The Power of One

by Bryce Courtenay

  I explained this new plan to Granpa Chook and pushed him over the fence. Granpa Chook, though, had other ideas. With an indignant squawk and a flap of his wings he was back on my side of the fence. It was clear that the toughest damn chicken in the whole wide world had no intention of deserting his friend, even if his own life was at stake.

  We waited at the kitchen door. Mevrou appeared. “So this is the chicken that shits in your bed, Pisskop?”

  “It wasn’t on purpose, Mevrou. He’s a very clever chicken.”

  “Whoever heard of a clever chicken?”

  “I’ll show you, Mevrou.” I quickly drew a circle in the dust and Granpa Chook immediately hopped into it and settled down as though he were laying an egg, which he couldn’t, of course. “He’ll stay in that circle until I say to come out.”

  For a moment Mevrou looked impressed; then she scowled. “This is just some dumb thing kaffir chickens do that white chickens don’t,” she said. Just inside the kitchen stood a butcher’s block with a large cleaver resting on it. “Give me that bed-shitting kaffir chicken!” she yelled, grabbing the cleaver.

  Two cockroaches resting under the cleaver on the block raced up the back of Mevrou’s hand. She let out an almighty scream, dropping the cleaver. One cockroach fell to the polished cement floor; the other ran up her arm and disappeared down her bodice.

  With a delighted squawk, Granpa Chook came charging into the kitchen and scooped up the cockroach crossing the floor. Mevrou was waving her arms and making little gasping noises as she danced from one foot to the other. The second cockroach fell from under her skirt and Granpa Chook had it in a trice.

  “It’s orright, Mevrou, the other one fell out and Granpa Chook got it,” I said, pointing to Granpa Chook strutting around looking very pleased with himself.

  Mevrou had turned a deep crimson. I fetched a chair and she plopped down into it like an overripe watermelon. When she had recovered somewhat she pointed a trembling finger at Granpa Chook.

  “You are right, Pisskop. That is a good chicken. He can stay. But he has to earn his keep.”

  And that’s how Granpa Chook came to do kitchen duty. Every day after breakfast he checked out the kitchen for creepy-crawlies of every description. The toughest damn chicken in the world had survived, he had beaten the executioner by adapting perfectly and we were together again.

  A couple of months went by. I had become a slave to the Judge. In return for being at his beck and call, I was more or less left to my own devices. The odd cuff behind the head or a push from an older kid was about all I had to endure. Things were pretty good, really. If the Judge needed me he would put two fingers to his mouth and give a piercing whistle and Granpa Chook and I would come running.

  Although Granpa Chook was now under the protection of Mevrou, he still needed to be on the alert. Farm kids just can’t help chucking stones at kaffir chickens. He would cluck around the playground during lessons. The moment the bell went he would come charging over to my classroom, skidding to a halt in the dust, cackling his anxiety to be with me again.

  No class existed for my age and so I had been placed with the seven-year-old kids, all of whom were still learning to read. I had been reading in English for a year and the switch to reading in Afrikaans wasn’t difficult. I already spoke Zulu and Shangaan and, like most small kids, found learning a new language simple enough. I was soon the best in the class. Yet I quickly realized that survival means never being best at anything, and I learned to pause and stumble over words that were perfectly clear to me. Our teacher, Miss du Plessis, wasn’t anxious for a five-year-old Rooinek to shine in a class of knot-headed Boers. She put my poor results down to my inability to grasp the subtlety of the Afrikaans language as well as being the youngest in the class.

  It became increasingly hard for the other kids to think of me as being different. Except, of course, for my hatless snake; but even this, like a kid with a birthmark, started to go unnoticed.

  Then, on September 3, 1939, Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England, declared war on Germany. We all knew by now that Adolf Hitler was the leader of the German people.

  We were in the dining room when the headmaster announced the news. After the meal, when the staff had retired, the Judge jumped to his feet and stepped onto the bench at the top table. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt so we could all see his swastika tattoo. “Adolf Hitler is the King of Germany and God has sent him to take South Africa back from the English and give it to us.” He jabbed at the swastika on his arm. “This is his sign … the swastika will make us free again.” His right hand shot up in salute. “Heil Hitler!” he cried.

  We all jumped to our feet and, thrusting our arms out, yelled, “Heil Hitler!”

  It was all very exciting. Then the words of the Judge on the first night at school roared back into my consciousness…“Don’t be stupid! Pisskop, you are the English!”

  “Some of us have sworn a blood oath to Adolf Hitler,” the Judge continued, “and the time has now come to march the Rooineks into the sea. After school we will meet behind the shithouses for a council of war!”

  I don’t suppose any of us had much idea of where the sea was, somewhere across the Lebombo mountains and probably over the Limpopo River. A long, long way away. I could understand why the march would take some planning.

  The dining room buzzed with excitement. Then the Judge pointed directly at me. “Pisskop, you are our first prisoner of war!” He raised his arm higher. “Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler!” the rest of the dining hall chorused back.

  It was the most exciting day in the school’s history, although my own prospects looked pretty bleak. What was certain was that Granpa Chook and I needed to make some pretty urgent escape plans. I was in despair. Even if I did know how to get home, which I didn’t, how far could a little kid and a chicken travel without being spotted by the enemy?

  That afternoon in class Miss du Plessis rapped my knuckles sharply with her long steel-edged ruler. She grew totally exasperated when, deep into escape plans, I simply didn’t hear her ask what three times four came to.

  “Domkop! You will have to stay in after school!” The idea was impossible. Granpa Chook and I had to escape before the council of war met behind the shithouses.

  “Please, miss! I’m sorry, miss.” In a desperate attempt to make amends I blew my camouflage. I recited the nine times table, then the ten, eleven and twelve. I had carefully concealed my knowledge of anything beyond the four times table. The effect was profound. Miss du Plessis was consumed by anger.

  “You wicked, rotten, lying, cheating child!” she screamed, raising her ruler. The blows rained down on me and with one swipe the thin metal strip in the ruler sliced into the top of my ear. The blood started to run down my arm.

  The sight of blood snapped Miss du Plessis out of her frenzy. She looked down at me and brought her hand to her mouth. Then she screamed and fell to the floor.

  The shock of seeing Miss du Plessis drop dead at my feet was so great that I was unable to move. The blood dripped from my ear onto her spotless white blouse until a crimson blot stained the area just above her heart.

  “Cripes! You’ve killed her,” I heard Flap-lips de Jaager say as he ran from the classroom. All the others followed, screaming as they vacated the scene of the crime.

  I was unaware of anyone entering the room until a huge hand lifted me and hurled me across the classroom, where I landed against the wall. Stunned, I sat there like a discarded rag doll. Mr. Stoffel, the master who taught the Judge’s class, was bending over Miss du Plessis. His eyes grew wide as he observed the blood on her blouse. “Shit, he’s killed her!” I heard him say.

  Just then Miss du Plessis opened her eyes and sat up. “Oh, oh, what have I done!” she sobbed.

  Quite suddenly the classroom grew very dark. I could dimly see Mr. Stoffel coming toward me, as though in slow motion. Then I must have passed out.

  I awoke in my bed, to find Mevrou at my side. “Are you
awake, Pisskop?” she asked, not unkindly.

  “Ja, Mevrou.” My head was swathed in a thick crêpe bandage and I was wearing my pajamas. My shoulder ached where I’d landed against the wall.

  “Now listen to me, Pisskop. When the doctor comes you must tell him you fell out of a tree, you hear?”

  “Ja, Mevrou.”

  “What tree did you fall out of, Pisskop?”

  “It—it was the big mango tree next to the playground.”

  “Ja, that’s good, the mango tree. Remember to tell the doctor when he comes.”

  To my joy Dr. Henny entered the dormitory. He unwound the bandage around my head. “What’s the matter, son? You look pretty done in.”

  Even if Dr. Henny wasn’t a Rooinek I knew he was on my side, and I longed to burst into tears and tell him all my troubles. But I had already blown my camouflage once that day with disastrous results. Choking back the tears, I told him how I had fallen from the big old mango tree.

  He turned to Mevrou and in Afrikaans he said: “Hmm, except for the cut between the ear and the skull there are no contusions or abrasions. Are you quite sure this child fell from a tree?”

  “The other children saw it happen, Doctor. There is no doubt.” Mevrou said this with such conviction that I began to wonder myself.

  “It’s true, sir. I fell out of the tree and hurt my shoulder against the wall.”

  Dr. Henny didn’t seem to notice that I’d replied in Afrikaans. “The wall?”

  Fear showed for a moment in Mevrou’s eyes but she quickly recovered. “The child doesn’t speak Afrikaans very well, he means the ground.”

  “Ja, the ground,” I added.

  “Okay, let’s look at your shoulder, then.” He rotated my shoulder, then checked my heart and chest and my back with his stethoscope, which was cold against my skin. “Seems fine. We’ll just put in a couple of stitches and you’ll be right as rain,” he said in English.

  “Can I go home, please?”

  “No need for that, old son.” He dug into his bag and produced a yellow sucker, pineapple, my favorite after raspberry. “Here, this will make you feel better, you get stuck into that while I fix up these stitches.”

  A moment later he was dabbing my stitches with Mercurochrome. “I’ll be back in a week to remove these.” He handed me a second sucker. “That’s for being extra brave.”

  “Thank you, sir. Doctor Henny, are you English?” I asked.

  His expression changed and I could see that he was upset. “We are all South Africans, son. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He spoke with a quiet vehemence, then repeated: “Don’t let anyone tell you anything else!”

  I had certainly had better days, but a two-sucker day doesn’t come along very often so it wasn’t all bad.

  Despite my prisoner-of-war status, the kids were pretty good for the next few days. My stitches made me a kind of hero in the small kids’ dormitory, as if I’d been in the war and was wounded.

  THREE

  But Rooineks are not designed to be permanent heroes. The night after I had my stitches out I was summoned to appear before the Judge and jury. My temporary reprieve was over. Here I was again, being marched straight into another calamity.

  “Stand to attention, prisoner Pisskop,” the Judge snarled. “Tonight we must get you ready for your march into the sea.” He pointed to the corridor between the beds and gave me a push. I tripped over my pajama pants and fell to the floor. One of the jury reached down and pulled the pants away from my ankles. I rose bare-arsed and looked uncertainly at the Judge. “March!” he commanded. I started to march, swinging my arms high. “Links, regs, links, regs, halt!” he bawled. Then again: “Left, right, left, right, halt! Which is your left foot, prisoner Pisskop?” I had no idea but pointed to a foot at random. “Domkop! Don’t you even know your left from your right?”

  “No, sir,” I said, feeling stupid.

  “Every day after school you will march around the playground for five thousand steps, you hear?” I nodded. “You will count backward from five thousand until you get to number one.”

  I couldn’t believe my luck; no one had laid a hand on me. I retrieved my pajama pants and scurried back to my dormitory.

  Being a prisoner of war and learning to march wasn’t such a bad thing. But I must admit, counting backward from five thousand isn’t much of a way to pass the time. It’s impossible anyway, your thoughts wander and before you know it you’re all jumbled up and have to start over again. Mostly I did the Judge’s homework in my head. Carrying his books from school, I would memorize his arithmetic lesson and then work the equations out in my head as I marched along. If things got a bit complicated, I’d make sure nobody was looking and work out a more complex sum using a stick in the dirt. It got so I couldn’t wait to see what he’d done in class each day.

  The Judge was an awful domkop. In the mornings, carrying his books, I’d check his homework. It was always a mess and mostly all wrong. I began to despair for him and for myself as well. You see, he could only leave the school if the work he did during the year gave him a pass mark. So far, he didn’t have a hope. If he failed I’d have him for another year. That is, if Hitler hadn’t come by then to march me away.

  Escape seemed impossible, so I’d have to think of something else. A plan began to form. It was breath-takingly simple though fraught with danger. If I blew my camouflage and helped the Judge with his homework so that he would pass, would he not be forced to spare Granpa Chook and me if Adolf Hitler arrived before the end of term?

  After a long talk with Granpa Chook, we agreed it was a chance worth taking.

  After breakfast the following morning, when I was folding the Judge’s blanket and arranging his towel over his bed rail, I broached the subject. He was sitting on his bed, trying to do some last-minute arithmetic.

  “Can I help you, sir?” My heart thumped like a donkey engine, though I was surprised how steady my voice sounded.

  “Push off, Pisskop. Can’t you see I’m busy, man?” The Judge was doing the fractions I’d done in my head the previous afternoon and getting them hopelessly wrong.

  Gulping down my fear, I said, “What happens if you don’t pass at the end of the year?” The Judge looked at me. I could see the thought wasn’t new to him. He reached out and grabbed me by the shirtfront.

  “If I don’t pass, I’ll kill you first and then I’ll run away!” He went back to chewing his pencil, his brow furrowed as he squinted at the page of equations. I pointed to the one he’d just completed. “That’s wrong. The answer is seven-ninths.” I moved my finger quickly. “Four-fifths, six-eighths, nine-tenths, five-sevenths …” I paused as he looked up at me, openmouthed.

  “Where did you learn to do this, man?”

  I shrugged. “It’s just easy for me, that’s all.” I hoped he couldn’t sense how scared I was.

  A look of cunning came into his eyes. He handed me the book and the pencil. “Just write the answers very softly and I’ll copy them, you hear?”

  From knowing to hide my brains for camouflage, I’d now moved up to the next stage and had learned to use them. Granpa Chook and I were one step further away from the sea.

  But I knew if a domkop like the Judge went from bottom to top of his class overnight, Mr. Stoffel would soon smell a rat. Telling the Judge he was a duffer was more than my life was worth.

  “We have a problem,” I said.

  “What problem, man? You just write in the answers very soft, that’s all.”

  “Judge, arithmetic doesn’t interest you, does it? I mean, if it did you could do it”—I snapped my fingers—“just like that!”

  “Ja, if I wanted to I could. Only little kids like you are interested in all that shit!”

  I grew bolder. “So you can’t just get ten out of ten today when yesterday you only got two sums right. Mr. Stoffel will know there’s some monkey business going on.” I paused. “You will get better a little bit each week and you’ll tell Mr. Stoffel that you suddenly go
t the hang of doing sums.”

  The Judge grinned slyly. “Jy is ’n slimmertjie, Pisskop.”

  The Judge had called me clever. Me! Pisskop the Rooinek! I was beside myself with pride. The thrill of the compliment almost caused me to forget my other anxiety.

  “What will happen if Adolf Hitler comes before the end of term?” I asked, my heart beating overtime.

  The Judge understood the reason for my question. “Okay, man, you got me there. I will say nothing until I’ve passed at the end of the year.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Pisskop, after that I will have to tell him about you. You and your stupid kaffir chicken are dead meat when he comes.”

  I had won: my plan had worked. Granpa Chook and I were safe for the remainder of the term.

  The Judge had come to the end of his copying. I had never seen him quite so happy. I saw my opportunity and, taking a sharp inward breath, said quickly, “It will be difficult to march every afternoon and still do your homework, sir.”

  Had I gone too far? I’d won the battle and here I was risking all on a minor skirmish.

  The Judge wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Orright, no more marching.”

  Victory was mine a second time.

  One thing is certain in life. Just when things are going well, soon after, they are certain to go wrong.

  Mrs. Gerber, another teacher, told us that day in class, there had been an outbreak of Newcastle’s disease on a chicken farm near Merensky Dam. Her husband, who was a Government vet, had left to visit all the surrounding farms.

  Even the youngest kids know what havoc a disease can cause with poultry or other livestock. Rinderpest and foot-and-mouth disease among the cattle were the worst, but every farm keeps at least fifty chickens for eggs, so Mrs. Gerber’s news was met with consternation. My mother had once said that if my granpa lost all his black Orpingtons it would break his heart.