Tandia (36 page)

Peekay was fortunate in having E. W. White as his tutor at Oxford. White, a fellow of Magdalen, was considered one of the great tutors at law and Peekay was more than a little apprehensive when, on his second day at Oxford, he received a polite note inviting him to take tea in E. W. White's rooms the following afternoon.

The door opened to reveal a tall, angular man with dark brown eyes which belied his obviously English complexion. His hair was almost completely white, but because his eyebrows were blond, his eyes seemed incongruous, as though a hidden bloodline were surfacing. He wore grey flannels rather in need of a crease, heavy brown brogues, a light-blue cotton shirt with a slightly disarranged soft collar and a carelessly knotted club or college tie. From his bony frame hung a grey tweed jacket from which the side pockets permanently bulged, as though he was accustomed to jamming his fists into them for extended periods. He was, Peekay thought, the sort of man who would make Hymie's mum run to the kitchen for the skillet, memorising the contents of the fridge.

His eyes welcomed Peekay but he said not a word, sweeping his right hand in the general direction of one of two large leather armchairs facing a friendly-looking, but unlit fireplace.

It was a curiously mute welcome and Peekay, nervous as hell, didn't quite know how to take his tutor. He'd memorised a little speech saying how pleased he was to be taken under E. W. White's tutorial wing, but now confronting him, it didn't seem quite appropriate. His tutor radiated a calmness which an over-hasty or mumbled introduction would have disrupted.

At this point, and still without speaking, E. W. White left the study and some moments later returned wheeling a rather battered-looking tea trolley. One of the wheels of the trolley squeaked as he pushed it across the worn Persian carpet which covered most of the floor.

Peekay liked the room immediately. It was predictable and contained no disappointments. The room of a tutor at Oxford, he thought, ought to look just like this one. On two walls were a number of antique black-and-white sketches of fishing scenes - lonely, flat landscapes of willow-banked rivers at which tiny figures sat with fishing rods etched against a lowering sky. An almost equal number of pale watercolours of not dissimilar scenes in faded gold stucco frames made up the remainder of the pictures on the walls. They were uniform in size and so similar they'd probably been sold in a job lot. To Peekay's delight, mounted on the wall above the fireplace, was a glass case containing a large brown trout. Its tail curled slightly upward almost touching the top of the glass box; its jaw was set open as if about to take the angler's fly. The taxidermist's brush marks showed clearly where he had applied the lacquer too generously just below the dorsal fin. Otherwise the walls were entirely covered with books. Peekay liked the idea of a wall of books, though he
was
slightly disappointed that they weren't all matching tomes bound in morocco and embossed in gold. In fact, the cases were rather untidy, with books of every size and description filling every available space, some jammed sideways into the spaces left between the books and the shelf above. Small piles of books littered the floor beside the fireplace and near the door. Against the far wall was a Georgian rosewood desk and fronting it was a slightly lopsided-looking captain's chair of the swivel variety. The remainder of the room was taken up by the two large armchairs facing the fireplace, in one of which Peekay now sat. On the floor beside the other was a large hand-beaten copper ashtray, which was empty but smudged grey with powdered ash.

E. W. White brought the trolley to a halt between the two chairs and poured tea from an enormous brown enamel teapot, its spout protruding from a bright orange knitted tea cosy. Neither milk nor sugar was in evidence and Peekay was not asked if he took either. Instead K W. White forked a wedge of lemon into Peekay's cup.

'Peekay? Just Peekay? Am I to understand that this single duosyllabic name is all that you are known by? Is this correct?'

'Yes, sir, that's right, only one name.' Peekay replied, hoping he wasn't going to probe any further.

E. W. White looked to see if Peekay was being flippant, but decided he was not. 'Splendid! You may call me E.W., which puts us on equal terms. I must say I never much believed in the English tradition whereby a child is saddled with a veritable cartouche of names. One name, it if serves to identify plainly, is quite enough, don't you think?' He continued without waiting for Peekay's reply. 'After all, there are only two parts of the human condition which matter and both of these are singular. We only have one heart and one brain. They, in the-end, decide whether we are worthwhile or otherwise. The rest is simply a mixture of affectation and progenital garbage upon which we English place far too much importance. Most Frenchmen are hard put to trace their grandparents on either side.'

'Would you say that continuity and tradition are-unimportant then, sir?' Peekay asked, trying out the thought.

'Only when they are the continuity of learning and concern. If a person or a nation has both a good heart and a sound head, they or it can be forgiven almost any other shortcomings. Alas, England seems, for the time being at least, to have neither.'

Peekay wasn't sure he understood. He hadn't been in England very long and wasn't much chop on British politics. 'You see, simplicity is the key to almost everything. If something can be simply stated and simply understood, it will generally translate into a working concept. Law has chosen to neglect this fundamental truth and as a result has allowed itself to become reactionary, complicated and, for the most part, unjust. Why have you chosen to study law?' Peekay wanted desperately to impress this rather intimidating Englishman. E. W. probably saw him as just another colonial: the South African, Australian, New Zealander and Canadian - all the same, bright enough, but bred in a cultural desert - England's rather tiresome obligation to the sons and daughters of the second-rate people she'd sent abroad to tame the natives. Peekay needed to let him know he was different, his reason for being at Oxford special.

'Well, sir, my country has problems which I believe can only, in the end, be resolved through the rule of law.' It sounded rather pompous and Peekay coloured slightly.

But E.W. chuckled. 'Ha! An optimist. I expect the opposite will happen. The law will be used to prevent a solution.'

'How do you mean the opposite? Surely when a problem is solved it ought to become the law?' Peekay's mouth was dry and he was having difficulty affecting the maturity he wanted to display.

E.W's reply, when it came seemed a little terse, though Peekay may have imagined this. 'The common law, as I have indicated, is no longer simple or straightforward. Instead it is complicated, often obscure and usually costly, so it can be utilised for the most part only by rapacious men who have devised it to keep title to wealth and property and to. maintain power. Poor men cannot afford it and so find themselves condemned by it. Rich men, on the other hand, cannot afford to be without it and, indeed, use the law to avoid justice. If this is true of property and individual power then it is also true of societies. The haves will fashion the law to serve themselves and to keep the have-nots from getting their share. You will know much more about this than I, Peekay, but the ideology the world is coming to know as "apartheid" is, I believe, essentially about one section of the population sustaining a lifestyle and maintaining privileges which are not available to another. Call it rich against poor, black against white. The law creates poverty for some and riches for others, slavery for the have-nots and freedom only for the rich. If you agree with me, Peekay, then explain how your precious rule of law will put such a situation to right?'

Peekay was overwhelmed. E. W. had demolished his prime reason for being at Oxford. Despite his humiliation, he admired the somewhat caustic Englishman who'd just done a complete demolition job on him. Peekay, who had thought himself on the side of the angels, was suddenly aware that in E.W.'s eyes he must seem not much better than any of his South African contemporaries.

Peekay had received a liberal education by South African standards and in the months he'd been on his own on the Copperbelt he'd grown distant from the ideas and values of most of his white South African peers. Theirs was thinking within a defined circle, with very little encouragement to step beyond its circumference. It was not that they were actively conspiring against the black people; there was simply no apparent context in which they could become aware of the need to question the concept of apartheid. Their lives were on track and the dichotomy based on colour was precise. Everyone knew where they stood. Thinking inevitably led to discomfort and perhaps even guilt. And guilt spoilt everything.

Peekay recalled a conversation he'd had with Gideon Mandoma, the young Zulu heir to a chiefdom, the man he'd fought in Sophiatown. After the fight they'd become firm friends and Peekay had arranged for the young Zulu boxer to train in Solly Goldman's gym in Doornfontein, where he himself worked out. The young Zulu had found a job as a furnace boy in a foundry which changed shifts at three in the afternoon so he could work out as a sparring partner with Peekay three days a week. Feeding a blast furnace with a shovel is hard work and the white foreman was a cruel, relentless bastard who was fond of taking his fists to the workers.

On the day the conversation took place Gideon had arrived at the gym with a split above his eye which, though dried and caked on the peripherals, showed a pink streak of bloody flesh running through its centre. The cut had obviously required stitches. Peekay had asked him how it happened. The young Zulu had tried to laugh it off but Peekay had persisted, until Gideon had shrugged and said, 'It was my turn to be beaten by the baas, Peekay.'

'How can you stand it, Gideon? Surely you must want to kill the bastard?' he had asked.

They had been gloved up, ready for a sparring session, waiting for two boxers ahead of them to relinquish the ring. Peekay was speaking in Zulu and since whites, as a general rule, do not speak an African language, there had been little fear of their being overheard.

Gideon had laughed. 'Let me tell you a story, Peekay.

Once, when I was a small boy, a white farmer came to our kraal-looking for women to pick beans. He carried a big basket and said that he would pay so much for every basket picked. The basket was nearly as tall as a woman, but a day begins at half-light and ends when the light is the same again; to the women it did not seem too big. The money was generous and the women agreed. He arranged to return at dawn the following day with his lorry.

The stars still pricked the sky when the women rose. Even the herd boys still slept and the women pulled their cotton wraps tightly about the babies they carried on their backs. After whispering to the old women to rise in a short while to make the fires for the morning meal they left. They were all very happy because the drought was bad and the spring rains were late and now this unexpected good fortune had come their way and they were going to make some money.

'They worked hard all day in the hot sun, stopping only to take water or to comfort a child. The baskets were big and the beans were small and hid behind the leaves. The work was very hard, but they were happy and sang songs about the cooking pots and dress lengths they hoped one day to buy if more of this work should come their way. By sunset the beans were all picked and each took her basket to the white farmer to be paid. "I cannot pay you," he said. "Look, your baskets are not full, I agreed to pay only by the basketful." It was true,' Gideon had said, opening his forefinger and thumb, indicating about five inches. 'The beans were so far from the top in the best baskets and even a little lower in the others.'

Peekay had shaken his head; he had known in his heart that Gideon's story was not unusual, that it happened every day a thousand times over.

'We took the matter to the headman of our village and he took it to the next
indaba
with the chief,' Gideon had said.

'The chief listened. It was not an unusual story and I suppose there wasn't very much he could do. But it so happened that Inkosi-Inkosikazi, the greatest medicine man in all Africa, was from the chief's kraal. He was very old and it was thought he would soon die. It was a bit of an insult really, taking a trivial matter to such a great man, but the chief, who was wise, knew that a woman's anger makes the hut an unhappy place. He promised he would ask Inkosi-Inkosikazi if he would consider the matter of the beans. The women were contented; to have this affair of the beans looked into by the great medicine man connected them all with a great honour.

'That very night the rains came to Zululand and the women knew the spirits were on their side in the great bean affair. Even if the mighty Inkosi-Inkosikazi did no more, it was already sufficient.' Gideon Mandoma had laughed and lifted his hand about eighteen inches from the gymnasium floor. 'The young corn stood this high when a message arrived to say that Inkosi-Inkosikazi would pronounce on the matter of the beans and that the women concerned should be at the chief's kraal in two days' time. There was a great deal of excitement, women are not generally invited to attend even a small indaba.

'The news of the great indaba spread like a fire when the bush is dry. People from all over Zululand came to hear the great wizard. They brought newly fermented beer and dried tobacco and some of the precious seed
mielies
they'd been hoarding until the new season's corn was safely inside the seed baskets. Even the very old women, their backs bent double, tall sticks thumping the ground as they walked, set out for the chief's kraal.'