Брайс Кортни - The Power of One

One especially scrawny old cock with mottled grey feathers looked very much like my granpa, except for his eyes. My granpa’s eyes were pale blue and somewhat watery, eyes intended for gazing over soft English landscapes, whereas the old cock’s were sharp as a bead of red light.

My granpa came down the steps and walked towards the big, black Buick. He stopped to kick one of the roosters, for he hated Kaffir chickens almost as much as he hated Shangaans. His pride and joy were his one hundred black Orpington hens and six giant roosters. The presence of Kaffir chickens in the farmyard, even though trussed and clipped, was like having half a dozen dirty old men present at a ballet class.

He greatly admired Inkosi-Inkosikazi who had once cured him of his gallstones. ‘I took his foul, green muti and, by golly, the stones blasted out of me like a hail of buckshot! Never a trace of a gallstone since. If you ask me, the old monkey is the best damned doctor in the lowveld.’

We waited for Inkosi-Inkosikazi to alight from the Buick. The old medicine man, like Nanny, was a Zulu. It was said that he was the last son of the great Dingaan, the Zulu king who fought both the Boers and the British to a standstill. Two generations after the Boers had finally defeated his impis at the Battle of Blood River, they remained in awe of him.

Two years after that battle, Dingaan, fleeing from the combined forces of his half-brother Mpande and the Boers, had sought refuge among the Nyawo people on the summit of the great Lebombo mountains. On the night he was treacherously assassinated by Nyawo tribesmen he had been presented with a young virgin, and the seed of the second greatest of all the warrior kings was planted in her fourteen-year-old womb.

‘Where I chose blood, this last of my sons will choose wisdom. You will call him Inkosi-Inkosikazi, he will be a man for all Africa,’ Dingaan had told the frightened Nyawo maiden.

This made the small, wizened black man who was being helped from the rear of the Buick one hundred years old.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi was dressed in a mismatched suit, the jacket brown and shiny with age, the trousers blue pinstripe. He wore a white shirt meant to go with a detachable starched collar, the collarless shirt was secured at the neck with a large gold and ivory collar stud. A mangy-looking leopard-skin cloak fell from his shoulders. As was the custom, he wore no shoes and the soles of his feet were splayed and cracked at the edges. In his right hand he carried a beautifully beaded fly switch, the symbol of an important chief.

I had never seen such an old man; his peppercorn hair was whiter than raw cotton, small tufts of snowy beard sprang from his chin and only three yellowed teeth remained in his mouth. He looked at us and his eyes burned sharp and clear, like the eyes of the old rooster.

Several of the women started keening and were quickly rebuked by the old man. ‘Stupid abafazi ! Death does not ride with me in my big motor, did you not hear the roar of its great belly?’

Silence fell as my granpa approached. He briefly welcomed Inkosi-Inkosikazi and granted him permission to stay overnight on the farm. The old man nodded, showing none of the customary obsequiousness expected from a Kaffir and my grandpa seemed to demand none. He simply shook the old man’s bony claw and returned to his chair on the stoep.

Nanny, who had rubbed earth on her forehead like all the other women, finally spoke. ‘Lord, the women have brought food and we have beer freshly fermented.’

Inkosi-Inkosikazi ignored her, which I thought was pretty brave of him, and ordered one of the women to untie the cockerels. Two women ran over and soon the chickens were loose. They continued to lie there, unsure of their freedom, until the old man raised his fly switch and waved it over them. With a sudden squawking and flapping of stunted wings all but one rose and dashed helter-skelter, their long legs rising high off the ground as they ran towards open territory. The old cock who looked like Granpa rose slowly, stretched his neck, flapped the bits of wing he had left, his head darting left and right, slightly cocked as though he were listening; then, calm as you like, he walked over to the heap of corn and started pecking away.

‘Catch the feathered devils,’ Inkosi-Inkosikazi suddenly commanded. He giggled, ‘Catch an old man’s dinner tonight.’

With squeals of delight the chickens were rounded up again. The ice had been broken as five of the women, each holding a chicken upside down by the legs, waited for the old man’s instructions. Inkosi-Inkosikazi squatted down and with his finger traced a circle about two feet in diameter in the dust. He hopped around like an ancient chimpanzee completing five similar-sized circles, muttering to himself as he did so.

The incantations over, he signalled for one of the women to bring over a cockerel. Grabbing the old bird by its long scrawny neck and by both legs, he retraced the first circle on the ground, this time using the bird’s beak as a marker. Then he laid the cockerel inside the circle where it lay unmoving, its eyes closed, a leg protruding from each wing.

He proceeded to do the same thing to the other five chickens until each lay in its own circle in front of the crowd. As each chicken was laid to rest there would be a gasp of amazement from the women. It was pretty low-grade magic but it served well enough to get things under way.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi moved over and squatted cross-legged in the centre of the indaba mats and beckoned that I should join him. It was the first time he’d acknowledged my presence and I clung fearfully to Nanny’s skirts. She pushed me gently towards him and in a loud whisper said: ‘You must go, it is a great honour, only a chief can sit with a chief on the meeting mat.’

He had the strong, distinctly sweet smell of African sweat, mixed with tobacco and very old man. After all I had been through in the smell department, it wasn’t too bad, and I too sat cross-legged beside him with my eyes glued to the ground in front of me.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi leaned slightly towards me and spoke in Zulu. ‘Tomorrow I will show you the trick of the chickens. It’s not really magic, you know. These stupid Shangaans think it’s magic but they don’t deserve to know any better.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said softly. I was pleased at the notion of sharing a secret. Even if it was only a trick, it was a damned clever one which might confound the Judge and the jury if I could get my hands on a stray chicken at school. My confidence in his ability to change my status as a pisskop was growing by the minute.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi indicated to Nanny that she should begin the matter of the night water. Two women were quickly delegated to start the cooking fire and the rest of the field women settled down around the indaba mats, taking care not to touch even the tiniest part of the edge.

African stories are long, with every detail cherished, scooped up for telling a thousand times over. It was a great moment for Nanny as she stood alone in the rapidly fading twilight and told her story. She spoke in Shangaan so that all could share wide-eyed and groan and nod and sigh in the appropriate places.

The hugeness of Mevrou with her moustache they found amazing, the injustice of the Judge and jury they took in their stride, for they all knew how the white man passes sentences that have no relationship to what has been done. The pissing upon me by the Judge and jury had them rocking and moaning and holding their hands to their ears. Such an indignity was surely beyond even the white man?

In the sudden way of Africa it was dark now. A piece of green wood crackled sharply in the fire sending up a shower of sparks. The leaping flames lit Nanny’s face; there was no doubt that they would remember this teller of a great story of misery and woe. Tears flowed copiously as she told of how death finally arrived in a shower of icy piss that jetted from the loins of the great, moustached angel of perdition.