Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

It was at sunset on a Saturday afternoon late in January 1941, a little more than a year after Doc and I had first met on the hill behind the rose garden. We’d spent the day in the hills and had almost arrived back at Doc’s cottage. We’d found a patch of Senecio serpens high up in a dry kloof, growing over the tailings of an old digging. It was a nice find although blue chalksticks, as they are commonly called, are not too rare unless they flower in an unusual colour. We had decided to plant them in the cactus garden and wait until they flowered again. That was the magic of the cactus garden, some succulents can play dumb; a common blue chalkstick can turn from a Cinderella into a princess in front of your very eyes. I was the first to notice the army van with the white-stencilled Military Police on its hood. The van was parked directly in front of the whisky bottle path which led to the cottage, hidden from view amongst the tall cactus. Two men leaned against the front mudguard smoking, their red-banded khaki caps resting on the hood of the van which had been turned to face down the hill. Doc was explaining the differences between the genus Senecio serpens and the lighter-coloured Glottiphyllym uncatum, banging his long hiking stick into the ground as he walked and getting generally excited as he did when his mind was absorbed in esoteric botanical detail.

The two men saw us approach, and dropping their cigarettes ground them underfoot. Clearing their throats almost simultaneously, they reached for their caps, carefully placed them back on their heads the way men do when they are about to undertake an unpleasant duty. Both wore khaki bush shirts, shorts, brown boots, puttees and khaki stockings, though one of them wore the polished Sam Browne belt of an officer while the other, a sergeant, wore a white webbing one. The officer stepped right in front of Doc who stopped and looked up in surprise. Doc was taller than the officer by at least a foot, so the military man was obliged to look up at him. He had a thin black pencil moustache just like Pik Botha, and although he was not standing to attention his body seemed permanently rigid. From the top pocket of his tunic he removed a piece of paper which he held up.

‘Good afternoon, sir. You are Karl Von Vollensteen, Professor Karl Von Vollensteen?’ he asked in a sententious voice.

‘Ja, this is me,’ Doc said, surprised that anyone would question so obvious a fact.

The officer cleared his throat and proceeded to read from the paper he held in front of him. ‘Under the Aliens Act of 1939 and by the authority vested in me by the Provost Marshal of the South African Armed Forces, I arrest you. You are charged with conspiracy to undermine the security of a nation at war.’ He handed the paper to Doc. ‘You will have to come with me, sir. The civilian police, under the direction of military security, will search your premises and you will be detained at Barberton prison until your case can be heard.’

To my surprise Doc made no protest. His face was sad as he looked down at the officer and handed him back the piece of paper without even glancing at it. He raised his head to look over the officer and past where the sergeant was standing next to the van, his gaze following the line of the cactus garden. He turned slowly, his eyes filled with pain, taking in the hills, the marvellous aloe-dotted hills, his garden of Eden for twenty years in the Africa he so savagely loved. Finally he turned to look over the town, across the valley to the sun beginning to dip behind the escarpment.

‘The stupidity. Already the stupidity begins again,’ he said softly, then turning to me he patted my shoulder. ‘You must plant the Senecio serpens to get the morning sun, they like that.’ He removed his bush hat and absent-mindedly put it on the roof of the van. He got his red bandanna from his overalls and slowly wiped his face and sniffed into it and pushed his nose around before returning it to the pocket of his overalls. Then he lifted his bush hat from the roof of the van and put it on my head. I looked up at him in surprise, Doc didn’t play that sort of childish game. But his eyes were sad and his voice soft, barely above a whisper. ‘So, now you are the boss of the cactus garden, Peekay.’ I wanted to cry and I think Doc wanted to as well. But we didn’t. We both knew enough not to show our feelings in front of the military.

Turning to the officer, Doc said, ‘You will please allow me first to shave and change my clothes. A man must go to prison in his best clothes.’

The officer rolled his eyes heavenwards. From the number of cigarette butts on the ground they had been waiting for some time and he obviously wanted to get going. ‘Orright, professor, but make it snappy.’ Turning to the sergeant in an official manner he rapped, ‘Sergeant! Escort the prisoner to his house for kit change and ablutions.’

We walked slowly down the whisky bottle path and Doc dropped his canvas shoulder bag on the open verandah. I followed him into the dark little cottage. ‘Do not light the lamps, Peekay, the light is soft and we will soon be gone.’ I followed him to the lean-to kitchen where he placed an enamel basin on the hard earth floor and poured water into it from a jug. I took the jug and refilled it from the rainwater tank behind the cottage. Doc’s cottage, isolated from the town by the small hill, had no running water. He stripped down in the lean-to kitchen and using a loofah washed himself from head to toe. I brought him the fresh jug of water and, stepping out of the lean-to into the garden, he stood beside a tall cactus and poured it over his head, giving the cactus the benefit of the over-flow. Then he wiped himself briskly with an almost threadbare towel. He was brown all over, for we often lay on a rock in the hills to sun ourselves after a swim in a mountain creek. His thin body was hard and sinewy and the snowy-white hair on his chest seemed incongruous. I had seen my granpa nude and while he too was a thin man, he didn’t have the same hard-as-nails look.

The sergeant had grown impatient waiting around the kitchen and had wandered into the music room where he was playing chopsticks on the Steinway. Doc seemed not to hear as he shaved carefully, stropping his cut-throat razor for ages until it was perfect. Then he dressed slowly in his white linen suit and black boots. Finally he placed a spare shirt and his shaving things in a sugar bag, and walking through to the book room he selected a large book from the very top shelf of one of the bookshelves which he had constructed from bricks and pineboard planks. ‘Put it also in the bag, Peekay.’ I took the large leather-bound volume from him and looked at the spine. It was an old book whose maroon leather binding was scuffed and mottled with rough brown leather spots showing through the once smooth and polished cover. The title embossed on the spine was hard to read as the gold had mostly worn away leaving only the pale embossing. It read, ‘ Cactaceae. Afrika und Amerika. K. J. Von Vollensteen .’ I opened the heavy book to find that it was written in German. I walked into the whisky room where Doc had left the sugar bag, and using the edge of the blanket on the small, hard bed I wiped the dust from the cover of the book and put it in the bag. On the packing case dresser next to the bed was half a bottle of Johnnie Walker and this too I put in the bag. Then heaving it over my shoulder I joined Doc who was standing at the front door. He removed his panama hat from a hook on the wall and picked up his silver-handled walking stick leaning in the corner behind the door. ‘We are ready, sir,’ he said, turning slowly to the sergeant a few feet away in the music room.

The sergeant rose from the piano stool. ‘That’s a blêrrie good peeana you got there, professor. Once in the bioscope I saw this fillim star dance on the top of a peeana just like this one, only it was all white. I think it was Greeta Garbo but I’m not sure.’ He took a last look around the cottage. ‘Okay man, let’s go.’ He took the sugar bag from my shoulder and looked into it. ‘Hey, what’s this? You can’t take whisky where you going, are you stupid or something?’ I started to apologise, but he checked me with his hand and grinned. ‘If you like we can have a quick spot now, oubaas ?’ he said to Doc. ‘Who knows when you’ll get another chance hey?’ He gave him a conspiratorial wink and uncorked the bottle. Raising it to his lips, he took a long drag of whisky. He winced as he withdrew the bottle from his mouth, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and the top of the bottle with the palm of his hand. ‘Lekker, man, that’s blêrrie good whisky! No use leaving it lying around hey?’ He handed the bottle to Doc who raised his hand in refusal. ‘C’mon don’t be stupid, man. It’s going to be a long time between drinks, better make the most of it.’ He held it towards Doc after taking another long swig. In two goes he had reduced the whisky to less than a quarter of a bottle. Doc took the bottle of Johnnie Walker and held it briefly to his lips without opening his mouth before handing it back. The sergeant shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, man, all the more for me, it’s blêrrie good whisky. Who knows? Tomorrow maybe we’re all dead.’ He took another long swig and walked over to the piano. ‘In this fillim this man was playing the peeana like at a funeral, then a drunk tipped some whisky on it and suddenly it was playing like mad.’ He tipped the remaining whisky over the keys of the Steinway. Doc, who had been standing passively waiting, seemed to come alive. He raised his stick and rushed at the sergeant.