Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

Hymie, in a grim pun, said the election of the Nationalists to power was one of the crummiest moments in the history of any people.

Nineteen forty-eight was the year South Africa lost all hope of joining the brotherhood of man. Yet the black man held his humiliation and his anger at bay. It was not until nineteen fifty-two, four years later, that Chief Lutuli of the African Congress and his counterpart, Dr Monty Naicker of the Indian Congress, led the black and coloured people in the first defiance campaign where the words, ‘Mayibuye Afrika!’ became the cry of the black man asking for an equal share of justice and dignity for himself and his family.

Private schools have a habit of carrying on regardless, oblivious of social or political change. Had it not been for a boxing incident which led to the establishment of a Saturday night school for Africans, the Prince of Wales School would certainly have remained smugly wrapped in its cocoon of privilege and white supremacy.

The incident happened during the ten-day Easter break in nineteen forty-nine. Hymie’s parents decided to spend Jewish passover with relatives in Durban. Hymie elected to stay home and invited me to spend the short holidays with him. I wrote to Mrs Boxall who wrote back to say Doc was well so I agreed. The cook and the rest of the staff would take care of us and one of the chauffeurs would drive us the forty miles from Pretoria to Johannesburg every day to work out in Solly Goldman’s gym.

Solly protested but we insisted he be paid extra for the holidays. Hymie’s entrepreneurial sense extended to all things. He’d go to Barclays Bank in Yeoville on Saturday morning and demand a brand new five-pound note. Keeping it unfolded he’d place it beside the week’s entry in a large leather-bound ledger. On Sunday morning, after I’d worked out we’d go into Solly’s ramshackle office and Hymie would open the ledger where he had written in his neat, precise hand: Paid to S. Goldman five pounds for services rendered . He would make Solly sign the ledger and remove the five-pound note from the page. Then they’d shake hands solemnly like a couple of little old men, whereupon Solly would get his revenge by stuffing the pristine five-pound note carelessly into the back pocket of his dirty grey flannels.

Solly was a very natty street dresser but in the gym he always wore a sweatshirt and the same old grey flannels, tied around the waist with a frayed brown striped tie.

‘Why do you go to all that trouble when he just shoves it into his back pocket?’ I once asked Hymie.

‘So he’ll stick it carelessly into his back pocket. Every week my stupid ritual and his defiance reminds him not to take us for granted. Every time he sticks it into his back pocket like that I know he won’t.’

On the third day of the Easter holidays Solly asked whether he could see Hymie and me in his office. He pointed to two old cane upright chairs and, pushing a pile of papers out of the way, sat on the corner of a desk covered to a depth of six inches in evenly distributed paper. In addition to boxing bills, unopened letters and general paper clutter, there was a bronze cup about ten inches high green with verdigris, a telephone and a large desk blotter added to the mess. The telephone sat on top of the desk blotter which was covered with coffee rings and hundreds of names and numbers. If anyone had ever replaced the top layer of blotting paper Solly’s gym would have ground to a halt.

‘You’ve had an offer of a fight for Peekay in Sophiatown next Saturday night. It’s not my decision, mind, but it can’t do the lad no ’arm.’

‘Sophiatown! You mean the black township?’

‘Yeah, I’ll admit it’s a bit unusual, it’s a young black bantam who’s just turned pro.’

‘Solly, are you crazy? Peekay’s an amateur, he can’t fight a pro!’

‘The black kid’s not from up here, he isn’t registered in the Transvaal yet. Technically he’s an amateur here. Anyway, if the fight takes place in a native township, who the hell’s going to know?’

‘You should know better than that, Solly.’

Ignoring Hymie’s remark, Solly appealed directly to me. ‘This fight would do you a lot of good, sharpen you up nicely for the South African Schools Championships an’ all.’

‘Christ, Solly, you’re off your rocker!’ Hymie continued. ‘You find a professional bantamweight, probably in his twenties, and you want to put him against Peekay who’s fifteen years old?’

‘That’s just the point, my son. Peekay wouldn’t be mismatched, the black kid is only sixteen. Three professional fights. Would I mismatch Peekay? Don’t insult my intelligence.’

‘Hey, hang on, wait a minute both of you.’ I turned to Solly, ‘There’s more to this isn’t there? First we’re fighting a black man in a black township, that’s not allowed for a start, then an amateur is fighting a pro …’

‘An unregistered pro,’ Solly interjected.

‘You haven’t answered my question, Solly,’ I repeated.

‘It’s not what you’re thinking, Peekay, there’s no money in it, there would be no purse for the fight.’

‘What about the book?’ Hymie asked.

‘No betting niver, Gawd’s onna!’ Solly folded his hands on the desk in front of him and stared down at the untidy blotter.

‘We’re waiting, Solly,’ Hymie said.

‘It’s Nguni, he wants the fight… Mr Nguni.’

‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’ I asked.

‘He’s a black fight promoter. Owns the game in the black townships.’

‘So what’s that to us?’ I asked.

Solly looked up at me. ‘He reckons if ’e was to match you with this Mandoma bloke it would be a t’riffic fight, that’s all.’

‘If you’ll come clean with the real reason you want this fight we could discuss it. What is it, Solly?’ I asked again.

Solly threw his hands up. ‘Okay, it’s business. Mr Nguni brings in the blacks, I train ’em, we share in the action. When you’ve got fifteen percent of fifty black fighters on the black township circuit it’s a nice little earner. I don’t honestly know why ’e wants this fight, I admit it don’t make a lotta sense.’

Hymie spoke as though he was thinking aloud. ‘The black guy is squeezing you and now you’re putting the hard word on us. I can understand that. But even if he is making book, and you say he isn’t, that’s not a big enough reason. He could lose his boxing promoter’s licence if he got caught.’

‘Hymie’s right, Solly. There has to be a better reason. Nguni is either a fool or he’s taking an enormous risk for a reason we don’t know about. Either way, we wouldn’t want to get involved. By the way this Mandoma, is he a Zulu? I had a nanny named Mandoma.’

‘Buggered if I know, until they earn me a quid they’re just black monkeys wearing boxing gloves,’ Solly said absently.

Hymie’s chauffeur was waiting in the Buick which was parked on a vacant lot a block away. As we walked to the car Hymie kept shaking his head. ‘I don’t get it; this Nguni guy would have to be crazy to take the risk of putting on a fight between a nigger pro and an amateur white guy in a black township. The cops would have him on about ten counts. I mean what’s the angle? A fifteen-year-old schoolboy boxer and a sixteen-year-old black bantamweight is not exactly big time, even in a black township.’

‘You haven’t figured it out have you?’ I said quietly.

‘No, not yet, but I will.’

‘Don’t bother, it’s got something to do with the people.’

Hymie spun around and grabbed me, ‘You’re right, Peekay. The Tadpole Angel!’

We turned into the vacant lot to find the Buick shining like a great black beetle among the cut down forty-four gallon drums half filled with solid tar, piles of bricks and the accumulated debris that seems to furnish vacant city blocks. The chauffeur was talking with a tall, well-dressed African and stepped forward as he saw us approaching.