Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

‘Just some boys at school,’ I replied, delighted that even though this was the wrong place and time, I now had someone strong in the world who was on my side. I wanted to tell him about the Judge and his Nazi stormtroopers, but I wasn’t prepared to go the whole way; Hoppie Groenewald didn’t know I was a Rooinek and he might think differently if he found out.

‘Well, you just tell them next time they’ll have to reckon with me,’ Hoppie growled.

‘It is all over now,’ I said, handing him the sucker.

He took the sucker and started to lick it absently. ‘Peekay, take my advice. When you get to Barberton, find someone who can teach you to box.’ He looked at me, squinting slightly. ‘I can see you could be a good boxer, your arms are strong for a little bloke. Hey, stand up again, let me see your legs.’

I stood up on the seat. ‘Not bad, Peekay, nice light legs, you could have speed. With a boxer speed is everything. Hit and move. Hit and move, one two one, a left and a left again and a right.’ He was sparring in the air, throwing lightning punches at an invisible foe. It was scary and exciting at the same time.

‘Wait here,’ he said suddenly and left the compartment. He returned in a couple of minutes carrying a pair of funny-looking leather gloves.

‘These are boxing gloves, Peekay. These are the equalisers, when you can use them well you need fear no man. In the goods van I have a speedball, tomorrow I will show you how to use it.’ He slipped the huge gloves over my hands which disappeared into the gloves halfway up to my elbows. ‘Feels good, hey?’ he said, tying the laces.

My hands in the gloves were just as lost as my feet had felt in the tackies when Mevrou first made me put them on. Only this was different. The gloves felt like old friends, big yes, and very clumsy, but not strangers.

‘C’mon kid, hit me,’ Hoppie said, sticking out his jaw. I took a jab at him and his head moved away so my glove simply whizzed through the air. ‘Again, hit me again.’ I pulled my arm back and let go with a terrible punch which landed flush on his chin. Hoppie fell back into the leather seat opposite me, groaning and holding his jaw. ‘Holy macaroni! You’re a killer. A natural-born fighter. You sure planted one on me, man.’ He sat up rubbing his jaw and I began to laugh. ‘That’s the way, little boetie , I was beginning to wonder if you knew how to laugh,’ he said with a big grin.

And then I started to cry, not blubbing, just tears that wouldn’t stop rolling down my cheeks. Hoppie Groenewald picked me up and put me on his lap and I put my arms with the boxing gloves around his neck and buried my head in his blue serge waistcoat. The heavy chain that held the whistle was cool against my face.

‘Sometimes it is good to cry,’ he said softly. ‘Sometimes you fight better when you’ve had a good cry. Now tell old Hoppie what’s the matter.’

I couldn’t tell him of course. It was a dumb thing to cry like that, but it was as far as I was prepared to go. I got off his lap. ‘It’s nothing, honest,’ I said going to sit on my side of the compartment.

Hoppie picked up the sucker which he’d put on the table before we had started to spar and held it out to me. ‘You finish it. It will spoil my appetite for my mixed grill. You’re still going to have a mixed grill with me, aren’t you? I mean, I’m paying and all that.’

I reached for the sucker but the gloves were still on my hands and we laughed together at the joke. He pulled the gloves off and handed it to me.

‘No worries, Peekay. When you grow up you’ll be the best damn welterweight in South Africa and nobody… and I mean no-bod-ee, will give Kid Peekay any crapola. I’m telling you, man.’

When we reached Tzaneen Hoppie pulled down a bunk concealed in the wall above my head which, to my amazement, turned out to be a proper bed with blankets and sheets. From a slot behind the bunk he took out a pillow with a pillow slip, and a small towel. He then put my suitcase on the bed to reserve it, in case other folk came into the compartment at Tzaneen.

Taking me by the hand, we crossed the station platform which looked much like the one from which we had left, only the platform was longer and the buildings bigger. Opposite the station was a lighted building with a big glass window on which Railway Café was written. Inside were lots of little tables and chairs. Several people were seated eating and drinking coffee. There seemed to be a lot of smoke in the room.

A pretty young lady behind the counter looked up as we entered and gave Hoppie a big smile. ‘Well, well, look who’s here. If it isn’t Kid Louis, champion of the railways,’ she announced. An older woman came out of the back. Wiping her hands on her apron, she came up to Hoppie and he gave her a big hug.

‘Your cheeky daughter is already giving me a hard time, ounooi ,’ Hoppie said. ‘She needs to go three rounds in the ring with Hoppie Groenewald and then we’ll see who’s laughing.’ He was grinning from ear to ear.

‘So when’s your next fight, champ?’ the lady behind the counter asked.

‘Tomorrow night at the railway club in Gravelotte, a light-heavy from the mines. It’s the big time for me at last,’ Hoppie smiled.

The pretty young lady giggled. ‘Put two bob on the other bloke for me.’ One or two of the other customers also laughed, but in a good-natured way. The older woman was clearing a table for us and fussing around Hoppie. He turned towards me, and taking my hand held my arm aloft. ‘Hello, everyone, I want you to meet Kid Peekay, the next welterweight contender,’ he said, keeping his voice serious. I dropped my eyes, not knowing what to do.

‘Enough of your nonsense, Hoppie Groenewald. Come sit now or you will not be fed before the train leaves,’ the older woman fussed.

The pretty young woman smiled at me. ‘How would the contender like a strawberry milkshake?’ she asked.

I looked at Hoppie. ‘What’s a milkshake, please, Hoppie?’

‘A milkshake is heaven,’ he said. ‘Make that two, you lazy frump.’ He turned to the older woman who was still fussing about. ‘Two super-duper mixed grills please, ounooi . Me and my partner here are starving.’

Hoppie was right again, a strawberry milkshake is heaven. When the mixed grill arrived I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Chop, steak, sausage, bacon, liver, chips, a fried egg and tomato. What a blow-out! I have never eaten a meal as grand and was quite unable to finish it. Hoppie helped himself to the remaining food on my plate, although I slurped the milkshake, in its aluminium shaker, right down to the last gurgling drop.

The pretty lady came over and sat with us and Hoppie seemed to like her a lot. Her name was Anna and her lips were very shiny and red. The clock above the counter read ten o’clock. It was set into a picture of a beautiful lady in a long white nightdress that clung to her body. She too had very red lips and was smoking a cigarette; the smoke from the cigarette curled up on to the face of the clock where it turned into running writing. The running writing said ‘C to C for satisfaction.’ I had never been up as late as this before and my eyelids felt as though they were made of lead.

The next thing I remembered was Hoppie tucking me into my bunk between the nice clean, cool sheets and the pillow that smelt of starch. ‘Sleep sweet, old mate,’ I heard him say.

The last thing I remembered before I fell asleep again was the deep, comforting feeling of my hands in the boxing gloves. ‘The equalisers’, Hoppie had called them. Peekay had found the equalisers.

I woke up early and lay in my bunk listening to the lickity-clack of the rails. Outside in the dawn light lay the grey savannah grasslands; an occasional baobab stood hugely sentinel against the smudged blue sky with the darker blue of the Murchison range just beginning to break out of the flat horizon. The door of the compartment slid open and Hoppie, dressed only in his white shirt and pants with his braces looped and hanging from his waist, came in carrying a steaming mug of coffee.