Walking behind both women in a simple white crepe evening dress and a satin stole came Tandia Patel. It was immediately apparent to the black crowd that she was extraordinarily beautiful.
The Bantu crowd began to clap, drumming their feet on the wooden floor of the stands so that the sound had the resonance of a hundred drum rolls. The white side rose to their feet, anxious to see what was happening, and thirty thousand eyes trained on the three women crossing towards the ringside seats.
'Jesus, ousis! We got the spotlight!' Madam Flame said in alarm.
Mama Tequila chuckled, her giant breasts rolling like twin mountains in an earthquake. 'Honey, jes keep yoh head high, what we got now we came here to get! She stopped and turned, waiting for Tandia to catch up to her: 'You walk tall now, sugar, this your fight too, baby!' Mama Tequila was in her full American mode and loving every moment.
Tandia was quite certain she was about to die. She was terrified that Gideon Mandoma might be somewhere looking out at her and that he would not approve. Her fear of disobeying Mama Tequila fought with her natural modesty. She was Mandoma's woman now and a law student, but the huge old whore still completely dominated her. Though Gideon and she were an item, she saw almost nothing of him; during the university vacations she was expected to work at Bluey Jay and it was only when the brothel closed down after Christmas and she came with Mama Tequila up to the Rand to stay with Madam Flame Flo that they could be together. Madam Flame Flo had moved from Sophiatown to Meadowlands and Tandia had to rely on Juicey Fruit Mambo to drive her to see Gideon.
Their relationship was still very tentative and mostly based on politics. She hadn't even slept with him. Once when he'd brought up the subject she'd been terrified but had agreed, though there hadn't been a place they could do it. She knew she must, that to consolidate the relationship it was necessary, but she told herself they'd do it after she graduated at law, when she came to live in Johannesburg.
For the black crowd the three glittering women had added a dimension of class to the day's proceedings. They could savour in advance the pleasure they'd get from relating, perhaps twenty years hence, the story of how they'd been present at the two greatest fights in history. Now they could include in the long preliminary the two abaFazi who shone like the sun on water and the beautiful young one.
Hymie and Peekay, unseen by the crowd, were seated in the enclosed members' stand watching the crowd. Jackson had made a great fuss of being photographed entering through the gate for blacks only, pointing to the sign with one hand and pinching his nose in disgust with the other, the whites of his eyes showing in mock horror.
'Christ, Peekay, look at that!' Hymie exclaimed suddenly. He passed his binoculars to Peekay. 'Get a deck of the two women coming towards us on the black side!'
Peekay, looking through the glasses, started to grin immediately. 'She's wonderful! Oh, Hymie, they're sensational. I wonder who they are? You don't suppose they're Jackson supporters do you?'
Peekay suddenly let out a gasp followed by the short, sharp expletive. 'Shit!'
Hymie's grin changed to sudden alarm. 'What is it? Here, let me see,' he said, reaching for the glasses. He now saw the third woman who had caught Peekay's attention.
He focused on Tandia. She was absolutely ravishing. Her green eyes set into a classically proportioned honey-coloured face seemed to be looking directly at him through thick black lashes. Her slightly parted lips gave her a rather bewildered, totally ingenuous expression.
Hymie lowered the binoculars and turned to look at Peekay, who sat with his chin cupped in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He wore a slightly stunned expression. 'Shit no, Peekay!' he whispered. 'Not now, not ever! For Christ's sake, she's coloured!'
Peekay gave Hymie a wry grin. 'Maybe she's American? I could go and live in America?'
Hymie laughed. 'Forget it Peekay, we've got a fight on our hands. If she's Jackson's girl you're going to have to knock him over first. Come on, it's time to see Gideon. You promised him and I promised Mr Nguni, no matter how busy I was, I'd personally make sure you'd be there to wish Gideon good luck.'
In fact, Hymie had been as busy as a one-armed wallpaper hanger and had found himself doing just about everything leading up to the title fight. From the beginning when they'd had the kerfuffle about segregating Ellis Park and the debacle over the toilets, seating had been the major problem. Right up to the end, even though half the ringside seats had been sold to black people, the trustees of Ellis Park were still demanding that they be reserved exclusively for whites. When this wouldn't wash, they'd demanded an extra sixty seats for white patrons.
In a gesture of appeasement, Hymie had managed to get a travelling theatrical company to hire him a dozen wooden stage units, designed to build an outdoor stage. The trustee seats were placed on these, affording them a grand, if not intimate, ringside viewing platform. Hymie's gesture was lost on the furious trustees who, to a man, hated him for sticking up for the rights of the 'coons'.
One more seating problem occurred on the morning of the fight. O'Rourke, Jackson's manager, had approached Hymie, pointing out that his party hadn't been allocated seats together and demanding that something be done about it.
Jake 'Spoonbill' Jackson's entourage consisted of twelve people. Three of them would be in his corner but the remainder, five black Americans and four white, were not prepared to be separated along racial lines. Hymie pointed out that he had no choice, that the law required the separation, but that he'd placed them in the front row on the side of the ring divided by the rope. In effect, they were all in the same row with only a two-inch rope dividing the five blacks from the four white Americans.
'It's the principle, me boy!' O'Rourke demanded in a sanctimonious voice. 'It may be a bit of a rope to you, but it's a wall as high as Everest itself to me and the boys. We do come from the land of the free you know!' O'Rourke had gone to some pains to avoid Hymie during the week the Jackson party had been in town. The snub had started at the airport where Hymie, caught up in an emergency, sent Solly Goldman to welcome him and transport the entourage from Jan Smuts airport to a magnificent old mansion set on fifteen acres of land which he'd staffed and provisioned fully as their training camp.
O'Rourke had refused to take Hymie's call when later he'd phoned to welcome him to South Africa. 'Tell him, if he can't come to the airport to welcome us, I can't come to the telephone to talk to him,' was the message carried back to Hymie by one of Jackson's people. Hymie grinned, recalling the non-existent welcome they'd received when they'd arrived in New York for the first title fight.
O'Rourke and Jackson had made themselves freely available to the press. Jackson, concentrating on Peekay, claiming there were no more surprises in the white man's limited attack, prophesied that the fight would end in a knock-out in the seventh, the same round Geldenhuis had forecast for Mandoma. He was unaware of the special relationship Peekay enjoyed with black fight fans and it was clear that most of his name calling was predictably meant to win the sympathy of South Africa's black people.
On the other hand, O'Rourke took every opportunity to be critical of just about everything. His first act had been to fire the entire black staff working at the training camp, claiming they were spies placed by Hymie. Now, on the final morning, he was making a fuss about the seating arrangements and, in the process, hugely enjoying Hymie's discomfort.
Hymie phoned General Van Breeden and requested permission for the Americans to be seated in any order they wished on either side of the rope. Van Breeden chuckled into the phone. 'You know something, Hymie? Sometimes I think we're all going crazy! Ja man, no problems. Wait, I'll get Captain McClymont to fix it with the senior police officer in charge of ringside crowd control.'
Hymie waited as the general summoned McClymont on his office intercom and then came back on the phone. 'You can put a negro on either side of me if you like.' He chuckled again. 'Pretoria already think I'
ve sold out to the kaffirs by allowing them to see the fight in the first place.'
Half an hour before the Geldenhuis versus Mandoma fight the ringside seats were full. The huge ground was packed to the heavens and though it was still light, the ring lights had been turned on, casting a phosphorescent glow some twenty feet beyond the ring.
Mr Nguni's concern to have Peekay visit Gideon Mandoma before the fight was a very real one. Two days before the fight, Gideon had suddenly insisted he must go to Zululand, to his home in one of the many hills behind the Tugela River. He wished to go alone, accompanied only by a driver from his own clan.
When Mr Nguni informed Solly Goldman of Gideon's departure he wasn't at all happy. He didn't like to have any fighter he was training out of his sight for the final fortyeight hours, a time which he regarded as psychologically the most important. Nguni had persuaded him that the visit was essential, but privately he was also worried. He knew that, surrounded by his extended family, Gideon might easily lose the razor-edge concentration he required as a fighter. He had offered to have Gideon's particular umNgoma, witchdoctor, driven up to Johannesburg to personally attend to him, or even to obtain the services of any of the famous sangoma who operated in Soweto.
Gideon's reply had been simple. 'He is too old to leave his fireplace, but he is the one who can see me with his heart.'
Mr Nguni understood perfectly. What Gideon was saying in effect was that not only was the umNgoma he wished to see able to cast the necessary spells, but there existed an intimate relationship between them as well.
Relationships and trust in a time of battle are enormously important to the Zulu warrior, who has less a fear of dying than of letting down his brother who fights valiantly at his side to protect him. In exactly the same way, it was crucial to Gideon to have Peekay with him just before he entered the ring against Geldenhuis.
Peekay entered Gideon's dressing room a quarter of an hour before the fight was due to start. 'I see you, Gideon,' he said quietly as he walked in.
Gideon looked up and smiled his brilliant white smile, extending his already bandaged hand and greeting Peekay in the double-fisted African handshake. 'I see you, Peekay,' he said shyly.
'The drought is not yet broken in the Tugela?' Peekay asked. He too spoke in a reserved way, as though it had been some time since they'd met, even though he'd seen Gideon just two days previously.
'It is very, very bad, Peekay, the cattle are dying, there is no more grass.'
'And the river? The river is holding?'
'Only pools. The cattle must walk far and they are weak.' The reason for Peekay's formal greeting was simple enough. In Zulu terms Gideon had been away, not so much on a journey as on a transformation. In tribal eyes he was changed. He'd returned a somewhat different person after being with his shadows and the shadows of his tribal ancestors. These were still with him, his guardian angels; they would protect him during the fight, and due respect must be shown to them. By greeting him traditionally Peekay was acknowledging Gideon's changed state of being and was formally acknowledging and honouring the presence of his shadows.
After a while Gideon smiled, signalling his preparedness to get down to a normal conversation. Peekay returned his smile and the two boxers reached out and touched hands shyly with the tips of their fingers, each lightly brushing the inside of the other's palm.
'I have brought you something, Gideon,' Peekay said softly. 'You must close your eyes.' Peekay took the gold chain with the lion's tooth from around his neck and looped it over the black boxer's head so that it joined its twin already around his neck. 'Your strength has served me well, my brother; now it must return to you and stay with you forever. It is your manhood and your destiny as foretold to you by your umNgoma.'
Immediately the chain with the lion's tooth fell over his neck, Gideon knew it was the other half of the charm which spelled his coming to manhood. The bandaged fingers of his right hand reached up to hold the tooth and when he opened his eyes they were filled with emotion.
'Haya, haya!' he said, shaking his head, bewildered at Peekay's generosity. He could say no more. Peekay had guessed correctly; the witchdoctor who had attended him had questioned the breaking of his strength, the dividing of his manhood spell. He would have cast spells and made potions to compensate for the missing charm. Now, moments before the fight with Geldenhuis, Peekay had made him whole by returning it to him and had used the correct words in his presentation and by doing so, made it possible for him to accept the return of a gift he had once given himself.
'I see you with my heart, Peekay,' he said at last, these awesomely personal words sealing the acceptance.
'It has always been yours, Gideon. It was only yayinto yernilingo, a magical loan. I needed it for the strength it gave me to get to the world title; now it must return to make your strength complete.' Peekay hesitated for a moment before adding, 'My okumiselwe khona, my destiny, is foretold; I must go with the snake and not with lion. The snake is my talisman as the lion is yours.'
Gideon looked into Peekay's eyes. 'This snake, it is uMamba, the black one?'
Peekay nodded and Gideon gave a low whistle. 'This iNyolal, it is very powerful. The lion rips and tears to make a kill but its death-making is not certain and often the prey will break free. But uMamba strikes near the heart; the poison works slowly but there is no escape, death is certain.'
Peekay could see that his new talisman made perfect sense to Gideon. Apart from his courage, Peekay was not the lion type in the ring. This new talisman his shadows had found for him was perfect and, like the return of his own, a wonderful omen for the fight.
'You will be very powerful tonight, Gideon.' Peekay grinned. 'The iBhunu, the Boer, will be in for a big surprise. You have doubled your power. Before was enough to beat Jannie Geldenhuis; now you are truly a man who goes with his shadows into the ring and is invincible!'
'Haya, haya, Peekay, I hear you. But Geldenhuis will not come easy, he has great hate.'
'And your hate?'
'It is different, it is an old hate passed on to me by my shadows; it cannot go away but it does not feed on raw meat like the amaBhunu.'
Geldenhuis had never trained harder for a fight. He was superbly fit and confident, and had every reason to be. On paper, the fights he'd had leading up to this contest were of a somewhat better quality to those fought by Mandoma. He knew this would hold him in good stead against the black man, whom he hoped had been lured into a false sense of his own ability by a string of comparatively easy wins against fairly mediocre opponents. It rankled him enormously that Gideon was placed above him in the world rankings on the basis of having defeated Soap Dish Jurez, the Cuban, the only really classy fight the kaffir had had in a year.
The Special Branch had given him three months on light duties, which, in effect, meant full-time training. Two of his sparring partners were young white fighters on their way up, both middleweights, so he could get used to a physically stronger, harder punching opponent like Gideon Mandoma. His third sparring partner was a young Zulu who fought a lot like Gideon. Of the three sparring partners the young Zulu was the least skilled but the toughest, a non-stop battler whose fighting name was the Black Tornado.
While Geldenhuis sparred in the normal way with the two white middleweights, the black fighter was used to sharpen the policeman's aggression. Geldenhutis would work him over as hard as he could, building up his hate. The young Zulu fighter, though tough as nails, was no match for the policeman's skill in the ring. Geldenhuis would often knock him down; though in the three months the Zulu had endured these hidings, the policeman had been unable to knock him out. Tom Majombi, the Black Tornado's real name, was too proud to simply lie down like any sensible pug when he'd taken enough punishment. Day after day, the black fighter took a terrible pounding at the police lieutenant's hands, and in the final week of training the white boxer's aggression and hate had sharpened to the point wher
e he beat the young African so severely that he started to bleed from his ears. Geldenhuis was ready.
Now, with the entrance of the Afrikaner policeman into the ring, the band struck up Die Stem, the South African National anthem which means 'The Voice'. Geldenhuis stood in the centre of the ring as the fifteen thousand white people sang; the entire audience stood. He'd never fought in front of a crowd even one-fifth as big and he would remember the moment for the remainder of his life. The beautiful words of the anthem reached his soul; at that moment, Jannie Geldenhuis knew what it was to be an Afrikaner, and his pride and joy and love overwhelmed him so that he stood with tears running down his cheeks. He was fighting for more than just a chance to get to Peekay; he was fighting the same fight his ancestors had been fighting for three hundred years. He was fighting to keep his blood pure, he was fighting for the survival of his race. The Zulu would have to kill him to win.
Gideon entered the ring to a tremendous roar from the crowd. He too stood in the centre of the ring while the black anthem NKosi Sikelela i' Afrika, 'God Bless Africa', was played by the band, this time accompanied by fifteen thousand black voices. The white audience, who for the most part had remained seated, was awestruck by the sound. This was an Africa they didn't know, this was a voice they hadn't heard, and it was both chilling and beautiful.
Gideon stood with his gloves raised, turning to the crowd. He too had never boxed to a crowd like this before and he felt great pride in the black people who had come to see him fight. They were giving him a hero's welcome and they made him strong; the black champion of Africa wanted the white title as well. His mind flashed back to the prison cell where Geldenhuis had completely lost his cool when he thought Gideon had broken his hand and he would be denied the fight and thus the opportunity to get to Peekay. Tonight he would be denied that opportunity again; the judges were the same international panel selected to judge the world championship bout. There would be no pigment decisions, the best man would win. Gideon knew that the shadows were with him, even the great Shaka and Dingane. He was fighting for his people, for their dignity and honour and the greatness of their hearts.
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