The Power of One

by Bryce Courtenay

  Doc rose from the Steinway and turned to the mass of black faces. He was crying unashamedly and many of the Africans were weeping with him. Then without warning came a roar of approval from the people. Doc would later tell me that it was the greatest moment of his life, but what they were saying was “Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! Tadpole Angel!” chanted over and over again.

  The Kommandant looked worried and some of the warders had started to slap the sjamboks against the ground. “Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!” Doc had risen from his seat to take a bow and I jumped up onto it and started to wave my hands to indicate that the chanting must stop. Almost instantly there was silence. Doc looked up surprised, not sure what had happened. I said, “The great music wizard and I thank the people for singing. You are all men who tonight have brought honor to your tribes and you have brought great honor also to the music wizard and to me.” I would have lacked the maturity to make such a speech in English but the African tongue is gracious and fits such words easily. “You must go quietly now in the names of your wives and your children, for the Boers grow restless.” My voice was a thin piping sound in the night.

  Suddenly a shower of stars sprayed across the sky above the town and then another and another, single red and green stars that burst high, cascades that danced in the heavens. The prisoners looked up in awe, some even covering their heads against the magic. A warder came hurrying up to the Kommandant, whispered in his ear, and the Kommandant turned toward Doc and then extended his hand. “You are free to go, professor. The war in Europe is over. The Germans have surrendered.” He pointed in the direction of the town. “See the fireworks, the Rooineks are already celebrating.” A final cascade of stars burst against the dark sky and the black men cried out; they had never seen such a happening before.

  Was this not the final sign? The myth of the Tadpole Angel was complete. Now it could only grow as legends are wont to do. I had become a myth.

  Each tribe rose when they were commanded to do so and marched silently away until the parade ground was empty but for the guards who manned the walls, and the Kommandant.

  “Magtig! I have never seen such a thing in all my life, man,” the Kommandant said, shaking his head. He turned to Doc. “Your music was beautiful, man, the most beautiful thing I have ever heard and such singing we will never hear again. Peekay, someday you will make a great Kommandant. I have never seen such command of black men. It is as though you are some kind of witch doctor, hey?”

  Quite suddenly there was a single voice in the night as though from the direction of the gymnasium, “Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!” I heard it just the once and the sad voices in my head began chattering; the trouble in this place had returned.

  Doc was overwhelmed by the news of the German surrender and the excitement of the concert, and he sat on the piano stool for a long time. The Kommandant bade us goodnight. The floodlights had been switched off so that the moon, which had risen high in the sky, ruled the night again. Then I remembered Geel Piet. I turned to Doc, who looked up at me at the same time. We were thinking the same thing.

  “Geel Piet never came. I cannot understand it. He would not have stayed away,” Doc said. I could see he felt guilty for not having thought about his absence sooner.

  There was a scrunch of footsteps on gravel and Gert appeared out of the darkness. “Captain Smit says it’s late and school tomorrow, so I must drive you home now, Peekay.”

  I was surprised, for I had expected to walk home as always. “I’ll go and get changed and take the gloves back,” I said.

  “It was a wonderful concert, professor,” I heard Gert say in his halting English as I ran into the dark. I entered the side door to the gym and switched on the light, moving past the wooden horse and the medicine balls and giving the punching bag a straight left and a right hook. The big box in which we kept the gloves was just to the side of the ring. I had tied the laces of my gloves together and strung them around my neck as before. Now I threw them toward the box from halfway across the gym. It was almost a good shot with one glove landing inside the box while the other hung over the rim. I moved over to drop the glove in and suddenly, with a certainty I knew always to trust, became aware that something was terribly wrong. I ran over to the wall opposite and turned the ring light on. For a split second the sudden blaze of light blinded me; then I saw the body in the center of the ring.

  Geel Piet lay facedown, as though he had fallen, his arms stretched out to either side. His head lay in a pool of blood. Without thinking I jumped into the ring screaming, although I could hear no sound coming from me. I fell to my knees beside him and started to shake him; then I rose and took him by one of his arms and tried to pull him to his feet. I began bawling at him, “Get up, please get up! If you’ll get up you’ll be alive again!” But the little yellow man’s body just flopped at the end of his arm and his head bounced in the pool of blood. I kept trying to make him come alive. “Please, Geel Piet! Please get up! If you can get up you’ll be alive again! It’s true! I promise it’s true!”

  There was a trail of blood as I pulled him across the ring. And then I saw that in his other hand he held the picture of Captain Smit, Doc, Gert, himself and me. I dropped his hand and fell over his body and sobbed and sobbed. Then I felt myself being lifted by Captain Smit, who rocked me as I sobbed uncontrollably into his chest. “Shhhh, don’t cry, champ, don’t cry,” he whispered. “Shhhh. I will avenge you, this I promise. Don’t cry, little brother.”

  The festivities in honor of the inspector of prisons were held on the following Saturday night. Doc tried to get out of playing; the death of Geel Piet had upset him dreadfully and the idea of returning to the prison, even for the concert, filled him with apprehension. The Kommandant didn’t quite see it the same way. Geel Piet was simply another kaffir. “No, man! Fair is fair! I gave you your kaffir concert, now I want my brigadier concert! I let you leave the prison the morning after Germany surrendered. A man’s word is his word.”

  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. The very next day Klipkop sent a prison gang to repair the road so that it would be ready on the day after the concert for the Steinway to be returned.

  Mrs. Boxall had ordered groceries and had made sure that the municipal ratcatcher had been to check the outside lavatory hole to see that no snakes or anything else had made their home down there in the past four years. She also gave me a bottle of Johnnie Walker for Doc. 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.

  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 simply having been “borrowed for the duration.” When anyone mentioned the word “duration” you knew they meant the duration of the war. When Doc returned to his cottage he found it exactly as it had been four years before, with only the Steinway missing. He told me later that he sat down on the stoep 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 halfmens; their proper name is Pachypodium namaquanum; they look like large, prickly elephant trunks.

  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 and Doc pointed to an overgrown hedge of krans aloe. “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.

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nbsp; He rose from his stool to refill his coffee mug and groaned. I looked up to see him trying to conceal his pain with a smile. “I am a dumkopf, Peekay. This morning I climb the hill to our rock but such a small climb has made me very stiff. It will take maybe a month before we can go into the hills again.” He walked stiffly toward the kitchen, and for the first time I saw that Doc had become an old man.

  He planned 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. Mrs. Boxall was in quite a tizz when I told her. I also told my granpa of Doc’s visit to the library and early on Saturday morning he cut two dozen 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 saw no virtue whatsoever in a cactus garden.

  We arrived at the library just as the clock on the magistrates’ court tower struck nine. 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. Then I saw Charlie, Mrs. Boxall’s little Austin Seven, coming down the road toward us. “Here she comes!” I yelled, and thrust the bunch of roses at Doc. He 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.

  “Come along, Peekay, give a gel a hand, there’s a good chap,” she said cheerily. I hurried to open the door of the Austin. “Now that the war is over we can all go back to having nice manners,” she said, stepping out of Charlie. She looked up at Doc and gave him her best smile. Doc thrust the roses at her in an awkward movement, as though he didn’t quite know how it should be done. “And here’s the man with the nicest manners of all,” she said, burying her nose into the pink and red blossoms and breathing deeply. “Thank you, professor.” She took another shy whiff of the roses; then she stretched her hand out toward Doc. “Roses say so much without having to say anything at all.” Doc immediately clicked his heels together; 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.” 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.” She reached into her handbag for the keys to the library.

  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 returning to the prison that evening to fulfill his obligation to play for the brigadier, and Mrs. Boxall volunteered to drive us over. Doc then suggested that she might like to attend the concert and she seemed thrilled at the idea. We phoned Captain Smit, who said that Mrs. Boxall was most welcome.

  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 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 Plymouth, where Gert was waiting to drive me home. The captain told me that I needed a break from training and was not to return to the prison until the boxing exhibition that had been planned for the brigadier on Saturday night. 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 we arrived at the prison just before seven and made our way to the hall. Doc’s piano recital was the first item of the evening: it was thought best to get the cultural part of the evening 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 and braaivleis. The air smelt smoky from the braaivleis fires that had been lit on the parade ground. Someone was already playing a piano accordion in the dark.

  Mrs. Boxall, Doc and I found three seats in the front row. 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, 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 was an all-time success and that Lieutenant Borman was 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. But it wasn’t like that at all. The brigadier said that it was a piece of proper prison reform, an example to the rest of the country, that Barberton led the way and the Kommandant was to be congratulated. You should have seen Borman’s face, man, he was furious.”

  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 No. 5. 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. He said the second piece was to be a surprise and that after the Chopin 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 and stood beside the Steinway.

  “Dames and Heere,” 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. We thank him for his visit and now it is our turn to say nice things about the brigadier. 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 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 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 hard not to laugh. “He is a God-fearing man dedicated to the prison service.” The audience broke out in applause. “He is also a cultured man, which brings me to the first item on the program for tonight.” He cleared his throat. “All of you know that we have had in this prison as our honored guest for the past four years, a man who is a musical genius. Last week he helped us with the prisoners’ concert and tonight he is giving a personal one in Brigadier Joubert’s honor. I ask you now to welcome Professor Von Vollensteen.” Doc rose and did a small bow to the audience and gave me a nod and with the applause continuing we moved over to the Steinway.

>   The Kommandant was still on his way to his seat when the first notes of the Chopin nocturne filled the hall. At first the music was wonderfully relaxed, deceptively simple and straightforward, and then the melody line became more and more ornamental. In the middle section the music became more complex, fast and urgent, leading to a long crescendo and frenzied climax where Doc could shake his head a lot and bang furiously at the keys, which he knew the audience would like. The nocturne ended with an elegant descent toward a rustling, almost muted final chord.

  The audience stood up, clapped and seemed very pleased. Doc rose and took a bow and nodded for me to return to my seat. Then he removed several sheets of music from inside his piano stool and fixed them carefully on the music rack. He turned to the audience and cleared his throat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Tonight I would like to dedicate this next piece of music, which I have played once only before, to a very good friend. I have named this music by his name and it is for him. I give you ‘Requiem for Geel Piet’!”

  Without further ado Doc commenced the Concerto of the Great Southland, which he had now renamed. The melodies of the tribal songs seemed to take over the hall, as the Ndebele song followed the Sotho. The Swazi melody followed and then the Shangaan, each separated by the haunting refrain that linked them together. Finally came the victory song of the great Shaka and the Steinway seemed to build the drama of the magnificent Zulu Impi, the chords crashing as they marched into battle. The requiem closed with the muted and very beautiful compilation of the songs of the tribes. The music seemed to swell as all around us from the cells beyond the hall the voices came as the tribes completed the requiem. Geel Piet, who had had no tribe, whose blood was the mixture of all the people of southern Africa—the white tribe, the Bushman, the Hottentot, the Cape Malay and the black tribal blood of Africa itself—was celebrated in death by all the tribes.