Tandia (94 page)

At Bluey Jay when, in the early mornings with everyone asleep, she sat in the safety and quietness of the branches of the old fig tree beside her upstairs window, Tandia imagined a house like this, safe and quiet and beautiful, confident in its surroundings, a place where she could -belong to herself completely.

It was growing too dark to continue up the steps and she turned back, though her heart was beating with excitement. She must own this house and restore it. She knew it was impossible; she was an African and forbidden to own property - she couldn't even live in it for more than seventy-two hours at a time, and even then she needed a permit to visit the area. But it didn't matter. Peekay could own it if Magistrate Coetzee would sell, just the house and the few trees around it and access to it through his property in perpetuity.

Tandia realized with a shock that for the first time since she had been raped at Patel's grave, the fear and the hate wasn't with her. It had taken an old house with its roof open to the sky to give her hope. Hope? She shivered suddenly; someone had just walked over her grave. Hope was the most frightening feeling she'd ever experienced. It meant she had to try and stay alive when the odds were stacked against her. It meant she and Gideon and Peekay had to win.

Tandia realized that she'd never thought about victory based on hope, rather on inflicting a defeat predicated on revenge. Peekay's dreams of harmonious integration were too altruistic for her; Gideon's were too ambitious for himself; and Hymie's were too practical and mercantile. When the day came, and if she was still alive, she wanted to be on the volunteer list of judges who would pronounce the sentences which would break the spirit of Geldenhuis and his arrogant tribe of murderers forever.

How could there be forgiveness in her heart? How do you forgive the barrel of a gun up your anus? How do you forgive a boot planted on your neck? How do you forgive being handcuffed hand and foot and then entered like a dog?
Jesus a virgin! The-black-bitch-is-a-fucking-virgin!
How do you forgive the dum-dum bullet that blew Juicey Fruit Mambo's brains out? How do you forgive Sharpeville? How do you forgive the twenty-seven of your clients, or the witnesses who came forward for them, who died in the custody of Geldenhuis and his Special Branch or left after a few hours, free to go without being charged, but in ambulances, gibbering idiots with permanent brain damage? How do you forgive Tom Majombi, the human punch bag, abducted from hospital to lie in the most terrible pain in a dark cell for three weeks while an abscess ate at his brain until it killed him in an explosion of pus? How do you forgive a white tribe who educates the black one only to be his servant? Not only to clean but to lick his boots as well? How do you forgive the prison the black people are born into and remain in all the days of their lives?

Now she wondered what had happened to her. How could it be that no human, despite the great kindness she had been shown by many, had been able to reach her, yet her personal road to Damascus could well prove to be a clump of old bricks and stones and roofless rafters standing in a patch of African wilderness against a setting sun? They spoke of her deep need to belong to somewhere and something which she'd never before dared to admit to herself. From the time she was raped she'd seen herself as black, the opposite to white. Inferior, the. opposite to superior. Shackled, the opposite to being free. Her blackness was an actual and emotional classification which substituted as an identity. Her personality was secondary to her status. But in truth she was a middle child, neither one thing or another, the bastard orphan of the old Africa and the legitimate child of the South Africa yet to come. She couldn't be classified as a new house, but was instead an old one changed to accommodate the new family of South Africa. She was this old house mended and with a new roof. Tandia smiled inwardly, enjoying the metaphor.

Then she snorted to herself in disgust. She must be going crazy! She was beginning to sound as stupid as Peekay! It was much better to hold onto the hard, cold reality of revenge than attempt to grasp a tenuous and amorphous hope. That old house had been built by vicious racists whO'd murdered and plundered for the land it stood on. In the Africa of her future revenge, it must not be allowed to stand. Old Coetzee was still on the stoep when she returned. It was almost dark and the old woman had hung a storm lantern on a hook on the rafter directly above the small wicker table on which stood the brandy decanter. 'Sit, Tandy.' Old Coetzee had straightened in his chair as she approached. The old man's voice was slurred and he was well on his way to being drunk, though he made no attempt to apologize for this. Tandy had, after all, seen him like this at Bluey Jay often enough before.

Tandia sat quietly in the chair next to him. 'Excrement!' Old Coetzee said suddenly, holding his glass high up in the air in front of him. 'I have spent my life in excrement!' Then he brought the brandy to his lips and drained the glass. His eyes were closed and he held the empty glass in both hands resting on his stomach, appearing to be asleep.

The woman appeared. 'Excuse missus, the dinner, it is ready.'

Tandia nodded her head towards Old Coetzee and the black woman shook her head. 'He will not eat tonight.' Her voice was without emotion, a statement of fact.

Tandia followed her through the small, almost dark, house to the kitchen. It smelt of the two kerosene lanterns which bathed the room in a soft yellow light. The woman brought her a plate of cold lamb, tomatoes, and cold roast potatoes, also placing a jar of mustard pickles on the table in front of her. 'You want coffee?' the woman asked.

Tandia shook her head. 'No thank you, but could you call the young man who came with me please?'

The woman sighed heavily. She removed her apron, folding it carefully over a chair beside the wood stove in the corner, and shuffled out, the screen door leading to the back yard banging sharply after her.

Tandia was struck by the loneliness of the house, its complete absence of human spirit. She was an expert in the business of loneliness and she realized that, quite apart from the banning order which confined Old Coetzee to this house, he'd cut himself off anyway. This silent, almost morose woman he'd chosen to look after him was a part of his isolation; it was as though he'd come to this lonely little farm to do some sort of penance.

Johanna returned with Johnny Tambourine and then entered the interior of the house. Shortly afterwards they heard a series of coughs and snuffles as she guided Old Coetzee to his bedroom, from the sound of her progress probably half carrying him most of the way. A few minutes later she returned to the kitchen where she picked up a white enamel dish covered and tied at the top with a cheese cloth. 'Goodnight, missus,' she said and nodded to Johnny Tambourine.

After she'd departed Johnny said; 'Tandia, let's get the hell out of here hey? We can go now, after you have eaten.'

'Don't think I'm not tempted, Johnny Tambourine, the old man's
gestonkered.
But he'll be up at dawn. I have to get instructions from him, we're challenging his banning order.'

'I don't like it, man, it's spooky in that room and hot!'

'Ja, I saw earlier; you'll have to push that big corrugated iron window open. It will be nice and cool then.'

'Are you crazy, man? You know what is this place? You standing in the world headquarters of the black mamba! Snakes, man, they can come right into your bed!'

'I'm sorry, Johnny, we can't go tonight, but we'll leave early, try to get to Barberton by seven o'clock. We'll be home before afternoon. I think I'll go to bed now.'

Tandia laughed at the irony; the environment in which Johnny Tambourine lived his everyday life was one of the most dangerous in the world and here he was, terrified at the prospect of spending a night in the country.

Johnny took both the lanterns in the kitchen down and Tandia followed him into the interior of the house. He handed her one of the lanterns and Tandia whispered goodnight, though judging from the snores coming from the closed door opposite, Old Coetzee was dead to the world. She was saddened at the thought that putting Old Coetzee to bed was probably the last thing his servant girl did before going home at night, like putting the cat out.

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.