Tandia Read Online Free PDF

the street. 'Please God, let her tell me I can stay,' Tandia prayed. 'I'll do anything, anything she says. Just let me stay and finish school next year.'
    Just as she did every day Tandia crossed the yard and climbed the steps onto the stoep and entered the kitchen to make breakfast. The old woman was sitting at the kitchen table shelling peas. She was wearing her deep purple sari, always a bad sign; purple was a colour that made Mrs Patel very cranky. Shelling peas was Tandia's work and her heart sank.
    'Good morning Mrs Patel,' she said brightly as she reached behind the door for the apron she wore to protect her school uniform. Then she crossed the kitchen, tying the apron as she walked toward the stove to fetch the kettle for morning cha.
    'Where you think you going, hey?' Mrs Patel did not look up as she spoke so she didn't see Tandia replace the kettle and, turning from the stove, lower her head and clasp her hands in fear. Nor did she wait for Tandia's reply. She had rehearsed her speech a dozen times and she wanted it to come out just the way she had thought it. 'You think we got money for school now that Mr Patel is dead, you think that?'
    She looked up for the first time, her eyes shining with malice. 'You mad, you hear! You nothing but a stinking kaffir. Go! Get out of my house. You got one hour, then you out. Get out of that school uniform, it's mine now, you hear?' She paused, sucking air through her gold teeth. 'You a dirty kaffir going to an Indian school. You who is not even a Hindu!' Her body juddered at the ecstasy of the moment for which she had waited so long. 'What do you think the mothers of the Indian girls think of me, hey? "That Mrs Patel from Booth Street,'" she mimicked, "'she sends her husband's kaffir bastard to a good Indian school!'" She paused to catch her breath. 'I waited a long time, now it's my turn!' Rising from the kitchen chair she pointed to the kitchen door. 'Get out of my house, kaffir!' Lifting the white enamel colander from the table she hurled it at Tandia. The colander hit Tandia's shoulder and fell to the cement floor, clattering amongst the bouncing, scattering, gleefully escaping peas.
    Tandia looked up at the old woman. The blow from the dish hadn't hurt her, but somehow its impact had strengthened her nerve, so that she now stood her ground. Yesterday she would have fled in tears. But a lot had happened since yesterday. She had grown up and learned the true meaning of hate. Not the soulful badly-done-by kind of hate she had nursed in childhood nor the deep resentment she felt for the old lady, but a new kind which burned inside her guts so fiercely it felt as though it was stripping away the lining of her stomach. She had also learned the power of a naked threat. The power contained in the voice of a policeman called Geldenhuis when he said, 'You report this and you dead meat!'
    Tandia looked up at the old woman, with the new hate and the power she now borrowed from the memory of the policeman's voice. Her voice was even and she spoke slowly. 'One day I am going to get even, I don't care how long it takes.' She paused. 'For my mother and for me also. I swear it on my mother's grave!' She pointed at Mrs Patel. 'You better pray to Arthie Paraschatie to protect you, because one day, sure as God, I'm coming back to get you!' At the mention of Arthie Paraschatie, the Hindu Mother of God, Mrs Patel drew back. 'My sons will beat you, you hear! Do not come back to this house. You stay away, or I call the police!'
    Tandia picked up the colander and, taking it by the handles she placed it upside down over the old lady's head and patted it twice. 'Goodbye, you old witch! Good riddance to bad rubbish!' Whereupon she turned and walked from the kitchen.
    No sooner had she got to the back yard than her newly gained courage collapsed. She thought of rushing back to ask forgiveness from the old woman, beg a little time, a few days to get a pass and find somewhere she could live. But she knew