Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

I must admit I was hugely impressed, but when Nanny got to the part where my snake had no hat, which, in my opinion, was the most important bit of the lot, they cupped their hands over their mouths and, between the tears, they started to giggle.

Nanny concluded by saying that the business of my night water was an evil spell brought upon me by the angel of death with the moustache like a man and waterfall loins, so that she could return each morning to feed her great beating sjambok on my frail child’s flesh. Only a great medicine man such as Inkosi-Inkosikazi could defeat this evil spell.

The light from the fire showed the deeply shocked faces of the women as Nanny finally sat down, heaving with great sobs, knowing that such a tale had never been told before and that it might live forever, warped into a Shangaan legend.

I can tell you one thing, I was mighty impressed that any person, most of all me, could go through such a harrowing experience.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi rose, scratched his bum and yawned. With the handle of his fly switch he prodded my weeping nanny. ‘Get me some Kaffir beer, woman,’ he demanded.

Dee and Dum, the twin kitchen maids, served me my dinner, as Nanny was required to attend to the drinking and other needs of the scrawny old wizard. Both little girls were wide-eyed with the excitement of it all and told me I was the bravest person they had ever known.

By bedtime Nanny was at my side as usual, arriving with a large sweet potato, its tummy open with a spoon sticking out of the middle, tiny wisps of steam curling upwards, condensing on the handle. There is something about a sweet potato that cheers you up when you are low and celebrates with you when you are happy. Sweet potatoes baked in their jackets have a very large comfort factor built into them.

Nanny’s excitement was still with her. She grabbed me and crushed me to her enormous bosom and laughed and told me how I had thrust greatness upon her with the coming of the old monkey who was, nevertheless, the greatest medicine man in all Africa; how the telling of the tale of the night water showed that a Zulu woman could be a teller of tales superior in every way to even the best told by the most eloquent Shangaan.

I pointed out that she had entirely missed the matter of my school record for canings. A large tear rolled down her cheek. ‘In the matter of white man’s punishment, the black people already understand that the body can be broken by a sjambok but never the spirit. We are the earth, that is why we are the colour of earth. In the end it is the earth who will win, every African knows this.’

Whatever all that was supposed to mean, it didn’t answer my question. Nanny finally left me, but first she lit the paraffin lamp and turned it down low, but not so low that I wouldn’t recognise the bogey man should he try to sneak into my room.

‘Tonight Inkosi-Inkosikazi will visit in your dreams to find the way of your night water,’ she said, tucking me in. ∗ The morning after the night Inkosi-Inkosikazi went walkabout in my dreams, he summoned me to sit alone with him again on the meeting mat. From an old leather bag he produced the twelve magic shin-bones from the great white ox. Then, squatting on his haunches as he prepared to throw the bones, he commenced a deep, rumbling incantation that sounded like distant thunder.

The strange bone-yellowed dice which would solve my bed-wetting habit briefly clicked together in his hands and then fell onto the ground in front of him. Inkosi-Inkosikazi flicked at them with his forefinger, and as he did so, tiny rolls of thunder came from his throat. With a final grunt he gathered them up and tossed them back into his ancient leather satchel.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi’s eyes, sharp pins of light in his incredibly wrinkled face, seemed to look right into me. ‘I visited you in your dreams and we came to a place of three waterfalls and ten stones across the river. The shin-bones of the great white ox say I must take you back so that you can jump the three waterfalls and cross the river, stepping from stone to stone without falling into the rushing torrent. If you can do this then the unfortunate business of the night water will be over.’

I nodded, not knowing what to say. After all, five-year-old kids are pretty rotten at riddles. His face became even more simian as he chuckled, ‘When you have learned this lesson I will show you the trick of the chicken sleep.’

I had seen the faint marks of last night’s circles, but no chickens. I guessed that they had been consigned to the communal tummy. I only hope he doesn’t use one of Granpa’s black Orpingtons, what a kerfuffle that would be, I thought.

‘Now, listen to me carefully, boy. Watch and listen. Watch and listen,’ he repeated. ‘When I tell you to close your eyes you will do so. Do you understand?’

Anxious to please him I shut my eyes tightly. ‘Not now! Only when I tell you. Not tight, but as you do when your eyes are heavy from the long day and it is time to sleep.’

I opened my eyes to see him crouched directly in front of me, his beautiful fly switch suspended slightly above my normal sightline. The fall of horsehair swayed gently before my eyes.

‘Watch the tail of the horse.’ My eyes followed the switch as it moved to and fro. ‘It is time to close your eyes but not your ears. You must listen well for the roaring of water is great.’

A sudden roar of water filled my head and then I saw the three waterfalls. I was standing on an outcrop of rock directly above the highest one. Far below me the river rushed away, tumbling and boiling into a narrow gorge. Just before the water entered the gorge and churned white I noted the ten stepping stones, like ten anthracite teeth strung across its mouth.

Inkosi-Inkosikazi spoke to me, his voice soft, almost gentle. ‘It is late; the bush doves, anticipating nightfall, are already silent. It is the time of day when the white waters roar most mightily as water does when it is cast in shadow.

‘You are standing on a rock above the highest waterfall, a young warrior who has killed his first lion and is worthy now to fight in the legion of Dingaan, the great impi that destroys all before it. Worthy even to fight in the impi of Shaka, the greatest warrior king of all.

‘You are wearing the skirt of lion tail as you face into the setting sun. Now the sun has passed beyond Zululand, even past the land of the Swazi and now it leaves the Shangaan and the royal kraal of Modjadji, the rain queen, to be cooled in the great, dark water beyond.

‘You can see the moon rising over Africa and you are at peace with the night, unafraid of the great demon Skokijaan who comes to feed on the dark night, tearing its black flesh until, at last, it is finished and the new light comes to stir the sleeping herd boys and send them out to mind the lowing cattle.’

As I stood on the great rock waiting to jump, I could see the new moon rising, bright as a new florin above the thundering falls.

‘You must take a deep breath and say the number three to yourself as you leap. Then, when you surface, you must take another breath and say the number two as you are washed across the rim of the second waterfall, then again a deep breath as you rise and are carried over the third. Now you must swim to the first stone, counting backwards from ten to one, counting each stone as you leap from it to the next to cross the rushing river.’ The old medicine man paused long enough for me to work out the sequence he had given me. ‘You must jump now, little warrior of the king.’

I took a deep breath and launched myself into the night. The cool air, mixed with spray, rushed past my face and then I hit the water below, sank briefly, rose to the surface and expelled the deep breath I had taken. With scarcely enough time to take a second breath I was swept over the second waterfall and then again I fell down the third roaring cascade to be plunged into a deep pool at the base of the third waterfall. I swam strongly and with great confidence to the first of the great stones glistening black and wet in the moonlight. Jumping from stone to stone I crossed the river, counting down from ten to one, then leaping to the pebbly beach on the far side.