The Power of One (66 page)

The sun was setting as we walked out to the ring, and already the air smelled of wood smoke and coal fires. It was still bloody hot, and I'd been drinking water all day. I wondered about Mandoma. If he'd been right on the limit he'd have stayed off liquids, and we were fighting a six-rounder, my first ever. It was the compromise Solly had reached with Mr. Nguni, the difference between the three rounds of an amateur fight and the ten of a professional. It struck me that if I could keep him moving around the ring, the black fighter might just dehydrate enough to weaken in the last two rounds.

An old woman wearing a tired-looking fur coat over a shapeless dress was haranguing the crowd from the ring. Her highpitched voice carried to where we were standing on the steps of the school building. As she came to the end of her talk, the crowd responded with thunderous applause. Two men entered the ring and lifted her, and two others standing outside the ring took her from them.

“It is time. We must go now, please,” Mr. Nguni said, and he led us down the narrow human corridor to the ring, following a rubber electrical cord that connected with a microphone. Gideon Mandoma and his seconds had preceded us by a few yards, and the whole football field thundered to the roar of the crowd. We entered the ring almost together, though from opposite sides, and the roar increased. Morrie and Solly were my seconds, and Morrie moved over to the black fighter's corner to check the glove-up, while a large Zulu in a mismatched suit with the jacket straining at its single brown button came over to do the same for us. I could feel the sweat running down from my armpits as Solly taped my hands and gloved me up.

Mr. Nguni held his arms up, and slowly the crowd grew silent. The microphone on a stand had been lifted into the ring, and his voice echoed around the field as he addressed the crowd. First he introduced the referee, pointing out that he was an Indian who had come from Durban especially for the fight. The point of his neutrality was not lost on the crowd, who gave Natkin Patel a big hand.

Mr. Nguni then told the crowd that they all knew why this fight had been arranged. It was not for him to talk about it anymore. The talking would now be between the two spirits and the stronger would win and the people would know what they could think. The crowd was completely hushed as he spoke. He then introduced Gideon Mandoma, who, arms held high, moved to the center of the ring to huge applause. Mr. Nguni held his hands up for silence and then asked the crowd to sing “Nkosi Sikelel' i Afrika,” the African national anthem.

Ten thousand voices sang in perfect harmony, and I shall forever remember the beauty of the moment. The yearning and love Africans put into this anthem is a hugely emotional experience. I was hard put to keep my concentration. Gideon Mandoma had the perfect reason to win the fight and now had been given the greatest inspiration any boxer had ever had.

I was having trouble keeping the steel trap in my mind closed. Images of Nanny swept through my head. A sweet, dark woman who gave me unstintingly of her love, who never once mentioned the child torn from her when her breasts were still firm with milk. Gideon Mandoma had a right to hate me, and hate is a good friend in a fight.

Next Mr. Nguni called me to the center of the ring, and, to my surprise, the applause was just as thunderous. As I stood there, he began the chant of the Tadpole Angel, his voice ringing out to the silent crowd. When it came time to respond with the chorus “Onoshobishobi Ingelosi... shobi... shobi... Ingelosi,” ten thousand voices rolled like thunder. I stood in the center of the ring, the tears rolling down my cheeks. It was perhaps the greatest single moment of my life. The People wanted to know. This was not a fight between black and white, it was a testing of the spirit, the spirit of Africa itself. Two kids, not fully grown, on a hot summer evening that smelled of wood smoke and sweat, would decide if there was hope for white and black and colored, for the people of the great Southland.

“Mayibuye Afrika
!” Mr. Nguni shouted.

“Mayibuye Afrika! Afrika! Afrika!”
Come back, Africa! Africa! Africa! the crowd thundered back.

Handing the microphone carefully through the ropes, Mr. Nguni left the ring and Natkin Patel called us over. He had deep pockmarks over his face, which was almost precisely the color of good curry, silly as that comparison sounds. His steel-gray hair was Brylcreemed flat across his head, the parting absolutely straight with not a single hair crossing the shiny road of his scalp. He was dressed in a white shirt, cream flannels, and white tackies and looked more like a cricketer than a boxing referee. We both looked down at the ground as he spoke.

“You are listening to me, please. When I am shouting ‘Break' you must break, at once. When a knockdown is coming I am counting to eight, then I wipe your gloves also and then you continue. No heads, no elbows, you must fight clean or, by golly, I am giving you penalty points. Good luck, boys.” He patted us both lightly on the shoulders. “Shake hands. When the bell is sounding, please to come out fighting.” Our gloves touched lightly, though neither of us looked at the other.

I walked back to my corner and sat down. The bell rang. “Go get him, Peekay,” I heard Morrie say as he pulled the stool out of my corner. I jumped up toward a blur of brown coming toward me across the ring.

Mandoma was coming at me fast, throwing everything. His punches landed on my arms and my gloves. He had come at me so quickly that he was able to keep me in my corner and I was forced to pull him into a clinch. The ref called for us to break as I managed to swing him around; the sun was in a perfect position, low and dying fast. He turned right into it, blinded for the split second it took for me to put a hard straight left bang on the nose. It was a good punch, and a trickle of blood ran from one nostril. I would be bloody lucky to pull that stunt again. The sun wouldn't last more than another round, and he'd probably wised up already. Mandoma was enormously aggressive, prepared to waste a dozen blows to break through my defense. Toward the end of the first round, he caught me under the heart and I thought I was gone. He packed a left hook like a charging rhino. I was keeping him away by jabbing my left at him. They were all scoring shots, but none of them were hurting him. The bastard was terribly strong. I spent the first round looking for bad habits, but apart from the fact that he was throwing too much leather it was going to be difficult to fight him on the back foot. The bell went for the end of round one, and already I was sweating profusely.

“Take a look at Mandoma, he's leaking,” Morrie said.

“Christ, he hits hard. I'm going to have to keep him moving, keep him off balance.”

“Only for the first four rounds. Look at him.” Morrie was right. Mandoma was in a lather of sweat, and with the sun so low it seemed even hotter than before.

“Watch and see if he drinks in round four,” I said to Solly as the bell went for round two.

“Just box him, my son, keep him moving, coming to you,” Solly said quietly.

Mandoma came at me just as hard in the second round, and while I took most of his punches on the gloves and arms, I realized that if he kept it up like this he'd hurt my arms and weaken me that way. I needed to make him miss more, but he was fast as blazes and I had all my work cut out staying out of his way. I landed enough good punches to be ahead on points at the end of the second round, but there wasn't much in it and I was using every bit of ringcraft I knew to stay out of trouble.

We came out for the third, and again he came at me with the leading hand and crossed over with a right hook that caught me on the side of the jaw. Quite suddenly I was on the canvas, sprawled on my back. I could see two of Mandoma as he retired to the neutral corner, and then the ref began to count. I knew I'd been hit hard but felt nothing. My head was ringing and I was using all my concentration to hear the count. At six my eyes suddenly cleared, and at eight I was back on my feet. It had been a beautiful punch, and I knew I couldn't take too many others like it and survive. Patel wiped my gloves and made me count the three fingers he held up to me, and then six. It was all valuable time, and my head had stopped ringing. Finally he told us to box on.

Mandoma was after blood and came in too fast and carelessly. This alone saved me. If he'd waited to get set for another big punch, he would have taken me. He wanted the knockout, and his eyes were telegraphing his punches. Halfway through the round I was feeling strong again, and I began to work to the old plan. Ignoring his head, I went for the body, under the heart, in the soft area under the rib cage, and into the solar plexus. He'd throw a wild left hook or a right uppercut, and I'd follow with two or three hard blows to the spot. Nothing fancy, but I could feel my knuckles digging deep. If I could stay away from the big punch and if he kept sending me a letter every time he prepared to throw a punch, I'd eventually get him. I'd been in against fighters most of my life. Mandoma had a bigger punch than any I'd been in the ring with before, and he was bloody fast. But I thought he was becoming predictable, as most fighters do.

Had it been the usual three-round fight, the decision may well have gone to Mandoma. By the fourth round he had started to slow down. He'd been chasing me for three rounds and throwing a lot of leather, and the heat had to get to him. But he hadn't taken water, just rinsing and spitting. So I kept going low and hard, and toward the end of the fourth round I heard him grunt as I got three solid punches home. It was beginning to go like clockwork. Mandoma pulled me into a clinch and on the break hit me with a beautiful left lead. I thought I'd run into a train. I went down, my arse actually bouncing on the canvas. I couldn't believe it. I shook my head, but it wouldn't clear. At the count of eight I was only just able to stand. Mandoma had me; one half-decent punch, and I was history.

The ref asked me if I was all right and when I nodded he wiped my gloves and told me to box on, this time not asking for a concussion count. I knew I had to hang on
until
the end of the round. Patel wouldn't stand for more than two knockdowns. That is, if I could have gotten up a third time. “Dance,
klein baas
, your feet, you must dance, only your feet can keep you out of trouble.” I could hear Geel Piet clear as anything. To my enormous relief, the bell went for the end of the fourth.

“He's got a huge punch in both hands, lad, but he's slowing. I want you to box him close so he can't put a big one in, keep working at his body, he has to be feeling it.”

“You could have fooled me,” I panted. But my strength was coming back. I rinsed and spat, the water cool and delicious in my mouth.

“Christ, he's taking water!” Morrie said. “The bastard's taking water!”

The first twenty seconds of the fifth round were the hardest yet. Mandoma threw everything at me, but I wove and ducked, backpedaled and kept out of the way. He threw a left lead and I crossed over with a right, catching him under the eye and opening it up. His nose was still bleeding, and while I hadn't hit him much in the head, I'd kept the nose bleeding with a regular jab right on the button. Nothing influences a referee more than a liberal splash of blood. Mandoma threw another left hook, telegraphing it from a yard away, and I moved in and had him on the ropes with an orthodox straight left followed by a straight right to the head. Two copybook punches which, when timed correctly, carry a lot of zap.

The black fighter's hands came up to defend his head, and I moved in close as his gut area opened up and in went a Geel Piet eight, right where the water he had swallowed would be. I knew the pain and the nausea would be terrible, and he gave a loud gasp as the flurry of punches went home and tried to chop my gloves away with his own. I was ready with a right hook which caught him flush on the jaw, coming up with all my strength behind it. While his punches had bounced me off my feet, mine bounced him hard against the ropes, and then he sunk to his knees, both his gloves resting on the canvas. Blood from his nose dripped onto the gray canvas as I retired to a neutral corner.

At eight he rose, but I could see he felt bad and I moved in and began to pick him off. I could have come in swinging and tried to finish him, but a fighter like Mandoma digs deep for his courage and can always find that one last big punch. I was almost certain he was a spent force and wouldn't recover between rounds fast enough. I'd get him in the final round. The bell went, and I got to my corner to be met by Morrie and Solly, both shouting at me.

“Ferchrissake, why didn't you finish him off?” Morrie screamed.

“His gut, his gut is gone, you could have taken him, now he's got bleedin' time to recover,” Solly said.

“He only needs one more big punch and he can take me out,” I protested. I was following a Geel Piet plan and not a Solly Goldman plan. Geel Piet would have wanted me to box him off his feet, not punch him. “You must always go safety first,
klein baas,
box, box, box, never fight.”

Solly regained his composure. “You're right, son. Fm glad one of us is still thinking.” Whether he believed it or not, he knew he had to restore my concentration and was aware that in his excitement he'd acted foolishly.

The bell went for the final round. Mandoma, desperate for strength, had taken water again. For the first minute of the last round he came hard, but his timing was out and he wasn't putting his punches together properly. I stayed away from him, flicking lightly at his cut eye, keeping the blood coming, waiting for the chance to move in. He hit me with a right cross which, had it come earlier in the fight, would have put me down. Now it lacked authority. It was time to move in. I worked him into his own corner and went to work under his heart. Three solid punches before he managed to pull me into a clinch. He was too spent to stay out of trouble. After each break I'd move him back into a corner and set to work on his body. I couldn't believe he could still be standing. I'd never hit anyone as often or as hard. But the bastard wouldn't go down. I had to put him on the canvas again. I started to hit the black fighter hard on the nose, and his gloves went up and opened him up down below. The Geel Piet eight became the Solly Goldman thirteen, the first time I had ever got a thirteen combination together perfectly. Mandoma gave a sort of a gurgle and then a sigh and fell. He was totally exhausted. His eyes were open, looking at me, but his body could no longer respond and he was unable to get his head off the canvas. He'd been boxed off his feet. His heart hadn't died, it just couldn't hold him up on its own. Mandoma was the greatest natural fighter I had ever seen.