The Power of One (46 page)

Doc's return to his cottage had been an emotional business. Dee and Dum had scrubbed and polished, and his home had never been as clean and neat. Gert dropped Doc at the bottom of the hill as the roadway to the cottage had eroded over the four years he'd been away and it wasn't a good idea to try to drive to the top. Gert reported the road would not allow the truck to return the Steinway; the very next day Klipkop sent a prison gang to repair the road. They worked on it furiously so that it would be ready on the day after the concert for the piano to be returned.

Doc had mentioned on his way home that his first job would be to extend the cactus garden. Gert told Captain Smit, who instructed the warder ganger that after they'd completed the road repairs, the work gang should construct the new terraces Doc required.

Mrs. Boxall had ordered groceries from H. C. Duncan, the town's leading grocery shop, and had made sure that the municipal rat catcher had been up to the cottage to check the outside lavatory hole to see that no snakes or anything else had made its home down there in the past four years. He had dropped a bucket of chlorine pellets down the hole, and for the first week you had to hold your nose against the sharp fumes when you entered. When Dee and Dum unpacked the box of groceries from H. C. Duncan, they found that Mrs. Boxall had included a parcel of her own which contained one of those really soft rolls of toilet paper. Goodness knows where she found it, because only the hard kind had been available since the war. Dee and Dum held the roll against their cheeks and exclaimed at its softness, marveling that paper such as this could be used for such a silly purpose. I must say, they had a point, and Doc would have agreed, for he only ever used
The Goldfields News.
I had once found “Clippings from a Cultured Garden,” Mrs. Boxall's regular column, torn into a neat square hanging on the paper nail in Doc's lavatory and had saved it from a fate worse than fish and chips.

Mrs. Boxall also gave me a bottle of Johnnie Walker for Doc, which she said Mr. Goodhead of the Barberton Bottle Store had been fearfully sweet and let her have. After my jaw incident and all the mentions I'd heard of the demon drink down at the Apostolic Faith Mission, I wasn't at all sure that Mrs. Boxall was doing the right thing. I carried the whisky up to the cottage, convinced that at any moment the Lord might send a bolt of lightning out of the clear blue sky to strike the bottle from my hand and possibly take me along with it. If God could part the Red

Sea, then striking a bottle of Johnnie Walker with a bolt from the blue seemed like a simple enough thing for Him to do.

For several weeks before Doc's release Mrs. Boxall had been sending the boy from the library to the cottage with his bike basket filled with Doc's books. She referred to these books as not really the town's property but simply “borrowed for the duration.” When Doc returned to his cottage on the morning after the people's concert, he found it exactly as it had been some four years before, with only the Steinway missing. He told me some weeks later that he sat down on the
stoep
and wept and wept because his friends had all been so lovely to him.

After school on the first day of Doc's freedom I found him in his cactus garden cutting a dead trunk from a patch of half-mens. Their proper name is
Pachypodium namaquanum,
and they stand about seven feet tall and look like large prickly elephant trunks sticking out of the ground.

I made coffee, and we sat on the
stoep
for a while. Neither of us had mentioned Geel Piet, both unwilling to share our grief. After a while Doc brought up the loss by saying, “No more letters for the people. No more anything.” Then we talked about the garden for a while, and Doc pointed to an overgrown hedge of kranz aloe, which he had originally used as a windbreak and which was now beginning to intrude into the garden. “We are being invaded by
Aloe arborescens.
I will attack soon,
ja,
in one week.” I could see he loved the idea of making plans again, of being free to decide the divisions of the days and the weeks ahead.

He rose from his stool to refill his coffee mug and groaned. I looked up in alarm to see him trying to conceal his pain with a smile.
“Ja,
I am a
dummkopf,
Peekay. This morning I climb the hill to our rock, but such a small climb has made me very stiff. It is four years since, and my muscles are soft and my lungs soon grow tired. It will take maybe a month, maybe more, before we can go into the hills again.” He walked stiffly toward the kitchen, where I had left the coffeepot, and for the first time I saw that Doc had become an old man.

He spent most of Thursday and all of Friday in the cactus garden, content to be on his own. He planned an excursion to visit Mrs. Boxall at the library on Saturday morning, the day after school broke up for the June holidays and the day of the kommandant's concert. He had instructed me to ask her if this would be convenient. Mrs. Boxall was in quite a tizz when I told her that Doc would be coming to see her. I also told my granpa of Doc's visit to the library, and early on Saturday morning he cut two dozen long-stemmed pink and red roses for Doc to give to Mrs. Boxall. “He can't go giving her a bunch of cactus flowers now, can he?” he declared a little smugly. My granpa was a rose man and saw no virtue whatsoever in a cactus garden.

We arrived at the library just as the clock on the magistrate's court tower struck nine. The library was closed and the library boy was sitting on the step outside. “The missus, she be come soon,” he said. Doc started to stride up and down the footpath, stopping to hook his finger into the front of his celluloid collar and to clear his throat. Then I saw Charlie, Mrs. Boxall's little navy blue Austin Seven, coming down the road toward us. It was making a dreadful racket and was obviously quite sick, but Doc seemed not to hear it approaching. “Here she comes!” I yelled and thrust the bunch of roses at him. He jumped visibly and grabbed the flowers with both hands. Charlie lurched to a halt outside the library and the engine died with a clunking sound. Mrs. Boxall stuck her head out of the window and spoke to me.

“Come along, Peekay, give a gel a hand, there's a good chap,” she said cheerily. In my anxiety for Doc I didn't move immediately. “Come along, Peekay, open the door, you're not a Boer you know.” I hurried to open the door of the Austin. “Now that the war is over we can all go back to having nice manners,” Mrs. Boxall said, stepping out of Charlie. I realized she was grateful for the opportunity to chide me so as to cover the first few moments of her reunion with Doc. She looked up at Doc and gave him her best smile. Doc thrust the roses at her. “And here's the man with the nicest manners of all,” she said, burying her nose in the pink and red blossoms and breathing deeply. “There's nothing quite as charming as roses, don't you think?” She cradled them in her arm like the Queen and stretched her hand out toward Doc. “Roses say so much without having to say anything at all.” Doc immediately clicked his heels together, almost knocking himself over in the process. Then he bowed stiffly and, taking her hand, lifted it high above her head and kissed it lightly.

“Madame Boxall,” he said.

“Oh dear, I have missed you, Professor. It is so very nice to have you back.” I thought for a moment that she might cry, but instead she buried her head in the roses again and then looked up brightly. “A cup of tea for Peekay and me, and for you, Professor, I have some fresh-ground Kenya coffee. Peekay, bring my basket from Charlie.” She handed the roses back to Doc and reached into her handbag for the keys to the library. “I've baked a lovely Madeira cake, it's in the tin beside the basket, do be sure to bring it along, Peekay.”

Once we were inside, it was like old times. The four and a bit years slipped away and it was the same old Doc and Mrs. Boxall. Doc spoke with some consternation of the prospect of returning to the prison that evening to fulfill his obligation to play for the brigadier, and Mrs. Boxall volunteered to drive us over. Doc, to my enormous surprise, then suggested that she might like to attend the concert, and she had seemed thrilled at the idea. We phoned Captain Smit, who said that Mrs. Boxall was most welcome, that any friend of Doc's was a friend of his.

We then talked for the first time about Geel Piet. Mrs. Boxall had never met him, but he was almost as real to her as he had been to Doc and me. Doc lamented the fact that the Sandwich Fund was effectively finished, and to our surprise Mrs. Boxall would hear of no such thing. “Just a temporary hiccup, we can't have Geel Piet thinking we're a bunch of milksops. I have a plan.” She gazed at us steadily. “I'm not prepared to reveal it yet, not even to the two of you. But I can tell you this much. I had proposed taking the train to Pretoria, but now, by golly, Pretoria seems to have come to us.” She wore one of her tough expressions, and so we didn't question her any further. “It's my plan, and if it doesn't work, then only I shall look a proper idiot,” she declared.

On the night of Geel Piet's death, Captain Smit had led me sobbing and hiccuping to the blue prison Plymouth, where Gert was waiting to drive me home. He had told me that I needed a break from training and was not to return to the prison until the boxing exhibition for the brigadier on Saturday night. It was a nice holiday, but as prospective welterweight champion of the world, it worried me that I wasn't in training. It hadn't yet occurred to me that I would return to a boxing squad that was now without Geel Piet, and that from now on I would simply be the most junior boxer under Captain Smit's concerned but preoccupied care.

On Saturday night Mrs. Boxall picked us up at the bottom of Doc's road. Even though the road was now in splendid repair, Charlie, in his present state of health, was not considered capable of climbing it. We arrived at the prison just before seven o'clock and made our way to the hall. Doc's piano recital was to be the first item of the evening: it was the cultural part, it was thought best to get it over with while everyone was still well behaved. After that, the audience would go through into the gym for the boxing exhibition and then back to the hall for the
tiekiedraai
dancing and
braaivleis.
The air smelt smoky from the
braaivleis
fires, which had been lit on the parade ground immediately outside the hall. Someone was already playing a piano accordion in the dark, his swaying torso silhouetted by the light from one of the fires.

Mrs. Boxall, Doc, and I found three seats in the front row so that Doc could get to the Steinway easily. I hadn't seen Gert since he had driven me home four days before, and he now made a special point of coming over to me. I excused myself and we moved off into a corner for a chat. Gert told me again how sorry he was about Geel Piet and how it wasn't the same without him on the boxing squad.

“Man, I don't understand. He was only a kaffir, but I miss him a lot,” he confided. He also told me that the brigadier's inspection had been an all-time success and that Lieutenant Borman had been up to his eyeballs in the kommandant's good books right up until late that afternoon.

“What happened this afternoon?” I asked, delighted at the suggestion that Lieutenant Borman might have fallen from grace.

“The brigadier stood up and said to us all that he had never seen a prison in better shape. But that also Pretoria had heard of the kaffir concert.” He paused and his eyes grew wide. “I'm telling you, man, we knew who had told them about it, and we thought we were in a lot of trouble.” He shook his head from side to side. “But it wasn't like that at all. The brigadier said that it was a piece of proper prison reform and that Barberton led the way and the kommandant was to be congratulated. Not only were the prison buildings and grounds immaculate and the discipline first class, but also prison reform was taking place that was an example to the rest of the country. You should have seen Pinkie Borman's face, man, he was furious. I nearly pissed my pants. Everyone was looking at him with this big smile on their faces, even the kommandant.”

Snotnose came over and said Doc wanted me. Gert told me he'd see me later in the gym. Doc had decided to play Chopin's

Nocturne Number Five, the same piece I had so unsuccessfully been coming to grips with for some weeks. I knew the music well enough to turn the pages for him, and that's why he had sent for me. Doc had agreed to play two pieces for the concert. When I had inquired about the second piece, he had said it was to be a surprise and that after the Chopin nocturne I was to return to my seat beside Mrs. Boxall.

The hall was almost full, and the warders and their wives and guests from the town had all taken their seats when the kommandant walked to the front of the hall and stood beside the Steinway.

“Dames en here,
“he began, “it gives me much pleasure to welcome you all to this concert in honor of our good friend Brigadier Joubert, Transvaal Inspector of Prisons. The brigadier this very afternoon said nice things about Barberton prison, and I just want to say to all my men that I am proud of you. Now it is our turn to say nice things about the brigadier, who is a good
kêrel
and also a good revolver shot, as some of us saw at the pistol range this afternoon. We thank him for his visit and,” the kommandant grinned, “for going so easy on us.” The audience laughed, and he continued, “No, seriously, man, it is men like Brigadier Joubert who make the South African Prison Service a place where good men can hold their heads up high.” He paused and seemed to be examining the large gold signet ring on his hand before looking up again. “The concert we held for the black prisoners last week, the brigadier was kind enough to say, was a good example of prison reform. It was just a little idea I had, and it worked. But the brigadier is a man of
big
ideas that work, a big man who gives us inspiration and strength to continue.” I could feel Mrs. Boxall's arm trembling against my own, and I turned to see her trying very hard not to laugh. “He is a man of the church, a God-fearing man and a man dedicated to the prison service.” The audience broke out in spontaneous applause and the kommandant let it go on for a moment before holding his hand up. “He is also a cultured man, which brings me to our first item on the program for tonight.” He cleared his throat and looked around. “All of you know that we have had in this prison as our guest—” one or two titters issued from the audience and the kommandant went on, “—no, I mean it, man, as our honored guest for the past four years, a man who is a musical genius. This is the last time we will hear him play for us. Last week he helped us with the prisoners' concert, and tonight he is giving a personal one just for us in Brigadier Joubert's honor. I ask you now to welcome Professor von Vollensteen.” Doc rose and did a small bow to the audience. He gave me a nod and with the applause continuing we moved over to the Steinway.