The Power of One (41 page)

My mother claimed Dee and Dum, along with Marie, on her personal born-again list. There were others, for on Wednesday afternoons she stopped sewing and headed for the hospital with a marked Bible and a bagful of tracts. The tracts had headings such as “Sinner snatched from certain hellfire” and “The man who talked to God about sin” and “Salvation. God's precious promise.” The one she claimed was the big artillery in the hospital environment was called “Hell is one mortal blink away.” She had taken Pastor Mulvery's place after I was released from hospital and from time to time found worthy sinners lurking beneath starched sheets. They were usually fraught with the anxiety of fresh stitches from a hysterectomy or a gallbladder operation and ripe for the softening-up process. My mother began by inquiring about the operation. She was an expert, perhaps even the world champion, on operations. She seemed to have undergone all the major operations a woman can expect and a few others on the side just to round out her experience. At the drop of a medical complaint she could detail every phase of an operation from the first tiny suspicious pangs of pain to the postoperative depression. My gift for recalling every detail of a fight must have come from her, for she could do the same with operations, even the bits when she was under anesthetic.

Having determined how long the sinner was likely to be in hospital and therefore how captive as an audience, the spiritual ear bashing began. Marie did the follow-up work for the Lord, keeping the sinner Christwise until the next Wednesday visit. They shared the souls they saved and often witnessed together at the Sunday morning meeting, where they basked in the warmth of the spiritual love they received from the congregation. The Lord had a couple of storm troopers in them, all right. Pastor Mulvery used to refer to them as “the sisters of redemption,” adding that the Lord had touched them in a special way.

Marie was still very conscious of her pimples. One day my mother said enough was enough, if the Lord cared about every sparrow that fell, then surely he cared equally about Marie's pimples. The two of them went down on their knees and exhorted the Lord to cast out the pimple demon. To my complete surprise, he did. Within a year Marie's face was as smooth as a baby's bottom, and she turned out to be quite pretty underneath. That was a mighty testimony session, with Marie crying and ruining her newfound prettiness and my mother telling the dramatic story of the Lord's wonderful pimple cure. Pastor Mulvery did a neat little summary afterward by saying the Lord's rewards are not only in heaven, where the big payout takes place, but also on earth, as instanced by the demise of Marie's pimples. My mother's faith and her work with Marie for the Lord had been rewarded personally by Him.

When I first told Doc about the concerted prayer campaign for the removal of Marie's pimples, he suggested that I advise her to eat lots of salad, no fat, and lean meat only, twice a week. Marie tried it, found she liked it better than the stodgy hospital food, and kept to this diet fairly diligently. When I told him of the cure through prayer, he declared that some things were too mysterious for words. I thought about it a little more and finally made the connection between the diet and the cure, and I asked him why he hadn't pointed out the possibility of the change in diet making the difference.

“Peekay,” he said, “in this world are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for a man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation.” He paused for a moment and tapped his fingers on the edge of the piano keyboard. “The searcher after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know, while a harmless mystery left unexplored often adds to the meaning of life. When a truth is not so important, it is better left as a mystery.” It was an answer that left me confused for some years, for Doc worshiped the truth and had always demanded it between us at any cost.

Geel Piet had not expected me to win through to the finals in Nelspruit. The most he had hoped for was a berth in the semis. At the Monday morning training session his delight knew no bounds. “The people are very happy. I'm telling you, since we heard the news they have talked about nothing else, man. The Zulus say you are surely a Zulu chief disguised as a white man, for only a Zulu can fight with this much courage.” He laughed. “When we heard the news, everybody who had a
stompie
smoked it, and the warders could not stop the people singing in the night.”

In fact, one of the warders told Doc and me at breakfast on Monday morning that there had been a strange feeling in the prison on Saturday night and they had alerted off-duty men to be on standby. He said that at about seven o'clock, before any of the warders knew the results, one of the old lags told him I had won. He had only officially been told after midnight, when the news came from the warder on duty at the gates within minutes of the return of Lieutenant Smit to the prison.”
Wragtig,
man. Kaffirs are funny that way. Sometimes they just know things without the telephone or anything. I seen it before in Pollsmoor when a political is going to be hanged. The decision is made not even in the jail but they know even before the instructions come to the kommandant. An old lag once told me they send out their combined energy to find out. I dunno how it works, man, but I'm telling you they blery well know.”

At my piano lesson on Monday, Doc found an excuse for Geel Piet to come into the hall, and I played back the three fights to him blow by blow. He nearly died laughing when I told him about my pants falling down. I added that I would get my mother to shorten them and tighten the elastic around the waist. It was Geel Piet who cottoned on to why Killer Kroon had had the asthma attack.

“He is not used to boxing three rounds hard. Probably he never even boxed three rounds before, because he always got a TKO decision like the first two fights. Then you come along, and he has to chase you all over the place, man, and you keep hitting him under the heart. So what do you think happens? He has to breathe harder and harder, man, and the strain brings on his asthma attack. I had an aunty in Cape Town who couldn't even climb some steps without getting an asthma attack. I'm telling you, it's the truth, man. You found his weakness, and you attacked it.” He smiled. “Hey, man, blery lucky he had a bad left hook. When you came in under his right cross, he could've done some real damage with a good left hook.”

That morning Lieutenant Smit had made a short speech to us all. “I'm proud of you all, you hear? Not one boxer let us down, even those of you who lost, you fought good.” He turned to Klipkop. “Wait until that Potgieter turns professional, man, I'm telling you, you in for a lot of trouble.”

“Let him come,” Klipkop mumbled.

“Gert, you done good. You hit him maybe ten times for every one time he hit you, but two hundred and twenty pounds isn't two hundred and eighty pounds. That big ape belongs in the jungle.” We all laughed, and then he said, “I left the smallest for last. The under-twelve finals was the best boxing match I have ever seen.” Fonnie Kruger punched me in the ribs, and I didn't know how to stop my face burning. “No, honest, man, if you all want a lesson in boxing, then watch Peekay.” He paused and looked directly at Geel Piet, standing twenty paces behind us. “Geel Piet, you just a yellow kaffir, but I got to hand it to you, you a good coach.”

We all looked round to see Geel Piet cover his face with both hands and dance from one foot to another as though he were standing on hot coals.

“Don't think you can get cheeky now, you hear?” Lieutenant Smit said. But there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

Geel Piet pulled his hands down over his face as though wiping away the expression concealed under them. “No,
baas,
thank you,
baas.
This yellow kaffir is a very happy man,
baas.”

The prison photographer came into the gym and Lieutenant Smit announced we were going to have our picture taken but not our fingerprints. We all laughed and the photographer lined us up, fussing around until he had got it just right. There was an explosion of light as he took the picture, and then he said he wanted to take another for luck. Lieutenant Smit looked about him as Doc entered the hall. “Come, Professor, come stand here,” he invited. Then to everyone's surprise he beckoned to Geel Piet. “You too, kaffir,” he said gruffly.

Klipkop stepped out of the photographer's former arrangement. “No way, man! I'm not having my photo taken with a blery kaffir!”

Lieutenant Smit brought his hand up to his mouth and blew a couple of breathy notes down the center of his closed fist. “That's okay, Sergeant Oudendaal,” he said pleasantly. “Anybody else also want to step out?”

Geel Piet stepped out of where he was standing on the edge of the group, “I am too ugly for a heppy snap, baas. “He grinned.

“Get back, kaffir!” Lieutenant Smit commanded.

Geel Piet returned to the edge of the group, whereupon the remainder of the adult boxers stepped out of the group with the exception of Gert. Then Bokkie de Beer moved away, followed by the other kids. I could see they were real scared. Only Doc, Gert, Geel Piet, and I were left when Lieutenant Smit stepped back into the picture. “Okay, man, take the snap!” he commanded.

The photograph captured the exact moment when I understood with conviction that racism is a primary force of evil designed to destroy good men.

We were all given a large ten-by-eight-inch photograph of the Barberton Blues, and the photographer gave Doc, Gert, and me a copy of the second photograph. The lieutenant refused his copy, which I begged from the photographer and gave to Geel Piet privately. He kept it in the piano stool and looked at it every day when he collected the prisoners' mail.

Some weeks later Lieutenant Smit was promoted to captain, and some people even started to talk about him as the next kommandant. He called me aside after training session one morning and asked if I would return the second photo and get Doc's copy back as well. I had no option but to obey, and Gert did the same. Lieutenant Smit tore them up but forgot about the extra copy. He obtained the plate from the prison photographer and destroyed this also. A man cannot be careful enough about his career, and the second photograph had been aberrant to his normal behavior. He had no intention of living to regret it.

Between Doc and Mrs. Boxall, my education was in fairly safe hands. Mrs. Boxall consulted with Doc by note, and they decided on my serious reading. She was the expert on English literature and he on the sciences, music, and Latin. The Barberton library, apart from containing Doc's own botanical collection, had also been the recipient of two other surprisingly good private collections, and Mrs. Boxall said it was choked with intellectual goodies for a growing mind. Both Doc and Mrs. Boxall were natural teachers and enthusiasts who never lost patience when my young mind couldn't keep up. Doc set exams, and Mrs. Boxall conducted them in the library. I had an exam on Tuesday and Friday every week, and I grew to love this time spent with Mrs. Boxall, who often violently disagreed with a conclusion reached by Doc. I was the carrier of debate notes, and some of the intellectual arguments went on for weeks at a time. I was never exeluded, and I learned the value of debate and of having a point of view I was prepared to defend.

The three of us had been playing chess for some time. Doc and Mrs. Boxall each had a board, and Gert had made one more, turning the chess figures on the lathe in the prison workshop and doing the wood inlay for the board by hand. It was not as good as Doc's ivory set, but Doc said it was very well made and original. The two boards were set up, one with my game and the other with Mrs. Boxall's. Every morning I gave Doc Mrs. Boxall's move and he positioned it on the board and made his reply, which I took back to her. We set ten minutes aside at the end of the lesson to play. At first that was enough for Doc to beat me, but as the months and years went by, a game would often last a week.

I had never beaten Doc in four years, and in two years Mrs. Boxall had managed it only once. It was the game the Russian Lenchinakov had played when he beat the American Arnold Green in 1931, and she had studied it for three weeks. Even so, she was lucky to pull it off. On her eighth move Doc realized she wasn't playing her usual game. “Ask Madame Boxall who is playing for her this game?” he instructed me. But it was already too late. He had walked into an audacious trap set so early in the game that he had not suspected she was capable of such a move.

When I brought her the news that Doc had conceded the game, she jumped up from behind her desk and rubbed her hands gleefully together, a huge grin on her face. “By golly, it feels dashed good to beat the pompous old Teuton,” she exclaimed. “Tell him not to be a bad sport, all's fair in love and war!”

Two of me were emerging, a small boy approaching eleven who climbed trees, used a catapult, drove a billycart, and led an eager gang in
kleilat
and other games against the Afrikaner kids, and a somewhat precocious child who often left the teachers at school in despair, unable to cope with my answers or even tolerate the fact that I was already well in advance of anything they had to teach. They simply awarded me first place in class every term and got on with the business of teaching the other kids.

In my tenth year a new teacher, Miss Bornstein, arrived at the school. She taught the senior class, getting them ready for the emotional leap into high school, and while I was still two classes below the seniors she summoned me to her classroom after school one Friday afternoon.