Tandia (62 page)

He'd also boxed at the 1924 Paris Olympics as a light heavyweight where he was defeated by an American negro named Barnstable Jones, nicknamed 'Barnstorm Jones' for his attacking style, in a memorable bout in the semi-finals. Major General Van Breeden saw Peekay's loss to Jake 'Spoonbill' Jackson as not dissimilar to his own. Barnstorm Jones had gone on to take the gold medal in a fight which wasn't anything like as hard as the semi they'd fought. All his life the police commissioner had imagined a return fight and, in his mind, Peekay's opportunity to fight a second time for the world title was the return fight he'd wanted so badly himself.

When Hymie had requested an interview with Van Breeden and asked if he could bring Gideon's manager Mr Nguni along, he'd welcomed the opportunity to meet the young Jew who'd played such an important part in Peekay's success. Nguni was known to him as a successful businessman who controlled boxing and soccer among the black people on the Rand. He'd run a check on his local record and, apart from a minor infringement concerning a stamp on his pass two years previously, his record showed that he was straight. It was a shrewd move to bring him along.

The three men got on well and, in principle, it was agreed that the fight with an equal number of black to white fans could take place at Ellis Park. A police captain named Give McClymont was appointed as police liaison officer for the fight and Van Breeden introduced them to him in his office.

McClymont seemed a nice, quiet sort of chap in his mid thirties and was an expert in crowd and traffic control. He'd listened quietly and then asked several intelligent questions. Hymie found he liked him immediately. The general had grinned when he'd introduced them. 'Don't worry, Mr Levy, we didn't pick McClymont because he's a rooinek, but because he is the only police officer in the traffic division who knows nothing about boxing. There's going to be a lot of heat generated over this decision, might as well have a police officer with his mind on the job, what do you say, hey?'

Hymie asked if he could give Van Breeden four ringside seats. The police general grinned broadly. 'Normally yes and thank you, Mr Levy, but we've got ourselves a hot potato issue here. Pretoria won't be happy; better make that a firm booking for four ringside seats and I'll pay for the tickets myself.' He turned to McClymont. 'Please make sure you get a personal cheque from me and deliver it to Mr Levy yourself.' Hymie grinned to himself. Major General Van Breeden was one helluva smart cop who wasn't going to let a careless detail trip him up. McClymont was his witness that his ringside seats were kosher.

Soon after they shook hands formally in the Afrikaner manner, symbolically sealing the deal. The policeman was careful to shake hands with Mr Nguni as well. He rose from his desk and walked with them to the door. 'It's a pity you couldn't have brought Peekay, I'd like to meet him,' he said as they stood waiting to depart.

'Of course! Some other time,' Hymie replied quickly. 'He's not in Johannesburg at the moment, sir. He's resting, away from it all, mending his body. Did you know he comes from Barberton?'

'Yes, I did. Yesterday he climbed to Saddleback. That's a hard climb; he's feeling a lot better, I think?'

Hymie's eyebrows shot up. The police major general seemed to know more about Peekay's whereabouts than he did.

'Ag, it's not good police work, Mr Levy. Scratch an Afrikaner and you find a blood relation just below the surface of the skin. When I knew you were coming in to see me I called Captain Smit of the Barberton prison, he is my second cousin. You probably know that he gave Peekay his first formal boxing coaching when he was seven years old. Wragtig! He worships the ground that young man walks on.'

'It's kind of you to take an interest in Peekay, sir,' Hymie said to the general.

Ag, Mr Levy, in my business it is sometimes better to know the people involved than to assess the evidence. It is people who make things right or wrong, who make things good or bad. Allowing fifteen thousand black people and fifteen thousand white people in a sports ground where a white man is fighting a black man, on the evidence available, is asking for trouble.'

He grinned. 'But I think not. This will be the first time that the black fans will be on the white man's side. It seems to me we have a remarkable young man here. Any person who can do this in South Africa we must allow to proceed. There is more involved here than boxing.'

The police general turned to Mr Nguni. 'I am told you were the leader of the black fan club who followed Peekay and turned him into the Tadpole Angel. Is this true?'

'It is not true, sir. I am a Zulu and also I am a boxing promoter. But the legend of the Tadpole Angel, I did not make this. This is written in the smoke and in the bones. I am just taking the people to see who is the
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi,
the Tadpole Angel.'

'You people believe in this thing then? You believe a white man will come to lead the black people?'

The huge Zulu spread his hands. 'It is told who has the power, it is this one,' he said simply. 'This power? It is forever?'

'Who can say this thing? Maybe the
sangoma,
they can change this, I do not know, I am not sangoma, sir.'

'So it will be all right. I mean when Peekay fights the American negro, the blacks will behave themselves?'

'I think I can guarantee for you, it will be orright, sir, the people, they want the
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi
to win.'

'You manage the black fighter, Mandoma, don't you?' the general asked suddenly.

'Gideon Mandoma, the black Welterweight Champion of Africa, he is my fighter,' Mr Nguni said, suddenly proud.

'Black Africa!' Van Breeden answered with a slight edge to his voice. 'If I remember correctly, he was beaten by Jannie Geldenhuis, the South African Welterweight Champion.'

Mr Nguni shook his head, his grin spreading, 'Hayi, hayi, hayi! He is very clever this policeman, Geldenhuis. I don't think he wants to fight Mandoma again. Mandoma he wants to fight, but Geldenhuis will not fight I think.'

'Is that so?' Van Breeden said Smiling. He pushed his chair away from his desk. 'Well Mr Levy, Mr Nguni, it's been nice to meet you both. I'm pretty sure we're in business. All you got to do now is go to the Boxing Control Board and ask them, as a formality, to get a permit from the Minister of Native Affairs.'

Two' days later a letter arrived from the South African Boxing Control Board saying that their request for a mixed audience to take place at Ellis Park had been refused. No further explanation was added and a phone call to the board revealed little more, other than that they'd already sent in a letter appealing against the decision.

Hymie called Clive McClymont who arranged for a second interview with Major General Van Breeden. This time Hymie was instructed to attend alone.

The general lost no time in getting to the point 'Look, man, I have called the minister, he is not willing to allow a mixed audience of this size.'

The general looked up at Hymie and spread his hands. 'I'm sorry, Mr Levy, my hands are tied.' He smiled. 'Things could be worse; whatever happens the fight will be a sellout, even with a white audience.'

'I guess it's a matter of conviction, general.'

'I appreciate your convictions in this matter, Mr Levy, but surely the compromise has been forced upon you? It's not of your own making. Your conscience is clear.'

Hymie laughed. 'Ha! Try telling that to Peekay.' He rose from his chair and extended his hand to the general. 'Thank you, sir, I appreciate that you did all you could to make it happen.'

Van Breeden took his hand. 'What will you do now, Mr Levy?'

'London! We'll fight in London. It will be a sell out at Wembley Stadium and the simultaneous TV hook-up will make us twice the money we can hope to make here, sir.'

The general was too wise to show surprise but he released Hymie's hand. That's a great pity. World championship fights don't come along every day.' He shrugged his shoulders, smacking his lips. 'It's a blerrie shame, but I don't know what else I can do.'

The general looked up suddenly, squinting slightly. He was a big man who'd more or less kept himself in shape; the grey was beginning to win in what was once jet-black hair and his dark eyebrows emphasized his intelligent, sharp brown eyes. Major General Van Breeden wore his uniform well. 'You know, maybe there is a way.' He indicated the chair. 'Sit! Let's think this out.' Hymie sat, saying nothing.

'Well, maybe we can make a deal here. Not me and you, you understand, you and me with the Special Branch: 'How, sir?' Hymie asked, leaning forward.

Jannie Geldenhuis, the South African Welterweight Champion, is a lieutenant in the Special Branch. Why don't we promise him a fight with Peekay after he's fought the American?'

Hymie laughed. 'Nice one, sir! Why didn't I think of that!' He frowned suddenly. 'If Peekay wins the world title from Jackson, he will only defend it
once
before retiring from the ring.'

'So let the fight with Geldenhuis be the once.'

'It's not quite that easy, general. Mandoma has met and beaten more fighters. than Geldenhuis. Also a couple of higher-rated welterweights, for instance, the Mexican Manuel Ortez and the Italian Bruno Bisetti. Geldenhuis, you will remember, was involved in a car accident and couldn't fight for nearly fourteen months.
Ring
magazine rates him number twelve while Mandoma is rated equal ten. If Peekay become world champion, the World Boxing Council won't approve the fight.'

'What if Peekay loses to Jackson?'

'If Peekay loses to Jackson he won't fight again, no matter what.'

'I tell you what!' Van Breeden said suddenly. 'Let Geldenhuis fight Mandoma on the underbill! The winner to fight Peekay?'

Hymie stuck his hand out. 'You've got a deal, sir! If Peekay wins the title he puts it on the line against either Mandoma or Geldenhuis. Whatever happens, we still get to see who deserves to be the overall Welterweight Champion of South Africa, Geldenhuis or Mandoma.'

Later, when Hymie phoned Mr Nguni in Meadowlands where he'd built himself a rather grand new house, he said, 'Well the plan worked. Van Breeden figured it out, Gideon's got his fight with Geldenhuis.'

Nguni had thrown back his head and laughed, his big Zulu voice thundering down the phone.

He finally managed to say, 'You are very clever, Hymie.

Gideon thanks you, and me also, I thank you.'

'Forget it, it wasn't clever at all. Just two businessmen who discovered they both had something to sell to each other. As my father would say, "For business like this, maybe is coming down an angel and kissing me!'"

On 26 June 1955, two weeks before Peekay sat for his final exams at Oxford and when Geldenhuis had just been promoted and transferred to the Special Branch in Pretoria, the Congress of the People took place in South Africa. It was the most momentous peaceful occasion in the history of the fight against apartheid, for it brought together all the serious opposition to this heinous system of government.

As world-shattering events go, it must have seemed a modest affair. The Congress of the People had as its venue a bare, dusty stretch of ground near a place called Kliptown, a ramshackle collection of African houses, mostly shacks made of beaten tin, about ten miles southwest of Johannesburg. The veld, natural grassland, which in the early morning whitened the approaches to the village with hoar frost, had long since worn away, so the bare earth surrounding the shamble of houses and shanties was like scar tissue: hard, lifeless skin on the rump of the surrounding countryside. In the cold dawn of the June high veld mornings, its few inhabitants would emerge from their hovels, hunched over against the bitter wind, their shirts and cast-off cardigans stuffed with newspaper against the cold.

Kliptown was one of the most unpropitious places on earth and nobody seemed to know quite why it was selected for the Congress. It was a smudge of despair on the ugly apron of a large city. But, as one of the delegates told Gideon, 'It is perfect, man! Kliptown represents everything we have been given by the white man and nothing we aspire to own.'

A small tent city rose at Kliptown; everywhere the black, green and yellow colours of the ANC were on display as some three thousand delegates arrived. Doctors and lawyers, clergyman, teachers, trade unionists, businessmen, city workers and country peasants, all came to sing hymns and dance and talk and listen. They seemed not to feel the biting high veld wind or concern themselves with the sudden dust devils which came at them across the veld, irritating their eyes and leaving them feeling gritty and uncomfortable. They were freedom bent and the glory of the occasion showed in their eyes and harmonized their voices in song. It was the beginning of something - not a funeral like so many times before, but a new start, one step in the journey of a thousand miles. And so it was the happiest of all possible occasions.

For two days the meeting continued and finally the text of the great Freedom Charter was read out in Xhosa, Sesotho and English, with each clause approved by a show of hands and often a roar of delight. It didn't seem to matter that many of the clauses were patently impractical.

In a country where most black families went hungry it promised no hunger and abundant food for all. For families where two out of three children died within their first three years of life from malnutrition or disease, it promised free medicine. In a society where few people owned their homes but lived with the constant harassment of rapacious landlords and the constant threat of police eviction, it promised low rents and easy home ownership. Slums would be abolished and new houses built for everyone. Banks and mines and monopoly industries would belong to the people and every adult man and woman would have the freedom to vote and be free from discrimination.

No suggestions were put forward as to how this would be done; but Freedom Charters are written with the ink of emotion, love and hope, not with the blood, sweat and tears of practical implementation.

Late in the afternoon of the second day the police arrived. They wrote down names, searched delegates, confiscated documents and took photographs. They even confiscated the banners and two signs from the soup kitchens which read, 'Soup with meat' and 'Soup without meat'. You never could tell what might be useful in a future court of law. But none of this mattered, the downtrodden and the dispossessed had managed to get together. The underclasses had made a stand and declared themselves. It didn't matter that the government declared the Freedom Charter to be subversive, and that the demands for full bellies, homes, free medicine and schools were claimed to be the building blocks of subversion. The people had made their presence felt. They existed. They had a charter to prove it.

There is a part of the African mind which never closes down, but lies in a patch of twilight between wakefulness and sleep, like a watchdog filtering the sounds of the environment around it. Even before the loud banging on the door of the shed and the shout, 'Open, Police!' that followed, Gideon was awake and standing upright beside his iron cot, gulping for enough breath to fight the sudden rush of adrenalin through his body. Without being fully conscious of what he was doing, he found himself pulling on an old pair of khaki shorts to cover his nudity.

'Mina fika,
I'm coming,' he shouted, grabbing for the small torch he kept beside his bed.

'Maak oop, polisie!'
the voice demanded again, this time in Afrikaans. With a sudden crash, the door was kicked open, swinging violently inwards on its hinges. Gideon, who'd almost reached the door, was blinded by a bright light shining directly into his eyes. The small flashlight he was holding was knocked from his hands. Clattering, it rolled under the iron cot where it cast a yellow crescent moon on the cement floor.

'Is jou naam Gideon Mandoma?'
the voice demanded. Then almost immediately the question was repeated in English with a thick Afrikaans accent: 'Is your name Gideon Mandoma?'

'Yes, baas.'

'Ja, I can see it is you. I seen you on boxing posters.' The white police officer gave a short, high-pitched laugh, which seemed to emphasize the tension in his voice. 'I reckon your boxing days is over, man! You under arrest.'

'What for you arrest me, baas?' Gideon asked, keeping the respect in his voice, aware that the white man was nervous and that the barrel of the revolver he was pointing at him would be pushed straight into his teeth if it seemed to him the kaffir boy was being cheeky.

'You a member of the ANC, a
Comminist,
that's enough. Put out your hands,
maak gou, kaffir!'

Gideon held out his hands for the handcuffs. 'Please baas, I want to put on my shirt.'

'No, man! Where you going you don't need a shirt!' The policeman still held the torch close to Gideon's face, making it impossible for him to see the white man's features. 'My pass, baas, it is in my coat, behind the door.' The policeman turned to one of several black policeman behind him, momentarily diverting the torchlight from Gideon's face. Gideon caught the flash of the triple 'SB' bar on his shoulder. His heart sank. He was being arrested by the Special Branch; he was in serious trouble.

'Hey, you, Matuli, get his coat behind the door,' the white officer instructed. The black constable edged past him to get behind the door, where he removed a jacket neatly placed on a hanger, and a pair of grey flannel trousers folded over its crossbar. The black policeman removed the sports coat from the hanger and handed it to Mandoma.

'Fok!' Gideon felt a sudden stab of pain as the barrel of the policeman's revolver smashed down hard, then raked across the back of his hand and fingers. The jacket fell to the floor as Gideon clutched at his hand in pain and alarm. 'You stupid black bastard!' the white policeman screamed. 'The foking kaffir could have a foking knife or a gun in his coat! I said, get his pass book! Take it man, take it out yourself!'

The black policeman went down on his haunches and searched for Gideon's pass book. Finding it in the inside pocket of the sports coat he proffered it up to the white man.

Gideon held the damaged hand tightly, trying to squeeze the pain from it. He hadn't uttered a sound but the tears ran down his cheeks from the effort it took to contain his anguish.

The policeman handed his gun to another of the black policemen who pointed it at Gideon, holding the butt in both hands. The officer opened the pass book and examined it briefly by torchlight. The torchlight kicking back from the pages of the pass book lit the white man's face. Gideon noted that he didn't seem more than twenty years old; standing side on to him he could see that the back and sides of the white man's head were closely shaved, a barber's clipper starting at the base of his neck and cutting tight against the skin right up to where his head disappeared into the rim of his cap. His short thick neck sat on broad shoulders and his face was wide and flat, with a wide nose and thick lips. Despite his fair skin and light eyes he had a distinctly African appearance. This one was a throwback for sure, a coloured who'd scraped in as white. One of his forebears, perhaps three or four generations ago, had hidden his sausage in the dark forbidden valley and the stubborn black gene was still throwing. Gideon knew they were the worst kind, constantly having to justify their whiteness, conscious that their skin and their eyes granted them immunity but that the moulding and the bone structure they'd inherited left other white men looking at them quizzically, turning away with a small smile when you caught them looking. 'Ja, orright, put the cuffs on him, we got the right kaffir!' He kicked the jacket which lay at his feet and it slid along the cement floor, disappearing into a dark corner beyond the arch of torchlight.

Three hours later Gideon found himself alone in a police cell. He'd been bundled into the back of a police wagon, unable to see out. They'd travelled for a while across the bumpy unmade roads of Meadowlands until he'd suddenly felt the smooth tarred surface of the main road to Johannesburg. Meadowlands is about fourteen miles from the central police cells in Marshall Square where, as a 'political', he would expect to be taken. But there was no change of light coming through the narrow air slats in the police van to indicate street lights. Then it occurred to him they might be taking him somewhere to beat him up and afterwards to leave him unconscious on the side of the road. It happened often enough as the first warning to politically minded black people not to progress any further with their affiliations.

It must have been nearly four in the morning when they drew up outside a small suburban police station on the outskirts of Pretoria. The small cell into which he'd been thrown smelled of a mixture of sweat, urine and Jeyes Fluid.

Otherwise, for a 'kaffir' cell, it was remarkably clean. The toilet bucket. hadn't been used, which suggested the station was quiet and probably in a good white area where blacks are required to be off the streets by nine o'clock curfew.

His right hand where the police officer had hit him with the barrel of his gun throbbed painfully and was badly swollen and Gideon had trouble moving his thumb and index finger. He guessed the fingers were broken and hoped like hell the same wasn't true of his hand.

He tried to think why he'd been arrested. After the Congress of the People the ANC had been relatively quiet. In his own case, apart from addressing his chapter in the new native township of Meadowlands at several low-key meetings, his own activities had been modest and entirely above board, most of them involving the hopeless last ditch protests at the destruction of Sophiatown. It was not as though he was one of the leaders of the movement in the new township. He was still working his way up in the ANC Youth League where, despite the promise he showed as an orator, he wasn't among the very top of the young street-smart radicals who'd grown up in the city slums. Nor was he included with the 'educated' leaders, those few young Africans who had managed a university degree at Fort Hare or, even more impressively, at Witwatersrand University. His value lay more in his role as a boxer and therefore an example of significant black achievement.

He'd attended the Congress of the People in June and his name had been taken at the raid when police had arrived during the reading of the Freedom Charter. But even this wasn't of great concern; they'd taken the names of all three thousand delegates. Besides, that was nearly eighteen months ago. Surely they wouldn't attempt to arrest all three thousand? And for what? Attending a public meeting which had been well publicized and for which a permit had been issued by the supreme court? Even for the Special Branch it seemed improbable.

And again, why a suburban police station in Pretoria? Perhaps they
had
arrested everyone - all three thousand delegates, a great many of whom came from the Rand - and the Johannesburg Fort and Pretoria Central Prison were full, so the small fry like himself got the suburban cop stations? He didn't have long to wait. Dawn on the high veld comes early and light was just beginning to soften the square of black window set high up into the wall of the cell when two black policemen opened the door and pushed in a small table and chair. Both pieces of furniture looked as though they belonged to the station kitchen amenity; the table was covered with yellow aeroplane cloth which had been neatly tucked under at the edges and held secure with large, flat-headed brass drawing pins, while the chair was painted a bright apple green. They now took up almost half the available space and looked incongruously cheerful as they faced the bench on which Gideon sat with his back against the wall.

Twenty minutes passed and the square of light was tinged with the blue of another flawless highveld summer's day, when there was a rattle of keys at the door. A white police officer entered and closed the door behind him. Gideon had noted his lieutenant's rank and the SB insignia on the epaulettes of his uniform before he realized he was facing Geldenhuis. He'd not seen the white boxer in uniform before and the peak of Geldenhuis's cap, at first, made it difficult to see his face.

But when Geldenhuis glanced briefly over at him it was the police officer's unmistakable blue eyes which he immediately recognized. He'd often wondered about these eyes. Peekay, a white man he loved, had eyes of the same colour as Geldenhuis, yet the two sets of eyes were worlds apart. Gideon rose from the bench and stood to attention in the customary manner, except that his head was not bowed in the obsequious way demanded by a white police officer confronting a black man.