The Power of One (21 page)

You may ask how a six-year-old could think like this. I can only answer that one did.

IT
is a fine sunset,
ja!
Always here is the best place.” I looked behind me, and there was a tall, thin man, taller, much taller and perhaps even thinner, than my granpa. He wore a battered old bush hat and his snowy hair hung down to the top of his shoulders. His face was clean-shaven, wrinkled, and deeply tanned, while his eyes were an intense blue and seemed too young for his face. He wore khaki overalls without a shirt and his arms and chest were also tanned. The legs of his overalls, beginning just below the knees, were swirled in puttees that wound down into socks rolled over the tops of a pair of stout hiking boots. Strapped to his back was a large canvas bag from which, rising three feet into the air directly behind his head, was a cactus, spines of long, dangerous thorns protruding from its dark green skin. Cupped in his left hand he held a curious-looking camera, which appeared to be secured by a leather strap about his neck.

“You must excuse me, please, I have taken your picture. At other times I would not do such a thing. It is not polite. It was your expression.
Ja,
it is always the expression that is important. Without expression the human being is just a lump of meat. You have some problems, I think,
jaV

At the sound of his voice I had stood up hastily and now faced him a little sheepishly, looking down at him from the rock, a good six feet higher than where he stood. He made a gesture at me and the rock and even at the sky beyond.

“I shall call it ‘Boy on a Rock.'” He paused and cocked his head slightly to one side. “I think this is a goot name. I have

your permission, yes?” I nodded and he seemed pleased. Dropping the camera so that it hung around his neck, he extended his right hand up toward me. He was much too far away for our hands to meet, but I stuck mine out too and we both shook the air in front of us. This seemed to be a perfectly satisfactory introduction. “Von Vollensteen, Professor von Vollensteen.” He withdrew his hand and gave me a stiff little bow from the waist.

“Peekay,” I said, withdrawing my hand at the same time as he dropped his. His friendliness was infectious and no hint of condescension broached his manner. Best of all, I could hear nothing going on behind the scenes.

“Peekay? P-e-e-k-a-y, I like this name, it has a proper sound. I think a name like this would be good for a musician.” He squinted up at me, thinking, then took a sharp intake of breath as though he had reached an important decision. “I think we can be friends, Peekay,” he said.

“Why aren't the thorns from that cactus sticking into your back?” The canvas bag was much too lightly constructed to protect him from the vicious three-inch thorns.

“Ha! This is a goot question, Peekay. I will give you one chance to think of the answer, then you must pay a forfeit.”

“You first took off all the thorns on the part that's in the bag.”

“Ja,
this is possible, also a very goot answer,” he shook his head slowly, “but not true. Peekay, I am sorry to say you owe me a forfeit and then you must try again for the answer.” He stroked his chin. “Now let me see...
Ja,
I know what we shall do. You must put your hands like so—” he placed his hands on his hips, “—at once we will stand on one leg and say, ‘No matter what has happened bad, today I'm finished from being sad. Absoloodle!'”

I stood on the rock, balanced on one leg with my hands on my hips, but each time I tried to say the words the laughter would bubble from me and I'd lose my balance. Soon we were both laughing fit to burst, me on the rock and Professor von Vollensteen dancing below me on the ground, slapping his thighs, the cactus clinging like a green papoose to his back. I could get the first part all right, but the “Absoloodle!” at the end proved too much and I would topple, overcome by mirth.

Spent with laughter, Professor von Vollensteen finally sat down and, taking a large red bandanna from the pocket of his overalls, wiped his eyes. “My English is not so goot
JaT
he beckoned me to come down and sit beside him. “Come, no more forfeiting, too dangerous, perhaps I die laughing next time. Come, Peekay, I will show you the secret.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the cactus. “But first you must introduce yourself to my prickly green friend who has a free ride on my back.”

I scrambled down from the rock and came to stand beside him. “Peekay, this is
Euphorbia grandicornis,
he is a very shy cactus and very hard to find in these parts.”

“Hello,” I said to the cactus, not quite knowing what else to say.

“Goot, now you have been introduced you can see why Mr.
Euphorbia grandicornis
does not scratch my back.” I walked behind him and looked into the canvas bag. Inside was a small collapsible shovel and the roots of the cactus were swaddled in hessian and tied with coarse string. The part of the bag resting on Professor von Vollensteen's back was made of leather too thick for the long thorns to penetrate. “Not so stupid, ha?” he said with a grin.

“Aaw! If you'd given me another chance I would've got it,” I said, immediately convincing myself that this was so.

“Ja, for sure! It is always easy to be a schmarty pants when you know already the trick.”

“Honest, Mr. Professor von Vollensteen, I think I could've known the answer,” I protested, anxious now to impress him.

“Okay! Then I give you one chance more. A professor is not a mister but a mister can be a professor. Answer me that, Mister Schmarty Pants?”

I sat down on a small rock trying to work this out. My heart sunk, for I knew almost immediately he had the better of me. I had simply thought his first name, like Peekay, was a little unusual. I had never heard of anyone called Professor, but then I was also the first Peekay I knew of, so who was I to judge?

“I give up, sir,” I said, feeling rather foolish. “What is a professor?” He had removed the canvas bag from his back and once again held the camera cupped in his hands.

“Peekay, you are a genius, my friend! Look what we find under this rock where you are sitting. This is
Aloe microsfigmaV'
I rose from the rock and joined him on his knees, looking underneath it. A small cluster of tiny spotted aloes, each not much bigger than a two-shilling piece, grew in the grass at the base of the rock. Even at close quarters they would have been hard to see and to an untrained eye almost impossible. The old man brushed the grass out of the way, and, lying fiat on his tummy, he focused the camera on the tiny succulents. Behind him the sunset bathed the plants in a red glow. “The light is perfect, but I must work quick.” His hands, fumbling with the camera, were shaking with excitement. Finally he clicked the shot and got slowly back to his knees. Removing a Joseph Rogers from the pocket of his overalls, he used the small knife to separate four of the aloes, leaving twice as many behind. He held the tiny plants in his hand for me to see.
“Wunderbar,
Peekay, small but so perfect, a good omen for our friendship.”

I must say, I was not too impressed, but I was glad that he was happy. “You haven't said what a professor is.”

He wrapped the tiny aloes in his bandanna and placed them carefully into his canvas bag, which he then slung back over his shoulders.
“Ja,
I like that, you have goot concentration, Peekay. What is a professor? That is a goot question.” He stood looking at the dying sun. “A professor is a person who drinks too much whisky and once plays goot Beethoven and Brahms and Mozart and even sometimes, when it was not serious, Chopin. Such a person who could command respect in Vienna, Leipzig, Warsaw, and Budapest, and also,
ja,
once in London.” His shoulders sagged visibly, “A professor is also some person who cannot anymore command respect from little girls who play not even ‘Schopsticks' goot.”

I could see his previous mood of elation had changed and there was a strange conversation going on in his head. But then, just as suddenly, his eyes regained their sparkle. “A professor is a teacher, Peekay. I have the honor to be a teacher of music.” He put his hand on my shoulder. It was the first time he had touched me, and the gesture was unthinking and friendly, like another kid might hold you when you are playing. “You can call me Doc. You see, I am also doctor of music, it is all the same thing. I am too old and you are too young for mister this or professor that. You and me will not hide behind such a small importance. Just Peekay and Doc. I think this is a goot plan?”

I nodded agreement, though I was too shy to say the word out loud. He seemed to sense my reluctance. “What is my name, Peekay?” he asked casually.

“Doc,” I replied shyly. Hoppie was the only other adult with whom I had been on such familiar terms, and I found it a little frightening.

“One hundred percent! For this I give you eleven out of ten. Absoloodle!” he said, and we both started to laugh.

The sun sets quickly in the bushveld, and we hurried down the hill, small rocks rolling ahead of us as we raced to beat the dark. Below us the first lights were coming on and chimneys were beginning to smoke as tired servants prepared supper for their white mistresses before washing the dishes and going home to the native location.

“So it is you who live now in the English rose garden,” Doc said when we reached the dark line of mulberry trees. “Soon I will show you my cactus garden.” While it was too dark to see his face, I sensed his smile. “We will meet again, my goot friend, Peekay.” He touched me lightly and I watched his tall, shambling figure with the
Euphorbia grandicornis
sticking up beyond his head moving into the gathering darkness.

“Good night, Doc!” I said, and then on a whim shouted, “
Euphorbia grandicornis
and
Aloe microsfigmal”

The old man turned in the dark. “Magnificent, Peekay. Absoloodle!”

Euphorbia grandicornis.
I rolled the name around in my head. Such a posh name for a silly old cactus with thorns. I wondered briefly how it might sound as a name for a fighter but almost immediately rejected it.
Euphorbia grandicornis
was no name for the next welterweight champion of the world.

When I entered the kitchen, Dum and Dee averted their eyes and Dee said, “The missus wants to see you,
inkosikaan.
” She looked at me, distressed. Dum walked over and reached out and touched me.

“We have put some food under your bed in the pot for night water,” she whispered, and they clutched each other and whimpered in their anxiety that they might be discovered.

I knocked on the door of my mother's sewing room. “Come in,” she said and looked up as I entered. Then she bent over her sewing machine and put her foot down on the motor and sewed away for quite a while.

Of course, she did not know she was dealing with a veteran of interrogation and punishment and since I had suddenly grown up on the hill, I was uncrackable. A real hard case.

After a while she stopped, and, taking off her glasses, she rubbed the top of her nose with her forefinger and thumb and gave a deep sigh. “You have hurt me and you have hurt the Lord very deeply,” she said at last. “Don't you know the Lord loves you?” She didn't wait for my answer. “The gospel says, whosoever harms a hair upon the head of one of my little ones, harmeth me also.”

I had heard the same thing said by Pik Botha, which just about confirmed everything I thought about the Lord. Pik Botha and my mother and Pastor Mulvery were all working for the same person.

My mother continued, “When I had my quiet time with the Lord this afternoon, He spoke to me. You will not get a beating, but He is not mocked and you will go to your room at once without your supper.”

“Yes, Mother,” I said and turned to go.

“Just a moment! You have not apologized to me for your behavior.” Her eyes were suddenly sharp with anger.

I hung my head just like I used to do with Mevrou. “I'm sorry, Mother,” I said.

“Not sorry enough, if you ask me. Do you think it's easy for me, trying to make ends meet? I'm not supposed to get tired. I'm only your mother, the dogsbody about the place. All you care about is that black woman, that stinking black Zulu woman!” She suddenly lost her anger, and her eyes filled with the tears of self-pity. Grabbing the dress she had been sewing, she held it up to her eyes, her thin shoulders shaking, and began to sob. “I don't think I can take much more, first your grandfather and then those two in the kitchen and now you!” She looked up at me, her pretty face distorted and ugly from crying. Then, with a sudden little wail, she once again buried her head in the dress and started to sob hysterically.

I felt enormously relieved. This was much more like my old mother. She was having one of her turns, and I knew exactly what to do. “I'll make you a nice cup of tea and an Aspro and then you must have a good liedown,” I said and left the room.

Dum and Dee were delighted that I hadn't received a beating. They hurriedly made me a pot of tea and then turned it around and around on the kitchen table to make it brew quickly. Dee handed me two Aspro from a big bottle kept in a cupboard above the sink and I put them in my pocket, for I was afraid that if I put them on the saucer I'd slop tea over them.