Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  'I know that, looking in from the outside, the rule of the law in my country makes a mockery of justice, E.W. But, equally I can't run from trying to find a solution by using the law. Without law there would be chaos in South Africa.'

  'Ah, yes, chaos! How often men seem to initiate the greatest injustices and repression in the name of preventing chaos. The prevention of chaos was what brought the German people under Hitler and led to millions of Jews being crushed.'

  Peekay knew that to pursue the argument would only lead to further humiliation. E.W. had probed his intellect and found him wanting. But Peekay neither knew how, nor did he want to back down gracefully, defeat meant relinquishing the central intellectual position he held for his future life.

  'I'm afraid you're right, though being right doesn't help much. People such as Hymie Levy and myself have to return to South Africa to fight apartheid and, paradoxically, our only weapon is the law. The unjust, unfair and often ruthless instrument of the law is all we have.' Peekay hesitated. 'That is, short of violence, guns and bombs.'

  E.W. became really interested in his new student for the first time. 'Ah, violence and guns. They are invoked as often in the name of law as they are in opposition to it. The trigger is a poor debater but the bleeding-heart liberal, filled with dogma and cant, is equally ineffective.'

  Peekay wasn't sure what a bleeding-heart liberal was, but E.W.'s use of the expression suggested it was derogatory. 'I don't think I know what you mean.'

  'Most revolutions, no matter how quiet, are not served well by the sympathetic intellectual who carps at the injustice of the culture but seems to live quite happily off the resultant lifestyle it affords him. The well-fed and housed white protest, lending its mouth to the black cause,' E.W. explained.

  'And you see me as such?' Peekay felt hurt and humiliated. Somehow he had to make the tall man seated beside him see he wasn't the usual colonial apologist.

  E.W., aware of his student's indignation sighed. 'The fuel of any revolution is injustice and heaven knows there has been enough in your country to stoke the revolutionary fires. But, as yet, I perceive your revolution as merely an intellectual idea. A few indignant members of the intelligentsia exorcising their guilt by plotting, usually without permission, on behalf of the oppressed. While this is both commendable and altruistic, it is not usually a successful ploy. The new leaders soon adopt the ways of their old masters. Witness India and Pakistan.'

  E.W. looked at Peekay for a moment. 'You are not the first revolutionary to have sat in that chair. The last young chap who argued passionately about freedom from tyranny and equality of opportunity for his people, is today the tyrannical leader of a desperately oppressed nation on the same continent as your own. He has invited me on several occasions' to be a guest at the presidential palace and seems genuinely surprised at my refusal. What evidence do you have that the black people in your country are ready to rise against the regime? A true revolution begins from the soil, from the grass roots. It is the final cry of despair from the ground up. Have you heard the cry "freedom"?'

  E.W. was asking for hard evidence where there was none. Well, none of the sort which would satisfy a mind such as his. Africa was as unpredictable as a bomb lying in a field for years; one day it would explode, who knew when? But there were signs. Perhaps not the sort E.W. needed to become convinced, but signs nevertheless.

  When Peekay had been very young his black nanny told him the story of Igama sina kathathu, the stork with three dances. The first dance, or starting dance, is slow and measured, done to a careful set of rules. The second dance is still measured, though somewhat faster and more inventive. The final dance is a flurry and a flutter, a wildly erratic affair in which the male stork often kills itself by breaking its own legs.

  Peekay thought of the uprising of the black people in the same way. The analogy wasn't all that strange - dancing and singing were very much a part of black protest. The first dance, the dance which Peekay believed had already begun, was the muted struggle between black and white, a struggle being conducted largely through the courts. There would be trials followed by judicial sentences. The litany of justice would always be present, mostly meaningless to the recipient but painstakingly played out in form and function, precise and according to the book, the white man's book of laws.

  The second dance was born of the conditions of the first, where more and more black people were driven from their homes. Already Minister Vorster was talking of separate bantustans, independent states which he referred to as 'tribal homelands,' as if they represented some kind of homecoming for black refugees.

  The third dance was bloody revolution, the final frenzied cry of pain, the atrocious day of reckoning, the river of blood.

  Peekay saw his return to Africa as the beginning of the end of the first dance. It was still a time when the law could be challenged, where the etiquette of justice was intact and treason could still be proved. It was still a time when there was hope that some sanity might prevail.

  'Yes, I think I've heard the cry "freedom". But I have to tell you in the African way, E.W. The greatest of the African medicine men told this story to the people. He was an incredibly old man, Inkosi-Inkosikazi, whose name simply means Man-Woman, denoting that he was above gender in even the male-dominated African society. His wisdom was for all the people and altogether pure.'

  Peekay resumed Gideon's story, as his Zulu friend had done in the shower room in Solly Goldman's gym. 'Everyone was gathered for the great indaba. The old man began to speak in a thin piping voice which carried surprisingly to all the people present. This is what he told them.

  'Once a small army of ants out foraging came across a dung beetle pushing a large ball of dung up a steep hill and making heavy work of the process. It was a time of drought and the ants were hungry. One of the ants walked politely up the to dung beetle and asked him if they could help in return for some more of this delicious dung for themselves. 'The beetle agreed readily and leisurely followed as the ants, singing happily, pushed the great ball of dung to the top of the hill.

  "'We have completed the task and the sun is low in the sky, tell us where we can find some dung so that we can return with it to our homes before dark," the ants asked.

  '''Hayi, hayi, hayi," the dung beetle shook his head sadly. "The dung is very far away, in a place which you cannot reach before sundown. Here, take this little bit, it will stop your hunger. Tomorrow, be at the same place just before sun-up and I will show you," the beetle promised.

  'It wasn't much, but it was enough to feed their families for one night. "What an excellent beetle," the ants agreed.' Peekay paused, embarrassed. 'I'm afraid African stories are a bit long-winded, I'll try to make it short.'

  'No, no, please, Peekay. I'm fascinated. Detail is colour and colour is essential to most good argument.'

  'Well, the following day the ants were up early, even before sun-up, and together they hurried to meet the dung beetle. They waited and waited and the sun rose and they grew very thirsty. They had almost given up when they saw the beetle approaching, rolling another very large ball of dung before him. "Where have you been?" they cried.

  The beetle stopped pushing and looked very angry. "You are lazy. I came to this place early and you were not here. It's a good thing I am patient and am willing to give you a second chance. If you push this ball of dung up the hill again I will forgive you."

  So the ants apologised and, forming themselves into work gangs, they pushed the ball up the hill once more. They were rewarded with the same amount of dung as the previous evening, enough only for one night. Once again, the beetle promised to show them the place of the dung if they weren't too lazy to rise and meet him the next day.

  Now this beetle was a very clever skelm and, try as they might, they always missed him in the morning. They were then obliged to push the ball of dung up the hill in return for just enough to keep their families alive.

/>   Soon the ants forgot how to forage for themselves and the only way they could feed their families was to push the dung ball up the hill and receive a small portion each night. 'Time went by and they no longer questioned the beetle's authority. He owned all the dung and they accepted that they worked for him and that he could beat them if he wished or starve their children or make laws telling them where they could go or even live. The old laws and customs of the ants were destroyed and the ants were forced to live by the laws and the customs of the beetle.

  'Now the ants grew very unhappy but the beetle was strong and they were weak; and besides, they now depended entirely on the beetle for their livelihood.' Peekay laughed, looking up at E.W. 'We're close to the end and I promise not to be this long-winded again.'

  'Don't give up while you're ahead. I haven't listened this long to a student for years. I am suitably impressed.'

  Peekay flushed at the compliment. 'Like all good stories this one has a hero. One day a young male ant was born in the ant tribe. Right from the beginning he was different. "Why can't we forage for dung ourselves? Why must we work only for the dung beetle? It is well known that the ant was here before the beetle. Why does the beetle own all the dung?" he asked.

  "'Shhh!" the elders among the ants cautioned, "the beetle will hear you and come and take you away and beat you and throw you into prison." But the young ant was brave and clever and very determined and soon all the young ants gathered around him and they made a plan to get the dung, which they believed belonged to them just as much as it did to the beetle.

  'That day when the beetle arrived at the spot where the worker ants would push his dung up the hill they were nowhere to be seen. He shouted and threatened and stamped his feet on the ground but nothing he did or said helped. The ants had disappeared.

  'Now the beetle had a problem. If he left the dung at the bottom of the hill the ants might come in the middle of the night and steal it. He started to push the ball of dung up the hill. But he wasn't used to working hard in the hot sun and the ball was very heavy. He would push it up part of the way and then his strength would fail him and the ball would roll down the hill again.

  'But the beetle was not a fool and he was also very determined. He rested for a while and gathered his strength and finally, in the cool of the evening, he began to push. All the young ants watched from the top of the hill as he pushed and pushed and this time he managed to get it almost to the brow of the hill.

  "'Now!" shouted the fierce young leader and they rushed at the ball of dung and began to push it back down the hill. The beetle was exhausted but he resisted stoutly. The other ants, observing this, rushed to help the young ants. The beetle could hold the ball on the brow of the hill no longer. Inch by inch the ball began to slide backwards but the beetle would not move away. He was stubborn and he was selfish and he could not bring himself to believe that the ants were capable of overcoming him.

  '''Share the dung with us equally and we will stop pushing on this side and help you on your side," the young ant cried.

  'But the beetle was so used to being the baas and owning all the dung that he didn't want to share. "No!" he shouted defiantly. "Beetles are better than ants, ants are meant to work and dung beetles are expected to own dung!"

  'So the ants pushed harder and the ball of dung began to roll backwards. The beetle, unwilling to jump out of the way and to lose his precious ball of dung, hung on. The ball rolled over and over with him clinging on for dear life so that his shell was cracked and he was bruised and bleeding; but still he clung to the ball of dung. When the ball of dung reached the bottom of the hill it was travelling at great speed, heading for a huge rock. The ball crashed against a rock and broke up, burying the beetle deep inside a heap of dung. The beetle was too weak and injured to crawl out of the dung. He suffocated and died, buried in shit!'

  'Bravo, Peekay, a lovely allegory,' E.W. was obviously amused. 'But how does it tell us that an uprising is at hand? Is this not simply a folk story? The history of every nation is told with allegorical stories of good triumphing over evil.'

  Peekay sighed inwardly. 'He was doing too much talking but it was too late now. He had to go on. 'Well firstly the message, or story if you like, came from the most important wizard of them all a man who was accepted, not only by the Zulu people, but by all the tribes as the greatest of the medicine men. The story was his last; he died some weeks later. Therefore it was a message to all of the black people to take action and to do so with the absolute conviction that, in the end, they would prevail.

  'But, if you understand Zulu, the message was not of a sudden uprising. What it carried was a plan. A course of action and a result. Inkosi-Inkosikazi foretold great suffering; the ball rolling down the hill with the beetle hanging on could go on for years, perhaps even decades. It also tells of the white men's determination, their willingness to suffer to hold on to their heritage. To the African, suffering is a familiar experience. The African people have always suffered and did so long before the advent of the white man. Suffering is an expected component of life. Shaka, the first great warrior king who forged the Zulu nation into the greatest war machine Africa has ever seen, could make an entire regiment march over a three-hundred foot cliff to demonstrate their obedience and their loyalty. The Zulu people expect that they'll have to fight, expect that they will suffer, expect that the Boer will not capitulate easily. Nevertheless the story of the dung beetle and the ants is a blueprint, a foretelling of a future with a certainty that, in the end, the people will prevail. It is the certainty of victory which will make them fight long and hard until they win. Victory is no longer an "if"; with Inkosi-Inkosikazi's prophecy, it has become a "when".'

  Peekay was conscious of how melodramatic his words must sound to this rational and totally civilised man. He looked about the slightly untidy room. He was in a perfectly ordinary study in a great seat of learning in a country where the fundamental belief was that a combination of God, Queen, good manners and a fair-minded attitude to your fellow man was a perfectly valid prescription for life and one which the rest of the world shouldn't find too difficult to grasp. Witchcraft, superstition and any of the other tenets of a primitive culture played no part in this perception.

  Some fucking Oxford undergraduate he'd turned out to be! He wasn't clever at all. This place was filled with people who were light years ahead of him. Not simply the dons, most of the students as well. They spoke better, thought better and certainly argued better. Peekay felt a sudden panic. E.W. wasn't obliged to take him. 'Christ! If he rejects me, what the hell will I do?'

  E.W. was silent for a long time. Finally he said slowly, 'We are all believers in magic. Very few things are wrought by logic alone. Man has always fought for improbable causes, often against impossible odds, enduring incredible hardship in the name of some truth or other. In my own way, I too succumbed to the power of a just idea, when a moment's reflection and an ounce of common sense would have shown the futility of the struggle into which I threw my puny weight.' E.W. looked a trifle embarrassed. 'I spent six months as a true believer, among other things winding bandages in Spain.'

  A sudden vision of E.W's gaunt frame in an ill-fitting, republican uniform in the Spanish Civil War brought a smile to Peekay's lips.

  E.W. grinned. 'Well you may laugh, I readily confess to having been a ridiculous soldier, too much Quixote and not enough Hemingway. Like the peripatetic Don Quixote on his horse, I was moved from one ordnance job to another in an attempt to find something I couldn't effectively mess up. Bandages were my last stop and then our side lost. I came home just in time to be recruited into Hitler's war. On the strength of my bandage-winding experience, which obviously, in the eyes of the War Office, counted for a great deal more than a degree in jurisprudence, I spent the entire Second World War in Plymouth lecturing to young ladies in the WRNS on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases gained as an indirect result of accepting gifts of silk stoc
kings and candy from randy American marines.'

  Peekay laughed as E.W. hoped he might. He'd watched the young South African carefully. Peekay's student details, submitted to Magdalen College by his headmaster, St John Burnham, indicated that he was a champion boxer and a good all-round sportsman as well as an outstanding student, who had been shortlisted as a Rhodes scholar pending completion of his first degree. As a rule Rhodes scholars didn't impress E.W. who found them, more often than not, too busy with cricket or rugby to manage much more than a lower second.

  E.W. was a man who exalted in the human mind and thought of the body as a rather clumsy method of carrying it about. Boxing, a sport which was known to damage the brain, he found both repulsive and primitive and he'd had serious reservations about accepting Peekay.

  'And you? You believe in the er…witch doctor's prophecy, Peekay?'

  'Well, yes, I suppose I do. I'm African myself. The fact that a man of Inkosi-Inkosikazi's power and intelligence, who lived his life in peace as the spirits of the dead decreed he should, would turn around and instruct the people to rise against the white man, could mean only one thing. These same spirits, the great kings, elders and the shadows of his ancestors, Shaka, Dingane and Cetewayo, had joined to ensure the outcome. By allowing the wizard of peace to carry the message of war, the ancestral shadows had cast the bones and read the smoke. The people have no choice but to respond.'

  E. W. brought his hands together, the tips of his fingers touching his lips. He appeared to be deep in thought. 'I'm sure we're on the same side, Peekay. But in terms of your time at Oxford perhaps we ought to use a different term of reference. The situation in South Africa is undeniably racist, but this is by no means unique. Almost every culture practises covert racism to a greater or lesser degree. The real enemy is the denial of personal integrity for the white South African, and that of social dignity and opportunity for the black South African.