Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Tandia, Mr Nguni, Magistrate Coetzee and Van Breeden, with Geldenhuis playing the overt role of hunter and later to distract attention from the others; these four made an almost perfect flip-side of the coin.

  'Jesus! Stop it Peekay,, he commanded himself. South Africa had become such a place of hate, suspicion and fear that his imagination was running away from him. Why was it that the most demented, the most evil scenario always seemed to be the most likely? People were always seeing a conspiracy where none existed, making connections which were dubious to say the least. He spent half his life in court disproving conjecture. The police prosecutors could see connections which were so completely tenuous as to be absurd, yet they'd often spend days building on them, heaping them with innuendo and often helping them along with false witness. He was indulging in the behaviour of a Geldenhuis, the Special Branch mentalities which believed everyone was guilty until proven innocent.

  It all hinged on the original confession by Tandia to being a prostitute. Peekay decided to ask Gideon whether Tandia had ever talked to him about it. He thought it was unlikely, but people in love will often clear the emotional deck; it was too important not to try.

  It would be tricky trying to maintain his loyalty to both Gideon and Tandia and not to send Gideon away disenchanted or to provoke him to an emotional defence of his woman. But Peekay was desperate for some sort of reassurance and he felt he had to try. He told himself there were other reasons as well. Because it had been a natural assumption after Gideon's escape that Tandia would be watched by the Special Branch it had been suggested that he make no attempt to contact her. But love takes enormous and often foolish chances and Peekay didn't know whether Gideon had tried to see her despite this warning. Tandia also knew about Gideon's departure to Algeria. Perhaps Gideon himself was in terrible danger and should be warned. If Geldenhuis knew of his imminent departure, he would strike immediately, pulling out all stops to find him, issuing a border and airport alert and sealing off the borders to South Africa with extra men and helicopters.

  In actual fact, two of the half-dozen Special Branch black men delegated to watch Tandia since Gideon's disappearance had been hospitalized by unseen assailants, believed to be tsotsis. In each case robbery had been assumed to be the motive, and as the muggings had taken place several miles from where Tandia lived and when the men had been off duty, it was assumed by Geldenhuis to be a coincidence, though nonetheless one to watch carefully. Peekay noted this as yet another contradiction to Tandia's guilt. If Johnny Tambourine and his boys were active, surely this was another sign of her innocence?

  Approaching Ermelo and Wesselton township, Peekay stopped to pick up a. small barefooted kid of no more than twelve who'd been waiting by arrangement on a lonely strip of road outside the town. The small, serious-faced boy, who wore only a pair of ragged khaki shorts, looked at him a little fearfully from the side of the road as he responded shyly to the password Peekay gave him, his eyes showing big in the bright moonlight as Peekay asked him his name.

  'It is Simon, sir,' he answered proudly in English. Peekay later learned from Simon's father that his son had been waiting for him beside the road for eleven hours and had gone without supper. Simon climbed into the front of the car and seated himself on the edge of the seat, his back straight as a ram-rod with both his hands holding onto the dashboard. He gave Peekay shy directions to a place under a willow tree beside a small river, really more a spruit, where he could conceal his car. From there they walked the mile or so into the dark township.

  General Mandoma, the undefeated champion of the world, had just risen to speak and the kids, some no more than fifteen, rose to their feet chanting, 'General! General! General!' as he stood ready to address them. He saw Peekay enter and silently motioned him to sit at one of two vacant chairs set at the back of the room. Gideon held his hand up for silence and when they'd quietened down and seated themselves, sitting cross-legged on the floor, he opened up with a huge smile. A Gideon Mandoma smile was something to see; it had the effect of the sun coming from behind a cloud and it immediately transferred to the people around him, so that the kids returned his smile spontaneously, leaning forward, drawn impulsively towards him.

  Hymie called Gideon's smile his secret weapon. 'If they ever catch you, Gideon, our defence will be a piece of cake. We'll say nothing and simply have you smile at the jury once every hour!'

  Now Gideon began, his expression one of mock seriousness. 'Yes, I am a general, that is true. The white authorities already accept this, they call me, "The General Nuisance"!' The smile came again and, coupled with this simple corny quip, it brought the house down. Gideon could count on another fifty soldiers joining 'The Spear'.

  Now his face grew serious. 'I am a general whose army is made 'up of barefooted amateurs. My automatic weapons are flick knives and sharpened bicycle spokes, my artillery is stones and, in a battle charge, my bayonets are sharpened sticks!' He paused, looking at his audience. 'But we will learn, my brothers! We will learn my sisters! We will sharpen your teeth, comrades, and make your hands familiar with the explosion 'plastic' and we will show you how to make a bomb from an old alarm clock and stuff found on this town's junk heap and how a beer bottle filled with paraffin and an old rag can be your hand grenades against the police.'

  There was a murmur of excitement around the room. Gideon changed tack suddenly. 'This unlikely force, this barefoot army of freedom, it can run partly on courage but it also needs money. We are not rich, we do not have taxes and goldmines to finance our fight, but we will ask the people to give.' He paused. 'The white people!' Mouths fell open in surprise and a murmur rose from the small crowd. 'There are those amongst you who are already skilled at helping white people to give; your fingers know the feel of pockets and crawl as quickly as spiders into handbags.' Gideon looked over at the dozen or so young tsotsis in the audience who stood together in a bunch at the back. 'Gentlemen, from tonight you are our bankers, from Wesselton native township,' he raised his hands and wiggled his fingers, 'from your fighting fingers, Umkonto we Sizwe need one hundred pounds a week!'

  The crowd gasped. This was a great deal of money, the weekly wages for twenty-five families. A tall, gangly youth stepped forward. He was dressed in typical tsotsi fashion. 'We will bring you two hundred, General!' he called. The crowd cheered and beat their hands against the cement floor and the dozen or so tsotsi boys glowed with pride. It was the first time these tough street waifs had felt needed in their lives; the idea of fighting for freedom by simply 'doing their own thing' was enormously appealing.

  Gideon looked serious. 'Some of you will be caught and go to prison. If you find yourself in prison look for the ANC leader. If there is no ANC leader there,' Gideon shook his head, 'Haya! I don't think this is possible, but if there isn't then ask for the PAC, it doesn't matter, Umkonto we Sizwe or Poqo, we are all fighting for the same thing, we all eat with the same spoon.' Gideon quoted an old Xhosa proverb, 'Umuntu ngumuntu ngomnye, People are people through other people. In prison you will learn things, new things you can use. You will also teach things, things you already know how to do on the street. If you go to prison you must use the time well, so when you come out your teeth will be sharp with malice for our oppressors!' Gideon made the act of going to prison seem a worthy one. 'Prison for our soldiers is like going to the white man's boarding school, a private college; the amaBhunu, the Boers, will supply the food, the clothes and the classrooms and we will all go willingly to our daily lessons.'

  There was a great deal of laughter over this, though it was laughter mixed with fear. Everyone knew how brutal existence for a black man was in a South African prison. Peekay marvelled at Gideon's way with the people. 'Some of you will die.' Gideon said simply. He turned his palms up in an elegantly simple gesture, which looked more like a blessing than a shrug. 'It is in the nature of a soldier to die.' His voice changed and grew soft. 'But dying is not easy. You will sit alone in the death cell when the gre
at dawn of no tomorrow comes and you will think, "I am alone! My brothers have forsaken me!" But you will not be alone; soon you will hear the singing, the singing of those around you who have wakened with the dawn to thank you and bid you farewell.' Gideon's voice was now only a whisper, 'People are people through people'.

  The room was silent and unabashed tears could be seen in the eyes of many in the audience. 'This is no time to cry, my comrades, we are going together on a journey.' Gideon smiled his wonderful smile once more.' One day we will be free. We will come out of our houses one morning and the air will be sharp and clean and we will smell the wood smoke of the morning cooking fires and we will fill our lungs with the breath of freedom! And you will say, each one of you, "I remember, I was there when it all began.'"

  Gideon changed the mood as abruptly as he had done before, turning to Peekay who sat mesmerized. What a great barrister Gideon would make; what a tremendous leader he was becoming.

  'We have with us tonight a friend.' Gideon gestured to Peekay at the back of the hall. 'I went against our custom and did not introduce him to you at the beginning, this is because he isn't here!' The crowd laughed, but only the youngest amongst them turned to look at Peekay.

  'I know it is difficult for some of you to understand, but not all whites are against us. There are some who work with us. "Some of you will know of the work which is done by my friend Peekay for the people, the work which is done by Red. Peekay has put himself in danger by coming here tonight, but now you can see his face and see his heart. If you are in trouble in the fight for freedom and the police catch you, because you have joined Umkonto and because you are a freedom fighter, you can call Peekay. He will come to you in prison and he will fight for you in the courts.'

  The tall youth who had volunteered to double the weekly tithe for the township now asked, 'How will we let you know, how will we tell you we have been caught?'

  Gideon chuckled, 'You are not alone now. You are Umkonto we Sizwe; we will know and then the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi will know,' he snapped his fingers, 'Just like that!' Gideon brought the meeting to a close and a great many of the audience came up to him simply to touch him before they departed, their fingers touching his hand or some part of his anatomy lightly, briefly, not expecting a response. It was as though by actually touching him they gained the power and confidence they needed; the concept of people are people through people was operating instinctively in them. Gideon's was a rag-tag army based on trust and not on fear.

  'Come, my brother, we can talk now. A woman here has cooked some food, we must go now to that hut.' The two men walked together through the township in the moonlight, the people who had attended the meeting gliding past them silently. They came to a small shack and Gideon knocked politely at the door. A large woman opened it quietly and they entered. Inside the shack was divided by a curtain behind which must have been the sleeping quarters for whoever occupied it.

  Gideon pointed to the curtain, an eyebrow raised in question. 'It is only me here. My husband and my two boys they are in gaol,' the woman said. 'I have cooked food and I will go now.' She touched them each lightly on the hand and left the shack.

  A tiny table was set in the centre of the room lit with a hurricane lamp. On it sat a pot of phutu, stiff mealiemeal porridge, and a smaller one of meat and gravy together with two enamel plates and spoons. A pot of tea, a can of Ideal milk, a cup without a handle used as a sugar bowl, and two tin mugs were placed on the centre of the table. Both men began to eat in the African way, spooning meat and gravy into the plates and taking the stiff porridge from the pot with their fingers, dousing it in the gravy before bringing it to their mouths. They were both ravenous and neither spoke as they ate.

  After they'd eaten Peekay produced several packages from his bag. He handed one to Mandoma. 'Here, it's your Christmas present. It's something I own which I want you to carry with you always.'

  Gideon took the parcel. 'Who knows where I will be on Christmas day, may I open it now?'

  'Of course!'

  Gideon unwrapped the small parcel. Inside, resting in a beautiful hand tooled leather scabbard, was the hunting knife Gert had made for Peekay.

  'My sincerest hope is that you never have to use it, but if you do, my hand is on it with you, Gideon. When you strike, you strike for me as well.'

  Gideon withdrew the blade from its scabbard and felt the balance of the knife in his hand. 'It is beautiful, but the skull, the skull on the handle, it means it is a killing knife.'

  'I am sorry, Gideon, it's not much of a Christmas gift.'

  'It is a gift of concern and protection, that makes it a gift of love, I will keep it always with me, Peekay.' Gideon put the remaining gifts from Hymie and Tandia aside to open later. Peekay withdrew a passport from the inside pocket of his jacket and offered it to Gideon. 'It is a British passport obtained through Kenya. Hymie brought it back with him from London yesterday. You'll have to get used to your new name.' He handed Gideon an envelope. 'Inside you'll find your new birth certificate, it indicates you were born in a mission hospital and educated at a mission school in Kitale which is a northern outpost of Kenya's white highlands.' Peekay put his hand on Gideon's shoulder. 'Well, you old bastard, at last you're going off to a very selective boarding school to be educated.'

  Gideon chuckled, deep down in his throat as though it came from his stomach. 'Tell Hymie thanks, the people will honour him some day for this.'

  Peekay interrupted. 'Please Gideon, Oliver Tambo is organizing your travel details outside South Africa. I don't want to know how you leave or how you get to Algeria.'

  Gideon shook his head and laughed softly. 'Haya, haya, Peekay, there is so much to learn about being a freedom fighter.' He looked at Peekay. 'In the boxing ring it's so easy, so clean, one on one, your fists, your heart and your head. The bell goes, you fight and in the end the man with the most skill and the most courage,' he laughed softly as though thinking, 'maybe even the man with the last punch wins.'

  Peekay grinned, 'That's all it took, you bastard, you saved it up special!'

  Gideon laughed, 'I have not told you about this punch, from where it came. When I was very small, I was a herd boy and every morning we would go out and milk the cows and bring in the milk. I longed to grow up and come to the big city and be somebody. Every afternoon when it was time to bring the cattle in we would take them first to the river to drink and then we would have the competition for the boots.'

  Gideon looked down at his shiny shoes and wiped a spot of dirt off his left toecap with a casual brush of his hand. 'There was an old man who worked in Durban and every year he would come back to his home on holiday for two weeks and he would bring a pair of boots. His baas would give him these old boots to wear on his holidays and he would give the herd boys the old boots the baas gave him to wear before, the last time he came. These boots they had done a lot of walking and there were big holes in the soles, but they were city boots, the guy among us who wore them, he was the king of the herd boys, if only for that day.

  'Every night when we came to the river for the cattle to drink, we would put one of the boots up on a rock and count fifty steps and each boy would take two stones. The boy who hit the boot wore them home and all the next day until sunset, then we would come again to throw stones for the boots.

  'All day, while I watched the cattle alone on the mountain, I would throw stones. I would put a small rock, the size of a boot, on a big rock and count fifty steps and throw at it.

  When I could no longer lift my arm because it had become very, very sore I would start with my other hand. Always I would throw until I could not lift this arm also, then I would start on the other again. Soon I was the one who almost always wore the boots.

  'I was very proud and all the other guys respected me because I always won fair and square. When I beat you, Peekay, for the title, that last punch, I had nothing left, but in my head I said, "My arms they are stro
nger than his, he has never thrown for the boots, he has already got the boots. I have one stone left, one last throw." That's what won the title for me.'

  They sat in silence for a moment, two friends who knew each other well. Then Peekay cleared his throat. 'Gideon, there is something.'

  Gideon replied softly, 'Haya, Peekay, yes, I can feel this thing, your heart is heavy, heavy! What is this something?'

  'It's Tandia.'

  Gideon chuckled. 'You are in love, I have known this thing a long time.'

  Peekay looked shocked. 'I cannot deny this, Gideon. But I know it is impossible! You are my friend and even if I fought you for her, the law says I cannot have her.'

  'The law cannot stop a man and a woman. The law of nature is stronger than the law of the amaBhunu…At the mission school when I was young, once the teacher was reading from the Bible. It was a hot afternoon and I was nearly asleep, but I remember the words so very well.' Gideon paused and then, almost as though he was a schoolboy again, started to recite: '''Show me the way of an eagle in the air, show me the way of a snake on the rock and show me the way of a man with a maid, when I know these three things, then all things are known unto me!'"

  Peekay grinned, 'Thank you, Gideon, but I am not in the woman-stealing business. You quote from the Bible and I will quote you a Zulu proverb, "The heart is a hunter who does not seek permission from the herd to hunt." I think it means roughly the same thing but, nonetheless, unless Tandia herself decides otherwise she will, I'm sure, be waiting for you when you get back.'

  Gideon shook his head. 'Peekay, I know Tandia- and I know Nguni. That Zulu, he was my manager since I was an umfana. Since I fought you that first time in Sophiatown. That man, he is a big pain, he would give a headache to an Aspro!'