Tandia by Bryce Courtenay Page B

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.
    From infancy these children were unable to bear bright light and screamed until they were placed into a dark cupboard; where they would lie quietly all day. But when night came, especially when it was a full moon, they would howl like wolves. Each year, on St Crispin's day, the children born to the Master of Evil were put out into the icy streets to die. Mysteriously, by morning there was never any sign of them. People claimed they had been gathered up by the Master of Evil who would take them back to his terrible wet nurse, who fed the children on blood from her breasts.
    Then, when they were grown up, the Master of Evil would file and cap their teeth with gold like his own and send them out to hunt alone in the dark alleys in the above-world. The story ended with the warning that, at that very moment, in the city where the reader dwelt, lurking in the foul-smelling sewers was a Master of Evil waiting to sink his golden incisors into young women returning from the taverns late at night.
    It was quite a silly story really, but Tandia could recall being very frightened that such a dreadful creature was waiting in the dark sewers under Durban. The road outside Patel's house was the only paved one in the township and thus contained a stormwater drain, from which the Master of Evil might appear at any moment, within yards of where Tandia lay in the iron shed in the back yard.
    Juicey Fruit Mambo bent from the waist and scooped up Tandia's basin. He held it in front of him as though it was a tray filled with precious things charged especially to his care. Tandia thanked him softly and, picking up Apple Sammy from the bench, she followed the large, pink woman out of the station building.
    Directly below the steps, where Geldenhuis had parked the police car, now stood a large black motor with its engine running and its back door open. Mama Tequila stood at the car door and waited for Tandia to reach her before she got in. She patted the seat beside her. 'Come, baby, you're safe in Mama's big, black, shiny Packard limousine. Come sit here with Mama, honey.'
    The back of the car smelt of expensive leather, not unlike Patel's boots when they were new. Tandia sat wide-eyed and nervous on the edge of the back seat with her hands tightly gripping the seat in front of her. Mama Tequila took Apple Sammy from Tandia's lap and placed the doll between the two of them. 'She a proper lady riding in a limousine now, honey,' she said and then, as though to demonstrate how a proper lady sat, she closed her eyes and fell back into the soft leather, exhausted.
    Tandia heard the slam of the boot closing and moments later Juicey Fruit opened the driver's door and slid behind the wheel. 'Home to Bluey Jay,' Mama Tequila instructed wearily without opening her eyes, 'We gonna take Miss Tandia here into our everlovin' care.'
    The big car climbed away from the flats of Cato Manor station towards the Berea, away from the poorer parts of the city into the heights above Durban where the posh white people lived, a part of town where Africans, Indians or coloureds weren't allowed to live even if they had all the money in the world.
    Soon they left the big walled houses and leafy streets of the Berea behind and drove down dark avenues of gum trees. The white bark on their perfectly straight trunks ghosted as the