Tandia

by Bryce Courtenay

  Johnny lay awake for a long time in his tin room. He'd taken one of the lanterns with him and it stood on the floor beside the bed, filling the air with the paraffin. It was unbearably hot and the sweat ran from his naked body and soaked into the bare mattress, leaving it damp and clammy. There was a three-inch gap between the end of the door and the cement floor and he'd used his blanket to stuff it tightly; a snake could easily make it through a gap like that. He longed to push the large window open but his fear of what might enter the room uninvited from the dangerously wild outside was too great. Eventually, though, he must have dozed off, for he awoke with a start, jerking upright in bed. The light from the kerosene lamp gave the room an eerie glow and he had to squint to make out the time on his watch face. It was just after two o'clock in the morning and he was almost certain he'd heard the sound of a car engine. He" sat still for a moment allowing his pounding heart to come to a rest as he listened to the sounds of the night outside. He could hear the rush of water over the rapids and the sounds of frogs in the reeds acting as basso profundo to the higher pitched sounds of crickets and other night insects. But nothing came to him which sounded vaguely human.

  Johnny Tambourine had slept most of his life with one mental eye open and he knew the feel of danger. He hurriedly pulled on his trousers and put on his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned. In his bare feet he moved over to the door and pulled at the blanket with his toes, drawing it away from the bottom of the door, which he opened slowly about six inches. The moon was a large watermelon slice, two thirds full in the sky and he'd never seen as many stars in his life. He was amazed at how light it seemed; details showed sharper than in street light. He looked down to the back of the house which lay quiet and still, its white, moonlight-bright walls sharply outlined, one side thrown into shadow. The chorus of frogs down at the river stopped suddenly and the higher pitch of the crickets filled the void. It was crazy, the old guy should have a dog. Who ever heard of a farmhouse without a dog? The old guy was asking for trouble. Johnny Tambourine remembered how he'd tried to lock the kitchen door when he'd left Tandia but, to his consternation, there had been no key in the lock. Everything about this place was crazy.

  He concentrated on the side of the house thrown into shadow, trying to read its darkness. He knew from experience of a thousand alleys that if you concentrated hard enough and kept looking without panicking you could see into shadow. Then he saw a figure crouched low at the corner of the house. 'Christ, Tandia!' He hoped it was a burglar, he could cope easily with a single guy trying to break in.

  Johnny Tambourine reached into his trouser pocket for his knife. Bringing it to his teeth he opened the long, sharp blade, then inched the door open a little further. The figure moved out of the shadow still crouching low and then he saw two others. They were directly behind the first man and now they too moved into the light. 'Shit! Special Squad!' The blackened faces were outlined in balaclavas pulled over their heads; they wore old clothes, but white men don't wear cast-off clothes the way Africans do. And terrorists go barefoot like village men, they don't wear identical brown sandshoes. But it was the way they crouched, elbows on their knees, in a particular manner the black people call hlalaphansi. Black people don't crouch quite like that. He couldn't see any guns, but they'd be armed for sure and it was open ground between where he stood and the back of the house - open in bright moonlight. They'd cut him to pieces if he was crazy enough to run at them, which he wasn't.

  One of the men rose quickly and, half crouching, moved to the kitchen door. He inserted a small jemmy near the latch and Johnny Tambourine heard the soft crack as the door was levered open. What happened next was all over in seconds; the men crouched at the dark corner of the house moved quickly towards the kitchen door, each carrying what looked like a small package.

  Then a flare of a match or cigarette lighter was touched to each package, and all three started to run from the house. Johnny Tambourine, shouting at the top of his voice, also started to run, though towards the house, closing his knife and returning it to his pocket. Before he'd run halfway across the yard the kitchen filled with roaring flame as the petrol bombs exploded within it.

  Johnny Tambourine went straight down the side of the farmhouse and through the front door. The house had already filled with smoke but the flames had not yet reached Tandia's room. Opening her bedroom door and rushing to her bed, he jerked her to her feet; then half carrying her he propelled her down the hallway which was already in flames. He crossed the front parlour and pushed her screaming onto the stoep where she fell sprawling. Then he turned and rushed back into the smoke-filled house. The flames had reached the parlour and he beat at them with his hands as he made his way back down the hallway to Coetzee's room. The moment he opened the door the flames, pulled into the room by the draught created by the open window, entered the small room and enveloped the bed where Coetzee lay on his back fully dressed.

  Johnny Tambourine lifted Coetzee from the bed, the adrenalin pumping through his body making the two-hundred pound lift effortless. The open window was no more than three or four steps away and Johnny, his shirt in flames, dumped the still unconscious body of the magistrate through the window and dived through it himself.

  He jumped up instantly, pulling his shirt off and then dragging the heavy body of the white man clear, rolling him on the ground and then picking up handfuls of soft dust and dousing out the last of the flames licking at his khaki shirt and trousers. Coetzee hadn't moved and Johnny Tambourine thought for a moment that the fall from the window might have killed him. Then he heard a soft groan as the old man opened his eyes.

  Johnny Tambourine examined the seared flesh of his arms and torso. 'Shit! I risked my life to save a Boer? It must be the bush, it makes a man crazy!' he said aloud.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Peekay picked up the Johannesburg Star, turning quickly to the classified section. For the past three weeks he'd beer doing the same thing each morning and now he saw what he was looking for:

  This little piggy went to market

  This little piggy had a beer alone

  This little piggy climbed a peak

  And this little piggy came home.

  Gideon was back! The coded message conveyed that Gideon would be crossing the border from the Portuguese side into Swaziland and that Peekay should be alone at the marketplace at Pigg's Peak, a small town in Swaziland. He would indicate his presence by placing a case of Lion beer in the back of the car and the assignation would take place in four day's time at four o'clock in the afternoon.

  Peekay worried about Gideon's return. He'd tried in his letters to persuade him to stay away, to lead from the outside. The courts were full of ANC and PAC men who'd been captured, who'd shown themselves no match for the Special Branch. Informers were everywhere and Peekay feared his friend's life would be wasted on a senseless act of terrorism.

  But Gideon was coming back. Coming through Swaziland was a peculiar route. His face was famous in the Portuguese territory, he'd fought twice in Lourenco Marques so he'd be easily recognized by the locals. The only advantage was that it was less than four hours from the border to Pigg's Peak and from there they could cross at Bulembu and come into South Africa through Barberton, country Peekay knew intimately.

  Still it was chancy. Then it occurred to him that Gideon was travelling without the knowledge of the ANC. This would cut down the likelihood of informers alerting the Special Branch. Coming through Lourenco Marques also had the added advantage that Gideon would come straight off a ship and be across the border in less than two hours.

  Peekay still hoped to convince Gideon not to return when he met him face to face. The three partners had all but concluded that what Peekay and Tandia were doing, in terms of achieving justice, was very nearly pointless, that by going overseas and beginning the task of working for sanctions against South Africa they would, in the long run, have a far greater chance of bringing the apartheid regime to it
s knees. When the whites saw their way of life being eroded they would be less inclined to support a fanatical racist regime. Greed is nearly always the best persuader.

  Peekay wanted only one more thing, a second crack at Jannie Geldenhuis: an opportunity to get the infamous police captain on the stand again, preferably on a charge of murder.

  This time Peekay was vastly more experienced and, while he expected to lose the case regardless of how blatantly he proved the policeman's guilt, he was confident that he could use the courtroom as a stage to expose, for the entire world to see, the perfidy, cruelty and moral corruption of apartheid. He simply needed to trap Geldenhuis one more time. Peekay knew this wouldn't be easy. The policeman was watching him as carefully as he was waiting for Geldenhuis to make an error of judgement. Hymie tried desperately to persuade him that it was a foolhardy plan. Hymie was getting close to despair; he'd calculated the odds of their remaining safe from the new laws which seemed specially designed for their demise and he'd concluded that time was running out for Peekay and Tandia in particular, but really for all of them.

  Just a week before Peekay read Gideon's message in the Star he'd tried to force Peekay to look at the case rationally. 'Listen to me, this isn't like last time when we nailed the bastard with Tom Majombi! The law has been doctored to the point where as long as Geldenhuis kills black people in the name of the Special Branch he's safe as a house. He isn't going to do anything he can't justify as police work.'

  'Ja, I know, Hymie, but sooner or later he has to do something we can nail him on personally. You can't just be evil in one way and good in all other respects; sooner or later he has to act on his own, do something which he can't justify in the name of the law. Guys like him always do.'

  Peekay looked anguished. 'Hymie, I know you think part of it is getting even for Tandia. But I promise it isn't that! I mean, if it was, I dare say, with the contacts we have, we could plan some sort of ultimate revenge, then we could all leave South Africa and in the best of all worlds I could try to persuade Tandia to love me enough to marry me legally. You could marry Harriet and we'd all live happily ever after, spreading truth and justice and persuading the world to bring sanctions against the government in Pretoria.'

  Peekay stopped, rubbing his forehead with the butt of his hand as though he was trying to expunge what he was about to say next. 'But that's just what it isn't! I want the world to see what we see, that Jannie Geldenhuis isn't an isolated madman, but a part of the logical offspring of a country where one section of the population has gone mad! We may not all be like Geldenhuis, but in any other country he would be either in prison or under severe psychiatric treatment in an institution. In our country he is a Godfearing citizen, who reads the lesson in church on Sunday and who is about to be promoted to colonel by a grateful government. He is a media personality, a famous policeman who keeps our children safe from the pathological fears of their insane parents. Geldenhuis is there because we appointed him; it is our collective insanity which allows him, and the thousands like him, to be who they are!'

  'Peekay, I tremble in my very boots when I hear you talk like this. Let's at least put a deadline on leaving South Africa.' Hymie laughed grimly. 'My people have an instinct for knowing when to move. The only time we denied that instinct we paid too big a price. Let's put a time on leaving and I'll get Red sorted out so we don't lose too much. What do you say?'

  Peekay shook his head. 'Hymie, I don't know. I don't know that I can leave just like that with nothing to show for ten years as a barrister. Less than nothing! My country is in ten times worse shape now than it was when we left Oxford. We have contributed bugger all!'

  Hymie grew suddenly angry. 'Arsehole! You're showing all the signs of being a martyr. You know what you want to make me do? You want to make me puke! You've done everything a man can do for his country except die for it! If you want to do that, then go ahead, most of the whites will breathe a sigh of relief because you're no longer there to prick at their collective consciences. The blacks will mourn you for a day or two and then you'll just be another white liberal who got swallowed up in their plight. You won't even be useful dead! A white man dying for the cause of South Africa's blacks wouldn't even make a useful martyr!' The conversation had ended there, but Peekay knew Hymie was right; it was only a matter of time before the government delivered the blow which would put them out of the game. Geldenhuis was holding all the aces. Now as he sat reading the paper and thinking of Gideon's return he wondered how he might persuade Tandia to come with them. She agreed that they'd become a useless appendage to the justice system but she wanted to go underground to fight. Perhaps if he could also persuade Gideon she'd see the need to get out, but Peekay was fairly certain both would elect to stay and fight even knowing that the odds were stacked against them. He despaired at the thought of Geldenhuis on the loose with Tandia on her own without the protection of Red. He simply couldn't see how he could possibly leave without her.

  Tandia he knew had no hope as a freedom fighter; she was too well known, too conspicuous. She'd play straight into the hands of a waiting Geldenhuis, who had already made one recent attempt on her life with the fire-bombing of Magistrate Coetzee's farmhouse.

  Though no incontrovertible proof existed that Geldenhuis had been responsible for the attack on the lonely farmhouse, Too Many Fingers Bembi, who took it in turns with Dog Poep Ismali to watch the police captain, had reported that he'd left in his car at eight o'clock on the night of the bombing in the company of two other men, a sergeant and a corporal in the Special Branch. They'd been dressed in civilian clothes and carried three canvas tote bags. One of the men also carried a two-gallon tin of petrol. They'd stowed the bags and the petrol in the boot of the police captain's blue 1957 Chevvy sedan and taken off.

  When Too Many Fingers Bembi returned to the block of flats the following morning at seven o'clock, just shortly before. Geldenhuis usually left for work, the blue Chevvy was parked outside. It was caked in dust and the front mudguard had been dented; he'd placed his hand on the bonnet to discover it was still warm.

  There was no way they could prove the police captain's involvement, of course. There were no fingerprints at the scene of the crime and Johnny Tambourine was the only witness. Cross-examined, his evidence of what he'd purported to have seen in the dark would count for little, although his picture did appear in all the newspapers as the 'boy' who'd saved the lives of the famous retired magistrate currently under house arrest and the beautiful coloured lawyer who would soon be representing him in court.

  So the case was closed. The police stated that they believed the people responsible for the fire were the ones who had destroyed Magistrate Coetzee's tractor and disc plough. They felt sure that when they solved the first crime they'd resolve the second. And no, they were no closer to solving the first.

  One good thing did come from the incident. Though Tandia subsequently lost her appeal against Magistrate Coetzee's house arrest, his sentence was lifted one week after his eight-week stay in hospital. The old man never returned to live at Eendrag, but took a room in a private house in Barberton. He would often drive the half hour out to his farm in the bend of the Crocodile River. He would pass the burnt-out ruins of his old home without so much as a glance and continue past it up the eroded and barely visible road, over the slight rise to what he now called Tandia's house.

  Here he would park the International under the frangipani tree, kill the engine and sit quietly for a few moments inhaling the soft perfumed air around him. Then he'd climb slowly from the pick-up, taking his old Boer War Mauser with him up the grand steps to the stoep. Seated on a deck chair, he would pass' the afternoon away in the excellent company of a good bottle of brandy. Occasionally he'd bring the Mauser up and squint down its sights. He never fired a shot, even though the gun had been restored to mint condition and the chamber was always loaded. He told himself he didn't want to destroy the tranquillity of a perfectly good afternoon or even
for a moment drown out the sound of the river as it turned into rapids at the wide bend that marked the boundary of his own land.

  One night nearly six months after leaving hospital he didn't return home at his usual time soon after sunset. Mrs Boxall, the town's librarian, who was his landlady and who'd grown rather fond of the old man, waited until eight o'clock before she called Gert from the prison.

  Gert arrived in a prison car a short time later and together they'd driven the half hour out to Eendrag. As Mrs Boxall would later tell it to Peekay, they found Magistrate Coetzee seated in his deck chair on the stoep in the bright moonlight, the old rifle over his lap and the smell of the moonflowers and frangipani strong in the night air.

  At first they both thought he was asleep. His great red nose actually shone by the light of the full moon. Then Mrs Boxall saw that the bottle of Cape brandy was still half full. 'He wouldn't fall asleep until the bottle was empty,' she whispered to Gert. She knew suddenly he was dead, but strangely she didn't feel in the least upset; it seemed such a pleasant way to die.

  'Mrs Boxall, I wonder, could you do me a favour?' Gert asked suddenly. 'Of course, Gert.'

  'Well, man, I think we leave the old kerel here tonight, hey? Then tomorrow morning we can send the ambulance.' Mrs Boxall was puzzled, though she knew Gert was far too sensible not to have a good reason. 'Yes, of course, whatever you say.'

  Gert walked to the edge of the stoep and looked up into the brilliant night sky pinned with a million stars. 'He was 'n regte oubaas, they don't make his kind any more,' he paused 'I jus' got a feeling inside me he wants to spend his last night under the stars of an African night on his own farm, with his rifle at his side. It's the proper way, the way every Boer wishes to die.'

  Magistrate Coetzee was found to have no relations and in his will he left the farm to Peekay to be held in trust for Tandia. With his last will and testament he'd included a note for Tandia written in his beautiful copperplate hand: