Tandia (7 page)

Signed: (Miss)………………………………………….

Tandia Patel. Date:…………………………………….

Witness: (Sergeant)…………………………………….

Jannie Teunis Geldenhuis Witness:

(Constable)……………………………………

Joshua Matembu

As Tandia read the piece Geldenhuis had written she couldn't think beyond the fact that it spelled freedom. She had been raped, violated and beaten. She was exhausted and humiliated and her body ached from the beating it had taken over the past eighteen hours. The niceties of moral rectitude taught so steadfastly at Durban Indian Girls' High School had no validity in her present circumstances. A refusal to sign the confession would do nothing for her self-respect not did it even serve the useful purpose of adding to her hate. She became aware of Geldenhuis staring at her and when she had finished reading she looked up into his pale blue eyes. 'I will sign it,' she whispered again.

Geldenhuis said nothing. He was in control of himself again. He merely handed her his expensive fountain pen.

Tandia's chair was too low for her to sign the paper while seated…She released the sticky balls of toilet paper in her hand and dropped them beside her chair and wiped her hand surreptitiously on the back of her shift. Then she rose and, crouching over the table, shakily signed the confession.

Tandia remained standing as Geldenhuis reached over and lifted the paper. He drew it towards him as though he was going to kiss it, but instead, he blew briefly on Tandia's signature and then waved it in the air. He then took the pen and signed the document himself. He called over to the black policeman, 'Hey, Matembu, come and sign your name.'

The black constable walked reluctantly over to the table. 'I not want sign this paper, sir. This bad paper.'

The white sergeant didn't look up. 'Sign it, man, you a material witness,' he said impatiently.

'This 'paper, sir, it not for charge sheet. I do not want sign this paper,' Matembu persisted.

Geldenhuis shot from his chair, 'I'm not bladdy asking you, I'm telling you! It's a fucking order, you hear!' He proffered his pen and moved Tandia's confession over to the edge of the table where the black man stood.

The black policeman took the pen and slowly signed his name and returned the pen to the sergeant. 'I will get her things, sir. The umFazi has a basin. I will get the keys from the desk sergeant, sir?'

'Ja, orright, also a police car, tell the sergeant I need a police car for only one hour.'

The black man turned to go and then turned to Geldenhuis. 'It is very, very late, sir. I must ask the desk sergeant for a police pass if the umFazi is going to be released on the street tonight.'

'Just get her things, you hear? She will not need a pass.' Geldenhuis folded Tandia's confession carefully. The black policeman looked hesitant. 'I'm telling you, man, she won't need a pass!'

'Please, sir, I have signed the paper. You said you would let me go if I signed that paper,' Tandia begged.

Geldenhuis stood with his hands on his hips. 'Where would you go? You have nowhere to go.' He glanced at his watch. 'It is one o'clock in the night, there are bad people out there.' He undid the button on the right breast pocket of his tunic and took out his wallet, then he carefully slipped the folded confession into it. 'I will keep this, you hear? I can use it any time I want, you understand? Any time. It is a legal document.' He spoke quietly with no threat in his voice, which, to Tandia, now seemed more threatening than had he shouted at her.

Geldenhuis placed the wallet back in the pocket of his khaki tunic and fastened the polished button. 'Sit,' he commanded, indicating the bigger chair once again. 'Sit, I want to have a nice little talk with you.'

Tandia did as she was told. She was filled with despair. She'd signed his paper and now he wasn't going to let her go. Or was he? He'd asked Matembu to get her things but he wouldn't authorise a late-night pass. Geldenhuis again sat sideways on the table, one elbow resting on the typewriter. He was relaxed, even friendly. 'You know something, Tandia?' It was the first time he had used her name in conversation. 'You are what in the police we call a
swart slimmetjie,
a clever black. And your kind, the
swart slimmetjie,
your kind we hate the most. You got a bit of education, you too smart for your own bladdy good.
If
I let you just walk out the station tonight, I'm telling you, jong, you'll be back in no time flat.'

'No, sir, I won't be back. I do not ever want to see this place ever again!'

Geldenhuis sighed, as though he was trying to explain something to a backward child. 'Ag, ja, man, you can try, but I'm telling you, it will be no good. No matter how hard you try, we will bring you back. We keep our eye on all the clever ones. You see, sooner or later they join the ANC. I'm telling you, jong, a black kaffir with an education is a dangerous person in the hands of the ANC.'

Tandia looked down into her lap, afraid to meet his eyes, the blue eyes that saw everything.

Geldenhuis tapped the wallet in his breast pocket. 'Now you know why I got this piece of paper. That's one reason.' He paused and then said, 'Look at me.' Tandia lifted her frightened gaze to his face. 'I want to help you. You want to know why because?' Tandia did not reply and once again lowered her eyes. 'Look at me, dammit,' Geldenhuis rapped. Then, as suddenly he smiled again. 'Natkin Patel showed me a lot of things that made me a better boxer.' He paused and brought one leg up so that his heel rested on the edge of the table, his hands capping his knee. 'Do you know about boxing?'

'Only a little bit,' Tandia sniffed. Geldenhuis nodded and continued, 'Next month I fight a Zulu boxer called Mandoma. He fights in the Transvaal and he's very good. Patel trained me for this fight which is for the South African professional welterweight title. He has seen Mandoma fight lots of times and he thinks I can beat him. I think so also.' Geldenhuis stopped talking and seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

Tandia knew what Geldenhuis was talking about. Some years previously Patel had been called up to Johannesburg to referee a fight which took place in Sophiatown under unusual circumstances between Gideon Mandoma and a white schoolboy. Though both fighters were only in their teens at the time, Natkin had been impressed with what he saw. From that point on he had followed Mandoma's career in the ring.

If
Patel had been helping to prepare Geldenhuis for a fight with Mandoma, Tandia thought, then the white policeman must be a very classy fighter. What's more, he had the hate. Patel always said that to be a champion, a boxer has to have the hate. Tandia knew at first hand that Geldenhuis had the hate.

Geldenhuis spoke at last. 'You see, I owe Patel. So I will help you. I will pay my debt, you hear?'

'Thank you, sir,' Tandia said, trying to conceal the fright in her voice. She wanted nothing more from the monster who sat on the table beside her. No matter how dangerous it was outside on the streets, it was better than being in this room with this white man who totally controlled her.

'I will help you, and you can help the police. Would you like to help the police?'

Tandia did not reply and Geldenhuis took her silence to mean that she would co-operate. 'You see, if you help the police, then you safe, as a
swart slimmetjie,
you safe.' He grinned suddenly. 'You on our side, man!'

Tandia waited for the trap to close. 'What must I do, sir?' she asked in an uncertain voice.

'Ag, easy stuff. I will take you to this place where you can stay. They will give you work also. It is a woman who owes me a favour.'

Tandia sensed the plan Geldenhuis had hatched in his head was important to him and she grew a little bolder. 'What must I do for the police at this place?'

'People will come. Sometimes Indian people, rich Indian people. Sometimes white people. Also important rich ones. You will watch and you will learn who they are and you will tell me what they do and say.'

'What kind of place is this place?'

'Ag, you know, it is place where they have women, where men go sometimes.'

The trap had been sprung! Geldenhuis was going to find her a place in a brothel. Tandia looked up at the white man, her distress plain. The police sergeant had a smile on his face and he absently tapped the outline of his wallet in the breast pocket of his tunic.

He jumped from the table and straightened the tunic of his uniform by pulling it down first from the front and then the back and smoothing the waist with his palms. 'I will speak to my friend.' He beckoned to Tandia. 'Come, I must take your fingerprints and then we go hey?'

The clock on the charge office wall showed a quarter to two when Tandia finally lifted the large basin to her head and started to walk out of the Cato Manor Police Station. She kept her eyes downcast and followed Geldenhuis out into the dark street. As she passed through the door the black constable whispered,
'Hamba khashle, intkhosatana,
go well, young lady.'

'C'mon! I haven't got all bladdy night!' Geldenhuis called. Tandia walked slowly towards the police car. He stood beside the open boot and indicated she should put the basin in and then slammed it shut. 'Climb in the back, be quick!' he snapped, the authority now back in his voice.

Tandia's relief at leaving was so great that she hardly noticed which way Geldenhuis drove. They seemed to drive for some time through the dark streets of the township and then onto a tarred road with street lights. It was not until they reached the lighted street that he spoke to her again.

'I can't take you to the place where this woman is, so I'm taking you to the train station. There are no more trains tonight but you must wait there.' He offered no further explanation and shortly afterwards they drove up to the Cato Manor railway station. 'Wait in the car,' he said and then walked up the steps into the station master's office.

He returned quite soon with a sleepy looking railway official and told Tandia to get out of the car. The man from the railway was the first person other than policemen Tandia had seen in what seemed to her like a lifetime. To Tandia he represented the normal world she had once known and she immediately felt more secure. The official wasn't wearing the coat of his blue serge uniform; his waistcoat was unbuttoned and his tie knot pulled down, which made him look friendlier. A bluish rash of stubble covered his jowls and he scratched at his crotch absently as though he was not yet properly awake.

In a manner common to South African whites, Geldenhuis spoke to the railway official as though Tandia wasn't present. 'Look, man, I want you to let this girl sit on a bench until the first train.' He paused. 'By the way, when is that?' The railway official automatically reached for his pocket watch. Forgetting that his waistcoat was unbuttoned he dug his thumb and forefinger into the roll of fat where his fob pocket ought to have been. 'Ten minutes to five,' he said automatically, looking down into his empty hand. 'Ja, okay, she will be gone before then.'

The railway official looked at Tandia for the first time. 'Has she got a pass?' He pointed at her and turned to Geldenhuis. 'She looks like she's been in a fight. She's not a
tsotsi's
girl is she?' The idea of her being a street hooligan's woman seemed to wake him up and he wagged the finger at Tandia. 'I don't want any trouble from a bladdy coloured or kaffir gang, you hear?'

'No, man, no trouble,' Geldenhuis said impatiently, 'Jus' let her sit on a bench, okay, hey?'

The railway man shrugged. 'Ja, if she's got a pass it's"okay by me.'

Geldenhuis clicked his tongue. 'No, man, she hasn't got a pass! I just want her to sit on a bench until some people come.'

'You better give me your name and your phone number in case some other police come,' said the stationmaster.

Geldenhuis wrote down his phone number and name and, tearing the page from a small spiral notepad, handed it to the official who turned and walked away without bidding him goodnight.

Geldenhuis turned to Tandia. 'Don't try and leave here; you haven't got a night pass, and if some other police pick you up you'll be charged and go to the lock-up for six days. Just stay here on a bench, okay?'

Tandia nodded; the thought of being apprehended again terrified her. Geldenhuis opened the boot and she lifted the basin to her head. Very little strength remained in her beaten body and she rose slowly to an upright position.

'Can I go now please, sir?' she whispered.

'Ja, go!'

Tandia walked up the station steps into the building. 'Hey!' Geldenhuis called. The heavy basin on her head caused Tandia to turn slowly to face him. If he called her back again she knew she would surely faint. He stood with his elbow resting on the top of the open driver's door.

'Yes, sir?' it was hardly a whisper and the white policeman would have had difficulty even detecting the movement of her lips.

Geldenhuis patted the breast pocket of his uniform and grinned. 'Jus' remember, jong, in the eyes of the law you nothing but a whore!'

Tandia turned and walked into the station building where she found a bench on the platform stencilled 'Non-Whites.' She pushed the basin under the bench and sat down on the deserted platform. She was unutterably tired but the joy of having finally escaped Geldenhuis overcame her weariness for a moment and she impulsively rose from the bench and pulled the basin out from under it.

The two cotton shifts into which Apple Sammy, Tandia's kewpie doll, had been wrapped hadn't come undone when the basin had toppled to the road. Now she removed the doll and examined it. Apple Sammy had large, ingenuous dark-blue eyes which had faded somewhat and the once bright rose rouge on his cheeks was now only faintly discernible, but he seemed no worse for wear. Tandia adjusted the doll's legs and pulled at his tiny pink organza skirt.

Tandia sat with the small doll clutched tightly to her chest and started to rock. She was too tired to try to think about what might happen next. Weariness overcame her and despite her fear of being accosted on the lonely platform, she fell asleep.

Tandia wakened slowly. Her body ached terribly but her head, which also hurt, rested against a warm, wonderful softness. She felt herself cradled, as though she was being held in a comforting embrace. The experience was so unfamiliar that, at first, she believed herself to be dreaming. To add to the dreaming quality, a sweet-smelling perfume reached her nostrils. Slowly, tentatively, she opened her eyes.

'Shhh,
skatterbol,'
she heard a woman's voice say softly. Tandia looked down. She still clutched Apple Sammy to her chest. She tried to sit up but the arm around her held her firmly. Frightened, she looked up into the caramel-coloured face of a very big and smiling woman with the longest false eyelashes she had ever seen.

The woman wore an outrageously large purple hat decorated with pink ostrich feathers. Her pink satin dress stretched tightly over her enormous bosom, at the same time allowing a large amount of warm caramel flesh to spill out of its deeply plunging neckline so that her breasts looked as though they were trying to escape. The effect the woman created was of richness; and the strong, sweet-smelling perfume which Tandia now realised belonged to her, added to the opulent effect.

'Don't be frightened, baby, I ain't going to hurt you none.'

The words were clipped and staccato and sounded American. 'Name's Mama Tequila, pleased ter…meet'cha.' She offered her right hand for Tandia to shake.

'Hi,' Tandia whispered, barely touching the hand with its long, shiny red nails. 'What's your name, honey?'

'Tandia,' she cleared her throat, 'Tandia Patel.'

'Tandia, that's a real swell name. You got no place to go? That's it, huh? You little orphan Annie sittin' on your fanny?' Mama Tequila had the raspy voice of a heavy smoker and now she laughed uproariously at her own joke, interjecting her laughter with a fit of coughing. She stopped laughing abruptly and reached into her handbag, a large purple leather affair that matched her hat. From it she withdrew a silver cigarette case. 'Smoke, honey?'

Tandia, who was completely overwhelmed by the presence of this large woman, shook her head.

Mama Tequila helped herself to a cigarette, closed the case and tapped the tobacco end on its silver lid. She returned the case to her bag and then dug around in it to produce a regulation American army Zippo lighter. She flicked it alight and held it to the end of the cigarette, squinting through the smoke as she drew in and then exhaled. Then. she slipped the cover back over the Zippo and returned it to her handbag. She spoke with the cigarette between her lips. 'It ain't pretty like everything else, but it sure lights every time. I kind of like pretty things, but a pretty lighter that don't work is like a pretty woman that don't work.' She withdrew the cork tip from her lips. 'Ain't no good to nobody, leastways herself!' She chuckled, 'I bet you like pretty things too, hey honey?'

Tandia didn't answer. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming; nothing like this monstrous pink creature had ever happened to her before.

'Sure you do, you a very pretty girl, pretty girls got to have pretty things, or they die!' She shook her head slowly as though talking to herself. 'There is plenty of time to be ugly.' She turned and looked directly at Tandia. 'You got to use pretty, while you got pretty, honey, that the rule of womankind!'

Mama Tequila started to chuckle again, her breasts heaving. 'You see this big, hip-pie-pot-to-mass, honey? Well, once upon a time, I was just as pretty and dainty as you, baby.' She seemed to find this particularly funny, her laughter disappearing finally into a wheeze until she grew quite red in the face and started to cough. She threw the cigarette to the ground and bending forward brought both her hands up to cover her mouth. Tandia knew she ought to pat her on the back but she hesitated. She had never deliberately touched an adult female person before and now the idea frightened her.

Mama Tequila glanced at her briefly between a spasm of coughing. Her eyes were teary from the coughing and her mascara had started to run; she seemed to be appealing for her help. Tandia took a deep breath and started to slap the large woman on her back. To her surprise Mama Tequila ceased coughing almost immediately. In a voice drawn thin after the paroxysm of coughing she said, 'Ain't nutting but coffin nails, them damned cigarillos!'

She straightened up, dug into her handbag and produced an absurdly small lace handkerchief with which she wiped her eyes; then she held it to her nose and blew. She found a compact in her bag and proceeded to repair her make-up.

Returning the make-up to her bag, she turned to Tandia, her face serious for a moment. 'This ai!,'t no place for a couple of high-class ladies, honey,' she rasped.

Tandia instinctively liked the big woman. She wanted to go with her but her escape from Geldenhuis was still too recent. The idea of being tied to another human being she didn't know and whose motives she couldn't begin to discern, frightened her. 'Where we going to?' Instinctively she picked up Apple Sammy from her lap and clutched the doll to her chest.

Mama Tequila didn't answer her directly. Instead she looked hard into Tandia's eyes. 'Look, kid, you a mess. You been beat-up bad.' She touched Tandia's face gently. 'Look what them mothers did to you!' She reached out and removed Apple Sammy from Tandia's grasp and placed the kewpie doll on her lap. Then she took both Tandia's arms, and drew them gently towards her. When she spoke again the toughness had gone from her voice.

'You poor baby, them wrists, they are bad. We got to clean you up, honey. We leave you like this you going to have yourself a pair of permanent bracelets.'

Mama Tequila placed Tandia's hands back on her lap one on either side of Apple Sammy. Then she rose slowly from the bench and began to tug at her skirt, pulling the tight satin back down to her knees. She adjusted her hat in an imaginary mirror, her hands fluttering around its rim, a small tug here and a little pat there, like two busy brown spiders, the ends of their fat legs dipped in brilliant scarlet. She took a few steps towards the entrance of the station, and pushing two fingers into her mouth she let go a piercing whistle. She turned to Tandia. 'C'mon, kid, let's kick the dust, we're going home to Bluey Jay.'

In what seemed like a matter of moments a tall, very black man appeared. His head was completely shaved and a jagged scar ran diagonally across the top of his shiny scalp to just above his left eyebrow. It looked as though the skull had been cracked open and then clamped until it grew back together again. The eye directly under the scar was only half open, a condition which seemed permanent as the skin around the eye was puckered like the top of a leather drawstring purse. The tall black man smiled as he approached Mama Tequila and Tandia noticed that his two front teeth were missing but the incisors on either side had each been filed to a point and were made of gold.

'This is Edward, King George, Juicey Fruit Mambo, honey. He is my driver. Just call him Juicey Fruit Mambo. Never mind your basin, he'll bring it.' Mama Tequila started to walk away. 'Now you just follow me, baby,' she called; she seemed to alternate the two endearments 'honey' and 'baby' as though she hadn't quite decided which suited Tandia best, though 'baby' seemed to be winning.

Juicey Fruit Mambo grinned at Tandia. He reminded Tandia of a horror story she'd read as a small girl in a book she'd borrowed from the school library. It had been entitled 'Doctor Weirdwolfe's Tales of the Supernatural'. The scariest story in the book was about a monster named the Master of Evil who lived in the
under-world
with a huge and grotesque wet nurse who cared for the monster children of his victims. They all lived in a giant tent made from the membraned wings of vampire bats, surrounded by a garden of carnivorous plants that fed on birds and bats and flying insects, reaching up on coiled stems to snatch them from the very air itself. The Master of Evil would come up into the
above-world
through the foul-smelling city sewers, into the dark, cold, misty streets where. he would waylay young women returning from the tavern at night, biting them on the right breast with his two gold incisors so that nine months later they gave birth to boy monsters.