Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  'She is fighting for the rights of the people and she knows too much about him. He will try to kill her someday; she must be protected.'

  'How can we protect her?' said Johnny Tambourine.

  'She is living in Meadowlands. You can watch her house. If they are going to get her they will come to the house. They will not do anything in public, except maybe in a crowd. If she is in a crowd at a protest or maybe at an ANC meeting, you must-be near her, you must watch the people around her, that is when they will try to get her!' Juicey Fruit Mambo put his hand into his pocket and withdrew a wad of banknotes held together with a rubber band. 'Here is two hundred pounds, it is all the money I have.'

  Two hundred pounds was nearly four years' salary for the average black working man and it represented a fortune. In fact it was everything in cash money Juicey Fruit Mambo owned, his entire retirement fund put together one note at a time.

  Johnny Tambourine removed the rubber band and counted off sixty single one-pound notes. He handed ten to each of the boys and put ten into his own pocket. 'Expenses! Ten pounds each for expenses, Bra,' he said, being practical. 'You do not have to pay us, but there will be expenses.' He held up the remaining pound notes. 'We will need a gun and some ammo.' He returned the rubber band to the roll and handed what remained of the stash back to Juicey Fruit Mambo. 'We will do this job, we will keep this promise.' They all solemnly shook hands on the deal and arranged to meet at Tandia's house in Meadowlands the following Monday evening when Juicey Fruit Mambo would drive Tandia home and reveal his protection plan to her and reacquaint her with the four boys.

  It was nearly one o'clock by the time Juicey Fruit Mambo had finished polishing the Packard. People had been passing all morning and his curiosity had grown. The township police station was no more than a fifteen-minute walk from Madam Flame Flo's house and Juicey Fruit Mambo enjoyed the stroll in the sun. It was one of those marvellous high veld late summer days when the air is polished clean and sits warm on your back and the sky is blue, the colour of a much-washed cotton shirt - though it was the time of year when a storm could build up in minutes. Seemingly from nowhere the big cumulus nimbus clouds would build in the late afternoon. If you went indoors for a moment you'd sense from the change of light that something had happened and then when, minutes later, you came out again, there were the towering castles of grey tinged with white, real estate for Gods and frightening giants to live in. Rain would come down in torrents. First a sharp 'ting!' like a pellet on the iron roof, then half a dozen more and the preliminaries were over; down it came, crashing, so you couldn't hear yourself speak, filling the gutters and flooding the dirt roads, each drop heavy with malice, washing away the red topsoil and generally behaving badly. Then, as suddenly, it would stop, leaving the whole place polished in the bright evening sun, the sky even bluer than before. That was a high veld rain storm for you, full of braggadocio but not very big in the long-term department.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo was surprised at the size of the crowd as he moved down Seeiso Street towards the police station at the top end of the township. Everywhere people were singing and dancing and shouting 'Izwe Lethu!', raising their arms in the thumbs-up salute and generally having an excellent demonstration. If you wanted a peaceful demonstration with a bit of class you couldn't have asked for a better one. People were carrying placards, neatly printed by schoolchildren. You could see everyone had been up late by lamplight the previous night, parents exclaiming in astonishment at the work of their kids, who had made placards not just protesting against the pass laws - when you had a good demonstration going there wasn't much point in reserving it for just one thing when there were so many inequalities available. Placards covered the whole gamut of protest: Down with Bantu Education. We want BETTER homes, Free Education, Equal Work for Equal Pay, Down with Unjust Laws! We want Freedom of Speech, Down with Removal of People! Down with Bosses, Freedom for All, Let our leaders Speak of Freedom now! Down with Passes, Passes must go! Passes put people in gaol. Pass laws Break Family Life. Pass laws are Enemy No I of the People. Juicey Fruit Mambo observed that the 'down with' posters were the most popular.

  The demonstration was unusual for another reason; no police with leashed Alsatian dogs walked among the crowd. In fact, not a policeman, black or white, was to be seen anywhere on the African side of the high-security fence which surrounded the squat red police station building. It was not until Juicey Fruit Mambo broke through to the front that he saw the two Saracen armoured vehicles with machine guns mounted on their turrets. Here the police station was surrounded by policemen carrying sten guns and an occasional rifle; there looked to be about two-hundred-and-fifty or so white constables, although there may have been others inside. Some were dressed in ordinary everyday police uniform while others wore the not-yet familiar combat fatigues and soft cloth caps which gave them the look of German Panzer troops. These were obviously the police recruited overnight from outside the area in anticipation of trouble in the township; they looked young and inexperienced. Most of the police were chatting, smoking, and watching the crowd. They carried belts of ammunition around their shoulders and you could just see they thought they looked tough. It was obvious they'd decided the crowd was peaceful and that nothing unforeseen was about to occur.

  Near the gate on the right leading into the police station compound was an area of no-man's-land about ten yards wide. Every once in a while, to the cheering of the crowd, a young man would run into the clearing, place his pass on the ground and set it alight. This was sheer bravado; the PAC instruction was for the men to leave their passes at home and offer themselves up for arrest as not having their passes on them, an offence which led to imprisonment. They were to stand with hands held out, waiting for the police to walk over and handcuff them and take them away. But by the time Juicey Fruit Mambo arrived, too many people had been arrested this way and the police were simply ignoring the gestures and even the foolhardy burning.

  After each such burning a white police sergeant with a blond crew cut would pick up a megaphone and say, 'That's all right, bum away, man! We have your pitcher on our camera and we will get you another time. Without a pass we will find you because, man, you going nowhere, no job, no place to live, you a nobody!' The crowd would laugh in response to this warning and even the police sergeant seemed to, be enjoying himself.

  But he was right of course, and the crowd grew less enthusiastic about destroying the one document that at least allowed them to stay in the township and work. The peaceful demonstration was beginning to fizzle a bit, though everyone seemed happy enough. Overhead the planes circled and every once in a while a Sabre jet would dive, coming in low over the crowd, the ground trembling with the shock waves it made, but it had the opposite effect to that intended and seemed to add to the carnival effect of the demonstration. The people remained unafraid. The big bad wolf had huffed and puffed to no avail. Everyone was a bit pleased with themselves; the point had been made and nearly five thousand people had turned up in a township that never protested. It was a show of strength, some claimed, far more significant than that shown in Langa or even Evaton, where a crowd of twenty thousand people had been dispersed earlier in the day when the same Sabre jets and Harvard bombers dived menacingly low over them. 'Those Evaton people scare easy, man! There will be no more peaceful townships, the government has been warned!' people were saying to each other as they prepared to go home for a late lunch.

  It was about half past one when an old man, using a long smooth stick to lean on, hobbled into the clearing in front of the police station. He was diminutive and so old and poorly dressed that many of the people started to laugh. He approached the gate, nearer to the police station than most of the pass burners had ventured and, in the manner of very old people, he came to a slow halt and turned stiffly, looking over his shoulder at the crowd. Then he took his pass from a threadbare coat which hung well below his knees and slowly brought it up so that eventually he held it aloft, above hi
s shoulders.

  Juicey Fruit watched fascinated. The old man must have been in his eighties, and he had a scrawny tuft of white beard and snowy white hair. He looked like a country person, his clothes clean though in rags and his body bent from the sort of work a man does in the fields or walking all his life behind a plough, his bones welded stiff by arthritis and the years of sleeping hard on a grass mat. Now the old man lowered himself into a crouched position, leaning heavily on the stick. He placed his pass on the ground and then the stick; and, taking a box of safety matches from his coat pocket, with trembling hands he tried to set his passbook alight.

  The crowd were enchanted by the sight and were cheering and chanting 'Afrika!', showing the thumbs-up sign and shouting 'Izwe Lethu' A small group near the fence on the left of the police station, where a couple more Saracens were parked, their machine guns trained on the crowd, started to sing NKosi Sikelela i' Afrika.

  But, as so often happens with gestures, the old man's hands trembled too much or the breeze which had suddenly risen was too strong, for he was unable to light the document. Juicey Fruit Mambo, observing his predicament, rushed forward and bent down beside him.

  'You are brave as a lion, my father. You have the courage of a bull elephant, but your hands are old, I will help you. Give me your pass and I will add it to my own and together we will light the fire which will show the white devils our contempt!'

  Juicey Fruit Mambo took his passbook from the inside pocket of his jacket and, picking up the old man's grubby pass, he helped him back to his feet. Then he stooped to pick up the stick. It was of a dark wood and smooth as satin to the touch. This is a stick which was a very good friend to this old man, he thought, and turned the stick around so that the more pointed end reached his shoulder. 'We will hold this burning of our passbooks up to the heavens, my father.' The old man barely came to Juicey Fruit Mambo's waist as the huge Zulu punched a hole through the passes so they rested on the end of the beautiful old stick.

  The crowd were showing their delight at the sight of the huge black man, with his front teeth missing and the two pointed gold incisors flashing in his mouth, and the ragged little man. It was a metaphor not lost on them; the age and endurance of Africa taken together with the hugeness and strength of the African people. At that moment they knew they could win. If it took a hundred or even a thousand years they would win. The roar from the crowd was becoming deafening.

  The mood of the white men guarding the police station changed and they hastily stubbed out their cigarettes and held their sten guns at the ready, releasing the safety locks. The machine guns fixed to the turrets of the Saracens arced over the crowd in a silent warning. There was nothing except the increased noise level to suggest the crowd was getting out of control; the two kaffirs in front burning their passes seemed to have captured its imagination. The big guy with the bald head in the well-tailored suit, he must be somebody important, a PAC organizer or something. The sergeant who'd been on the megaphone entered the police station and in an immortal statement not intended in the least to be funny, reported to Lieutenant Geldenhuis, 'Sir, the natives are becoming restless. Better you come and speak to them. They are expecting someone from Pretoria, a senior person. Is someone coming?'

  Jannie Geldenhuis finished the last of his coffee before rising and walking out of the station. He was pretty sure that the crowd was under control, there were none of the usual signs that political agitators were working them up. No stones had been thrown and few among the crowd even carried sticks. He was anxious to keep the status quo; he didn't want it to appear on his record that the quietest township on the Rand had erupted into chaos almost immediately it had come under his control.

  In fact, he'd been unhappy about the extra recruits and the presence of the Saracens. These new men were raw, not accustomed to crowd control. It was the usual overkill by the people in Pretoria. The last thing he wanted was a senior officer from Pretoria trying to take over. He removed his revolver from his holder and slipped off the catch, more as a gesture to his own men than as an intended threat to the crowd.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo produced his zippo lighter and, removing the top, he poured a little lighter fluid on the passbooks. Then he replaced the top and, activating the lighter, held it carefully to a corner of the passbooks, waiting until he was sure they were well alight. Then he lofted them high into the air above him to the delight of the crowd. 'Look, my father, your gesture is not wasted, the people, all the people they salute and respect you,' he shouted down to the old man.

  At this precise moment Geldenhuis stepped out of the police station. He would later replay in his mind what had happened, but in truth he was never quite sure. Something in his brain snapped and he was suddenly standing naked and back in the pink room at Bluey Jay with a screaming Tandia crouched over the pink satin bed in front of him. Blood ran from his penis and he was in terrible pain. The door into the room crashed down and a huge, snarling black man with two gold incisor teeth, his eyes popping with madness and his great hands stretched out to reach for his neck, was coming towards him. He reached for his police revolver on the carpet, knowing he was about to be killed. The explosion roared in his head as he fired in a crouched position. The firing seemed to go on and on ana when the mist cleared in front of his eyes the crowd was fleeing and bodies lay everywhere. A machine gun from one of the Saracens was still raking the bodies lying in the dust. They jerked, animated by the impact of the automatic fire as the hot ballistic teeth ripped into them. Some black people sat in the dirt, still alive, screaming from their wounds. One huge woman held her hands cupped in her lap; they were filled with her own intestines. She didn't scream; her shoulders shook as she sobbed, a small private sobbing ceremony for the death enveloping her in the hot afternoon sun.

  Juicey Fruit Mambo lay face down, his body covering the old man's. Part of his head had been tom away by a dumdum bullet which would have killed him instantly. There was a stir, as though miraculously the huge black man still moved; then the ancient little man rose from under him and brushed the dirt from his ragged coat. With one hand held to his back, he stooped to pick up the stick which had fallen from Juicey Fruit Mambo's grasp; the passbooks still burned and he brushed them off the end of the stick where they continued to bum, a tiny sacrificial fire. Then he rested the stick on Juicey Fruit Mambo's heart, holding it upright. 'I invite your spirit to enter the sacred stick,' he said quietly. 'Come, I will take you home.' Then he stood upright again facing the Sharpeville police station. Slowly, his neck stiff as a turkey cock, his rheumy eyes passed along the line of white policemen as he raised his clenched fist into the air, his thin reed-like voice cut through the silence. 'Lumukanda ehla! Come back, Lumukanda!' And the white men who stood wrapped in the silence of their slaughter, their guns still smoking, knew something had happened, something had changed in Africa for ever.

  It was quarter to two on a cloudless late summer day in the once peaceful township of Sharpeville. The world would never be the same again. Somojo, the greatest of all the African witchdoctors, leaning heavily on the spirit stick which carried Juicey Fruit Mambo back to his shadows, hobbled away, picking his way through the dead bodies, most of which had been shot in the back. Around the old man's neck hung a tiny leather bag. He could feel the comforting thump of it against his chest cavity as the ancient gold coin within it knocked against him. He spoke to the stick in his hand. 'You have not died in vain, spirit of a brave man, I have called and it is time! It is time for Lumukanda, the child of the morning star, to return.'

  Somojo the Swazi, the greatest of all the living witchdoctors, made this promise to Juicey Fruit Mambo.

  Later that afternoon, when they'd loaded the sixty-nine dead into the back of two trucks for the mortuary, holding them by the arms and legs and swinging them, then letting them go so they landed on an awkward pile of arms and legs and blood-soaked torsos, a thunderstorm struck. The usual thing: quick as anything, big clouds arriving out
of nowhere, a typical late summer high veld storm. It did what such a storm always does; rushed in, a fearful conniption of water, wind and muddy fuss. When it was over, all the blood which had soaked into the hard ground in front of the Sharpeville police station had been washed away.

  That night the sky was more beautiful than usual with the stars so close you could almost reach up and touch them. This was unusual; the soft coal the people bum in their cooking fires in the townships mists the evening sky with smog which blocks out all but the most determined stars. But the rain had somehow washed the sky clean and the stars above Meadowlands were as bright as they are in the bush. Johnny Tambourine, Too Many Fingers Bembi, Flyspeck Mendoza and Dog Poep Ismali waited outside Tandia's house for Juicey Fruit Mambo to bring her home in the Packard. Too Many Fingers Bembi suddenly pointed upwards, 'Look! Over there, a falling star!' he shouted excitedly.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Peekay was utterly devastated by the news of Sharpeville. For him it was the end of hope and the beginning of a deep fear that insanity was going to win in the beloved country. The killing fields had come back to South Africa; hostilities had broken out again in the three hundred year war based on greed, fear and revenge.

  Peekay found himself facing a terrible moral dilemma. A liberal South African who believed in justice, a sense' of fairness and the rights of every man, woman and child to an equal place in a society based on freedom of opportunity - in the post-Sharpeville South Africa it could only be thought of as the ridiculous credo of a hopeless dreamer.

  The black people had had enough, and Peekay's love for them was swept away in the torrent of hurt, anger and betrayal they felt. Now they demanded the right to avenge the injustice and to play by the same cynical rules of vengeance as those used against them.

  On the day following the massacre, Peekay accompanied a distraught Tandia to the mortuary near Sharpeville. When they arrived hundreds of people were waiting around the squat red-brick building to claim their dead. They were mostly women, their eyes swollen from weeping, some with their men and rather more with small, runny-nosed children clutching at their skirts.