The Power of One (59 page)

“I think I know where this is leading, but I can't stop it now. Go on.”

“Well, I told him about your childhood, your last boarding school, the prison, although I promise I didn't tell him about the Tadpole Angel, just Geel Piet and the boxing, just some of the stuff you told me.”

“Jesus, Morrie, that was confidential!”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, I knew it was, but you'd never actually told me not to tell anyone.” Morrie paused. “Christ, Peekay, you've got nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I've never been ashamed of who I am, except when I was made to feel that way the first time I went to boarding school. It's—well, it's just that I don't want any Christian gentleman feeling sorry for me because my mum hasn't two bob to her name.”

Morrie jumped to his feet and grabbed me by my blazer lapels.

“You bloody fool! They'd do anything to be like you. So would I. To have done the things you've done, led the life you've led? Believe me, being rich, in a Jewish household anyway, isn't a lot of fun. Everything is overdone. Too much love, too much money, too much food, too much care, too much reminding you that you're different, that you're Jewish. I've been bored since I was five years old! Bored by the predictability of being born into a wealthy middle-class Jewish home. You can have my twelve bedrooms and six bathrooms. I'll swap you my old man's five cars and three chauffeurs for a fortnight with Doc in his cottage.”

I suddenly realized that I was making far more of a meal over his indiscretion with my past than he had made when he thought I had accused him of cheating.

“Okay, we're quits, you smooth-talking bastard,” I said, grinning. “Now, get on with the story. How, for instance, did telling him all this talk him into giving you the number one spot?”

“I simply told him that I was a Jew, which I suppose he knew already but it didn't hurt to remind him. That my father was enormously rich. That I had enjoyed and would continue to enjoy every possible privilege. That I would be sent to Oxford, where I would read law, and well, blah, blah, blah. That the future for me was all sewn up.”

“So?”

“This is the worst part. I told him that if I was selected to Sinjun's People and you were not, I wished to forfeit my spot in your favor.” He looked at me anxiously, waiting for my anger.

I was silent. I knew with a sudden certainty that Morrie, after hearing the results of my interview with Singe ‘n' Burn, had grown concerned that my boxing obsession would eliminate me from Sinjun's People. That he'd ridden to the rescue, prepared to sacrifice any chances he might have had to ensure my inclusion. In the process he had read Singe ‘n' Burn brilliantly and had capitalized handsomely on the situation.

“You'd have done that anyway, wouldn't you? You'd have been prepared to give up your chances even if the scam hadn't been there.”

“Hell, no! No bloody fear! Christ, Peekay, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Where would the Jews be if all of a sudden they started making sacrifices for the bloody Christians?”

“Thanks, Morrie,” I said.

“Don't insult my intelligence, Peekay. If you're trying to tell me I wasn't doing all this for mercenary motives, I resent it. Don't you think I'm capable of thinking up a ploy as good as this one?”

“On the contrary, you had it figured out so that whatever happened you influenced the outcome.”

Morrie blushed, which I'd never seen him do before. “No point in leaving things to chance; much too bloody risky.”

“Christ, the number one spot always belonged to you anyway.”

“You're right,” he said. “Look, I vote we take a tenner each for the holidays?” He peeled two tenners off a biggish wad. It was hard to believe half of the stash belonged to me.

“Make that another five. I want to buy Dee and Dum a Singer sewing machine.” A sewing machine would give them a sense of independence they could otherwise never have contemplated.

Morrie peeled off a fiver and handed it to me. “I'll put the rest in the bank. I've got big plans for next term we'll talk about after the holidays.”

GOING
home at the end of each term was like sloughing a skin. The joy of a small town lies in its unchanging nature. Except for Doc, Mrs. Boxall, Miss Bornstein, old Mr. Bornstein, the guys at the prison, and, of course, my mother, Granpa, Marie, and especially Dum and Dee, people would look up when you entered a shop and inquire casually, “Goodness, hols again, Peekay? How's life in the big city? Are you playing in the Easter concert? What can I do for you?” They'd say this almost in one breath, not because they were bored and felt compelled to be polite, but mostly because time has a sameness in a small town that the coming and going of people doesn't disturb. I liked the idea of nothing ever changing in Barberton, it gave me a sense of belonging. Now that the war was over and the military camp was no longer a part of the town's economy, Barberton settled back into its favorite old scuffed leather armchair and went to sleep again. Even the prison warders seemed to fit into the community more easily, and for the last two concerts they had remained while “God Save the King” was played, though Mrs. Boxall reported that they still protested in their own way by not standing to attention. This made Mr. Hankin of
The Goldfields News
mad as usual, but it rated a paragraph, not a leader or the entire editorial like in the good old days.

Mrs. Boxall had become a firm favorite at the prison. The kommandant, who had become a colonel because of Doc's concert, had decided he liked prison reform and had allowed her to start a Sunday morning school for the prisoners. She had negotiated with the kommandant to reward progress with King
Georgies. The Pentecostal missionaries, who had agreed to do the teaching in return for being allowed to give a fifteen-minute sermon every Sunday, disagreed violently with the distribution of tobacco to students who excelled. Their God was neither a consumer of strong drink nor a user of tobacco. They were forced to conclude that God worked in mysterious ways when attendance and scholastic effort increased markedly with the introduction of King Georgies as an incentive. A prisoner would study for every limited moment he had during the week for the reward of one cigarette, with the result that many blacks left prison able to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. Mr. Bornstein, Miss Bornstein's father, had converted the Earl of Sandwich Fund into the Sandwich Foundation, and already one little old lady had left it a bequest of two thousand pounds. The letter-writing sessions still continued, and during the holidays I'd take over from the missionaries and Marie's father's tobacco leaf would once again be fitted into the folds of the tracts and given out with every letter. In fact, during every school holiday, letters to King George, which of course were never posted, became very popular again. The Tadpole Angel was back in town, and Gert used to swear that trouble in the prison was almost nonexistent during these periods.

Gert, with encouragement from Mrs. Boxall, had tackled English and now spoke it fairly well. He'd become very attached to Doc and Mrs. Boxall and made sure that the repairs around Doc's cottage and Mrs. Boxall's house were done and that Charlie's motor was kept going. Every time I'd get home, it would be the same thing: “I'm telling you, man, only chewing gum and axle grease is holding that old
chorrie
together. One day I'm just going to have to take it to a cliff top, say a prayer, and push it over. Only it won't be able to make it up the hill in the first place!” But under Gert's concerned and tender care Charlie kept going.

Klipkop had been transferred to Pretoria, and Gert, to his enormous surprise, had been given the job of assistant to Captain Smit. As a consequence he had earned his corporal's stripes. He was now the prison heavyweight and would be fighting for the vacant title at the next championships. The giant Potgieter, who had beaten Gert in the finals of the two subsequent championships after Gert's original defeat in Nelspruit, had turned professional.

The lowveld championships had been expanded and were now known as the Eastern Transvaal Championships, bringing in some of the bigger towns and making it tougher for the Barberton Blues. As they always occurred during the December school holidays, it was important to Captain Smit that I take part as a member of the team.

Regular boxing against the Afrikaans schools during term had made me a much better boxer, although I personally longed for the magic of Geel Piet, who knew how to make me think better in the ring. Whereas Darby White and Sarge, like Captain Smit, were honest carpenters, Geel Piet had been an artist, and I missed his uncanny understanding of how to exploit my personality in the ring.

I felt I wasn't growing as a boxer. Yehudi Menuhin once said that playing the violin is like singing through your limbs; Geel Piet had had the ability to make boxing seem the same, each punch the result of perfect timing, continuity, controlled emotion, and intelligence. If I were to become the welterweight champion of the world, I knew I'd soon have to find a coach who thought beyond schoolboy boxing. My share of the Sinjun's People scam I had already earmarked for lessons, though it wasn't enough. I didn't want to start under Solly Goldman—my first and only choice—and have to stop. Just getting him to take me as an amateur would be hard enough without messing him around.

The holidays were packed. I'd be at the prison at five-thirty
a.m
. for boxing, and Captain Smit would make me go three rounds with two of the other kids, mostly Snotnose and Jaapie, both heavier than I but the only two boxers who could box well enough to push me. Both would be itching to have a go, both were fighters in the Smit tradition, and both were very tough. It called for all my ringcraft to stay out of trouble. Halfway through the second round, Captain Smit would blow his whistle and one of them would step down and the other come in. This meant each of them only boxed one and a half rounds and so they'd go flat out, prepared to take a few punches to get a good one in. Captain Smit was convinced that it was the only way to increase my speed and keep me sharp.

After an hour and a half in the prison gym, I'd head for Doc's cottage, where either Dee or Dum, who took it turnabout, would have delivered breakfast. By the time I arrived at seven, the coffee would be made and a loaf of fresh bread would be on the table, together with eggs and bacon plopping away on the back of the stove, waiting for me to arrive. Doc was, after all, still a German, and he expected me to be exactly on egg and bacon time. The girls loved the holidays, and they'd spoil me rotten with baking and fussing and generally cooking up a storm. Doc always claimed he put on several pounds when I was around.

Doc and I would sit outside on his
stoep
for breakfast and we'd plan the weekend hike. This usually meant repeating an old trail. Doc would bring out his notepad and we'd discuss the last time we'd done the planned tramp, which might have been five years before. We'd discuss every specimen we'd found then and sometimes even leave the table to check the progress of some long-forgotten succulent we'd collected. Doc was still tied to the Steinway with his little girl students during the week, so our long walks had to take place over the weekend. Though I'm sure after a while he'd have had it no other way, the planning and the discussion over his notes became just as important to him as the excursions themselves. At nine he'd give me a piano lesson, shaking his head at the bad habits I'd acquired under the direction of Mr. Mollip, the Prince of Wales School music master. “This Mr. Muddle-up, you are sure he teaches pianoforte?” he would say, shaking his head. “I think maybe the banjo, yes?” He would spend the rest of the holidays getting me back into some sort of musical shape.

The first time I played “St. Louis Blues” for Doc, I had expected to shock him out of his pants. In fact, it was meant as a joke. Instead he nodded quietly.
“Ja,
that is goot.” I turned to look at him in surprise. “But to play black, the music must come from your soul, not out from your head, Peekay.” He indicated that I should rise from the piano stool, and seated in my place he played the piece in the same haunting way as Morrie's seventy-eight of Errol Garner.

“Bloody hell, Doc, where'd you learn to do that?” It was the first time I'd sworn in Doc's presence, but he seemed not to notice. “Okey-dokey, Mr. Schmarty-Pants, who is a person called W. C. Handy?”

“He sounds like a lavatory brush,” I said flippantly.

“Mr. W. C. Handy wrote this music, and now you want to play it without heart and even without knowing who is the composer! Would you do this to Beethoven or Bach? No, I think not. But now Mr. Schmarty-Pants thinks to play the black man's music is easy.”

“Sorry, Doc, it was only a joke. I only wanted to shock you.”

“Then to shock me you must play me bad music, not play me good music badly,” he said softly.

I was the one who had been shocked, and Doc had in the process taught me once again to do my research and my thinking before I did my judging. “Where'd you learn to play like that, Doc?”

Doc laughed. “So long ago
,ja,
when I write my first book on cactus in North America, I was in New Orleans. I had no money, so I played fifteen minutes classical every night in a fancy cat-house, the Golden Slipper.
Ja,
this is the name of that place. After I play comes every night a jazz band and soon we talk and so on and so forth and they think the German professor is very funny, but not my music. The rich people who come to this cat-house, they don't understand Mr. Beethoven and Chopin and Brahms. But the black men, they understand. I teach them a little of this and a little of that and they teach me a little of that and a little of this.” He touched the keys and played a couple of bars of blues music. “It was here I meet Mr. W. C. Handy and later also Mr. Errol Garner.”

“You met Errol Garner?” I yelled at him. “
The
Errol Garner?”

“Ja,
I think there is only one.”

“Doc, please, please teach me how to play jazz piano.”

Doc laughed and, affecting his version of an American accent, replied, “Not on your sweet-tootin' nelly, Peekay.”

“Please, Doc!”

Doc shook his head. “I cannot teach you what I cannot feel. Peekay, you must understand this. It is not possible for a man to touch the heart of the Negro man's music when he cannot feel it through his fingers.”

Doc had just explained to me why I would never amount to much musically. What Geel Piet knew I had as a boxer, Doc knew I lacked as a musician.

I would leave Doc at eleven o'clock, and by a quarter past I had arrived at Miss Bornstein's house. Mr. Bornstein, who, as I mentioned before, was a lawyer in partnership with Mr. Andrews, had a big white double-story house designed in the Cape Dutch style. A huge bougainvillea creeper cascaded purple bloom over one side of the house, its mass of purple blossom stark and beautiful against a wall so gleaming white that it hurt to look at it in the near-noon sun. The next impression was of the sweeping lawns that smelled of cut grass and never seemed to lose their wet green look, even in the late summer when every other lawn seemed strawed and faded from the heat. There were other things in the garden, trees and tropical scrubs and a bed of deep red canna. And of course all the usual junk like roses and things. But all I seem to remember is the dramatic splash of the deep purple bougainvillea against the blinding white of the house, the green, perfectly manicured lawns, and the
chit-chit-chit
of the hose spitting stingy jets of water somewhere in the garden.

I'd spend the first half hour or less, depending only on whether I could hold out that long, playing a game of chess with old Mr. Bornstein. He would always checkmate me with the same words: “Not so shameful. Tomorrow maybe, if God spares us, you will win.” God spared us, but I never won.

A houseboy in a white starched coat would then bring me a glass of milk and two chocolate biscuits, my favorite. Then the lesson would begin. We'd work until two o'clock, when the same boy would bring in a jug of orange juice and a plate of poloni and tomato sandwiches, also my favorite.

Miss Bornstein was determined that I should win a Rhodes scholarship and go to Oxford, and the work we did was far in excess of anything I needed to know to pass my matriculation. With her pushing me, particularly in Latin and Greek, by weekly letter and during the school holidays and with the tuition reserved for Sinjun's People, I was probably getting as fine an education as it was possible for anyone of my age to absorb.

After orange juice and sandwiches I was free. Some days I'd spend the afternoon with Mrs. Boxall or help Granpa in the garden or play a little snooker down at the Impala Hotel with John Hopkins and Geoffrey Scruby and some of the other guys, all of whom, like me, were going to boarding school. They'd drink a couple of beers and smoke a little and we'd all generally act a bit tough with each other, though I was always in training and neither smoked nor drank.

I was beginning to understand how intellect separates men. For common ground we would talk rugby and cricket and girls. Daily we destroyed the reputations of the girls who'd been in class with us in primary school and who were now supposedly screwing like rattlesnakes. We never quite worked out with whom, it was always supposed to be someone older than ourselves, like Paul Everingham and Bob Goodhead, who were in form six at Jeppe High and both of whom had their school colors for rugby and cricket.