'No, miss!' they all shouted.
'No, miss, only you, we only like you!' Dog Poep replied hurriedly, anxious to assure her that she was the only woman they cared sufficiently about to invite into their gang.
'Good! What must I do to be your nooi and also be in your gang?'
This seemed to bemuse them somewhat, until a small blond boy named Kaas Kop, looking down at his feet and making a circle in the earth with his dusty big toe, spoke up. 'Ag, man, nothing hard, just easy stuff like being pretty an' all that?' They all nodded their heads in rapid agreement.
'Ja, miss, that's all!' they chorussed.
Johnny Tambourine waited until the noise had died down. 'Ja, just stuff like that, you don't have to, you know, do things.'
'What sort of things, Johnny Tambourine?' Tandia asked. He looked awkward. 'Well, like you married to us or anything. You don't have to do that, you know what married people do?'
'There's too much talk about marriage around here!' Tandia laughed. 'I'll just be your nooi, but not like we married, okay?'
They all looked serious and nodded their heads in agreement. 'And you don't have to spill blood also!' Johnny Tambourine said. 'Girls don't have to do it to belong,' he added, inventing this new rule for female membership.
'I jolly well hope not!' Tandia winced, 'I'm not at all the brave type!'
'That's okay, miss,' Dog Poep Ismali said. 'That's what we for, we can be brave for you any time you like.'
'Okay, I'll try and be the best nooi you ever had.' Tandia said graciously. 'You must call me Tandy. No other name, just Tandy! Now you got to show me around the place, you hear? Juicey Fruit Mambo and me, we want to see everything in Sophiatown, okay?'
Some of the kids raced ahead and then turned to watch Tandia and Juicey Fruit Mambo walking up Good Street towards the Odin, the largest cinema in the whole of Africa.
Outside the large cinema was a poster which displayed a picture of a smiling young boxer, gloved and stripped to the waist in the classic boxing pose. The poster announced the coming Saturday night fight between Gideon Mandoma and an Irish welterweight named Terence 'Iron Jaw' McGraw. Tandia's heart began to beat faster and she knew that somehow she had to persuade Mama Tequila to take her to see the fight.
Tandia need not have worried about attending the Gideon Mandoma bout. Madam Flame Flo was a well-known Sophiatown ringside figure who never missed a fight. She knew her fighters and she knew her boxing.
She'd been taken to her first few fights by Geel Piet. She'd loved the brash boxing world, the dressing up and the American slang, the cigarette smoke, the excitement, the sweat, and of course the parties afterwards. But in the process she'd learned to love the game itself. She also saw clearly how it was a way for a coloured or black man to achieve fame and even some fortune, and the idea that black could meet white in the ring on equal terms where the best man won enchanted her. Madam Flame Flo took her boxing very seriously and the boxer she loved with a fierce pride and inner joy was Gideon Mandoma.
'I only seen him lose once, because the last fight he lost don't count. Man, he was rooked! But that first time. Magtig! What a fight. I don't think I will ever see a better one than that, even if I live to be one hundred years!'
Tandia was aware that she was talking about the same fight Patel had so often described, the fight between Gideon Mandoma and The Tadpole Angel where he had acted as referee. From Patel's countless re-tellings she knew every blow, every nuance of the contest. But now she wanted to hear it all again, hear it from fresh lips, see it with new eyes. So she said nothing and waited for Madam Flame Flo to continue.
'The Bantu, the black people, they had this thing about the white boy, the one they called the Tadpole Angel. In all his fights-he always fought Boers and always he won. It was the blacks who give him this name,
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi.
That mean Tadpole Angel in Zulu. There was some other things also about this white boy. You know how superstitious the kaffirs are? I never heard the whole story but they thought, maybe because he always fought Boers and won, but I think it was something else also, they thought he was a great chief who would save them. Crazy, hey? A white kid, only about fifteen years old, a rooinek also, who was going to save
them
from the hated Boer.'
'That the first time I ever heard of a white man who is going to save the coons not even a man, just a boy. What happened to him? Where's he now, man?' Mama Tequila asked.
'That the best part, I was coming to that,' replied Madam Flame Flo. 'He in England at the university in Oxford but he also now the British Empire Welterweight Champion and they say he going to go to America to fight for the world title later this year. That why everyone here so angry because Gideon Mandoma was rooked in his fight with the Boer Geldenhuis. You see, when the Tadpole Angel come back Mandoma or Geldenhuis is going to fight him. All the black people and the coloureds we want a re-match, we want Gideon Mandoma to fight the Tadpole Angel again.'
'For the same reason as before?' Tandia asked.
'Ja, for the blacks it's the same reason. Gideon Mandoma is a very big hero for the blacks, he is a chief, already he is very involved in the ANC freedom campaign. If he can win against the white man, then he will be
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi,
the chosen leader. For me and the other coloured people, we would like him to be leader, but also it would be the best fight possible. Last time when the white boy won, it was very close. The fight could easily have gone Mandoma's way. I'm telling you, man, it would be a fight and a half!'
Tandia wanted Madam Flame Flo to go back to the original fight. 'Aunty Flo, in the beginning, in the first fight wasn't it to decide who would be the
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi?'
She looked at Tandia in surprise. 'You right. I forgot that.
How come you know this?'
Mama Tequila laughed. 'Tandia's daddy was the ref who did that fight.'
'Jesus! Your daddy was the Indian referee, Natkin Patel?
You that Patel! Then you know all about the fight between Gideon Mandoma and the Tadpole Angel!'
'Ja, but only from my father, I never heard it told by anybody else. I want to hear it from you, Aunty Flo. My father, he said the Tadpole Angel and Gideon Mandoma, they were the best amateur prospects he ever saw in his whole life. He was also training Geldenhuis for the fight with Mandoma when he died.'
It was Madam Flame Flo's turn to be amazed. 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph! It's a small world, hey? No wonder you want to meet Gideon Mandoma, it like he a part of your family and everything! Your daddy was training Geldenhuis?'
'Ja, but he thought Mandoma would win. He said, "Geldenhuis is a bladdy good welterweight, world class, if it wasn't for-the Tadpole Angel and Mandoma he'd be South African champion, maybe even more, the champion of the British Empire. But the other two, they better!" He said that only a few days before he died.'
'Wragtig! He said that?' She turned to Mama Tequila.
'Jesus! What a small world, hey, ousie? Tandy who is now with you was Patel's daughter!' Her eyes shone with genuine excitement.
Tandia repeated her previous plea. 'Please, Aunty Flo, tell us about the first fight.'
'Ja, okay.' Madam Flame Flo smoothed her dress with the flat of her hands, stroking the top of her legs. 'Who knows how a kaffir's mind works? Don't ask me! The black people, they followed this white kid from when he was very young and then all of a sudden this witch doctor throws the bones and reads the smoke and she says, okay now the
Onoshobishobi Ingelosi
is a man. You know, fifteen years old, now he must prove to the people he is still the Tadpole Angel. Crazy kaffir stuff like that. So they choose Gideon Mandoma, who is a real Zulu chief and also a boxer. If the white boy wins, fair enough, he still the Tadpole Angel. If Gideon Mandoma wins he the new one and he has the power to lead the black people.'
'Gideon Mandoma.' Mama Tequila asked, 'did he also believe all this stuff?'
'Ja, of course! But not just him, everyone. Even me, a little bit. They had the fight over at the school, in the soccer field.
Ten thousand people came. God's truth, two kidsâ¦the white one was still at school and Gideon was only sixteen years old and ten thousand people turned up for that fight.' Madam Flame Flo smiled at the memory. 'That night we sold one hundred and fifty gallons of Barberton! But only afterwards. The black people didn't drink at the fight. I'm telling you, man, it was deadly serious.'
'Maybe Gideon Mandoma will get this fight with the white guy. When you say he is coming back?' Mama Tequila asked.
'They say first he's going to fight for the world title in America, then he's coming home. August, September maybe.'
'I don't think Geldenhuis will be ready to fight by then,' she winked at Tandia. 'He had a bad car accident.' Tandia was grateful that Madam Flame Flo's concentration was on her sister so that the shrewd little woman wouldn't note her anxiety at the mention of the policeman's name.
'Ja, it was a great shame, why couldn't the bastard have died,' Madam Flame Flo rejoined. 'They say he'll be better by the end of the year. That's when he would fight the Tadpole Angel for the British Empire Welterweight title. It would be Gideon's fight if he hadn't been rooked. I admit it was a dose fight, but everyone, even the
Rand Daily Mail
said it, everyone knew Mandoma won except two of the judges. Those two Boers gave it to Geldenhuis by one lousy point.'
Mama Tequila sighed. 'Ja, my little sister, if what should have been had happened, it would be a different world. The best way to win, no arguments, is to put your opponent down for a ten count. That the only way for the black man and the coloured. If it's going to be a "maybe" then it going to be the white man's maybe not the black man's maybe, that for blerrie sure!'
Saturday night on Good Street was something else, a magic six or eight hours when the people of Sophiatown forgot the trauma and the struggle of the past week, bottled and corked their tiredness and set out to celebrate the business of being alive. The Mandoma fight was on at the Odin; afterwards there would be a short political rally; and then the dance halls and the streets would fill with the jazz and jive of people having a good time. Saturday night in Sophiatown was get drunk, get laid and get dancin' time! Sunday, repenting time, was a long, long way away as the rhythm thumped into Good Street from the shacks and shebeens and good-time places.
Madam Flame Flo's house was no more than a hundred and fifty yards from the Odin, but, naturally, the Packard, which shone to within an inch of its life, was used to deliver the three women to the cinema entrance. Juicey Fruit Mambo, in his tuxedo and red bow tie, hurried round first to open the nearside door facing the cinema for Madam Flame Flo. Then he opened the door facing the street for Mama Tequila to be rocked out of the rear seat of the big car as inconspicuously as possible.
Tandia was dressed in the brilliant green cheongsam which Sonny Vindoo had made for her. With it she wore the matching high heels Hettie and Sarah had given her for Christmas. Her dark springy hair, no more than an inch long, was cut evenly over her scalp so that it looked like a sophisticated cap. From her ears two large gold hoops hung, borrowed from Madam Flame Flo. Her lips were painted a shiny, Rita-Hayworth red, and her magnificent green eyes were heightened with a touch of eyeshadow which started quite dark in the corners of her eyes and went to the palest green over the broad arch of her eyelids.
Tandia was stunningly, ravishingly beautiful, caught at the precise moment when she had become a woman. No awkward gesture or even faint trace of childhood remained. A sudden silence fell on the crowd as she stepped from the car. Then there was a gasp of appreciation as the men entering the cinema for the fight whistled and cheered loudly.
Tandia had learned a great deal about men working the bar at Bluey Jay and now she instinctively reacted to please them, dropping her gaze in a gesture suggesting a hint of shyness and tilting her head slightly as she smiled. The crowd was delighted by the glamour she added to the occasion. There were several young women in the crowd, all dressed up to the nines, but Tandia outshone them all.
The crowd parted as Mama Tequila, dressed in a peacock-blue satin evening dress and turban with matching everything and Madam Flame Flo in a halter-neck, red organza dress with matching red satin high heels, walking on either side of Tandia, entered the building.
'It's showtime ladies, we all ritz, glitz and tits tonight!' Mama Tequila said happily as they were ushered by a pretty young Indian girl to the ringside seats that Madam Flame Flo had obtained from her friend and Gideon Mandoma's manager, Mr Nguni. The Indian leaned over Tandia as she was seated.
'My little brother,' she giggled, 'the one they call Dog Poep, he said you were pretty, but I didn't believe him, little brats has got some funny ideas. But I was wrong, you the most beautiful woman I ever seen in my whole life even on the movies.'
Tandia loved the compliment but was quick to repay it.
'You too, you a very pretty girl, what's your name?' The little usherette smiled. 'Esmeralda,' she replied. 'Esmeralda Ismali, it sounds like a song, like a love song,' Tandia said smiling. The Indian girl's eyes were wide with pleasure as she left.
Tandia found herself enjoying the atmosphere enormously as the crowd shouted, whistled and catcalled instructions and insults at the two fighters in the ring. With the main bout approaching they were impatient for the preliminary bout to end.
Johnny Tambourine, wearing a clean white cotton jacket several sizes too big for him and with a large tray of peanuts and chocolate bars held by a strap around his neck, appeared suddenly at her side. 'Hi, Tandy, everybody is saying you the most beautiful person they ever seen. I think they hundred per cent right!' he announced, and at the same time unloaded a packet of peanuts and a chocolate bar into her lap. 'It's for you, for nothing, because you our nooi and in the gang an' all,' he explained.
'Thank you, Johnny Tambourine, but you can't do this,
you'll
have to pay!'
Johnny Tambourine looked shocked at the suggestion. 'No man, never! I pinched it off another kid's tray,
he'll
have to pay.' Johnny Tambourine must have seen the look on Tandia's face and now he frowned, slightly annoyed. 'It's orright, Tandy, he isn't a member of our gang or anything like that! They done it to me lots of times when I was little.' Then he grinned, deciding to forgive her stupidity as a gang member. 'So long, I got to go now, see ya later, you hear?'
'No wait a minute! Johnny Tambourine, come back here, give me your arm.' He returned and stuck the sleeve of his white coat at her. 'Hold your arm stiff,' Tandia instructed and began to roll the sleeve neatly to just above his wrist. 'Now the other one.' She repeated the performance on the other sleeve. 'Okay, that's better now, hey?'
Johnny Tambourine grinned. 'How am I supposed to pinch stuff off other guys' trays if my hands showing?' But he was obviously pleased at the attention and aware that men from all over couldn't take their eyes off Tandia. 'Thanks, Tandy, see you after the fight. if I can pinch an eskimo pie I'll bring it!'
Tandia raised her hands in alarm. 'No! No ice cream, Johnny Tambourine!' But the small boy was already several rows away shouting, 'Peeee-nuts! Chocooo-litz! Peeeenuts!', his oversized white jacket reaching to well below his knees.
The final preliminary came to an end in a flurry of exhausted ineffectual blows and the crowd booed both fighters good-naturedly out of the ring.