Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

‘ Schweinhund! Do not defile the instrument of Beethoven, Brahms, Bach and Liszt!’ He brought his cane down hard onto the sergeant’s wrist and the bottle fell from his hand to smash on the cement floor. Gripping his wrist, the sergeant danced in agony amongst the broken glass. Doc, using the sleeve of his linen jacket, ran his arm across the keys in an attempt to wipe them and sent the piano into a glissando. Then he turned and walked towards the front door.

‘You fucking Nazi bastard!’ the sergeant yelled. I hurried after Doc and he caught up with us on the path outside the cottage. ‘I’ll show you, you child fucker!’ He was trying to remove a pair of handcuffs from his belt as he ran. ‘Stop! You’re under military arrest!’ But Doc, his head held high, simply continued down the path towards the van. The sergeant grabbed Doc’s arm and clicked a handcuff around his compliant wrist. Doc seemed hardly to notice and just kept walking, obliging the sergeant to hang onto the other handcuff as though he were being dragged along like a prisoner. He took a swinging kick at Doc, knocking his legs from under him and bringing the old man to his knees on the path. In his fury and humiliation he aimed a second kick just as, screaming, I flung myself at his legs. The army boot intended for Doc’s ribs caught me under the chin knocking me unconscious.

I awoke in Barberton Hospital with a man in a white coat shining a torch into my eyes. My head was ringing as though voices came from the other end of a long tunnel. ‘Well, thank God for that, he’s regained consciousness,’ I heard him say.

‘Thank you, Jesus,’ I heard my mother say in a weepy voice. I looked around to see her seated at the side of the bed. She looked pale and worried and her hair hung in wisps around her eyes for she had come out without her hat and still wore her pink sewing smock. My granpa was also there, sitting on a chair at the opposite side of the bed. I tried to talk but found it impossible and my jaw hurt like billy-o. I managed a weak grunt without opening my mouth, but that was all. My mouth tasted of blood and, running my swollen tongue around my palate, I realised that several of my teeth were missing.

The doctor spoke to me. ‘Now son, I want you to tell me how many fingers I’m holding up in front of you.’ He held up two and I held up two fingers. ‘Again.’ He held up four fingers and I too held up four. He repeated this with several combinations before he finally said, ‘Well, that’s something anyway, he doesn’t appear to have concussion. We’ll have to X-ray the jaw, though I think it’s probably broken.’ He turned to my mother and granpa. ‘The boy is in a lot of pain, we’ll be taking him into theatre almost immediately, we may need to wire his jaw and there are several broken teeth which we will have to clean up. He’ll be sedated when he comes out so there isn’t any point in your staying.’

They both rose and my mother leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow morning, darling. You be a brave boy now!’ My granpa touched me lightly on the shoulder. ‘There’s a good lad,’ he said.

I watched them leave the emergency ward where I appeared to be the only emergency, as the other three beds were unoccupied. My jaw ached a great deal and while I think I may have been crying, I only recall being terribly concerned for Doc.

It turned out my jaw had been broken. They wired the top jaw to the bottom one in the closed mouth position so I was unable to talk. I couldn’t enquire about him. Adults decide what they want kids to know and all my mother would say when she came to visit was, ‘You’ve had a terrible shock, darling, you mustn’t think about what happened.’

In fact, that was all I could think about. Doc was the most important person in my life and the thought of him lying in a dark cell probably dying was almost unbearable. I managed to communicate to a junior nurse called Marie, who had taken to calling me her little skattebol , that I wanted paper and a pencil. She brought a pad and a pencil and in running writing I wrote, ‘What’s happened to Professor Von Vollensteen?’ She read the note and her eyes grew large.

‘Ag no, man! Sister says we can’t tell you nothing.’ She held out her hand for the pad and pencil but I quickly tucked it under the quilt. ‘Give it to me back! Please, I’ll get into trouble with Sister!’ I shook my head, which hurt. ‘I’ll tell on you, you hear!’ But I knew she wouldn’t. I felt less vulnerable with the pad and pencil beside me. I tore a single sheet from the small pad and brought it out from under the bedclothes. Placing it on the cabinet beside my bed, I leaned over and wrote, ‘My name is not skattebol, it is PEEKAY.’ I didn’t much like the endearment as I didn’t see myself as a fluffy ball which is a name you give to really small kids. I tore the bit I’d written on from the sheet of paper and handed it to her. She read it slowly then walked to the end of the bed.

‘That’s not what it says here,’ Marie said, looking down at the progress chart which hung from the foot of the bed. ‘Don’t you know your proper name then?’ she teased. ‘It’s wrong,’ I scribbled, tearing off a second note and holding it out to her. ‘Sis, man! You don’t even know your own name. I never heard of a name like Peekay, where’d you get a silly name like that?’ On the remaining scrap of paper I wrote, ‘I just got it.’

Marie took a sharp breath. ‘Anyway, it’s a rotten name for a hero who tackled a German spy when he was trying to escape.’ Her eyes grew big again and she moved her spotty face close to mine. ‘It says in the paper you even may be going to get a medal!’ She drew back suddenly, alarmed that she’d told me too much. ‘Don’t you tell Sister I told you, you hear.’ She brought a finger up to her lips. ‘I promise I’ll call you Peekay if you promise to stay stom .’ I nodded my head, though I wondered how she thought I could tell anyone. The tears began to roll down my cheeks. I hadn’t wanted them to, they just came because of the news about Doc. I could hear his voice when the officer had handed him the piece of paper. ‘The stupidity. Already the stupidity begins again.’

‘Don’t cry, Peekay. Sister’ll know I told you if you cry,’ Marie said, distressed. I knuckled the tears from my eyes and then she bathed my face with a wet flannel. ‘I don’t really think Peekay is a silly name,’ she said gently. ‘Who showed you how to write so good? I went to school up to fourteen and even I can’t write so good as you.’

After three days alone in the ward I was moved onto the verandah where there were eight beds all occupied. Except for the fact that I still couldn’t talk, I was much better. I had walked into the ward with the sister and with the exception of two old men who were asleep, all the others had applauded and said things like, ‘Well done, son!’ One man said that I was a proper patriot. As soon as Sister left the ward I wrote on a piece of paper as big as I could, ‘What happened to Professor Von Vollensteen?’ I jumped out of bed and took it over to the bed nearest me and gave it to the man in it. He read it and handed it back to me.

‘You mean the German spy? Sorry, son, we’re not supposed to tell you,’ he winked at the others, ‘we got strict orders.’ The others all nodded. ‘Mind you, you’re a brave little bugger, I have to say that for you.’ The other men seemed to agree with him.

My mother came to the hospital in the mornings when Pastor Mulvery was able to bring her. She sat with me while he went around the hospital to witness for the Lord. But first he came in to see me, and he’d flash his lightning smile which prevented his two front teeth from escaping and held my hand in his damp, warm grasp for ages until it felt as though it wanted to jump out of his soft grip and run away and hide. In his soft woman’s voice he said, ‘We’re all praying that this terrible ordeal will make you accept Jesus into your heart.’ Then, still holding my hand, he knelt beside the bed and my mother also knelt on the other side and Pastor Mulvery would pray out aloud. When he prayed his voice rose even higher and he became quite excited.