Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  The referee parted the two boxers and turned to the Cambridge man. 'You all right, old chap?' he asked in his polo-club accent.

  'Fine thank you, sir,' the Cambridge boxer panted, grinning at the referee.

  'Good show!' the referee replied.

  'Please, sir?' Peekay pleaded with the referee.

  'Box on, Mr…er, Peekay,' the big man said firmly.

  Peekay shrugged and moved quickly to the centre of the ring. The crowd were beginning to boo and a slow handclap had started in the back of the hall. The Cambridge man followed after Peekay, throwing out a left which tipped Peekay's chin, allowing him to measure the precise distance to the other man's jaw.

  The right hook landed precisely where it was intended. Travelling hard and upwards, it landed an inch from the centre of the Cambridge man's chin. Then the light-blue boxer staggered momentarily before dropping like a stone to the canvas.

  Peekay moved quickly to go to a neutral corner so the count could commence, but the bell for the end of the round sounded before he could reach it, and he turned and ran over to the Cambridge boxer, who hadn't moved. Kneeling down beside him, he could see the stunned look in the other man's eyes as he passed in and out of consciousness.

  Peekay felt sure he hadn't hurt the Cambridge boxer. The punch which took him out had landed so precisely on the point of the jaw that it would hardly be felt by the other man. When a golfer or a cricket or tennis player hits the sweet spot on the club or the bat or racquet, the timing is perfect, the stroke effortless and the result amazing; Peekay's punch was similarly skilful. At the very worst, to remind him he'd been in the ring, the Cambridge boxer would have a slightly tender jaw in the morning. It had been the best way Peekay could possibly have ended the fight without hurting his opponent. But to the onlookers it had seemed as though the Oxford boxer with the big reputation had chopped the Cambridge man down without mercy.

  Peekay was suddenly aware of the hissing and booing of the crowd and he was pushed roughly aside by one of the Cambridge man's seconds who had entered the ring. 'You're a cad, sir!' he shouted.

  'Shit! I should have known better,' Peekay said to himself as he rose and walked over to his corner. Taking Hymie's extended hand, he climbed through the ropes and down from the ring without waiting for the decision.

  'Tough,' Hymie said sympathetically, putting his arms around Peekay. 'There was nothing else you could do, old mate.'

  Peekay sighed. 'Jesus! What a shit of a way to end an amateur career.'

  Ten days later Peekay received a note from Podman, the Pembroke man and president of the Oxford Boxing Club. The letter said that the Blues Committee had met and that it had been decided 'under the circumstances' not to award Peekay his blue for boxing.

  Hymie was furious. 'Bloody amateurs!' he screamed. But Peekay restrained him from taking any action. 'Forget it, Hymie, it was my fault. I didn't listen to my instincts, I knew this was a bad idea.'

  Hymie, still angry, turned to his friend in disgust. 'You know something, Peekay? Fuck your instincts! If you're not bloody careful, when we get back home the hairy backs are going to eat you alive, my son!' Despite E.W.'s warning, as his second year at Oxford went by, Peekay might well have taken Oxford too seriously. He loved the long periods of study, the lively debate and intense argument. Given half a chance he could happily have settled into a dogged routine of study and training, the business of getting his money's worth. But Hymie saw things differently.

  One summer evening, after returning from a training session in London, they decided to cut through St Hilda's College so Peekay could see the Chinoiserie bridge over the Cherwell. Standing on the beautiful oriental bridge watching the slow, dreamlike flow of the river in the late twilight, Hymie remarked casually to Peekay, 'You know, this place is an investment opportunity we'll never again come across.' Peekay laughed, taking in the tranquil river scene. 'You're a true romantic, Hymie. Do you realise, Percy Shelley may well have stood with Byron on this bridge?'

  'Sure. Did you know Shelley was expelled from Oxford for lying?' Hymie replied. He turned, so that he was leaning with his back pushed against the rail of the bridge, squinting into the distance, looking downriver in the opposite direction to Peekay. 'No, man, I mean it. If we use this place properly it's money in the bank.'

  'You mean the Oxford myth, exploiting the cultural cringe when we get back home?'

  'That too, but that's only worth a passing lick at the icing on the cake. If anything, the bloody Boers will try to cut us down to size once we get home. Make no mistake, the Nats are in power for a long time. The brilliant hairy-back bigots from Stellenbosch University will be running the show from now on. A couple of smart-arse Anglophile Oxford graduates conducting a law practice that helps kaffirs get off won't impress them one little bit.' As usual Hymie was thinking ahead.

  'The way you talk, Oxford doesn't sound like much of an investment. In what way, an opportunity?'

  'Our friends. We must choose them for the future.' Peekay turned to look at Hymie in surprise. 'You're not serious? Shit, Hymie, isn't that just a tad dry-eyed?'

  Hymie laughed. 'My mom has a saying: "If a nice Jewish girl is sitting at the bus stop waiting and a Rolls Royce should happen to pass and also to stop and the back door should open, where does it say in the good book it is a sin to save a little time and take a little ride?'"

  'You don't mean friends, do you? That's simply an euphemism for contacts, isn't it? We might as well have business cards printed!'

  'Jesus, Peekay! You can be a bloody boring Protestant prick sometimes! You can pick up a law degree anywhere.' Hymie slapped Peekay on the arm with the back of his hand. 'Look at us! I mean, we're a couple of cultural country bumpkins who have learned enough to scale the school wall into the orchard on the other side. Only it so happens it's the Garden of fucking Eden! What are we going to do, sit cross-legged under the tree of fucking knowledge in the hope that an apple will fall into our lap?'

  'As usual my learned friend makes his point forcibly, but do we have to shake every bloody apple off the tree?' Peekay replied.

  Hymie was getting excited, the way he sometimes would when he- wasn't getting through to Peekay. 'Let me tell you about Cecil bloody Rhodes! Okay, he's a big name around here, right? You even sat and, in my opinion, got rooked out of his scholarship. Remember?' Peekay grinned. 'I was too young.'

  Hymie ignored him. 'Cecil bloody Rhodes was a dumbdumb! The full mahogany sideboard. When he applied for entry to Oriel the Provost lamented, "All the colleges send me their failures!" Believe me, Peekay, Cecil Rhodes didn't come here for the education. He came for the introductions, and look where they got him!'

  Peekay turned back to lean against the beautiful wooden rail of the Chinese bridge. 'Just for once, Hymie, do me a favour and leave out the historical precedent. How do you propose to suck up to every half-decent brain in Oxford so they'll be beholden to us for the rest of their lives?'

  'Easy, man!' Hymie said, grinning. 'Start a society!'

  'Oh, great!' Peekay imitated Togger Brown, 'that's a smashin' idea, that is!' He turned to face Hymie, his expression serious. 'Do you know how many societies there are already at Oxford? If you can fart in tune you'll find a choral society celebrating its bicentennial who are prepared to cherish your skill!'

  'Peekay, don't you see? This university is filled with people who don't fit in. The odd bods. Guys who've always been a pain in the arse because they're very bright in one thing and a walking disaster in everything else. They can't catch a ball, count change, kiss a girl without losing their spectacles. They disagree with everyone about everything and the idea of joining anything whatsoever is utterly repugnant to them. But, and this is my point, if you follow their later careers you discover some emerge as powerful people, while others retire into back rooms and split the fucking atom! Either WilY, most of them rise to the top of the milk.'

  'A socie
ty for those people who positively, under no circumstances, join societies? The theory's okay, but how do you get them to join?'

  'Well, they need a cause they can believe in.'

  'A cause? But those guys are the original cynics.'

  'Or the true believers…that is, if you can get through to them.'

  'And just how do you propose to do that?'

  'I'm working on it. Something ridiculously simple. Something they wouldn't dream of supporting in a million years!'

  'You mean, something so alien to their personalities that they'd have this one thing in common with each other?'

  'Yes, that's it! That's it precisely. We have to find that something! It doesn't have to be a universal truth, or last forever…'

  Peekay turned suddenly and grabbed Hymie by the shirt front. 'No you fucking don't, Hymie! I won't do it. No bugger you, that's not fair! Piss off, you machiavellian little Hebrew.'

  'Leggo my shirt!' Hymie yowled. 'You know I abhor physical violence!'

  Peekay released him. 'It's not on, Hymie! You can go to hell!'

  'Why not? It fits. It's no skin off your nose. And it's not as if I'm asking you to do anything you're not already doing.'

  A slightly hurt expression crossed Hymie's face. 'Why are you being so unreasonable, Peekay?'

  'Because it's too hard-arsed. Too bloody deliberate. It's a set-up. It's using people!'

  'So? That's a sin all of a sudden?'

  'Morally, yes! It's…it's manipulative. It's essentially vainglorious and conniving!'

  'Bullshit, Peekay, it's simply filling a need. A need exists, we fill it, we benefit. There's no morality involved.'

  'It's just another way of picking up the tab, Hymie.'

  'Sure, I don't deny that. Give a little, take a little. But, as my dad says: "Always leave a little salt on the bread!'"

  'Christ, Hymie, no more folksy aphorisms. This isn't just another scam, like at school.'

  Hymie grabbed Peekay's arm and continued in an urgent voice. 'Look, I've thought it all out and honestly it's kosher. Just hear me out, will you? Your boxing supplies a much-needed outlet for the aggression of these odd bods.' Hymie held his hand up. 'Okay! Don't tell me they don't need an outlet, because they do. Did you know that of the fifty or so nervous breakdowns in this place every year, most occur among the so-called brilliant loners. Those guys who get their jollies spending all day Saturday in the Bodleian pouring over old vellum!'

  'I've been known to do that! And these Odd Bodleians? I'm supposed to be the saviour of these intellectual ragbags?'

  'Christ, Peekay, that's fucking brilliant! "The Odd Bodleian Society!'"

  Peekay ignored Hymie's compliment, though if there was to be such a society formed, the name wasn't halfbad. 'You haven't answered my question. I'm the guru?'

  'No, you're the cause, I'm the guru. You give them a, reason, the welterweight championship of the world. I'll give them the philosophical crap and they'll give us the smartest fan club in the history of professional boxing.' Hymie shrugged and smiled. 'See! Simple! Now everyone's rewarded!'

  'And that's. where the problem exists,' Peekay interrupted. 'This place is the citadel of amateurism. You know as well as I do, my being a professional boxer is the standing joke around here. The colonial oaf who brought his streetfighting past with him to Oxford. Remember, when r knocked out the guy from Cambridge they all booed!'

  'Precisely, man! It's perfect! Don't you see? This is the very thing to attract the odd bods. It's in contradiction of everything their snotty-nosed cricket and rugger contemporaries stand for. Believe me, Peekay, they'll lap it up!'

  'Says who?'

  'You just leave it to me, my son.'

  Hymie was a master in the use of haphazard time, that is, time spent apparently relaxing. He saw people in an abstract sense as time savers. To him a person was a repository of knowledge who, unlike a library, had the virtue of being available at the end of a telephone or could drop in on one. Cross-examination came naturally to him and even before he'd instituted the Odd Bodleian Society he had gathered an extraordinary collection of people around him, all of whom regarded him as a friend.

  Hymie used people in an unabashed way, but never shamefully. And he was generous with his gifts, thoughtful of their needs; he never used people. To Hymie, who wouldn't accept Peekay's explanation that basically, down deep in the forgotten corner of the garden where the tall weeds grow, he was a rather nice chap, this would have been a. clear indication of poor judgement and wasted human resources.

  Within a month, Hymie had recruited fifty-seven members to the Odd Bodleian Society. Its first meeting took place at the Marlborough Arms in St Thomas Street just across the Isis.

  The venue had been selected by Hymie for three reasons. Pubs were out of bounds to students, so the idea of a pub was immediately attractive to his members. The Marlborough Arms contained a back room large enough to accommodate the society, with a small door leading from it into a back lane should a don come snooping. Finally, Morrell's brewery was just two doors down, so the pints were guaranteed to be good.

  At this first meeting Hymie had himself appointed president for life. This was less a matter of ego than of necessity, as he was the only person in the room with whom each member of the new society believed he had something in common.

  The rules were simple. The cause they all stood for was the world welterweight title to an Oxford man by 1955. Attendance at Peekay's fights was the honourable intention of every member, and black tie and starched bib was mandatory on these occasions.

  Peekay had pointed out to Hymie that, despite Hymie's personal charisma and the controversial nature of the society, these were probably insufficient to hold their common interest, given that they shared very few others. What was needed was some sort of mystique. In fact, a creed. It was. Peekay who, searching through his own conscience for a good reason to become involved in Hymie's permanent and useful friend programme, had come up with the solution. This was to be the cornerstone of President Hymie's inaugural address.

  'It gives me great pleasure to address this first gathering of the Odd Bodleian Society for the very first time,' Hymie began. He seemed unusually nervous. Hands immediately thumped on tables and someone shouted, 'Tautology!' The room immediately filled with laughter.

  'Just checking to see who's not drunk,' Hymie quipped to loud boos from the audience. 'I don't need to explain why we're here. You're all here because you are about to become the brains trust of the loathsome and repugnant sport of professional boxing.' More thumping and cheering followed and Hymie waited for it to die down. 'Or so you thought!' He enunciated each word as the room became silent.

  Hymie started to pace across the small space at the front of the room. He was in full control and knew he had the interest of his audience. 'The people in this room are the most brilliant at Oxford.' (More thumping.) The creme de la creme! Whichever country we come from, it is we who will blossom into the future.' He stopped pacing and leaned over slightly, lowering his voice. 'But! Our ultimate success will not come from our brains or our gifts.' Hymie paused, appearing to look at each of them. 'It will come from our belief in ourselves. It will come from what Peekay here calls "The Power of One!"'

  The Power of One,' Hymie repeated. He had his audience eating out of his hand. Peekay was witnessing the style which was to make Hymie famous in the courtroom, the ability to lift a jury, even one composed essentially of white bigots.

  'The power of one determination! The power never to compromise your beliefs or your art or your science, to believe that you are capable of anything if you listen to the small voice, to the single truth. If you have the fortitude…the guts! If you have the stamina for the long haul. The power to triumph over the odds you will have to face!'

  Hymie's rhetoric was effortless. 'And there will be odds!' he continued. 'Politicians and powermongers will want t
o buy you and direct you. They will bend and twist the universal truths and they will try to swaddle your conscience with hyperbole and rationalisation!'

  As Peekay looked about the room he could see that the members' eyes were almost glazed. Talk about politicians and powermongers! Hymie was going a bit far, manipulating them, doing to them precisely what he was warning them against. What a rotten, conniving shit! But it was going down a treat.

  '…Only a sustained and invincible belief in yourself will allow you to maintain your integrity and achieve the goals you have set for yourself. You must be utterly determined to believe in your ability to prevail no matter what!' Hymie paused to catch his breath and the room suddenly erupted. It was powerful stuff all right. It was Hymie focussing precisely, getting to the parts of them which lauded the reason why they were different.

  Christ, he's getting a bit didactic, Peekay thought. He's said enough, perhaps too much…the last bit, the sustained and invincible belief in yourself and the importance of your own integrity, were the things in which Peekay believed implicitly. but he'd always seen them as beliefs which owned a private voice. These were quiet, determined, essential things a man might confide to a friend, a philosophical direction you have to find for yourself; they were not cheap tricks performed in public so that. they might achieve gratuitous emotional rewards from an audience. Please, Hymie, stop! You've said enough! Peekay begged silently.

  'You may well ask what the hell the world welterweight championship for an Oxford man has to do with all of this?' Hymie asked, dropping his voice. 'At the age of five Peekay was sent to a boarding school. He was the youngest child and the only English-speaking boy in this small, viciously racist backwoods Afrikaans school. The Boer children beat him every day and bullied him mercilessly.'