The Power of One

by Bryce Courtenay

  Gert asked me how much I had.

  “One shilling,” I said nervously.

  “Ten to one,” Gert said, “that’s the best I can do.”

  “Is this an emergency?” I asked, fearful for Granpa’s shilling.

  “At ten to one? I’ll say so!” Hoppie answered.

  It took ages to get the safety pin inside my pocket loose and then undo the doek Granpa’s shilling had been tied into. I handed Gert the shilling and he wrote something down in his little book. Hoppie saw the anxiety on my face. It wasn’t really my shilling and he knew it.

  “Sometimes in life doing what we shouldn’t is the emergency, Peekay,” he said.

  We arrived at Gravelotte at two-thirty on the dot. The heat of the day was at its most intense. Hoppie said the temperature was one hundred and eight degrees and tonight would be a sweat bath. Our train was moved off the main track into a siding.

  “This is where I got my shunting ticket. When the ore comes in from Murchison Consolidated and you got to put together a train in this kind of heat, I’m telling you, Peekay, you know you’re alive, man,” Hoppie said, pointing to a little shunting engine moving ore trucks around.

  We crossed the tracks and walked through the railway workshops. The men working there talked to Hoppie and wished him luck and said they’d be there tonight, no way were they going to work overtime. Hoppie called them grease monkeys and said they were the salt of the earth.

  We arrived at the railway mess where Hoppie lived. We had a shower and Hoppie opened a brown envelope that a mess servant brought to him. He read the letter inside for a long time and then, without a word, put it into the top drawer of the small table in his room.

  “We are going shopping, little boetie, and then to the railway club to meet my seconds and have a good look over the big gorilla I’m fighting tonight. Bring your tackies, Peekay, I have an idea.”

  We set off with my tackies under my arm. The main street was a few hundred yards from the mess. Every time a truck passed it sent up a cloud of dust, and by the time we got to the shop Hoppie was looking for I could taste the dust in my mouth. It sure was hot.

  The shop we entered had written above the door, G. Patel & Son, General Merchants. On its verandah were bags of mealie meal and red beans and bundles of pickaxes, a complete plow and four-gallon tins of paraffin. Inside, it was dark and hot.

  “It smells funny in here, Hoppie.”

  “It’s coolie stuff they burn, man, it’s called incense.”

  A young Indian woman dressed in bright swirls of almost diaphanous cloth came out of the back. She was a mid-brown color, her straight black hair was parted in the middle and a plait hung over her shoulder almost to the waist. Her eyes were large and dark. On the center of her forehead was painted a red dot.

  Hoppie nudged me. “Give me your tackies, Peekay,” he whispered. I handed him the two brown canvas shoes, which showed no sign of wear.

  “Good afternoon, meneer, I can help you, please?”

  Hoppie did not return her greeting and I could tell from the way he looked at her that she was somehow not equal. I thought only kaffirs were not equal, so it came as quite a surprise that this beautiful lady was not also. “Tackies, you got tackies?” he demanded.

  The lady looked at the tackies Hoppie was holding. “Only white and black, not brown like this.”

  “You got a size for the boy?” Hoppie said curtly. The lady looked at my feet and brought a whole lot of tackies tied together in a bundle. She unpicked a pair and handed them to Hoppie, who said, “Try them on, Peekay. Make sure they fit, you hear?”

  I slipped into the tackies, which were white and looked splendid. They fitted perfectly. “Tie the laces,” Hoppie instructed.

  “I can’t, Hoppie. Mevrou didn’t show me how.” The beautiful lady came around the counter, went down on her haunches and started to tie the laces. When she had finished she tested the front of the tackies with the ball of her thumb, pressing down onto my toes; then she looked up at me and smiled. I couldn’t believe my eyes—she had a diamond set into the middle of one tooth!

  “They fit good,” she said.

  Hoppie waited until she was back behind the counter. “Okay, now we make a swap. Those tackies for these tackies.” He placed my old tackies in front of her.

  The lady shook her head slowly. “I cannot do this,” she said quietly.

  Hoppie leaned his elbows on the counter so he was looking directly into her eyes. He allowed his silence to take effect, forcing her to speak again.

  “These are not the same. Where did you buy these tackies?” She picked up one and examined the sole, then turned toward the door behind the counter and said something in a strange language. In a few moments we were joined by a man with the same straight black hair and brown skin but dressed in a shirt and pants just like everyone else. The lady handed the tacky to the man, speaking again in the strange language. He seemed old enough to be her father. The man turned to Hoppie.

  “We cannot make a change, this tacky is not the same. See, here is the brand, made in China.” He tapped the sole with his forefinger. Then he walked over to the bundle on the counter and pulled one tacky loose. “See, by golly, here is altogether another brand and this time made in Japan. That is a different place, you see, this is a different tacky. You did not buy this tacky from Patel & Son. You must pay me three shilling.”

  Hoppie appeared not to have heard, and leaning over the counter, he tapped the man on the shoulder. “Where is your son, Patel?”

  Patel’s face lost its aggrieved look. “My son is very-very clever. He is studying at University of Bombay. Soon he will be returning BA and we will be most overjoyed.”

  “Sixpence and these tackies, Patel,” Hoppie said emphatically. Patel twisted the tacky in his hand, a sour look on his face.

  “One shilling,” he said suddenly.

  “Sixpence,” Hoppie said again. Patel shook his head.

  “Too much I am losing,” he said.

  Hoppie looked at him. “Patel, this is my final offer and only if the boy gets a bansela. I’ll give you another threepence, take it or leave it, man!” Patel clucked his tongue and finally nodded. Hoppie took the ninepence out of his pocket and put it on the counter. The beautiful lady held out a yellow sucker.

  “Here is your bansela,” she said with a smile, and I caught another glimpse of the diamond. I thanked her for the sucker, pineapple, my third favorite. I still had one red one and now I would have two for the fight tonight.

  “Thank you, Hoppie,” I said, looking down proudly at my new white tackies. I can tell you they looked good and I could walk in them just like that.

  “Better take them off, Peekay. If you’re going to be in my corner tonight we don’t want you wearing dirty tackies, man,” Hoppie said with a grin. I took the tackies off and Hoppie tied the laces in a knot and hung them around my neck.

  Patel seemed to have become very excited and was pointing to Hoppie. “Meneer Kid Louis, I am very-very honored to meet you! All week, my golly, I am hearing about you and the fisticuffs business. My goodness gracious, now I am meeting the person myself!”

  Hoppie laughed. “Bet the ninepence you rooked out of me on me, Patel.”

  “No, no, we are going much better. Ten pounds we are wagering on Kid Louis.”

  “Ten pounds! That’s twice as much as I win if I win.”

  Patel proffered the ninepence he had been holding. “Please take it back, Meneer Kid Louis. It will bring very-very bad luck if I am keeping this money.”

  Hoppie shrugged and pointed to me. “Give it to the next welterweight contender.”

  “You are a boxer also?”

  I nodded gravely; in my head it seemed almost true. Patel dug into his pocket and produced a handful of change. “Here is for you a shilling,” he said.

  Hoppie grinned at him. “You don’t know what you just did, Patel, but it is a very good omen.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Patel,” I said, my hand closing around t
he silver coin. Granpa’s change was safe again and I must say it was a load off my mind.

  As we left the shop Hoppie gave me a bump with his elbow. “You don’t call a blerrie coolie ‘mister,’ Peekay. A coolie is not a kaffir because he is clever and he will cheat you anytime he can. But a coolie is still not a white man!”

  We stopped at a café and Hoppie bought two bottles of red stuff. On the sides were the words American Cream Soda. The old lady behind the counter took them out of an icebox, opened them, popped a sort of pipe made of paper into the tops and handed them to us. I watched to see how Hoppie did it and then I did it too. It tasted wonderful.

  We arrived at the railway club just before five o’clock. The temperature was still in the high nineties. The club was cool, with polished red cement floors and ceiling fans. The manager told us the boys from the mine had already arrived and the railway boys, including Hoppie’s seconds, were with them in the billiard room. Hoppie took my hand and we followed the manager into the billiard room, which contained three large tables covered in green stuff on which were lots of colored balls. Men with long sticks were knocking the balls together all over the place. In the far corner some twenty men were seated at a long table on which were lots of beer bottles. They all stopped talking as we walked in. Two of them put down their glasses, rose from the table and came toward us smiling. Hoppie seemed very happy to see them. He turned to me and said: “Peekay, this is Nels and Bokkie. Nels, Bokkie, this is Peekay, the next welterweight contender.” Both men grinned and said hello and I said hello back. We walked over to the group of men who had remained sitting around the table.

  Bokkie put his hand on Hoppie’s shoulder. He was a big man with a huge tummy and a red face with a flat nose that appeared to have been broken several times. I noticed that Hoppie was staring at a man sitting at the table with a jug of beer in front of him. The man was looking straight back at Hoppie, and their eyes were locked together for a long time. Hoppie was still holding my hand and although his grip didn’t seem to increase I could feel the sudden tension. At last the man dropped his eyes and reached out for his glass.

  “Gentlemen,” Bokkie said, “this is Kid Louis, the next welterweight champion of the South African Railways.” The men at the side of the table nearest to us cheered and whistled, and a man on the other side of the table stood up and pointed to the man Hoppie and I had been staring at.

  “This is Jackhammer Smit.” The miners surrounding Jackhammer whistled and cheered just as the railway men had a moment before. Jackhammer rose slowly to his feet. He was a giant of a man with his head completely shaved. Hoppie’s grip tightened around my fingers momentarily and then relaxed again. “This is one big gorilla, Peekay,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. Jackhammer took a couple of steps toward us. His nose was almost as flat as Bokkie’s and one ear looked mashed.

  Hoppie stuck his hand out but the big man didn’t take it. The men all fell silent. Jackhammer Smit put his hands on his hips, and tilting his head back slightly, he looked down at Hoppie and me. Then he turned back to the miners. “Which of the two midgets do I fight?” The miners broke up and beat the surface of the table and whistled. Jackhammer Smit turned back to face us. “Kid Louis, huh? Tell me, man, what’s a Boer fighter doing with a kaffir name? Kid Louis? I don’t usually fight kids and I don’t fight kaffirboeties, but tonight I’m going to make an exception.” He laughed. “You the exception, railway man. Every time I hit you you’re going to think a bloody train shunted into you!” The seated miners shouted and cheered again; then he walked back to his chair, where he took a deep drink from the jug of beer.

  Hoppie was breathing hard beside me but quickly calmed down as the men turned to see his reaction to Jackhammer’s taunts. He grinned and shrugged. “All I can say is, I’m lucky I’m not fighting your mouth, which is a super heavyweight.”

  Jackhammer exploded and sprayed beer all over the railway men opposite him. “Come, Peekay, let’s get going,” Hoppie said, moving toward the door to the cheers, whistles and claps of the railway men.

  Bokkie and Nels followed quickly. Hoppie turned at the door. “Keep him sober, gentlemen, I don’t want people to think I beat him ’cause he was drunk!”

  Jackhammer Smit half-rose in his chair as if to come after us. “You blerrie midget, I’ll kill you!” he shouted.

  “You done good,” Bokkie said, “it will take the bastard two rounds just to get over his anger.” He told Hoppie to get some rest, that they’d pick us up at the mess at seven-fifteen to drive to the rugby field where the ring had been set up. “People are coming from all over, even as far as Hoedspruit and Tzaneen. I’m telling you, man, there’s big money on this fight.”

  We walked the short distance to the railway mess. The sun had not yet set over the Murchison range and the day baked on, hot as ever. “If it stays hot then that changes the odds.” Hoppie squinted up into a sky the color of pewter. “I think it’s going to be a real Gravelotte night, Peekay, hot as hell.”

  When we got to the mess Hoppie told me his plan. “First we have a shower, then we lie down, but every ten minutes you bring me water, Peekay. Even if I beg you ‘no more,’ you still bring me a glass every ten minutes, you understand? And you make me drink it, okay, little boetie?”

  “Ja, Hoppie, I understand,” I replied, pleased that I was playing a part in getting him ready. Hoppie took his railway timekeeper from his blue serge waistcoat hanging up behind the door and began to undress for his shower.

  The window of Hoppie’s room was wide open and a ceiling fan moved slowly above us. Hoppie lay on the bed wearing only an old pair of khaki shorts. I sat on the cool cement floor with my back against the wall, the big railway timekeeper in my hands. In almost no time Hoppie’s body was wet with perspiration and after a while even the sheet was wet. Every ten minutes I brought him a mug of water. After five mugfuls Hoppie turned to me, resting on his elbow.

  “It’s an old trick I read about in Ring magazine. Joe Louis was fighting Jack Sharkey. It was hot as hell, just like tonight. Joe’s manager made him drink water all afternoon just like us. To cut a long story short, by the eighth round the fight was still pretty even. Then Sharkey started to run out of steam in the tremendous heat. You see, Peekay, the fight was in the open just like tonight and these huge lights were burning down into the ring; the temperature was over one hundred degrees. In a fifteen-round fight a man can lose two pints of water just sweating and if he can’t get it back, I’m telling you, he is in big trouble. I dunno just how it works but you can store water up like a camel, sort of, that’s what Joe did and he’s the heavyweight champion of the world.”

  “What did Mr. Jackhammer mean when he said you were a kaffir lover, Hoppie?”

  “Ag, man, he’s just trying to put me off my stride for tonight. You see, Joe Louis is a black man. Not like our kaffirs. Black, yes, but not stupid and dirty and ignorant. He is what you call a Negro. That’s different, man. He’s sort of a white man with a black skin. But that big gorilla is too stupid to know the difference.”

  It was all very complicated, beautiful ladies with skin like honey who were not as good as us and black men who were white men underneath and as good as us.

  “I’ve got a nanny just like Joe Louis,” I said to Hoppie as I rose to get his sixth mug of water.

  Hoppie laughed. “In that case I’m glad I’m not fighting your nanny tonight, Peekay.”

  After a while Hoppie rose from the bed and went to a small dresser and returned with a mouth organ. We sat there and he played Boeremusiek. He was very good and the tappy country music seemed to cheer him up.

  “A mouth organ is a man’s best friend, Peekay. When you’re sad it will make you happy. When you’re happy it can make you want to dance. If you have a mouth organ in your pocket you’ll never starve for company or a good meal.”

  Just then we heard the sound of a piece of steel being hit against another. “Time for your dinner,” Hoppie said, slipping on a pair of shoes and putting on
an old shirt.

  Dinner at the railway mess was pretty good. I had roast beef and mashed potatoes and beans and tinned peaches and custard. Hoppie had nothing except another mug of water. Other diners crowded round our table and wished Hoppie luck. They all told him they had their money on him. They almost all said things like “Box him, Hoppie. Wear him out. They say he’s carrying a lot of flab, go for the belly, man.” When they left, Hoppie said they were nice blokes but if he listened to them he’d be a dead man.

  “You know why he’s called Jackhammer, Peekay? A jackhammer is used in the mines to drill into rock; it weighs one hundred and thirty pounds. Two kaffirs work a jackhammer, one holds the end and the other the middle as they drill into the sides of a mine shaft. I’m telling you, it’s blerrie hard work for two big kaffirs. Well, Smit is called Jackhammer because, if he wants, he can hold a jackhammer in place on his own, pushing against it with his stomach and holding it in both hands. What do you think that would do to his stomach muscles? I’m telling you, hitting that big gorilla in the solar plexus all night would be like fighting a brick wall.”

  “I know,” I said excitedly, “you keep it coming all night into the face until you close his eye, then he tries to defend against what he can’t see and in goes the left, pow, pow, pow until the other eye starts to close. Then whammo!”

  Hoppie rose from the table and looked at me in surprise. “Where did you hear that?”

  “You told me, Hoppie. It’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Shhhh … you’ll tell everyone my fight plan, Peekay! My, you’re the clever one,” he said as I followed him from the dining hall.

  “You didn’t say what happened to Jack Sharkey in the heat when Joe Louis fought him and drank all the water?”

  “Oh, Joe knocked him out, I forget what round.”

  Bokkie and Nels picked us up in a one-ton bakkie. Hoppie said the truck was Bokkie’s pride and joy. Nels and I sat in the back, and with me was a small suitcase Hoppie had packed with his boxing boots and red pants made of a lovely shiny material and a blue dressing gown. Hoppie was very proud of his gown. He’d held it up to show me the “Kid Louis” embroidered on the back.