Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Peekay and Kriel stood before the judge's bench. 'We will retire to my chambers for ten minutes at which time, Advocate Kriel, you had better have some answers.' Boshoff said.

  'Yes your honour,' Kriel said.

  'Kriel, you dirty bastard!' Peekay hissed as they followed Boshoff. 'If you had something like this on me you should have taken it to the Public Prosecutor!'

  Kriel smiled, 'It's not on you, Peekay, it's on your partner!'

  The judge asked them to enter and told Peekay to close the door. 'I ought to report you to the Law Society. I may still do so, Counsellor Kriel. Explain!' he demanded.

  'Your honour, the police prosecutor presented us with evidence during the luncheon adjournment which implicates Peekay's colleague Miss Patel strongly in matters that could be construed as treasonable and relate directly to this case. It seemed appropriate to give notice of this in court today.'

  'The police prosecutor? Was this the arresting officer Colonel Geldenhuis?'

  'Yes, your honour.'

  Kriel was too sure of himself, Pretoria was clearly behind him. Peekay had to play for time and try to abort Mungazela's evidence. 'Your honour, I believe my learned colleague has designed this entire affair to engender speculation. He knows this is unacceptable evidence in your court. It's a cheap shot at my colleague and I take enormous exception to it! He knows the correct procedure is to take his accusation to the public prosecutor!'

  Judge Boshoff looked hard at both men. 'I am giving you until nine o'clock tomorrow morning, an hour before this court convenes. You will both of you report to me in my chambers, you hear? You, Kriel, to satisfy me that you can substantiate the testimony of your witness. And you, Peekay, to assure me that your junior counsel is not, to the best of your knowledge, involved other than as your second counsel in this trial.'

  Peekay saw the tiny smirk on Kriel's face and he knew that the barrister had achieved what he'd set out to do, to give himself a little more time, and more importantly, to have the evidence against Tandia accepted at the treason trial. Geldenhuis would have his revenge.

  When he and Tandia stepped out of the court fifteen minutes later, bulbs flashed everywhere and reporters crushed around them, shouting questions. Fortunately they'd both wanted to work in the car that morning so Hercules, the Red driver, had brought them to Pretoria. Now he waited for them outside the court and they were able to make their escape.

  Tandia broke down in the car, not because of what she'd done, but because she'd deceived Peekay and Hymie. Gulping back tears, she told Peekay of her work as a member of Umkonto we Sizwe.

  Peekay handed her his handkerchief. Tandy, dry your tears. One stick of dynamite or a thousand, it doesn't make any damn difference, the charge is still treason if it can be proved you supplied Gideon's people, your people. You're a terrorist, so the deception of both Hymie and myself is academic.'

  'Peekay, you and Hymie are the only two people I've ever entirely trusted and now I've betrayed that trust,' Tandia cried.

  Peekay held her hand. 'Tandia, we're all fighting for the same thing. The question now is not one of recrimination, it's whether we fight or flee. Nothing else matters. What are our chances of discrediting Samson Mungazela when I cross-examine tomorrow?'

  'When you cross-examine? You're going to tell the judge in chambers I'm innocent? Peekay, if it comes out you perjured yourself it'll be the end of your legal career!'

  'Tandia, listen! If there's a good chance I can get the judge to dismiss Mungazela's evidence we can kill the thing stone dead tomorrow. Jannie Geldenhuis is panicking. If he'd done this the slow way and used the proper procedures it could be a bloody sight worse.'

  Tandia shook her head. 'Peekay, if Mungazela has talked, and we know he has, it couldn't be any worse. When we get into Red I'm going to have to use Hymie's clean phone to make at least ten calls, if it isn't already too late.

  Geldenhuis will be able to bring in fifteen, maybe twenty, men in the explosives cadre of Umkonto; some are going to crack, they always do! And like Samson Mungazela I'm the ace they hold, the only thing with which they can bargain.

  If they know Samson's confessed, why would they hold back; they don't know their collaborating evidence is the vital difference! Jannie Geldenhuis must be convinced…'

  Tandia's voice trailed off and she shivered involuntarily, though as much from disgust as fear, '…that he's got me on a plate.'

  Hercules coughed politely. 'What is it?' Peekay asked him in Zulu.

  'The police, they are following us, sir.'

  Peekay didn't bother to look through the rear window. Hercules had an uncanny instinct for police. The old black man was more than a chauffeur to them all. He'd been in Solomon Levy's family since Hymie's childhood, driving Hymie to kindergarten and ever since, and finally becoming the driver for Red where he was greatly beloved.

  'Hercules, listen carefully, you're going to have to go shopping when we get to Johannesburg. When you drop us at Red go straight to John Orrs.' Peekay turned to Tandia. 'Write down your shoe size for a pair of tackies, the size of jeans you wear, two shirts, a warm sweater, also a couple of changes of underwear - practical stuff, cotton, that won't rub you - enough for two days. Add three pairs of thick woollen socks. You've got toilet things in the office, haven't you? Write anything else you're going to need. Cigarettes?' Tandia nodded and, taking a yellow legal pad from her briefcase, started to write. 'Put two blankets and two towels on the list as well,' Peekay said. Tandia didn't ask any questions; she knew there could be no possibility of going home, that all their places would be under twenty-four hour surveillance by men from the Special Branch. Peekay was making plans for her to get away immediately. She knew he wouldn't talk in the car; Hercules wouldn't blab but he was an elderly man and, under interrogation, could break.

  Peekay added a few items of food to the list and handed it to Hercules, adding a fifty-rand note with it for the food. 'Hercules, give this list to the manager and tell him to give you the stuff immediately and to put it on my account. I have written all this on the note as well. Then when you've bought the food take the car to the carpet depot and exchange it with a Solomon Levy Carpet Emporium car, but make sure it doesn't have anything written on the door. Put all the stuff in the boot and bring the car to the manhole. Make sure you fill it with petrol first. Don't go back to Red. Go straight to the manhole and be waiting at the usual place by a quarter to six tonight. Do you understand?' Peekay said all of this in Zulu.

  'I understand. What sort of food do you want me to buy, baas Peekay?' Hercules asked.

  'I've writ…' Peekay hesitated for a fraction of a second, realizing Hercules didn't want to say he couldn't read. 'Get a cold chicken, some bread, salami, maybe a tin of canned peaches, Nescafe and condensed milk. Don't forget a tin opener and matches.'

  'I hate salami!' Tandia said.

  Peekay grinned. 'Okay, no salami, Hercules. Get a tin of bully beef, two tomatoes and an onion, also a small billycan, make it two, one for water.' He turned to Tandia, 'I'll make you Doe's favourite, you're in for a treat.'

  Tandia didn't want to tell Peekay that she hated bully beef even worse than salami. The light banter had eased the tension a little and she tried to prepare her mind for what lay ahead.

  Hymie was waiting for them in the boardroom when they arrived. 'Christ, the place is surrounded with cops. I've phoned home, there are a couple of guys watching the block, I imagine it's the same with your places.' He took Tandia in his arms and hugged her.

  'We're going to have to get you out, Tandy.' Hymie had heard the story from a reporter on the Star who'd called him for comment and he'd obviously reached the same conclusion as Peekay.

  Tandia nodded. 'But look, my own people can try to get me out, it's crazy for you two to be involved!'

  'We are your own people, Tandy, and we are involved,' Peekay said quietly. 'If I thought you had a better chance o
f getting out of the country with them I'd agree for your sake, but I don't. Your face is well known and Gideon isn't here to see things go right.'

  'There's no chance of an international flight, Tandy.' Jan Smuts will have been alerted. Hymie glanced at his watch. 'If we could find a private field perhaps a small plane over the border, but it's nearly four o'clock, it would be too dark to get off the ground by the time we get there. Besides, air traffic control would have been alerted. But if we can get you to Swaziland we can have a Heron waiting for you on the ground at Matsapa to fly you to Nairobi; from there you can catch a flight to London.'

  Peekay glanced at his watch. 'If we leave soon we may make it to the lowveld by car, but from the Nelspruit turnoff to Barberton we can anticipate a police road block; it's a side road and the only logical place to stop traffic without disrupting a major highway.' Peekay paused, thinking.

  'Geldenhuis will expect us to try to get out by light plane so he will already have covered the smaller airports but he can't put out an alert or road blocks on the national highway until we're officially wanted, which will be after you appear in court tomorrow. By that time we'll be into the mountains.

  'What about the other way through Hectorspruit, the Matsamo entrance?' Hymie asked. 'It's quicker, isn't it?'

  'Too risky, I don't know where they'd put the road block and it's unfamiliar country for me if we have to try and go through the bush to get over the border. If I can get us across the de Kaap valley I can take Tandy over the mountains. It's only eighteen miles or so, but it's tough going. Tandy's unfit and not used to climbing; it may take us two days, but once we're into the high mountains, it's going to be bloody difficult for anyone to follow us.'

  'Two days! Shit, Peekay, that's a long time for a city girl to be roughing it!'

  Tandia laughed. 'I love the mountains, man! Juicey Fruit Mambo and I would often spend all day in the Drakensberg. '

  'It's going to be a bit tougher, you didn't smoke forty cigarettes a day in those days. Hymie, there is no better place to hide, I'd rather we took a little longer and were sure, don't you reckon?'

  'Well, as far as we know, Jannie Geldenhuis is no mountain man,' Hymie replied. 'Frankly I'd feel much better if Tandy was in the first-class section of the four fifteen BOAC flight to London.'

  Peekay went over to the phone, called Barberton long distance and asked to speak to Colonel Smit. Smit's secretary put him through. 'Hoe gaan dit, Peekay? What can I do for you?' he asked.

  Peekay took a deep breath, hoping his voice would sound casual. 'Colonel, what I'm asking you to do tonight will be illegal by tomorrow morning.'

  Smit was silent on the other end of the phone. 'Here, Peekay, I just heard the four o'clock news on the radio.'

  There was a pause. 'Is it true what they saying?'

  'Colonel, it's a Geldenhuis trap, a conspiracy. I need a favour.'

  There was another longish pause and then Smit said, 'Peekay, tomorrow is a long time in a man's life. What is legal today is all the information a man can act on. What is it, man?'

  Peekay sighed with relief. 'Colonel, could Gert meet me, us, in the prison van with half-a-dozen black warders dressed as prisoners already in the back?'

  'Ja, I suppose that can be arranged, where?'

  'At a small place called Schagen, it's a little railway station, about eight, ten miles up from Nelspruit.'

  'Ja, I know where is Schagen. What time?'

  'Around ten o'clock tonight.'

  Peekay knew that Kommandant Smit and Gert would have to wrestle furiously with their consciences. Just about any way they looked at it they would see Tandia, if the allegations were true, as a traitor to their country. A black traitor. He was asking them to give aid to a terrorist. Peekay would not have been surprised if Smit refused, though he knew he'd keep his mouth shut. But he also knew he had one thing going for him. An Afrikaner with Smit or Gert's background valued and honoured friendship above all else. 'I will ask Gert, Peekay,' Smit said, then paused for a moment. 'If he won't do it, I'll be waiting for you at Schagen tonight, son.'

  'Thank you, Colonel.'

  Smit's voice came back over the line. 'Peekay, you're a bloody fool, you hear? Don't do it, man! You are risking your life for a kaffir girl!'

  'No, Colonel, for a friend,' Peekay said softly and hung up.

  Next he called home and spoke to his mother briefly. Then, somewhat to her chagrin, he asked to speak to one of the twins.

  'You know, I sometimes think you love them more than your own mother, son,' she said in a hurt voice.

  'Mum, it's just a bit of business.' He heard the receiver being put down and his mother calling. A minute or so later Dee, breathing heavily from having run, answered. 'You are coming to see us, ja?' she asked in Shangaan, her excitement coming through.

  'Listen Dee, I can't explain, but pack my rucksack as if I was going away for two days into the mountains. Put in everything for a high climb. Also my boots and mountain clothes. Don't forget the medicine box and the square torch, the one that fits on my belt. Then both of you meet me at four o'clock tomorrow morning at Itshe Ingulube, where you used to turn back for home when you came with me part way into the mountains.'

  'There is something wrong, Peekay. I can feel it, my skin is sore with your trouble. There is something wrong, you must tell me!' Dee repeated, her voice was urgent.

  'No, Dee, just do as I say. Meet me at the place we named Pig Rock before dawn. The path is good up to that point and you can use the torch in the dark. Oh, and bring extra drinking water! I must go now, I'll see you in the morning. Go well, Dee!' Peekay put down the receiver and turned to Tandia. 'I think we ought to be going soon.'

  Peekay had anticipated Geldenhuis pretty accurately, the policeman had indeed assumed that they would attempt to get Tandia out by light plane, though, in case they tried the obvious, he had his men alerted at Jan Smuts Airport. Before Kriel had even stood up in court ne had men headed for every private or municipal airport within a hundred miles of Johannesburg. Flight Control had been alerted to report any private or small aircraft flying out of the Transvaal, Natal or the Orange Free State filing a flight plan which took them within fifty miles of any South African border.

  He'd also anticipated the Swaziland plan and had arranged for road blocks from 6 o'clock in the evening onwards, three miles into the Barberton turn-off from Nelspruit and two miles out of Hectorspruit on the road to the border post. Though it seemed unlikely that Peekay would choose any of the further six entrances into Swaziland he'd nevertheless alerted the local border police at each of them. He'd done the same thing for Basutoland and Bechuanaland. The border into Rhodesia and Portuguese territory was already well guarded and here he'd simply issued an alert. This time Jannie Geldenhuis believed he had Tandia boxed in, trapped at Red or within the confines of the city or Soweto. Three police cars surrounded the block ready to tail her should she leave the building. All these precautions may have seemed over-elaborate but he knew Peekay was as clever as trick shit and he wasn't taking any chances.

  Geldenhuis cursed himself for not having done the initial interviews with the Treason Six. But because of his suspension from the case after his own arrest, he only got back to the prisoners after his acquittal and Gideon's escape. He quickly saw his mark among the five remaining prisoners; it was the kaffir with the withered arm, Samson Mungazela, who seemed to lack the resolve of the others and responded a lot quicker to pain. When he implicated Tandia, Geldenhuis quite simply thought all his Christmases had come at once. He had the kaffir girl at last! Now all he had to do was get her boyfriend!

  Samson Mungazela also spilled a dozen other names and Geldenhuis followed this up with four arrests within hours; by dawn, after a little physical persuasion, he had collaborating evidence from two of his suspects, which was all he needed. He was confident that Tandia would be forced into court in the morning where the world would
witness her humiliation and also see Peekay's reactions as Kriel tore his girlfriend to pieces in the witness box.

  Peekay and Tandia left Red five minutes apart, walking under the cover-way across the rear courtyard into the tiny storage shed and down into the stormwater drain below. Both of them were dressed in the white overalls of the Johannesburg municipal maintenance workers. Ten minutes later they emerged onto a back street two blocks from Red and walked to a vacant building lot where Hercules sat in an unmarked brown Chrysler sedan.

  The evening traffic was heavy all the way along the Rand to Pretoria and Tandia hid on the back seat with a blanket covering her. They repeated this performance through every small town they went through until they reached the tiny deserted station at Schagen at a quarter to ten that night and parked the car under a large kaffirboom tree. A few minutes later they heard a truck slowing down as it turned off the highway and changed up from low gear as it gathered speed again. A couple of minutes later the prison van loomed up and drew to a halt beside them.

  Both Colonel Smit and Gert got out, though only Gert was in uniform. They could hear the black warders chatting in the back of the van and Gert shouted to them to shut up.

  Peekay greeted his two friends quietly as they shook hands, indicating Tandia who stood a little apart. It was bright moonlight and she could see the two men quite clearly. To Peekay's surprise they both stepped up to her and shook her by the hand. 'Goeienaand, Tandia,' Smit said formally while Gert, smiling easily, took Tandia's hand.

  Tandia smiled. 'Baie dankie,' she said simply, thanking the two officers for coming. She had changed into jeans and blouse and wore the new socks and sand-shoes Hercules had bought for her, putting the suit she'd worn in court into the boot.