The Power of One (54 page)

Later, as we were walking back to Wellington, I ribbed him about the “restoring us to our former glory” bit in the swearing-in ceremony and also mentioned the “no personal gain” clause in his oath as president for life.

Morrie stopped and turned to face me. With an exaggerated sigh, as though he had seriously come to doubt my sagacity, he said, “For Chrissake, Peekay, don't you read history? It doesn't matter how much of a crap-up a country makes, by the time it gets into history it's been turned into glorious tradition. It's the same with an institution. You can't go having the school losing on its boxing team generation after generation, history simply doesn't allow for that sort of truth. Of course, we've got a glorious tradition, because if we haven't, we have now and as Wooden Spoon Goons we're going to have to restore the Prince of Wales to its former glory, whatever the fuck happened in real life.”

“Wow!” as Doc would say. “No doubtful aboutski, Morrie Levy is the absoloodle best!”

“As for the personal gain, our primary purpose is to restore the school to its former boxing glory. There is no thought of not doing so if we can't make a quid out of it. That's what I mean by no thought of gain. We are not creating a business situation, we are merely exploiting one. Not to do so would be tantamount to sheer neglect, almost criminal if you ask me.”

There had been one strange happening at that first fight against Helpmekaar. Sarge had approached Darby White just before the fight to say that about a dozen blacks, all very neatly dressed and very clean, were standing outside the gymnasium and wanted permission to come in and watch. Darby, with much jiggling of his balls, was reluctant. If they were caught on the streets without a note from their employers, they would violate the pass laws, which put a nine o'clock curfew on all Africans. He didn't want to have a run-in with what he referred to as “the constabulary,” which if you have ever had any dealings with the South African Police Force is a very benign way of describing one of the toughest paramilitary forces in the world.

However, all the blacks showed him notes from their respective employers, and he finally allowed them to stand by the door with Old Jimbo, the boot boy from School House who hadn't missed a fight at the school for twenty years. The boxing coach from Helpmekaar came over and protested, and to our surprise Darby replied that the boys, like Old Jimbo, were school servants and welcome to stay.

My fight was first, and after I had been given the decision over Jannie Geldenhuis and the excitement had died down a bit I looked up toward the door. Except for Old Jimbo and a very tall man, the Africans were no longer there. Upon seeing me looking in his direction, a tall black man raised his hand in a clenched fist. “Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!” he shouted and was gone.

“What the hell was that all about?” Sarge said, looking up from cutting the tape on my gloves. “Sounded like some sorta war cry. Ungrateful blighters, they've all gone ‘ome after the first fight.”

It was the first appearance of the People.

At first my black fan club, as it was to become known, was only a dozen or so, but when the venue permitted, it would grow to several hundred and later a great deal more than that. The legend of the Tadpole Angel was spreading.

After a few weeks it became obvious that my identity had somehow been revealed to the school servants through the same weird African osmosis that makes news penetrate prison walls and travel over mountains and into the townships until it becomes a part of the very air itself. And so a subtle change began to take place. The best cuts of meat appeared on the juniors' table, and seconds were always brought first to where I sat. I found that my chores had been taken over. I would go to Fred Cooper's locker to get his rugby gear out for washing or his cricket boots for cleaning, only to find that they'd been done. His Sam Browne and brasses always shone like a mirror, and even the laces in his rugby boots were washed. Only the morning chores, such as making Cooper's bed, were left to me, as there were no dormitory servants around first thing in the morning. My own gear was always spotless and back in my locker clean or polished by the time we got back to Wellington from the main school each day for lunch. On one occasion I ripped my football jersey. I had made a hopeless job attempting to repair it and it concerned me greatly. I knew with certainty that my mother could not afford to replace it. I arrived back at Wellington for lunch to find that it had been neatly machine-darned, washed, and ironed and was as good as new.

I often spoke to the school servants in their own languages, but they never for one moment admitted to anything. They had heard the legend, knew the myth, and had simply reacted without needing direction from anyone. In fact, I knew there would be no interested party looking after me, no concerned group of ex-prisoners. Africans don't work like that. Each simply acted out his or her feelings, responding to what he or she felt. The legend of Onoshobishobi Ingelosi was sufficient in itself; it fed off my presence and not because of anything I would consciously do. In fact, despite my desire to do so, there was nothing I could do to stop it. My boxing was the needed proof of my status as a warrior and the fact that I only fought the hated Boer, yet another.

As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance.

The boarders put my privileged position down to my near-fraternal attitude to the school servants, which nicely explained their anxiety to help me. I was, I was beginning to understand, a natural leader, and leaders, I have found, need never explain. In fact, the less they explain, the more desirable they become as leaders. Except to Doc, I had never been given to explaining myself, and this was taken as strength by those who followed me. In truth, my reluctance to share my feelings had been born out of my fear as a small child, when I had been the only
rooinek
in the foreign land of Afrikanerdom. I had survived by passing as unnoticed as possible, by anticipating the next move against me, by being prepared to take it in my stride when the shit hit the fan, pretending not to be hurt or humiliated. I had learned early that silence is better than sycophancy, that silence breeds guilt in other people. That it is fun to persecute a pig because it squeals, no fun at all to beat an animal which does not cry out. I had long since built walls around my ego that only the most persistent person would ever manage to climb.

I
was the youngest kid in the first form but, what with one thing and another, I was clearly seen to have a bright future at the Prince of Wales School. My boxing win had made me a hero among the first form boarders, who, elated by the financial gain from betting on me, had become devoted fans and who now exaggerated the fight in their constant retelling of it to any of the day boys who cared to listen. The next two matches had been away from the school. These I had also won, and the boarders had once again shared in the spoils. Although we didn't have enough information on the two boxers I fought, my opponents were comparatively easy and as both had been beaten by Geldenhuis we took the chance of giving the Afrikaans punters more than attractive odds to back their own fighter, with the result that we turned both matches into nice little earners.

The retelling of these two fights, by Morrie in particular, made them out to be gladiatorial bouts that made the first fight against Jannie Geldenhuis seem like a kissing match. By the time the next home match took place, there was standing room only in the school gym and the fifty or so Africans who had turned up were obliged to watch the fight through the large bay windows.

To the delight of the school crowd, I won what turned out to be an easy fight. The other kid was very aggressive, prepared to take any sort of punishment to get a punch in. He was said to have won his first three fights inside the distance. But he came at me wide open on three occasions in the first round, and I sat him on his pants in the middle of the ring three times. Three knockdowns was all it took to win a fight. The school was further vindicated when our light heavyweight, Danny Polkinhorne, won on points in a brawling but thrilling three-rounder.

Morrie and I had started a register on every boxer the school fought against, in every weight division. I would sit with him during a fight and describe the opponent fighting one of our boxers. I would talk about his footwork and his style, his weaknesses or strengths in ring craft, and his personality in the ring. I would point out the boxers who dominated the space they boxed in as if they owned the ring and those who seemed to be fighting in borrowed space. We would separate the stand-up fighters from the boxers. We would note those who cut easily around the eyes. Morrie would jot down every punch thrown in a fight, how many and what they were. Our notes would end with my summary of the entire fight and of the boxer, noting the punches he liked to throw, the most and how many he threw during a fight. Boxers were obliged to weigh in before stepping into the ring, and Morrie would record their fighting weight and compare it with the next time they fought. We kept all these records in a big leather-bound accounting book, on the cover of which was embossed in gold:
LEVY'S CARPET EMPORIUM, 126 CHURCH STREET, PRETORIA. “CARPET FIT FOR A PRINCE.”
In this book, written in Morrie's neat, already mature handwriting, we would add to a boxer's profile every time he fought against the Prince of Wales School.

In a remarkably short time Morrie began to grasp the niceties of boxing. While I could remember the most minute details of almost every fighter, Morrie quickly developed the ability to anticipate with uncanny precision the way a boxer would fight the next time he appeared in the ring. He had an unerring instinct for a boxer's weaknesses, and so we were able to prepare our own boxers to fight an opponent to exploit these. Of course, it also allowed us to set the odds on a fight with a high degree of success. Business was booming, for while the Prince of Wales boxers were still regular losers, the odds we offered meant our losses were well contained and then, after a short while, we could usually depend on one or two wins to pick up the big money.

After the first year, when we had boxed every school twice and I was still unbeaten, it became difficult to get a bet against me. The Afrikaans kids weren't fools, and we were forced to offer more and more attractive odds on my opponent to the point where we were taking unnecessary risks and it was beginning to put me under pressure. In a fight against Geldenhuis toward the end of the second year, where the odds were twenty to one on Geldenhuis beating me, I only narrowly won on points.

By the time we reached form three our younger boxers were beginning to win. But Morrie, whom I had told about my ambition to be welterweight champion of the world, was reluctant to continue in the bookmaking business.

“It's time to get out, Peekay. There are two important rules of business; knowing when to get in and when to get out. Of the two, knowing when to get out is the more important. We've got bigger fish to fry.”

I'd enjoyed two years of regular pocket money, and I didn't relish the prospect of being broke again. “These fish we are going to fry, what are they?”

“I'm buggered if I know,” Morrie said, “but something will come along. Business is simply a matter of opportunity and money. If you've got the capital, sure as tomorrow is Tuesday, an opportunity will come along.”

We'd built up a considerable bank over the first two years; fifty percent of everything we made went into our capital, which was earning interest in the Yeoville branch of Barclays Bank.

That's when I had the idea. “Morrie, we've got fifty quid in the bank and we're getting two and a half percent on our money, which isn't very much. I mean one pound ten a year, it's nice, but it isn't world-shattering.”

Morrie laughed. “There was a time not so long ago . . .”

I cut in, “Yeah, I know, one pound ten was a lot of money, more than I'd ever owned. But listen, pocket money's on Wednesday and Saturday; by Tuesday and Friday everyone's broke.”

We were sitting on a bench under the oak trees bordering the cricket field, and Morrie jumped up in alarm. I could see he was upset, and he leaned over me and gripped the back of the bench on either side of me. “Peekay, are you crazy! Don't you understand? I'm the token Jew around here! What the fuck do you think the Christian gentlemen are going to say? A moneylender! Me? Christ, Peekay, the whole purpose of my education at this
goy
school is so that sort of stigma can be removed from my Jewishness. I'm here for the politics and the polish. I've already had several hundred years' training in usury!”

“That's all the banks do, isn't it?” I replied. “If you want a loan from a bank, you've got to go cap in hand, and they don't even have to earn it in the first place, people just give it to them for a lousy two and a half percent interest and then they turn around and lend it for seven percent. That's nearly three hundred percent profit. That isn't usury?”

“Peekay, you don't understand. When the banks do it, it's business; when a Jew does it, it's exploitation!”

“I see ... so a Jew can't own a bank?”

“Of course he can. Rothschild, one of the world's most famous banks, is owned by a Jewish family. The Rothschilds are one of France and England's most respected families.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “They started in Frankfurt-on-Main in Germany toward the end of the eighteenth century as moneylenders!”

“Christ, Peekay, I don't need to do this. There are other ways to make a quid, you'll see.” Morrie was clearly distressed. “In the meantime you can borrow from our capital for pocket money.”

“You don't need to do this, but I do. I'm not going to use our capital. I can earn my own way. I'm sorry if I've hurt your sensibilities, Morrie, but I've climbed into the ring twenty-five times in the last two years to support our bookmaking business. It's your turn now.”

Morrie released the bench and straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back as though he was preparing to give me a lecture.

“Do you know why I really came to the Prince of Wales School, Peekay?”

He didn't wait for my answer before continuing. “Let me tell you. When the Prince of Wales, I mean the future King, came to Pretoria, there was a reception held for him by the Red Cross. My old man supplied the red carpet for the occasion. The deal was, free carpet for an invitation. He stood in line, and the prince shook his hand. He never quite got over it. It was as though he'd touched the face of the Almighty. He'd made it. He'd reached the social pinnacle. He was a gentleman at last. A gentleman with a heavy Polish accent, but a gentleman no less. He bought his own carpet back from the Red Cross for a huge sum and carpeted the lounge room at home. I don't think one day of my life went by without at least one mention of the fucking carpet: ‘A prince, already, with his own feet walked on that carpet, my boy!'” Morrie mimicked. “When he read in the paper that there was a Prince of Wales school in Johannesburg and that the prince was to lay a wreath at the school's war memorial, he decided that if he had a son he would bring him up as the perfect English gentleman . .. correction, perfect Jewish ‘English' gentleman. This school, and Oxford to follow, is going to make me the first ‘respectable' Jew in our family since Moses bawled in the bullrushes. I'll tell you something, Peekay, if he had had to carpet every classroom, all three boarders' houses, and the school quad to get me in here, he'd have thought it was a bargain.”

“What you're saying is that by becoming moneylenders we fuck up everything?”

Morrie grinned. “Yup! That's about it.”

“Well, then, we'll call it a bank. Look, Morrie, it meets every criterion we've established for a business. There is a known need for our services. The risk factor is small and easy to control— our creditors can hardly default, can they? We don't have to borrow capital, and the profits are reasonable and regular. As Doc would say, ‘No doubtski aboutski,' it's perfect and it's honest— well, sort of.”

“What will you do if I say no?” Morrie asked.

“I'd find it very difficult to come to terms with your answer. Now let me tell
you
a story. The guy who taught me boxing was a Cape Colored and by any standards a bad bastard. He'd spent more time in prison than out on the street. He was the worst kind of recidivist, by any standards the scum of society. He lied, cheated, and robbed. He'd also been beaten up more times than you and I have had hot breakfasts. He was the ultimate loser. That's how the world saw him. That's how they judged him.”

“You're talking about Geel Piet, aren't you?” Morrie said.

“Ja.
Well, Geel Piet was just about the best friend I ever had. He died for me. A warder named Borman rammed a two-foot baton up his arse until he hemorrhaged to death. Geel Piet could have saved himself simply by confessing that it was I who had smuggled the prisoners' mail into the prison. But he didn't. I didn't see him as any of the things he was supposed to be. I saw him as one of the best human beings I am ever likely to know. Christ, Morrie, it's not what a man does, it's what a man
is
that counts!”

We called it the Boarder's Bank, but it became known simply as The Bank and was an immediate success. Interest was at ten percent per week, and loans were never extended beyond a fortnight, which was long enough for any kid to write home for money if he got himself into a financial fix. In the three years we remained at school, we didn't incur a single bad debt. The funny thing was that not only the boarders, but also the day boys, regarded The Bank as a valued institution. Moreover, Morrie's antecedents never entered into it, although The Bank formed the basis of some of his more spectacular future financial ploys. I could say
our
spectacular successes, but Morrie was the real wizard and I remained the sorcerer's apprentice. The Bank also formed the basis for my pocket money, a source of great personal pride to me. I'd solved the major emotional problem confronting my school career and, unencumbered with money problems, was now free to forge ahead.

By the time we had reached form three, the younger boxers were beginning to win on a regular basis and Atherton and Cunning-Spider had each won six of their last seven fights, Atherton as a lightweight and Cunning-Spider as a light welterweight. Morrie's Wooden Spoon Goons were building a reputation and gaining a whole heap of respect from the Afrikaans schools. The Prince of Wales School was no longer a joke, and the Boer War was often won by the English these days. That was the year we finally lost the wooden spoon and the faded green, red, and dirty white ribbon was removed and replaced with the colors of another school. Morrie had achieved his first objective, which, he told the Wooden Spoon Goons, was only “A small pimple on the great hairy arse of my ambition for the gentlemen Christian boxers.”

In the three years it took to lose the wooden spoon, I earned an exaggerated reputation as a boxer among the Afrikaans schools on the Witwatersrand. I started to fill out, and by the time I was fifteen I was fighting as a bantamweight. Every fight, at school or away, was attracting the People. A match a hundred miles by bus or train from the school would attract just as many Africans as one at home, where the boxing bouts had been moved from the gym to the school hall. Here the Africans were allowed to sit at the very back of the hall, separated from the whites by a wide corridor. During the summer it was popular to have the boxing out of doors, usually with the ring set up on a rugby field. At these times the blacks would be allowed to watch the fights, even those held at the most racist Afrikaans schools, where they were kept well separated from the white spectators. It was at one of these out-of-town Afrikaans schools that I first heard the word “apartheid” used to describe the place where the black spectators were allowed to sit, and I have often since wondered if I had witnessed the first use of a word that would become universal as an expression of oppression.