Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  For your own sake perhaps you should resign now. Later, who knows, it might be useful to have done so?' He replaced the receiver without saying goodbye.

  Tandia called Johnny Tambourine to her office and told him to meet them with an unmarked car from Levy's Carpet Emporium at the usual place. Months previously the four boys, who as tsotsis knew the city drains well, had located a manhole in the centre of the small rear courtyard to the Red building. They entered it and found it led to a main storm-water channel that was almost dry when it wasn't raining and easy to walk along. They'd checked all the manholes out until they'd found one in a quiet back street four city blocks away which they'd marked; another was marked nine blocks away. The four of them, Hymie, Peekay, Tandia and Gideon were the only people at Red to know about the escape route which, except for several practice runs, had never so far been used. A small storage shed was built over the manhole with a permanent covered walkway from the main building to the shed so that they couldn't be observed from the roof of a surrounding building.

  Tandia went through to the tiny cubbyhole which served as Gideon's office and asked him if he'd come through to Peekay's small office. Gideon saw the look of concern on her face and rose immediately, 'What is it, Tandy?'

  'Trouble. Come quick, you may have only minutes. There is a warrant out for your arrest. Geldenhuis!' She was shaking slightly and Gideon could see that she was scared. Tandia quickly outlined Magistrate Coetzee's conversation to Peekay.- 'I've organized a car and we'll use the drain. Johnny Tambourine will be waiting at the manhole in half an hour.'

  'Not we, Tandia. Just Gideon!' Peekay said. Tandia was shocked. 'I must go with him, Peekay!'

  'No! You cut down his chances. If he's caught you're implicated.'

  'He's right, Tandy,' Gideon said.

  'Bullshit! The government have declared war, they're going to ban the ANC, Coetzee told me. If you have to go underground I'm in this fight too!'

  'Tandy, you're more useful where you are. We have to have some people who are clean. We've discussed it, remember?' Gideon said.

  'You can use Peekay. I'm a member of Umkonto. We have to fight, you can't stop me.'

  Gideon spoke slowly. 'I am the head of Umkonto, its chief. You will remain here and you will not come with me, you hear?' It was a different Gideon talking; he was perfectly calm but there was no mistaking the authority in his voice and Tandia actually took a step backwards.

  Her head downcast, looking at her fingernails, she said softly, 'Yes, sir.'

  Peekay looked at his watch. 'You better scram.' He embraced Gideon. 'I see you with my heart, Gideon,' and drew away. 'You two would like a few moments alone, I'm sure.' He walked over to the door and closed it behind him. 'What will you do? Where will you go?' Tandia asked. Gideon smiled. 'We have planned for this moment a long time. I will be in touch, but don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while. You can tell Peekay anything you hear from me, but no one else, not even one of us, not even Umkonto. You understand?'

  Tandia nodded. 'Please Gideon, please let me fight?'

  'I must go,' he said, as though he hadn't heard her. He moved towards the door then paused. 'There will be lots of time and lots of pain. The Boers are going to give us a terrible hiding at first. Your time will come, Tandia.'

  Tandia ran over and kissed him, but Gideon pushed her away. 'No, Tandy, that's over. When we come to the end of this thing, we'll see.'

  'Gideon! I love you,' Tandia cried.

  'Tandia, you, promised you would do my hating for me. I need your hate now. Don't love me, hate far me!' He closed the door and was gone.

  'You Zulu bastard!' Tandia spat at the door. 'You think a woman can't fight!'

  Gideon moved around the country evading detention and addressing young black South Africans who were being recruited to Umkonto we Sizwe. These meetings were known as 'the midnight cadres' because most of them took place in secret after midnight and never involved more than fifty young men and women, selected to attend a freedom lecture with 'General' Mandoma.

  The title of general was an honorarium given to Gideon by his young recruits who spoke of him as 'General Mandoma, the undefeated champion of the world'. It was stirring stuff and with his own charisma and undoubted power with words, Gideon was quickly seen as the head of a terrorist army in the making.

  But Gideon was a general without experience. The ANC had not anticipated guerrilla warfare with the white South African regime, believing right up to the time of Sharpeville that one day soon they would sit around the negotiating table. Gideon had not been given permission to recruit or train and no meaningful retaliatory infrastructure existed. The techniques of urban and rural guerrilla warfare were practically unknown to them. The ANC were strictly amateurs coming up against a hardened and highly experienced paramilitary police force led by the Special Branch whom they knew shot to kill.

  After having been on the run for nearly eight months, Gideon was to be sent to Algeria to learn how to organize guerrilla groups and urban fighting units. The Algerians had offered to train the ANC in the business of fighting a superior and better organized force, all the technique and know-how they had gained fighting the French for their independence.

  Peekay arranged to see Gideon just before his departure. This last meeting, which would follow a typical midnight cadre talk so that there would be no suspicion of Gideon's departure even among his own people, was to take place in a church hall in the heart of Wesselton African Township on the outskirts of Ermelo, a smallish town in the Eastern Transvaal.

  Peekay hadn't seen his friend for nearly two months and, as it was a week into December, among other things he carried with him several Christmas presents, though his most important reason for seeing Gideon was to give him the British passport prepared in Kenya for him. Peekay's visit to Gideon also concerned Tandia. In the aftermath of Sharpeville she had become hopelessly overloaded with work. The South African government was prosecuting the Sharpeville wounded and even members of the families of the dead. Several days before his final meeting with Gideon Peekay had confronted Hymie, questioning his priorities.

  Hymie had. remained very quiet while Peekay talked and Peekay soon realized he'd spoken thoughtlessly. Hymie looked at him steadily. 'Have you any idea what you and Tandia bring into this company in fees every year?'

  'Not really. Look, I'm sorry, Hymie, I spoke out of turn.

  You're right, I guess I don't think about it much, there's so much bloody work to do.'

  'There was a time when money was important to you, Peekay, when you were too conscious of not having it. Now you've gone the other way. Why is it that you can never do anything more or less moderately? Let me tell you how much the two of you earned last month; about sufficient to keep the switchboard operating!'

  'I'm sorry, Hymie, but you know the nature of the work. These people can't pay!'

  Hymie brushed the comment aside. 'I have two talents, old son.' I know how to make money and I reckon I'm a halfdecent sort of a barrister. You appear to only have one: an ability to fight injustice without any thought of material gain. Our other partner, the pretty one, is so preoccupied she wouldn't even bother to eat if we didn't insist on her having a square meal once a day here in the office so we can talk. She thinks a statement is something the police take down, not something we send out. It was great when you were both doing some corporate work, the firm actually made 'a bob or two, enough on several occasions to pay for the electricity and maybe even the stationery and lunches!' Hymie sighed. It was more a quick intake of air than a Sigh, for Hymie never sighed. 'However, that all ended with Sharpeville. No legal firm was ever more aptly named, we have been in the red since the day we opened our doors.' Hymie's monologue was delivered with typical machinegun rapidity and now he slowed down. 'Peekay, altruism costs a great deal; we also serve who only stand around and make money! The fight for freedom in this man's republic is a very expen
sive business; every time you lose a civil case your client has costs awarded against him.'

  Peekay was deeply ashamed and he hugged Hymie, apologizing, 'You know Hymie, I forget sometimes that without your genius I'd probably be a hack lawyer in a small town somewhere, another Don Quixote tilting at windmills, fighting cases for washerwomen.'

  'So what's new? Talking about washerwomen, your clothes…how long is it since you bought a new suit and all the stuff that goes on under it?' Hymie pointed at Peekay's somewhat shabby attire. 'I recall you bought that grey suit at Macey's in New York after the first title fight!' Hymie dressed beautifully. His suits were made by a short, rotund Jewish tailor in Saville Row known as Mr Emms, who believed that with the invention of the belt to replace what he called 'suspenders' the art of tailoring had come to an end. 'You're a successful barrister and you dress like a tramp!'

  Peekay gave Hymie a wry grin. 'Some successful barrister!

  I have a string of noteworthy, even glorious defeats against my name. No barrister ever earned a bigger reputation with a poorer record. Christ, I sometimes wonder what the hell we're trying to do, Hymie? Yesterday, as I was walking back here from court a young guy stopped me. He wasn't any older than Johnny Tambourine; he asked me for a light. "Sorry, I don't smoke," I replied. "That's okay, I don't want a light anyway. I just want to say something to you. My mother, she thinks you are a hero, because you have defended my father. Last night, the police, they came to my house, "Your father is dead," they say, "He committed suicide. He jumped from the fifth-floor window of John Vorster Square, you must come an' fetch his body!" The young guy was suddenly crying, "Fuck you, white man! Why you come to help him? Maybe if you don't come they would have beaten him and put him in Johannesburg Fort, but one day he would have come back to us!" Dammit, Hymie, I feel as though I'm achieving nothing. Pretoria is laughing -at us, that is if they even notice the Jew, the rooinek bastard and the coloured bitch.'

  'The fat Jew!' Hymie corrected.'You're wrong, Peekay. There is a belief in the Jewish faith that in every generation a 'just man' is born, someone who is incorruptible, the perfect innocent. The just man is sent to keep the chosen people on the rails, to prod their consciences and allow no compromises with the faith. By all definitions he's probably a perfect pain in the arse, but the Jews believe that without a just man they would not survive, that the light of Judaism would go out.' He paused. 'That's what we are, the last of the just men in South Africa. If we give up then the light goes out. They must be made to feel remorse.'

  'Ha-bloody-ha! Do you think Geldenhuis feels remorse?

  He thinks of only one thing, vengeance! They're obsessed with blood, bloed reinheid! blood purity. If we are watchdogs of justice they don't hear us yapping at their ankles. I sometimes think Nguni has more influence on the outcome of things than we do.'

  'I've been meaning to talk to you about that, Peekay. Nguni is getting increasingly difficult to handle. He arrives at Angel board meetings pretty sozzled on brandy. He's getting more and more rapacious, he keeps demanding a larger share of the action but isn't prepared to put up any capital. I must say, he seems to have rather a lot of clout with the various quasi government committees.'

  Peekay laughed. 'Hymie, you're beating about the bush.

  What you're saying is that you think Nguni is in the pay of Pretoria. The share we gave him in Angel Sport after the Jackson fight was supposed to be the carrot to keep him close to us. What if he's using his position to spy on us? Tell him to go to buggery!'

  Hymie nodded. 'His share in the firm is what's financing a Soweto bus company he started three years ago without us knowing. Without the income from Angel Sport he'd be up the spout.'

  'Transport? He'd need a government concession for that.'

  'Precisely. It's not the sort of thing they hand out willynilly.' Hymie sighed, 'I'm glad you agree we get rid of him.' He paused momentarily, 'What about his friendship with Tandia?'

  Peekay knew precisely what Hymie meant. Nguni had used the excuse of Gideon's absence to start squiring Tandia, saying that he was responsible for showing her the ways of the African people. Tandia had been happy to go along with him. While she claimed at every opportunity to be unashamedly black, carrying a pass like any other black woman, she was conscious that her looks prevented her from being wholly accepted by the important echelons of black male society. Peekay watched in dismay as she seemed to spend most of her infrequent spare time with Nguni, seeming almost to see him as a father figure.

  Peekay shrugged. 'Tandia's a big girl, she'll understand.'

  'I hope you're right,' Hymie said.

  Peekay knew Hymie too well not to realize what he was saying. He was asking him whether there was something about Tandia he ought to know. He'd shared his doubts about Mr Nguni for this very reason. Peekay knew he was abusing Hymie's trust by not confiding his concern about Tandia to him.

  After Sharpeville, Peekay knew he was besotted with Tandia. It was only by supreme willpower that he could maintain his concentration in court when the going grew tedious. Sometimes he would sneak into her courtroom and sit in the gallery and listen to her. Tandia in a courtroom became transformed; she moved around in a black gown as though it was the costume of a queen, elegant and her gestures beautiful to watch. Her mind was as sharp as a whiplash and she commanded great respect from men who would have spit on her rather than light her cigarette outside the courtroom.

  Peekay would wake in the morning his whole mind filled with her. He'd lie still, hardly daring to breath, so that the notion of her lying in his arms remained undisturbed. At night his last thoughts would be of her and often he would find that his cheeks were wet with tears he hadn't even felt. Peekay was profoundly in love and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Tandia sensed his feelings towards her and they filled her with fear. Her emotional defences where infinitely greater than Peekay's, besides which the thought of loving him was so fraught with danger and self-destruction that her mind couldn't entertain an idea so positively futile. She had believed herself in love with Gideon but over the weeks he'd been away from her, while she worried enormously for his safety, she found that she missed him less and less emotionally. She had decided that love for a man was something she could never have, that it had been eliminated from her psyche, that her brutalized past had branded her, searing the tenderness and love in her and leaving only scar tissue. In addition, the idea of sex with a white man, any white man, filled her with revulsion.

  Nevertheless, sometimes when she looked at Peekay and he was unaware of her, she felt a strange compulsion to touch him. He was so strong and so vulnerable at the same time. His was a kind of innocence she couldn't believe possible in a human being. Tandia didn't know whether she wanted to shake him or hold him, but she knew he was different, different to any person she'd known - and that the difference was extraordinarily attractive while at the same time infuriating.

  Peekay was in a high old mess with nobody to turn to, not even Hymie, who'd warned him off on the very first day they'd seen Tandia crossing the football stadium towards the boxing ring in the centre of Ellis Park.

  Peekay's love for Tandia and his knowledge of Geldenhuis's letter tore at him remorselessly. He even thought to confront Tandia and tell her that Geldenhuis had shown him her signature on the statement and that he didn't care, that it didn't make the slightest difference. But, if he was mistaken, if there was some other explanation, his suspicion was such a blatant sign of mistrust in her that she would have every right to despise him for it, a thought he couldn't bear.

  Suspicion feeds upon itself like a cancer and Tandia's relationship with Magistrate Coetzee now seemed to take on a sinister new meaning for Peekay. He found himself watching her with Coetzee and with Mr Nguni, as much as he was. privy to either of these relationships. He became confused, not knowing whether he did so from jealousy or to spy on her. Either way he hated himself, hated what it w
as doing to him.

  Doc had said, 'Every fact has two sides, it depends always from what side you are coming!' Peekay knew this to be true. Looked at from one side, Tandia had always shown the utmost dedication to the cause of justice for the black people and had been totally loyal to him and Hymie, while Magistrate Coetzee had proved a just and marvellous mentor.

  Peekay was too good a lawyer not to examine the second interpretation, the facts seen from the opposite perspective. These could also be made to make almost perfect sense if you thought of it as a clever, patient and determined police operation designed, in the end, to trap Hymie, Gideon and himself and bring about their destruction.

  But, much as he respected Geldenhuis, he couldn't bring himself to believe that the young police captain (Geldenhuis received promotion after Sharpeville) had the necessary clout to put something like this into place on his own. He thought about Klaasens, but quickly dismissed him too; the publicity the police colonel had received at the Tom Majombi murder trial would have made him too high on the suspect list. Any half-competent lawyer, using revenge as the true motive for their capture, would leave the police case open to ridicule in ten minutes in front of the bench.

  And then, on the way to Wesselton township to see Gideon and to bid him farewell, driving along a stretch of road between Bethal and Ermelo, it struck Peekay. General Van Breeden, Police Commissioner for Johannesburg. He was the missing ingredient!

  Almost from their first day back home Van Breeden had been involved with them. He'd been the influence behind allowing Ellis Park to be the venue for the fight and it had been his interference which had allowed an equal black audience to attend. Over the years the likeable and capable police commissioner had maintained a friendly relationship with both of them, though more particularly with Hymie, who maintained an unlisted telephone in his home where the two men could contact each other at any time.