Tandia (80 page)

A man drew closer to the fire carrying fresh logs and a bundle of branch twigs. He moved forward stooped as though trying not to intrude into the ambient circle of witchdoctors. He hurriedly placed fresh logs onto the embers and then threw the armful of branch twigs atop the fire, brought from who knows where, because there are no trees in Moroka township. The fire snapped and crackled as the twigs flared in short fierce blazes of yellow flame, snatching at the smallest twigs at the tributaries of each branch then, as suddenly, dying away, a twist of white smoke where a moment before the flame had been. Beneath the brief pyrotechnics of dry branch and twig the embers licked slow tongues of flame over the surfaces of the new logs, slowly wrapping them into themselves, turning the mute wood into heat and flame and life.

'Like all things based on murder, oppression and theft the empire of the
strange ones
fell into corruption. Their great empire was drifting on the canoe of time towards the- rapids of oblivion when a slave was born among the
strange ones.

His eyes were of the bluest hue, like the clean, high winter sky, but his hair was dark and his skin the colour of tanned leather. He was the son of a black slave woman and a male from the
strange ones,
though he too was a slave, for such was the corruption and decay of the empire that they had made slaves of some of their own people who in the past had questioned their wrong ways. This child, born of the black and the white, was named Lumukanda and it was he who when he was still young rose up and brought the miserable remnants of the people together and destroyed the two empires of the
strange ones.
A child of the star led the desperate starveling tribes against the
strange ones
and be conquered them and utterly destroyed them. Then he set fire to their great cities and wiped out the marks of where they had been, like a man's foot wipes out the mark. of an overnight fire in the dust of the new morning.

The crackle of fire, as the new wood caught and grew the flames, was the only sound to be heard as the people listened to the words of Somojo the great witchdoctor. The flickering light from the fire lit his wizened monkey face as he brought the great tale to a close. 'Then Lumukanda the
strange one
gathered all the remnants of all the tribes and moved the people from the Zambesi, south to the river of the Limpopoma; and when he reached this and came to a deep gorge which led to a place to cross he called the tribes to himself. Behind him rose a great cliff and he stood with his back to the cliff and he pointed to the land across the river. "Go into these lands where the grass is sweet and make it your own; multiply and live in peace," he commanded.

'Then the witch doctor Somojo came to him. "Great one, will you not come with us?" he asked. Lumukanda turned and pointed to the great cliff where a small waterfall fell to its side. "High on this cliff to the right of that waterfall there is a cave. I shall climb to its entrance and dwell there with the great Snake God where my spirit will remain to watch over you. If the
strange ones
should return with their blue eyes and their hair the colour of ripe corn and they would take you into slavery, I will come down from the cave and return to all the tribes and I will deliver you from their bondage and the tyranny of their greed." Then Lumukanda placed a gold coin into the hand of Somojo. "This is the coin of your ancestry and the sign that I, the child of the star, will come when I am needed," he said.

The high witchdoctor paused, waiting for the weight of the words of the great legend to be felt upon the bent backs of the hushed crowd seated around the witch doctors on the soccer ground. Then slowly he pointed to the night sky and in a shrill, high voice asked, 'Did not the stars fall from the heavens when the
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi
brought the tribes together for the singing of the great song of Africa?'

There was a gasp from the crowd as they finally comprehended what the old man was saying. Many of the men grabbed handfuls of dust and wiped it on their foreheads; others rocked on their haunches at the awesomeness of the prophesy. Somojo the great Swazi witchdoctor folded his spindly legs down slowly to sit on the jackal-skin kaross under a sky where the heavens were shrouded by the smoke of the township fires and the night smelt of roasting meat and the slightly sour odour of fermenting kaffir beer.

Mr Nguni didn't remain behind for the feast, he was fiercely disappointed at the outcome. 'The fly-blown old fart in his tattered leopardskin cloak has ruined everything!' he thought bitterly. His immediate plans were in disarray; had Gideon been given 'the power' then he, Nguni, the one who controlled him, would have seen his own power and prestige spread throughout the land.

But Mr Nguni knew better than to try to change things or, from this point on, ever to openly oppose Peekay. By morning the whole country would know of the decision to retain the white
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi
and there would be no way he could confound it. His mouth was dry with the coppery taste of defeat on his tongue. Somojo the great witch doctor, the old Swazi pimp, had openly rebuked him and made him eat the meal of humiliation in front of all the tribes.

But Mr Nguni was also an African. In his head he might well reject the old man's silly warnings, but he felt the expensive brandy in his stomach turn sour and in his heart he trembled mightily. He would have to step on the surface of this problem with great care, or he would sink into oblivion.

Red, despite its quickly earned reputation, remained small and for the first two years comprised Hymie and Peekay and two other people: first, a law clerk named Mr Bottomley-Tuck who was in his fifties and was an alcoholic who would sip quietly from a small silver hip flask of brandy (constantly refilled) all day so that by five in the evening when he went home to a bleak flat and an ageing mother in Rosebank he was generally half snickered. But he knew his torts and his way around the Johannesburg courts better than anyone in South Africa and was indispensable to both young men. The second was the general dogsbody, Chronic Martha who later, when they'd grown big enough to need one, ran the switchboard. Martha too was a good worker, though she suffered from chronic hayfever and seemed always to be on the verge of catching a cold which never quite arrived. She was rather fat and wore glasses and thought Mr Bottomley-Tuck was a disgusting old man because he suffered from mouth ulcers and would sometimes take his false teeth out and stand them in a glass on his desk. He'd sometimes forget them when he went home and Chronic Martha, whose final job each night was to tidy the offices, would come across them, 'All pink and white and yukky, like they alive in the glass and if a person put their finger in they'd bite you!'

After two years, when both Hymie and Peekay were snowed down with work, they advertised for a junior partner and a law clerk, the clerk to be trained in law. To both Peekay and Hymie's surprise Gideon begged for the clerk's job. It seemed insane; he had already defended his world title some four times and was, by African standards anyway, extremely well off. The job of law clerk under Bottomley-Tuck promised to begin by being a glorified messenger boy. But he proved to them that he wanted the job and they gave it to him, though not expecting it to last. Because Red was increasingly known as a law firm that represented the non-European element in criminal juris. prudence they expected very little response for the junior partnership. It wasn't a fashionable position and in career terms promised to be a disaster. They were amazed at the response from young barristers and lawyers from all over the country. Peekay and Hymie spent almost three weeks processing the candidates, reducing the one hundred and fifty replies to twenty which they gave to Bottomley-Tuck to interview. He narrowed these down to the finalists. He'd selected only four. Tandia, who hadn't come through the back door but had applied in the normal way, was one of them. As Bottomley-Tuck had no idea who she was and was a confirmed bachelor Hymie and Peekay were forced to take her application seriously, though they both felt inclined to treat her candidature warily. Peekay left the final interview to Hymie, aware that from the first day he'd met her he was stricken.

This fact alone made Hymie reluctant to take the initial interview any further. However, he couldn't ignore' her results with Bottomley-Tuck and the fact that she'd won the university medal as the top law graduate with the third highest marks ever obtained for jurisprudence.

Tandia had been driven up from Durban by Juicey Fruit Mambo for the interview and had stayed with Madam Flame Flo who had recently moved from Meadowlands to the town of Vereeniging.

Tandia badly wanted to work with Red. When Gideon had been employed as a law clerk she'd been shattered, realizing that it was unlikely they'd employ her as well.

When called up for an initial interview she'd been ecstatic, but soon came down when confronted only by a somewhat inebriated Mr Bottomley-Tuck. On the trip home she'd cried several times, convinced that Peekay and Hymie weren't interested and had fobbed her off with the funny little man who was half cut, but who nevertheless had given her a torrid interview after she'd completed the written paper.

Nothing Juicey Fruit Mambo could say cheered her up and she'd immediately applied for a position with the Durban Urban Planning Authority.

When a month later a letter had arrived from Hymie saying that of the one hundred and fifty people who'd originally applied she was one of four to be selected for a final interview, she could hardly believe her luck. Immediately she began to see the problems, however. She was a woman. A coloured. Gideon's friend. She had to move. She wouldn't be in a position to buy into the practice. She was too inexperienced. All of these things she discussed endlessly with Juicey Fruit Mambo on the trip up to Johannesburg.

Juicey Fruit would listen as though considering every point carefully and then he'd declare his verdict. 'You are number one, Missy Tandy, they no say no to you.' He said this with such conviction that he 'gave Tandia enough courage for at least thirty miles until the next doubt grew from a clear blue sky like cumulus cloud and Juicey Fruit Mambo was thrown into another bout of deep and meaningful listening.

But what Hymie saw was a young and beautiful woman immaculately - if somewhat cheaply - dressed, who appeared confident and assured.

'Tandia, I want you to understand that our previous knowledge of you in any capacity doesn't count
for
you,' Hymie grinned. 'It may even count
against
you, though I hope not. Let me ask you the first obvious question. Why do you want this position?'

'Because I need a job,' Tandia answered simply. The reply bowled Hymie over. Each of the other three candidates had gone into a long explanation involving politics, the law and their need to do something to expunge their guilt. Hymie had mentally sat back waiting for the well-turned phrases and the conscience-stricken reasons to pour out. Now he laughed. 'That is perhaps the best answer I've had to that question. Do you mind if I probe a bit?'

Tandia smiled, her brilliant green eyes coming alive. She really was a devastatingly beautiful woman and Hymie saw how, if her brains matched her looks, she could be a terrible thorn in the side of the racist law profession. He grinned to himself; in haute couture clothes, hair properly styled, speech pattern modified somewhat to a more cultured accent, Tandia Patel would be dynamite, something to throw at the smug and pompous white legal profession. 'Why did you become a lawyer, Tandia?' Hymie now asked. Tandia looked at Hymie directly. 'Because I was clever and because I know how to hate.'

In two replies Hymie had been totally surprised. The woman in front of him wasn't that much younger than him and Peekay and she was playing for real. She was either totally ingenuous or very clever, and Hymie was quite sure it was the latter. 'The law is not about sides, Tandia. It is above your personal politics. You will need to see it that way.'

Though the interview lasted an hour Tandia's reply to this was what got her the job: 'When it is in South Africa, then I will,' she said simply.

Tandia Patel was hired as the new junior partner in Levy, Peekay & Partners. As Hymie put it to Peekay, 'I had no choice, it was no contest. She sees with a perfectly clear pair of eyes. We simply have to have her, she's tougher than both of us put together.'

On 7 March 1960, almost exactly three years after Magistrate Coetzee had concluded that Peekay had a prima-facie case against Colonel Klaasens and Lieutenant Geldenhuis for the abduction and murder of Tom Majombi, the last of three verdicts was handed down by Mr Justice Petzer of the Court of Criminal Appeal.

In an editorial the day following the court decision, the
Cape Argus
summed up the general feeling amongst the black people and also the fair-minded element of the white South African public by writing:

Over a period of three 'Years we have witnessed two police officers, Lieutenant Geldenhuis and Colonel Klaasens, receive a trial by jury which resulted in a murder conviction. Since this original sentence we have seen two further trials, in which no jury sat, where murder has been reversed to manslaughter and finally manslaughter to a misdemeanour which has been further trivialized by a fine of ten pounds. Justice is not only blind in South Africa, it has also become totally deaf; finally, it is senile.

Two days after Judge Petzer's decision Geldenhuis was returned to duty, and just twenty-four hours after returning to his post at Special Branch in Pretoria he was transferred to the police district of Vereeniging, some thirty-five miles from Johannesburg.

The period over which the Majombi trial was conducted had not proved a happy one for Geldenhuis. He'd been placed on clerical duties away from the real action of the Special Branch and his promising career had suffered accordingly. His only consolation had been that he had access to the Red File which concerned itself with the movement of the principals of Levy & Peekay. His transfer to Vereeniging was, in effect, a censure for the young policeman who, despite his acquittal, had become too hot to handle and needed a period in the comparative wilderness to cool down.

Though nothing was ever said, his defeat by Mandoma had also affected the way his senior officers regarded him. From a potential world champion he'd become just another boxer, and one who'd made a series of unfortunate headlines over a protracted murder trial. In addition he'd suffered a second defeat, this time at the hands of Togger Brown, when he again boxed as the undercard to the world title fight between Peekay and Mandoma. In all, he'd caused too much embarrassment even for a police force which is not easily embarrassed.

The posting to Vereeniging was ideally suited for a career censure when you don't want it to look that way. To a prying media, the move could be explained as an important posting for a promising young police officer while, in truth, it amounted to several steps down the road to oblivion.

Vereeniging is an industrial satellite town on the Rand where the giant Sasol state-owned petrochemical works involved in the task of converting coal to petroleum, a technology the South African government was perfecting in the event of a future Middle East oil embargo against South Africa, is located. The government regarded the giant works as a potential terrorist target and designated the Vereeniging district as a small, though separate, Special Branch responsibility.

Despite its potential sensitivity the district had enjoyed almost total freedom from the sort of unrest which was becoming commonplace in African townships. The job prospects for Africans in the area were good, not only at the refinery, but also in the light industry which had developed in the district. The large model township which housed the black workers was noted for its law-abiding black people. In fact, it was this very reputation for quietness which caused Madam Flame Flo to move to the township. After the mass government eviction from Sophiatown she'd moved to Meadowlands, but when her daughter's white husband got a job at the Sa sol refinery in Vereeniging, she saw the move as an opportunity to be closer to her at last. She and Mama Tequila still planned to set up business in Swaziland, so Vereeniging was a temporary move for Madam Flame Flo. Nevertheless she built a nice house in the African township with two spare bedrooms, one for Mama Tequila which contained a king-size Ebenezer Snoozer inner-spring mattress spread over two divan bases. The bedroom also sported its own bathroom with a shower, an essential requirement, as Mama Tequila was too large to get in and out of a bathtub on her own.

From this neat cottage, with its eight-foot corrugated-iron fence surrounding the back yard, Madam Flame Flo ran a quiet little shebeen which opened only during the day for the more serious drinkers. This dalliance with her old lifestyle was more to stay out of mischief. and as an opportunity to fraternize with the locals than to make any serious money. It proved to be the perfect set-up; the shebeen provided good liquor but no gramophone music or dancing so the good-time girls, who usually slept during the daylight hours, stayed away. Madam Flame Flo had given up brewing the dreaded 'Flame' which attracted far too much trouble. With smuggled bottle-store liquor the shebeen practically ran itself and allowed her plenty of time to visit her daughter and her two grandchildren, which she did twice each week by posing as the coloured lady who came in to do the sewing and the heavy cleaning.

At the time of the Geldenhuis transfer Mama Tequila was up from Durban visiting her sister. She was unaware of the proximity of the police lieutenant or she would almost certainly have mentioned his presence to her sister, warning her to stay away from him. Madam Flame Flo was already, of course, aware of Geldenhuis from the murder trial which she herself had set in train more than three years previously. Geldenhuis was no fool and saw the move to Vereeniging for what it was. Outwardly he'd recovered from his extreme angst and inwardly from the almost suicidal frustration which had culminated in his vomiting fit and collapse in the toilet.' But his bitterness against Peekay consumed him. He was famous for being able to keep his feelings under control but now his rage was always near the surface and he would lash out at the slightest provocation, In his tunic pocket Geldenhuis kept a single gold-plated pistol bullet with the nose suitably filed into a dum-dum configuration and when his inner anxiety grew too unbearable he would finger the bullet, reminding himself that it was reserved for his mortal enemy, that sooner or later the time must come when he held Peekay squarely in the sights of his police revolver. In his imagination they would be alone and he would make Peekay go down on his knees and beg for his life. They would make a deal and he would insist that Peekay fight him, properly in a ring, and he would fight Peekay until he'd knocked him unconscious. Then Peekay would recover and the place would be in darkness and he'd stand up in the boxing ring as the lights went on. Standing in the ring would be a huge, ugly, syphilitic black whore in the nude. He would force Peekay to undress and then he would hold the gun to the back of his head and make him go down on the mountain of black kaffir flesh. When he was down there with his head in the hair and the stink of her thighs he would pull the trigger, blowing away the back of his enemy's head with the gold dum-dum bullet.