The Power of One (9 page)

“We will try them on. With newspaper we can fix them.”

“Mevrou, with the whole
Zoutpansberg Gazette
we couldn't stuff these tackies to fit. He has very small feet for a Boer child.”

“He is not a Boer child. He is a
rooinek
!” Mevrou said, suddenly angry. She put the cup of coffee down on the counter and, leaning over, grabbed the tackies and turned to me. “Put your foot up here on my lap, child,” she ordered.

The first tackie slipped around my foot without touching the sides. With my heel on Mevrou's lap the canvas shoe seemed to reach almost up to my chin.

Mevrou pulled the laces tightly until the eyelets overlapped. “Now the other one,” she said.

I stood there, rooted to the floor, not daring to move and not knowing what to do next. The tackies seemed to extend twice the distance of my feet.

“Walk, child,” Mevrou commanded.

I took a tentative step forward and the left tackie stayed behind on the floor, though I managed to drag the right one forward by not lifting my foot.

“Bring some paper.” Mevrou cunningly fashioned two little boats from strips of newspaper. She then put the paper boats in the tackies and instructed me to insert my feet into them, and then she tied the laces. This time they fitted snugly. Though I must say, they felt very strange, and when I walked they made a
phlijft-floft
sound where the tackies bent at the end of my toes. I had never felt as grand in all my life. “We will take them,” Mevrou announced triumphantly. She reached into her handbag for her purse.

Harry Crown sighed. “Those tackies are no good, Mevrou.”

If Mevrou had had her
sjambok
she would have made fat old Harry Crown bend over the counter and she would have given him six of the best.

“How much?” she said curtly, her lips pursed.

“Half a crown, for you only two shillings,” Harry Crown said, adjusting the price automatically, his heart obviously not in the sale.

I tugged at the end of a lace and to my relief the bow collapsed. I did the same for the second tackie, then slipped ever so carefully out of the newspaper boats and handed the tackies to Harry Crown.

“You poor little bugger,” he said in English. He slipped the tackies back into the soft brown cardboard box and, when he saw Mevrou wasn't looking, quickly put two green and two red

suckers into the box and handed it to me. “I wish you health to wear them,” Harry Crown said in English. Speaking out of the corner of his mouth he added, “Can she understand English?”

Not daring to reply, I shook my head almost imperceptibly, indicating “no.”

“Inside is for the journey, green and red, the best! Believe me, I know. So long, Peekay.” He patted me on the shoulder. His eyes widened and, drawing himself up to his full height, his hands clasped over his belly, gold teeth flashing, he grinned. “Maybe the tackies don't fit, but I think your new name fits perfect. Peekay!
Ja,
that is a nice name for a brave person who is traveling by himself to the lowveld to meet his granpa.”

Mevrou, who was practically snorting with rage, threw two shillings on the counter and marched out of the shop. I followed along with the precious box of loot under my arm. At the door I turned to say good-bye to Harry Crown.

“Good-bye, sir!” I said in English. The two English words sounded strangely out of place, like a language newly learned.

Mevrou turned furiously. Grabbing me by the ear, she hissed, “Do not talk to that—that dirty Jew in the accursed language. You will hear from my
sjambok
when we get home!”

“Ouch! You have my sore ear, Mevrou.” I knew immediately she'd feel guilty grabbing me by my recently damaged ear, even though it was completely healed.

Mevrou let go of my ear as though it were a red-hot poker. You've got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive. Though once you know the rules, it is not too hard to play the game.

Mevrou stormed ahead and I fell some five paces behind her. After I'd given her what I hoped was enough guilt for her to withdraw the promised thrashing, I dropped back another fifteen paces and took the raspberry sucker out of my pocket. Taking off the cellophane wrapper, I licked the tiny bits of crimson sugar crystal which had stuck to it before throwing it away. I then settled down to suck my way back to the hostel.

I was right about the
sjambok,
which was not mentioned on our return. I spent the remainder of the afternoon putting more stones on Granpa Chook's grave and making a border around the pile of rocks with white pebbles that took ages to collect from all around the place. I must say, the toughest damn chicken in the whole world had a very impressive grave, a stone copse that

would probably last forever, hidden by successive generations of khakiweed and blackjack.

The cook boy had packed me a big brown paper bag of sandwiches for the train journey. We left the hostel about five o'clock to catch the seven o'clock train. My suitcase, though large, contained very few things. Two shirts, two pairs of khaki shorts, my pajamas, the four suckers, which I'd hidden in a pair of shorts, and my new tackies with the paper boats in them. There was plenty of room for the sandwiches. While the suitcase banged against my knees, it wasn't really heavy, and besides, with all the iron bar torture sessions, my muscles were pretty big. Mevrou was completely puffed out from making two trips into town in one day, and with the suitcase banging against my knees it took us almost an hour to get to the station.

The station turned out to be a raised platform about thirty yards long upon which sat a building with two doors facing the railway line. On one door
STATIONMASTER
was written and to the right of this door was a window. Above the window it read
TICKETS
. On the remaining door it said
WAITING ROOM
. Outside the stationmaster's office there were three truck tires painted white, and in the middle of these grew red cannas, their long, flat leaves dusty and shredded with the blooms equally torn and bedraggled-looking. Mevrou seemed to know the stationmaster. He opened the locked waiting room for us and brought her a cup of coffee in a big white cup with
SAR
monogrammed on it.

“Don't worry, Hoppie Groenewald is the guard on this train, he will take good care of the boy.” He turned to acknowledge me for the first time, “He is champion of the railways, you know. That Hoppie,” the stationmaster grinned at the thought, “he laughs all the time, but if you get into a fight, I'm telling you, man, you better pray he's on your side!”

I wondered what a champion of the railways was, but I clearly understood, and greatly liked, the idea of having someone on my side who was good in a fight. My life seemed to be made for trouble and it would make a nice change to have a champion of the railways beside me when the next lot hit, as was bound to happen.

Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random ifioment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark. Hoppie Groenewald was to prove to be a passing mentor who would set the next seventeen years of my life on an irrevocable course. He would do so in little more than a day and a night.

“The boy is a
rooinek
and also too small to fight yet,” Mevrou said, as though it was only a matter of time before my bad English blood would turn nasty. She produced a ticket from an envelope and inserted a large safety pin into the hole at one end. “Come here, child.” She pinned the ticket to my shirt pocket. “Listen carefully to me now, man, this ticket will take you to Barberton, but your
oupa
only sent enough money for one breakfast and one lunch and one supper on the train. Tonight you eat only one sandwich, you hear?” I nodded. “Tomorrow for breakfast another one and for lunch the last one. Then you can eat on the train. Do you understand now?”

“Ja, Mevrou, for the next three meals I eat the sandwiches.”

“No, man! That's not what I said. For tonight and for breakfast tomorrow and lunch tomorrow. And also; eat the meat first because the jam will keep the bread soft for tomorrow. Do you hear?”

“Ja,
Mevrou.”

She took out a small square of white cloth about the size of a lady's hankie and placed it on her lap. In the center she placed a shilling.

“Watch carefully now, Pisskop. I am putting this shilling in here and tying it so.” She brought the two opposite corners together and tied them over the shilling and then did the same with the remaining two. She took a second large safety pin from her handbag. Then, pushing the
doek
with the shilling into the pocket of my khaki shorts, she pinned it to the lining.

“Now listen good. It is for an emergency. Only if you have to, can you use some of it. But you must tie up the change like I just showed you and put it back in your pocket with the safety pin. If you don't need it you must give it to your
oupa,
it is his change.”

The stationmaster entered and told us that the train was on time and we had five minutes.

“Quick, man, get your tackies,” Mevrou said, giving me a push toward the suitcase.

I was seized by a sudden panic. What if I opened my suitcase and she saw my suckers? I placed the case flat on the floor and opened it so the lid was between Mevrou and me, preventing her from seeing inside. Just as well: a green sucker had worked out of its hiding place in my shorts, and my heart went
thump.
Phew!

I removed the tackies and quickly snapped the case shut. I slipped each foot carefully into a paper boat and Mevrou tied the laces. I tried desperately to memorize how she did this but wasn't sure I had the idea.

“Please, Mevrou, will you teach me how to tie the laces so I can take my tackies off in the train?”

Mevrou looked up, alarmed. “You must not take your tackies off until you get to Barberton. If you lose them your
oupa
will think I stole the money he sent. You keep them on, do you hear me now?”

The train could be heard a long way off, and we left the waiting room to watch it coming in. Real walking in my tackies was difficult and very different from the three or four tentative steps I had taken in Harry Crown's shop. I stumbled several times as I went
phlijft-floft, phlijft-floft
from the waiting room to the edge of the platform. Bits of newspaper crept up past my ankles and I had to stop and press them back in.

With a deafening
choof
of steam, immediately followed by two short, sharp hisses and a screeching sound of metal rubbing on metal, the huge train pulled into the station, and carriage after carriage of black people went by. They were laughing and sticking their heads out of windows and having themselves a proper good time. Finally the last two carriages and the goods van came to a halt neatly lined up with the platform. The two end carriages read
SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAYS FIRST CLASS
and
SECOND CLASS
. I had seen pictures of trains, of course, and sometimes at night as I lay in the small kids' dormitory I had heard a train whistle carried in the wind, the beautiful sound of going to faraway places, away from the hostel, Mevrou, the Judge, and his Nazi storm troopers. But I must say I wasn't prepared for anything quite as big and black and blustering with steam, smoke, fire, brass pipes, and hissing pistons.

Africans appeared as if from nowhere. They carried bundles on their heads that they handed up through the third class carriage windows to the passengers inside and then they climbed aboard, laughing with the excitement of it all. From inside the carriages came song and more laughter and a great deal of shouting and good-natured banter. I knew at once that I would like trains.

The guard leaped down onto the platform carrying a canvas bag with
MAIL
stamped on the outside. He handed it to the stationmaster, who gave him an identical bag in return.

The stationmaster introduced the guard to Mevrou. “This is Hoppie Groenewald. He is guard and conductor until you get to Gravelotte. He will look after the boy.”

Hoppie Groenewald grinned down at me and tipped his navy blue guard's cap to Mevrou. “No worries, Mevrou, I will look after him until Gravelotte. Then I will hand him over to Pik Botha, who will take him through to Kaapmuiden.” He opened the door of the second class carriage, put my suitcase into the train, and indicated that I should enter. The three steps up into the carriage were fairly high and I put my tackied foot on the bottom step. As I put my weight on the step, the toe of the tacky buckled and I fell on my bum on the platform. Wearing shoes was a much trickier business than I had first supposed. A bit distressed, I wondered how adults seemed to manage so easily. I tried to get up, but the tackies were too big and I couldn't get a proper grip on the loose gravel that covered the platform.

“Get up, man!” Mevrou said, visibly annoyed. She shook her head, “For God's sake! Even now you make trouble for me.”