The Power of One (70 page)

Gideon gave a wry laugh. “You will be safe, but we will go to jail. It is always like so. You are very clever and the magic of the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi is make the change for the school name on the paper. But the police, they are bad people, they will not give up so easy, but also I think the big
baas
for headmaster he will make finish with this school.”

“Over our dead bodies,” Morrie said. “I'm telling you, he'll fight for the night school.”

But he didn't. The next Monday the two of us were called to Singe ‘n' Burn's office to be confronted by an officer of the South African Police Force.

“This is Captain Swanepoel of the Johannesburg Central Police Station. He wishes to ask you a few questions,” Singe ‘n' Burn said sternly. “It seems your report to me on the weekend doesn't quite correspond with the one submitted by the police officer who attended your class on Saturday night. I urge you to tell the complete truth to Captain Swanepoel.”

“We told you precisely what happened, sir,” I said to the head.

“With respect, the officer in charge of the visit is trained to report correctly. You can take my word for that,” the police captain said.

“Well then, in that case there will be no difference in our versions, Captain Swanepoel. I mean, if we both told the truth,” Morrie said softly.

“The truth? What is the truth? In my experience the truth goes out the window when emotions come in. Emotions always tell a story different, you take my word for that, Headmaster,” Captain Swanepoel replied.

“Captain, both these boys have been trained to observe a situation with some dispassion, even though it be one in which they are involved.”

“Ja, I mean no disrespect, Headmaster, but I must take the written evidence of an adult police officer against two young boys who were very excited at the time.”

“Perhaps Captain Swanepoel can tell us where our evidence differs, sir?” I asked.

“Well, yes, of course.” The head cleared his throat. “According to Captain Swanepoel, you did not cooperate with the officer in charge of the visit and you were abusive in the extreme.”

“We were not given the opportunity to cooperate, sir. The officer was both abusive and bullying and referred to me as a kaffir
boetie
, to Levy as the Jewboy, and to Gideon Mandoma as a blery stinking kaffir.” I looked up to see the beginnings of a smirk on Captain Swanepoel's face.

“This is not possible. A police officer of the South African Police Force is trained to be respectful to the public.” He turned to Singe ‘n' Burn. “People make things up all the time, things the police are supposed to say.”

“Are you calling us liars, Captain?” I said.

Swanepoel ignored my question. “It says here that you used abusive language to the officer in charge of the investigation?”

“Yes, I told him to piss off,” Morrie said. “But you have yet to answer Peekay's question, Captain.”

“I will answer it later, son, don't you worry about that,” Swanepoel shot back. “Is what you said not abusive language?”

“Levy was extremely provoked, and as the officer had no right to be on the premises the remark was not unjustified, sir,” I replied.

“I didn't ask you, and he didn't answer my question.” He pointed a finger at Morrie. “I'm asking you again, is what” you said not abusive language?”

“Put like that, yes, but—”

“No but, man, you admit you were abusive to the officer, then?”

“I admit I told him to piss off, Captain,” Morrie replied.

“Then we are in agreement. The first fact we challenge turns out to be correct. Why must I not believe this report is a correct statement of what happened?”

“I say, that's not fair rules of debate, Captain Swanepoel,” Singe ‘n' Burn stated.

Captain Swanepoel turned to face the headmaster. “I am a police officer, not a schoolteacher. I look at the evidence, I do not play games.”

“We have forty-two Africans as well as our own chaps who will confirm what we've said,” I protested. I'd heard the warders at Barberton prison interrogate prisoners, and they had used the same technique as Swanepoel was now using on us.

“Ah yes, forty-two hostile witnesses. Africans do not have the same idea about truth as a white man. As for the other white boys, we are reluctant to take evidence from juveniles.”

“You still haven't answered our question, Captain,” Morrie said, his teeth clenched.

“You know something, son, sooner or later your type of person comes before the police again. I will remember your face.”

“Please!
Answer our question, sir!” Morrie shouted.

Swanepoel laughed. “When we meet again, I will find out then if you are liars. I always find out.”

“What happens to this report, Captain Swanepoel?” Singe ‘n' Burn asked.

The police captain sighed. “Because of the technical error in the search warrant, I must very reluctantly withdraw this report.”

“May I please have it, Captain Swanepoel?” I asked.

Swanepoel laughed again. “The South African Police do not give souvenirs. If you want some souvenirs, go to the Easter Show.”

“I'm delighted to hear that's the last of it,” Singe ‘n' Burn said, obviously relieved.

“No, Headmaster, it is only the beginning. You can consider yourself very lucky we got the wrong school name on the search warrant because today I have come here as a friend. If we come again next Saturday night and we find that this wonderful school you have here is teaching black communists then we will be forced to make some very unfortunate conclusions.”

“I really do protest, sir!” Singe ‘n' Burn was suddenly angry.

Captain Swanepoel grinned. “These days it is not very hard to find a black communist—”• he looked at Morrie “—or even a white one—” then at me, “—even more than one. When blacks want suddenly to have education, you can take it from me, they up to no good, somebody else or something else is behind it.”

“Are you telling us to close down the night school, Captain?”

“Headmaster, the law in this matter is not clear yet, but teaching black people in a white school will not be allowed in the new Group Areas Act. You can see my position, Headmaster. I must tell you also my duty in this matter is very clear. Next time we will not make a mistake with the search warrant. And when we come we will find something.” He paused and looked again at Morrie and me. “We always find something.”

He rose and extended his hand to Singe ‘n' Burn. The headmaster did not take it. Instead he gripped the side of his desk and leaned forward slightly. “We will not be intimidated by the police, Captain Swanepoel. We have not broken the law, and as far as I know this is still a free and democratic country.”

Captain Swanepoel shrugged and stooped down to retrieve his cap from the floor by his chair. “I am sorry you will not cooperate with the police, sir.” He adjusted his cap, then turned back to face the headmaster, touching the peak lightly in a casual salute. “Good afternoon, sir.” Without a look at Morrie or me he turned and left, closing the door behind him.

“Shit, what now?” Morrie said under his breath.

“What was that, Levy?”

“Nothing, sir.”

The light from the window backlit Singe ‘n' Burn's snowy hair and he looked frail as he continued to grip the desk, swaying slightly as though the motion kept him from disintegrating into a million tiny bits which would silently float away on the dusty beam of sunlight.

“Bravo, sir,” Morrie said.

He shook his head slowly. “We are beaten.”

“But you just said—?”

“Sheer bravado, my boy. We will have your school on Saturday and Captain Swanepoel will officially raid the Prince of Wales School, after which the board of governors will meet and their conclusion is foregone.” He looked up. “Nevertheless, we will open next Saturday evening, a Pyrrhic, victory to be sure, but there is an important principle at stake.”

We left the head's office on a thorough downer. “Fuck the Pyrrhic victory, the principle, and the principal as well!” Morrie exploded, once we were out of earshot.

“Okay, calm down, this is my territory, I've worked with Swanepoel's kind of mentality all my life. The cop's got us by the short ‘n' curlies. We'll have to let Gideon and the other boxers know.”

“Christ, Peekay, don't you see, this is how it all starts. How it started with the Jews in Germany. Let's stand up and fight now. I'll get my old man's lawyers to be there next Saturday night.”

“Forget it, the class won't come. Last Saturday was enough. There's no principle involved for them, just another opportunity taken away, another door closed. They spend their lives being screwed by the system. Would you front up if you knew you were almost certain to be arrested, thrown in jail, lose your job, and be branded as a communist?”

Morrie was taking it a lot worse than I was. So much for his desire to “keep the blacks in the dark as long as possible.” I had been around this kind of intimidation all my life, and I knew Captain Swanepoel could have been a lot more difficult had he chosen to be.

“What are we going to do, Peekay?”

I laughed. “You really are a city slicker, aren't you, you still think the police are there to protect you from the big bad wolf. After Saturday night this whole scenario was predictable. The Nationalists don't see it the way we do. To them we are starting a black revolution in the heartland of white privilege!”

“You can't be serious. Our dumb little school for boxers and houseboys?”

“From little acorns mighty oak trees grow. The Nats are not stupid. You should know; the Jews made that mistake before with the Nazis. They thought of them as a bunch of thugs whom they could buy off. Have you seen the educational qualifications the Nationalist government has for its cabinet? It's probably the best-educated cabinet in the world. Racism does not diminish with brains. It's a disease, a sickness. It may incubate in ignorance, but it doesn't necessarily disappear with the gaining of wisdom!”

“Are you telling me you knew all along this was going to happen?”

“No, of course not. I thought we had a chance. You were right to be somewhat cynical at the beginning, but it was worth a try.”

“I was only joking, acting tough—I wanted it as much as you.”

“Christ, Morrie, I'm not saying I wanted it to happen! I was angry and bitterly disappointed. Disappointed that I was right.”

“You're a complicated bastard, Peekay. I'm supposed to be the realist in this partnership. Like I said, what do we do now?”

“Well, Saturday's out for a start. No point in putting the boxers at jeopardy, not for a Pyrrhic victory anyway.”

“Well, at least we can teach them after boxing.”

“No way. That Swanepoel bastard will be watching us like a hawk.”

“I feel so bloody helpless.” Morrie looked at me and shrugged. “You know, before our visit to Sophiatown I couldn't have given a damn. Yeah, sure, I'd probably have gone along with you on the school, like you've gone along with me on some of our scams. But after the fight, seeing those people, it's different somehow. I began to have a concept of the People, of what it means to be oppressed, of what it must have meant to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany.” It was the first time I'd seen Morrie really confused. He'd come up against something that couldn't be resolved with money or influence. “It was such a small thing they wanted, and we failed. I mean, those poor buggers wanted so badly to learn, just to read and write and do a few sums. It was the least we could do.” Morrie was almost crying.

“So that's what we're going to continue to do. I didn't spend four years with Geel Piet without learning how to beat the shitty system.”

“What do you mean, Peekay?”

“Correspondence school. Miss Bornstein's Famous Correspondence School!”

“Peekay! You're a genius! We've already got the whole course in three African languages, as well as Fanagalo. It's in the bag, old chap, we'll guinea-pig the whole thing. We'll make it free for the class who have just been expelled. Then, with Mr. Nguni's help and for a small sum, yet to be determined, we'll sell a correspondence course for blacks throughout South Africa. We'll even send one to Captain Swanepoel and tell him to jam it up his arse so that every time he farts he sounds intelligent!”

Miss Bornstein's Correspondence School would one day become the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere, with Miss Bornstein as the actual principal. Mr. Nguni simply let it be known that the course came from the Tadpole Angel, who wanted the People to take pride in learning to read and write and do sums.

NINETEEN
fifty-one was the year I won the South African schools featherweight title and the Prince of Wales School won the schools championship for the third year running. Darby and Sarge were heroes, and both had become welcome members of the masters' common room. Success of any sort seems to break down social barriers. We all sat for our matriculation, although a first class pass for Sinjun's People was a foregone conclusion. Atherton was selected for the South African Schoolboy Rugby Team to tour Argentina, and Cunning-Spider made it into the Transvaal Schools Cricket Team. Pissy Johnson, with a lot of coaching from Morrie and me, felt confident that he'd get the marks in his matric to study medicine. He had become an expert at fixing cuts in the ring, and from this small beginning his ambition to be a doctor had blossomed.

I had, by all accounts, a brilliant school career, getting my colors in rugby and three times for boxing as well as being head prefect and a company commander in the school cadet corps. While my music hadn't really progressed, I was still, by school standards, considered among the more able musicians.

In Sinjun's terms, I was well on my way to being a Renaissance man. In my own terms I felt less successful. I had survived the system, but that was in many ways the problem. I seemed to be losing control of my own life, forfeiting my individuality for the glittering prizes and the accolades of my peers. The need to win had become everything, the head had become more important than the heart. Hoppie's advice had worked too well.

I had supported myself at school with The Bank and the various scams Morrie and I had developed. But what had been intellectual amusement for Morrie was deadly serious for me. I needed the money not only to survive but as a means of dignity. Morrie and I had become inseparable friends, and with the death of Doc he was certainly the most important person in my life. But I knew deep down that I had chosen Morrie because he could help me survive the system. I was a user. It had become a habit; winner that I seemed to be, I had become a mental mendicant.

I was conscious also of the price I had paid. That in return people took strength from me. Morrie, Miss Bornstein, Mrs. Boxall all needed me as a focal point. I was required to perform for them in return for their unstinting help and lovd The concept of the Tadpole Angel which I had tried to set aside would not leave me. After the Mandoma fight the black crowds at my boxing matches had become enormous, and at the South African Schools Championships the police had been called to disperse the chanting crowd outside the Johannesburg Drill Hall. I knew that eventually something more was expected of me. All my life I'd been pushed around. By the Judge. By the Lord. By the concept of the Tadpole Angel. In my own way I had fought and in return had been given Doc and Hoppie and Geel Piet as my mentors. The point of all this was difficult to understand. Perhaps, after all, life is like this. But I felt I needed to take one independent action that would put my life back under my own control. It was as though I needed to lose but hadn't developed the mechanism to do so. I had only one problem with this; I hadn't any idea how to go about doing so.

The only totally independent thing in my life was my ambition to become the welterweight champion of the world. It was the only thing that couldn't be manipulated. Either I had it in me or I hadn't. It was the thing those who loved me, with the exception of Captain Smit and Gert, couldn't understand. It was the one thing in my life that seemed to make sense to me. In this single action there was no corruption of the spirit.

In the last week of term Singe ‘n' Burn accompanied me to my interview with the Rhodes Scholarship board. I had sat for two scholarships, one to Witwatersrand University and another to the University of Stellenbosch, an Afrikaans-speaking university with a brilliant law school. But more than anything, I wanted to go to Oxford. I felt I was unlikely to compromise this desire, come what may. Morrie's family had already agreed to pay for me to go, but even as a loan, I found this unacceptable. Unacceptable to me, to the memory of Doc, to Mrs. Boxall, Miss Bornstein, Captain Smit, Gert, Hoppie Groenewald, Big Hettie, and, most of all, to Geel Piet, who had never in his life experienced a hand extended to him in help.

Even my mother, ©onvinced that the temporal things of life were secondary and who had given the Lord the entire credit for making my education possible, had sat behind a sewing machine from dawn until dusk to support me as much as she was able.

I was a man now, I was through with taking. I felt the rest was up to me. If I didn't know what the next step in my life was to be, I felt that I might set it in motion by acting independently of the help that was always being so generously extended to me by others.

Morrie, the gambler and businessman, reckoned the odds on my winning one of three Rhodes Scholarships for South Africa was less than even. As the time for my interview grew close he grew more and more distraught. He sensed my need to act independently and that to some large degree the Rhodes Scholarship would achieve this aim. At the same time he wanted to cushion me from disappointment if I lost. It was not unknown, but highly unusual, to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship straight from school. Rhodes Scholars were almost always chosen after an initial degree at university, when the student had already confirmed a brilliant school career with an equally brilliant first degree taken in conjunction with a sporting and cultural contribution in the university environment.

“Christ, Peekay, in my old man's terms the fees to Oxford are petty cash. We'd be together like always and come back home and eventually open a practice together. You can start looking after the People and I'll make us a squillion dollars. It's all so easy. Why do you have to make it so bloody difficult?”

“Well, for a start I'm going to be welterweight champion of the world. If I took your dad's money, I'd have to use all my time at university to justify it.”

“You don't have to justify it, you can do both!” Morrie yelled.

“You know me better than that. Let me tell you something stupid, Morrie. If I had to choose between becoming welterweight champion of the world and taking a law degree at Oxford, the boxing would win.”

He looked stunned. “Why? You're not the sort of guy who wants to be famous that way. In fact, you're exactly the opposite.”

“It's got to do with something that happened when I was very young. I can't explain it, it's just got to be that way.”

“Peekay, the money you'll make as a professional, even a world champion, will be nothing compared to the two of us together in a law practice.”

“It's not something I can explain. I've worked for this since I was six. It has nothing to do with the importance of being the welterweight champion of the world.” I chuckled inwardly. How the hell could I explain to him that I was doing it, in part, for a dead chicken?

“Look, Peekay, you're only just a lightweight, it will be two, maybe three, years before you become a welterweight, you can take your degree, or a good part of it anyway, and then go on with your boxing career. I'll help you. We'll even make a lot of dough out of it.”

The interview with the selection board was a fairly harrowing experience, the first hour being taken up with the board talking to Singe ‘n' Burn while I cooled my heels in the waiting room of University House. The waiting was the worst part. The selection committee was made up of three fairly elderly men who simply started to chat with me. One of them, a thin man with round steel-rimmed glasses that slid down to the tip of his very long nose and whose hair was parted precisely in the middle and slicked down with brilliantine, looked like Ichabod Crane. He peered at me over the top of his glasses and quoted the first lines of three verses from Ovid, then asked me to complete them. I had to laugh, it was stuff I'd learned from Doc when I was nine.

“Not bad, not at all bad, only one small mistake.”

“Please, sir, I disagree,” I replied, my heart in my mouth. The three poems had been among Doc's favorites and I knew them intimately. I was certain I'd not made a mistake.

“Bravo, young man!” Ichabod said. “You're quite correct, and besides, you had the courage to say so.” He pulled his glasses back to the top of his nose and wrote something down on a tablet of lined bright yellow paper.

The three examiners looked positively musty with learning and
not at all
like
sporting types.
But after they'd chatted to me about this and that, they fixed on my boxing. Why, they wanted to know, was I obsessed with boxing? My submission showed me to be a brilliant student, a very talented musician, a good rugby player, and a brilliant boxer. One of them read from the submission: “Has the ambition to become a professional boxer and to win the welterweight championship of the world.” I could see he was quite taken aback.

“Surely a boy of your obvious intelligence or, according to your headmaster, brilliance, must see that a vocation as a professional pugilist is not compatible with reading law at Oxford?”

“Lord Byron was a pugilist, sir. No one doubted his intellectual integrity,” I answered. He grunted and wrote something down on the pad in front of him. Ichabod Crane had a slight smile on his face.

“Ah, I do not recall whether Byron was an Oxford man!” he said, which caused his two colleagues to laugh.

“Your point is well made, Mr.—er, Peekay, but as I recall he was an amateur.”

“There is considerable evidence that he fought on occasion for a wager which today would make him a professional, sir.”

“Be that as it may, a small wager on the side amongst friends is hardly the same thing, is it?”

“No, sir,” I replied, unwilling to press my luck any further by pointing out that quite large sums of money were involved.

At the end of the interview I was asked to wait with Singe ‘n' Burn in the waiting room. The head seemed even more nervous than I and made me repeat every word of the interview. When I got to the bit about Byron, he was delighted. “Excellent!” he said, clapping his hands, but then when I told him about Byron fighting for a wager and the somewhat brusque reply I had received, he frowned. “That's Lewis of Natal University, a man who doesn't care to be contradicted.” When I concluded my account, he simply said, “Well done, Peekay, you have acquitted yourself well.”

We were then ushered back in, and it was Ichabod Crane who announced that I had been listed in the last five candidates and would be required to sit for the Oxford University entrance examinations.

“The Prince of Wales School, which you attend, has an enviable reputation, and if you are an example of its product, the least I can say for myself and my colleagues is that we have been impressed.” They then stood up and shook hands with us both.

Singe ‘n' Burn was elated; we were over the major hurdle. They had taken my schoolboy candidature seriously. Several days later I sat with Morrie for the Oxford University entrance examinations, the results of which would be announced before the Rhodes Scholarships.

I arrived home for the Christmas holidays to find my picture was on the front page of
The Goldfields News.
Mr. Hankin, frustrated newspaperman to the last, had used the picture Doc had taken of me sitting on our rock the first day we had met on the hill behind the rose garden. Despite the fact that everyone in town knew who I was, above it a banner headline read:
boy on a rock for oxford
! I recalled with a touch of bitterness the stupid old fart's last use of this picture on the front page, when he had accused Doc of being a Nazi spy and of breaking my jaw.

I found myself a local hero once again. As far as the town was concerned, my elevation to Rhodes Scholarship status was all over bar the shouting. In the month it took for the results of the Oxford entrance examinations to come through, Miss Bornstein became a nervous wreck.

Down at the prison they were much more impressed with Solly's thirteen-punch combination. If they could have chosen between a scholarship to Oxford, a place they'd never heard of anyway, or a thirteen combo, there is little doubt they'd have plumped for the latter. Once again I won the Eastern Transvaal featherweight title and was also best boxer of the championships. With this, my fourth successive win, Captain Smit, in what he later described as one of the great moments in his life, was able to claim the trophy permanently for the Barberton Blues.

My examination results arrived in late January and stated that I had received a distinction in all subjects. Miss Bornstein was beside herself, and it was such big news around the place that Old Mr. Bornstein contrived to lose the first ever game of chess to me while denying hotly that he had purpbsely done so. Four days later a letter arrived from the Rhodes Scholarship Committee.

Dear Mr. “Peekay,”

On behalf of the selection committee for Rhodes Scholarships for the year 1952, we regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful.

I have been asked by the selection committee to commend you for the manner in which you conducted yourself during your interview and for the results you achieved in the required examination.

It is the earnest opinion of the committee that, having completed your first degree, you should apply again.

Yours faithfully,