarlet velvet. The hemline and the plunging breastline were trimmed with pink ostrich feathers and she wore an elaborate Indian-style turban of the same material, with three pink ostrich feathers pluming towards the ceiling. From toe to top of ostrich feathers she stood seven feet tall and was undoubtedly the most imposing presence in the salon which included the grand piano with its tummy open, festooned with pink-and-white balloons.' Mama Tequila's fingers were encrusted with diamonds and a two-inch diamond choker around her neck flashed a distress beacon every time she moved her head.

  The girls all gathered around her holding their champagne glasses. They too wore evening dresses. Tandia wore a simple peacock-blue shantung sheaf which fitted her figure closely and was cut high in the Chinese cheongsam style to reveal almost the full length of her left leg as she walked. It had been a Christmas gift from Sonny Vindoo, who had been back twice to make sure it fitted perfectly. Sarah and Hester, in a rare collaboration between Catholic and Pentecostal, had paid for her high heels, which they'd had covered with the same shantung so as to match her gown. Standing in the circle with the other girls, waiting for Mama Tequila to start the pre-holiday proceedings, she looked simply ravishing.

  The painters, carpenters and plumbers, under the supervision of Mr Perfect Lay, who drove down from Pietermaritzburg twice a week to supervise them, were due to start work on the following Monday, after the drapes and the carpets had been removed for cleaning and the upholsterer had checked the couches and chairs for repairs. Mama Tequila liked Bluey Jay to commence business each year looking and feeling brand new, a house refreshed. The night when the girls kissed the working year goodbye was known as Frog Friday.

  The rules for Frog Friday were simple: the girls could drink as much as they liked, get as drunk as they liked and, in the morning, sleep as long as they liked. All day Sunday, taxis would arrive from town to take them to Durban Central to catch their trains to wherever they were going. It was a day of kissing and crying, of sudden panics, things packed, unpacked, decided upon, decided against, outfits changed, changed again and then returned to the original. The best part of the working girl's holiday might well have been the excitement of getting ready to leave.

  Mama Tequila held her glass above her head. 'Okay, man, let us begin. A toast to us all and also to Bluey Jay!'

  'Us and Bluey Jay!' the girls all chorused.

  'And Juicey Fruit Mambo!' Tandia added.

  They all turned to see Juicey Fruit standing behind them in his tuxedo and pink bow tie. He was shaking his head, suddenly embarrassed by the attention.

  'Juicey Fruit, where's your glass?' Jasmine said. Putting down her own, she hurried over and, taking up a champagne glass, filled it. When she handed it to Juicey Fruit Mambo, he shuffled his feet and smiled and looked acutely ill at ease.

  'A toast to Edward King George Juicey Fruit Mambo, the pride of Zululand!' Mama Tequila shouted. 'The pride of Zululand!' they all joined in.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo lifted the wide-rimmed glass and, opening his huge mouth like Bluto in a Popeye cartoon, managed to empty the entire glass down his throat without it ever touching his lips. The girls all clapped and Juicey Fruit grinned, his two gold incisors shining.

  'So now, we here again to begin another Frog Friday. One more year has passed and we still here, we still the best whorehouse in the world!' Mama Tequila appeared to glance behind her to the entrance to her salon, as though she expected someone to appear. 'You hear that, Mr Minister for Injustice! We still here and we going strong, man, like the bladdy blue train!'

  'I'll drink to that!' Sarah shouted, and upended her glass.

  'Me also!' Hester echoed, and did the same thing.

  'Yeah!' the girls all shouted, throwing their heads back and emptying their glasses.

  'Keep the champagne coming, Juicey Fruit Mambo,' Mama Tequila ordered. 'But seriously, my dears, let me say a few things I got on my mind before you's all get sozzled, hey?'

  They all quietened down and Mama Tequila waited until Juicey Fruit Mambo had refilled her glass before continuing. 'Firstly I got to say you all good whores. The best! I couldn't ask for better. Except for Tandy. Jesus! She never going to make a whore, I'm telling you that, for sure!' They all laughed, and Tandia blushed violently.

  'She got too much brains to be a whore, Mama T!' Doreen laughed. 'You can't have no whore speaking Latin and Algebra!'

  'Ag man, you mad! Algebra is not a language!' Marie said.

  'It's like doing sums, only harder, stuff like A plus B equals something else you never heard of to the square root, jong!'

  'A plus B equals Tandia never going to be a square root!' Mama Tequila cackled and the room broke up again. 'Now shurrup everybody! I haven't said nothing of what I'm going to say to you yet!' She emptied her glass again and turned, waving it. 'Where's that cheeky bladdy kaffir?' she said joking, 'Juicey Fruit Mambo, a person could die of thirst around here. Keep the champagne coming, you hear!' The big black man, laughing at the insult, hurried over and filled Mama Tequila's glass. Mama Tequila took the bottle from his hands. 'You see what it says on this bottle? Veuve Clicquot. You know what means that in frog language? It means the Widow Clicquot. I'm telling you, man, that Mrs Veuve Clicquot that some dame! Her husband passes away (God rest his soul), next thing you know she's having a party with her own name on the champagne. Now that class, you hear! In any book, that first class! That the kind of woman whose champagne we like to drink.'

  Mama Tequila was getting pretty tipsy, which meant she'd been toasting the Widow Clicquot all afternoon. 'Okay, okay, listen, ladies! On Sunday you all going far and wide to have a damn good holiday. You got a handbag full of money and you all got a good time to give away for free,' she burped. 'Now, that the first thing I want to talk about. Don't give no free pussy to no one, you hear! You want to know why? Okay, I'll tell you why. A whore got to have some respect for herself.' She looked around the room, her glance seeming to take in each of the girls. 'And don't give it to a bright boy or a jazz man and also no coloured who wear a big fedora and drive a convertible because, man, you know where they been and it isn't where you want to go, which is straight to Or "VD" Suluman when you get back.' Mama Tequila stretched her forefinger and thumb wide. 'Which is a needle this long in your bum every day for a week! That all I want to say on the question of loving. So now you can have some more champagne and…' She turned to Juicey Fruit Mambo. 'Go see if the big surprise arrive yet.'

  The girls were surprised. Mama Tequila's Frog Friday wasn't a party in the traditional sense with proper men. If a person wasn't one of the girls at Bluey Jay and didn't get drunk it could be pretty boring really. But, for the eight working girls at Bluey Jay, it was an occasion buoyed up by the prospect of going on holidays and this, along with the French champagne, was enough to get the party going. But this year thin
gs had been different.

  The Geldenhuis incident with Tandia had left them all fearful in the weeks leading up to Frog Friday and had dampened down much of the anticipation the girls felt about the end of the working year. It wasn't something they spoke about much, even to each other. It was something they felt, a dark, private shadow which hung over their future. Bluey Jay was a way of life, but also it was a tenure which promised to lead to a normal life with a man and kids and a home of their own. Each of them had a dream and Tandia, because of what she'd done to Geldenhuis, had put this dream in jeopardy. They felt angry and betrayed, not really as much by Tandia but more by Mama Tequila herself. Mama Tequila had seen the opportunity to compromise Geldenhuis, which was fine and all right, but she'd risked them all in the process by using a person any of the girls could have told her was not up to the task.

  For her part Mama Tequila was aware of this. She accepted that she'd played it the wrong way. She'd been too anxious to compromise the policeman, to get enough dirt on him to ensure her own survival. There were other ways open to her. A quiet word in the Detective Sergeant's ear by Or Louis, for she still had his examination notes from when Tandia had come to Bluey Jay, would probably have discouraged him, for a while anyway.

  Geldenhuis had too much to lose. He was a local hero, a national sporting identity and a police officer who had been brought to the favourable attention of the Minister of Justice. His career was on the up and up; all he had to do was keep his nose clean and, sooner rather than later, he'd find himself in Pretoria hitting the big time.

  It wouldn't have taken a lot of pressure to keep him at arm's length. But Mama Tequila couldn't resist nailing him once and for all. She didn't like him and had stupidly allowed this to be a factor in her decision to sacrifice Tandia.

  Now she'd have to be very careful with the girls or her mistake could destroy her. With the amended Immorality Act three years in existence prostitution had been driven underground; the girls in it were mostly black crud or lazy white sluts who were badly trained with a booze problem, or a pill or hashish habit, or all three. She knew her chances of recruiting a new line-up such as the present one at Bluey Jay was virtually impossible.

  Every year at Christmas Mama Tequila handed them their post office books with the money they'd made for the year. Every year on their return from holidays she started a new book for each of them. Now she had nothing with which to hold them; they were all fully paid up. Whores are naturally superstitious, and, if they thought their luck had run out at Bluey Jay, they might just call it a day and stay away. Sarah would stay, of course, because she was being trained to run the house. But then, on the other hand, if she felt there might be no house to run, she too might not return.

  Johanna, a girl from a small country town in the Northern Transvaal, who normally didn't say very much and just got on with her job, brought all their fears into the open. 'Maybe I'm stupid, jong, but I'm not so stupid I don't know that what happened to Geldenhuis isn't finish! That bastard is a Boer and a policeman; that's the worst combo there is! I'm telling you, man, our troubles, they just beginning!'

  Mama Tequila knew she was going to have to turn on one hell of a party to win back her authority so they would trust her sufficiently to return after the holidays.

  'Sarah done a poem!' Doreen shouted. She was a girl who had started life, like Jasmine, in the slums of Cape Town's District-Six, and she was notorious at Bluey Jay for the fact that she couldn't hold her liquor. She was already quite tipsy.

  'On the peeano!' Doreen added, and Hettie and Colleen rushed over to the grand piano. Removing the balloons from its interior, they gave each of the girls several balloons to hold and closed the lid. Sarah sat down on the piano stool, removed her high heels and then, helped by Hettie and Colleen, climbed onto the top of the grand. She fumbled in the bodice of her gown for a moment and produced a small sheet of folded paper from her bra.

  'Juicey Fruit Mambo! More frog juice for the poet!' Mama Tequila demanded. But the huge black man appeared to have left the room. Hester picked up the bottle of champagne.

  'Hey! Where's my glass?' Sarah asked.

  Jasmine handed Sarah's glass to Hester who filled it and passed it up to her. Sarah held the glass out in front of her slightly above her eyeline.

  'I dedicate this noble poem to Mama Tequila and all the working girls and also Juicey Fruit Mambo!' She smiled, 'And, oh yes! To the best lover in South Africa, the one and only, transil-meddle-tated, Mr Dine-o-Mite!' They all cheered and Sipped from their glasses.

  Sarah took a generous gulp of champagne and handed her glass to Jasmine. 'But the main person I dedicate my poem to is Tandy.' She looked around at all the girls and at Mama Tequila.

  That one will one day make a bladdy good madam, Mama Tequila thought to herself.

  Sarah continued. 'We very proud today with what you done, Tandy, being in the paper and all with top marks in everything, Latin and algebra and hard stuff like that. I'm telling you, to know a person like you, with so much brains a person's head could burst, is a very big honour.'

  Tandia buried her head in Jasmine's shoulder, totally embarrassed by the sudden attention. 'But being clever an' all, that's one thing, but being brave that a altogether different thing.' Sarah paused and looked around at them all again in a melodramatic fashion. She was a little tipsy, but so were they all and her longish pauses didn't seem to worry them. 'Tandy done the bravest thing I ever heard of in my whole life as a working girl. Something we all thought about lots of times before, when some bastard is giving a person a bad time. So here is my poem,' she said finally. Holding the scrap of paper almost at arm's length, Sarah cleared her throat and commenced to read.

  Roses are red

  Violets is blue

  Geldenhuis was bit

  So now he can't screw!

  The laughter started slowly in Mama Tequila and built like a rumbling volcano, shaking her to the foundation, gushing from her, a veritable explosion of mirth. 'Ho…ho…ho…hee…hee…hee, snort-snort, hee-hee-hee…Oh my God! Ho…ho…hee-hee-hee…' Juicey Fruit rushed to support her as her knees gave way, but still she laughed, a massive scarlet chortling blancmange of heaving mirth. The girls came to help her as Tandia pushed the piano stool under Mama Tequila's bottom to take her sagging weight.

  It was the sort of laughter they all needed. And Tandia knew that she too was expected to laugh. Sarah had, after all, done it for her. Tandia was not unaware of the unspoken disapproval of the working girls, and Sarah's poem had been a gift of generosity. The Geldenhuis incident had been with them all. Now, at last, it was out, brought to the surface by a silly, childish little poem which had somehow made it all warm and safe again.

  Mama Tequila knew that she couldn't have asked for anything better, and she now realised how much strain she herself had been under. It was good to laugh and she let it all roll out of her. At last she was sufficiently in possession of herself to talk, but she was afraid that if she spoke in her natural voice her emotion might show, so she slipped into client vernacular. 'Sarah, honey, you the best, you hear? You da poet lorrikeet!' She started to chuckle softly. 'Say it again, Sarah, do it one more time, baby!'

  Sarah held the poem out and started to read again, but before she had completed the first line Mama Tequila was off again. The poem was a trigger all right! She raised her arms above her head to clap her hands together and suddenly her red velvet gown split from under the armpit down to her thighs. This caused fresh gales of laughter. 'Ho…ho…ho…hee…hee-hee, I think I going to wet my pants! Sarah, Mr Dine-o-mite, he ain't going to get no pussy for this dress, you hear?'

  Frog Friday, despite the anxiety they had felt leading up to it, was showing all the signs of being an all-time success.

  Hester and Marie, each taking an arm, led Mama Tequila across the room towards the door. As they reached the entrance to the salon Juicey Fruit Mambo appeared. 'It is all ready, madam,'
he said.

  Mama Tequila turned back into the room and addressed the girls. 'Go now into the other salon, everyone! In there is my big going-away surprise!' Turning to Hester and Marie she said, 'You too, darlings! Juicey Fruit Mambo will help me to my room. Go on, go now, enjoy your party. Hurry, jong. If you get there fast you can take first pick!'

  Hester's scream of delight as she entered the client salon made all the other girls come running. Standing around the room were eight of the best built hunks of super manhood she'd ever laid her eyes on. Their arms bulged and their pectoral muscles smashed aside the buttons on their shirts to reveal chests and stomach muscles a girl could die for. Hester, with four or five of Madam Veuve Clicquot's special thigh-warming tonics under her belt, was willing to commit suicide on the spot. She grabbed at the biggest, horniest man she could see. Doreen did, the same and soon every man in the room had a girl draped on his arm. This was Mama Tequila's special treat: beautiful, taut, young coloured men who looked like Adonis to make up for all the wheezing and burping, the pot bellies and the limp little willies they'd had to coax to life during the year. Or, as Hester had once said, 'Some, they an insult to a one-eyed snake, man! They just blind worms with a swollen head!'