The town I knew to be about two miles from the school. Mevrou walked three paces ahead of me all the way. Her huge shape sort of rocked along; she stopped every once in a while to catch her breath. The early-afternoon sun beat down on us. “Tonight I must do this all over again for you, Pisskop,” she complained, red in the face as a turkey’s wattle.
Harry Crown’s shop was closed. “Everyone is having their lunch, we must wait,” she explained. With great effort she climbed up to the stoep of the shop and sat down on a bench beside the padlocked door. “Go and find a tap and wash your feet,” she panted.
I crossed the street to the Atlantic Service Station, washed my feet under a tap and walked back across the road on my heels. At the far end of the verandah there was a second entrance to the shop. Above was written “Blacks only.” I wondered briefly why whites were not allowed to enter.
“The Jew is late, who does he think he is?” Mevrou said impatiently.
Just then the sawmill hooter sounded. It blew at one o’clock and again at two.
Almost on the dot a big black Chevrolet drove up and parked outside the shop. It was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. Obviously being a Jew was a very profitable business. Maybe I could be one when I grew up.
Harry Crown was a fat man in his late fifties. He wore his trousers high so that his tummy and most of his chest were covered with trouser top, held up by a pair of red braces. When he smiled he showed two gold front teeth.
“A thousand apologies, Mevrou. Have you been waiting long?” he said, unlocking the doors to the shop.
“Ag, it was nothing,” Mevrou said, all smiles.
In the part boarded off for white customers, two ceiling fans whirred overhead and the shop was dark and cool.
“What can I do for you, Mevrou?” Harry Crown asked; then, turning to me, he bowed slightly. “And for you, mister?” he said solemnly.
I dropped my eyes to avoid his gaze.
Observing my shyness, he produced a raspberry sucker wrapped in cellophane from a glass jar on the counter. I took the delicious prize and put it into my shirt pocket.
“Thank you, meneer,” I said softly.
“Ag, eat it now, boy. When we have finished business you can have another, a green one maybe.” He turned to Mevrou. “I have had this shop for thirty years and I can tell you with God’s certainty that children like raspberry first and green second.” He snapped his braces with his thumbs and gave a happy snort. He was wrong, of course, pineapple was second.
I felt intimidated, so I left the raspberry in my pocket.
“What is your name, boy?” Harry Crown asked.
“Pisskop, sir,” I replied.
“Pisskop? This is a name for a nice boy?” he asked in alarm.
Mevrou interrupted sharply. “Never mind his name, what have you got in tackies? The boy must have some tackies. He is going on the train alone tonight to his oupa in Barberton.”
Harry Crown gave a low whistle. “Barberton, eh? That is two days away in the train, a long journey alone for a small boy.” He was looking at my feet. “We have nothing so small, Mevrou.”
“Show me what you got, Mr. Crown. His oupa did not send enough money for boots.”
Harry Crown shrugged. “It makes no difference, boots, smoots, tackies, smackies, I’m telling you, the boy’s foot is too small.”
“Let the boy try them,” Mevrou insisted.
He moved behind the counter and pulled a cardboard box from the shelf. From it he withdrew a pair of dark brown canvas shoes.
“Let the boy try them,” Mevrou said.
The big man sighed. “These tackies are four sizes too big for him already. Maybe in five or six years they will fit him like a glove. In the meantime they will fit him like the clown in a circus.” He slapped his stomach. “Very amusing,” he said to himself in English.
“We will try them on. With newspaper we can fix them.”
“Mevrou, with the whole Zoutpansberg Gazette we couldn’t stuff these tackies to fit. He has very small feet for a Boer child.”
“He is a Rooinek!” Mevrou said, suddenly angry. She grabbed the tackies and turned to me. “Put your foot on my lap, child,” she ordered.
With my heel on Mevrou’s lap the first tacky slipped around my foot without touching the sides.
Mevrou pulled the laces tightly until the eyelets overlapped. “Now the other one,” she said.
The tackies seemed to extend twice the distance of my feet.
“Walk, child,” Mevrou commanded.
I took a step forward and managed to drag the right tackie forward by not lifting my foot.
“Bring some paper.” Mevrou cunningly fashioned two little boats from newspaper. She then put the paper boats in the tackies and instructed me to insert my feet into them and tied the laces. This time they fitted snug as a bug in a rug. When I walked they made a phlifft-floft sound where the tackies bent at the end of my toes.
“We will take them,” Mevrou announced triumphantly. “How much?”
Harry Crown sighed again. “Half a crown, for you only two shillings,” he said, adjusting the price automatically, his heart obviously not in the sale.
I tugged at the end of the lace and to my relief the bow collapsed. I did the same for the second tackie, then slipped carefully out of the newspaper boats and handed the tackies to Harry Crown.
“You poor little bugger,” he said in English. He slipped the tackies back into the box and when he saw Mevrou wasn’t looking, quickly put two green and two red suckers in and handed it to me. “I wish you health to wear them.” Speaking out of the corner of his mouth he added, “Can she understand English?”
I shook my head almost imperceptibly.
“Inside is for the journey, green and red, the best! So long, Peekay.” He patted me on the shoulder and then spoke in English. “Pisskop is not a nice name for a brave person who is traveling all by himself to the lowveld to meet his granpa. Peekay, that is much better, hey?”
I nodded, not answering.
Drawing up to his full height, gold teeth flashing, he grinned. “Maybe the tackies don’t fit, but I think your new name fits perfect!”
Mevrou threw two shillings on the counter and marched out of the shop. I followed with the precious box of loot under my arm. At the door I turned.
“Goodbye, sir!” I said in English.
Mevrou turned furiously. Grabbing me by the ear, she whispered fiercely, “Do not talk to that … that dirty Jew in the accursed language. You will hear from my sjambok when we get home!”
“Ouch! You have my sore ear, Mevrou.” I knew she’d feel guilty, even though my ear was completely healed.
Mevrou let go of my ear immediately. You’ve got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive.
Mevrou stormed ahead and I fell some five paces behind her. I hoped I’d given her enough guilt for her to withdraw the promised thrashing. I took the raspberry sucker out of my pocket. Taking off the cellophane wrapper, I licked the crimson sugar crystals that had stuck to it before throwing it away, then settled down to suck my way back to the school.
The sjambok was not mentioned on our return. I spent the remainder of the afternoon making a border with white pebbles around the pile of rocks on Granpa Chook’s grave. I must say the toughest damn chicken in the world had a very impressive grave.
The cook boy packed me a big brown paper bag of sandwiches for the train journey. We left to catch the seven o’clock train. My suitcase, though large, contained very few things. Two shirts, two pairs of khaki shorts, my pajamas and my new tackies with the paper boats in them. I’d buried Granpa Chook in my mother’s red jersey so he’d look pretty. The four suckers I’d hidden in a pair of shorts. There was plenty of room for the sandwiches. The suitcase wasn’t really heavy and besides, with all the iron bar torture sessions, my muscles were pretty big.
The station turned out to be a raised platform upon which sat a building facing the railway line. Outside the sta
tionmaster’s office there were three truck tires painted white and in the middle of these grew dusty red cannas. Mevrou seemed to know the stationmaster. He brought her a cup of coffee in the waiting room.
“Don’t worry, Hoppie Groenewald is the guard on this train, he will take good care of the boy.” He turned to me. “He is champion of the railways, you know. That Hoppie, he laughs all the time, but if you get into a fight, I’m telling you, man, you better pray he’s on your side!”
I wondered what a champion of the railways was. I liked the idea of having someone on my side who was good in a fight. My life seemed to be made for trouble and it would make a nice change when the next lot hit, as was bound to happen.
Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Hoppie Groenewald was to prove to be a passing mentor who would set my life on an irrevocable course. He would do so in little more than a day and a night.
Mevrou produced a ticket from an envelope and inserted a large safety pin into the hole at one end. She pinned the ticket to my shirt pocket. “Listen carefully to me now, man, this ticket will take you to Barberton but your oupa only sent enough money for one breakfast and one lunch and one supper on the train. Tonight you eat only one sandwich, you hear?” I nodded. “Tomorrow for breakfast another one and for lunch the last one. And also eat the meat first because the jam will keep the bread soft. Then you can eat on the train. Do you understand?”
“Ja, Mevrou.”
She took out a small white hanky and placed it on her lap. In the center she placed a shilling.
“Watch carefully now, Pisskop. I am putting this shilling in here and tying it so.” She brought the two opposite corners together and tied them, then did the same with the remaining two. She took a second safety pin from her handbag, then pinned the doek inside the pocket of my shorts.
“It is for an emergency. Only if you have to can you use some of it. But you must tie up the change like I just showed you and put it back in your pocket with the safety pin. If you don’t need it you must give it to your oupa.”
The stationmaster entered and told us we had five minutes.
“Quick, man, get your tackies,” Mevrou said, giving me a push toward the suitcase.
I was seized by a sudden panic. What if she saw my suckers? I placed the case on the floor and opened it so the lid was between Mevrou and me, preventing her from seeing inside. Just as well, a green sucker had worked out of its hiding place and my heart went thump. Phew! I removed the tackies and quickly snapped the case shut. I slipped each foot into a paper boat and Mevrou tied the laces. I tried desperately to memorize how she did this.
“Please, Mevrou, will you teach me how to tie laces so I can take my tackies off in the train?”
Mevrou looked up, alarmed. “You must not take your tackies off until you get to Barberton. If you lose them your oupa will think I stole the money he sent. You keep them on, do you hear me now?”
The train could be heard a long way off and we left the waiting room to watch it coming in. Real walking in my tackies was very different from the three or four steps I had taken in Harry Crown’s shop. I stumbled several times as I went phlifft-floft, phlifft-floft to the edge of the platform. Bits of newspaper crept up past my ankles and I had to press them back in.
With a deafening choof of steam, immediately followed by two short sharp hisses and a screeching sound, the huge train pulled into the station, and carriage after carriage of black people went by. They were laughing and sticking their heads out of windows and having themselves a proper good time. Finally the last two carriages and the goods van came to a halt neatly lined up with the platform. The two end carriages read South African Railways First Class and Second Class, respectively. I had seen pictures of trains, of course, and sometimes at night as I lay in the dormitory I had heard a train whistle carried in the wind, the beautiful sound of going to faraway places away from Mevrou, the Judge and his storm troopers. But I wasn’t prepared for anything quite as big and black and blustering with steam, brass pipes and hissing pistons.
Africans appeared as if from nowhere. They carried bundles on their heads, which they handed up through the third-class carriage windows to the passengers inside, and then climbed aboard laughing with the excitement of it all. From inside came song and more laughter and good-natured banter. I knew at once that I would like trains.
The guard leapt down onto the platform carrying a canvas bag with Mail stamped on the outside. He handed it to the stationmaster, who gave him an identical bag in return.
The stationmaster introduced the guard. “This is Hoppie Groenewald, he is guard and conductor until you get to Gravelotte. He will look after the boy.”
Hoppie Groenewald grinned down at me and tipped his navy blue guard’s cap to Mevrou. “No worries, Mevrou, I will look after him until Gravelotte. Then I will hand him over to Pik Botha, who will take him through to Kaapmuiden.” He opened the door of the second-class carriage and put my suitcase into the train and indicated that I should enter. The three steps up into the carriage were fairly high and as I put my weight on the bottom step the toe of the tacky buckled and I fell on my bum on the platform. Wearing shoes was a much trickier business than I had first supposed.
“Get up, man!” Mevrou said. “Even now you make trouble for me.”
Bending down, Hoppie Groenewald grabbed me under the armpits and hoisted me high in the air through the door to land inside the carriage.
“No worries, little brother, I too have fallen up those verdomde steps many a time. I, who am a guard and soon to be a conductor, and who should know better.”
Then he hopped up the steps without even looking and unhooked a neatly rolled green flag from above the door of the carriage. He unfurled the flag and pulled a large silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket.
“Watch the kaffirs get a fright,” he said with a grin. He showed me how to hold on to the handrail inside the door and lean out of the carriage so I could see down the full length of the train. He then jumped back onto the platform and began to wave the flag, giving a long blast on his whistle.
You should have seen the kerfuffle. Africans who had left the train to stretch their legs scrambled frantically to get through the doors of the carriages as the train began slowly to move, laughing and yelling and climbing on top of each other. Hoppie Groenewald gave two more short blasts on his whistle and hopped aboard the train.
“Goodbye, Mevrou. Thank you,” I shouted, waving at her.
“Keep your tackies on, you hear!” Mevrou shouted back.
It was a dry-eyed farewell on both sides. I hoped the Rooinek and Mevrou would never have to see each other again.
Hoppie Groenewald closed the carriage door as the train began to gather momentum. He refurled the flag. Then he picked up my suitcase and opened the door to the nearest compartment. The train was moving along smoothly now and I enjoyed the comforting clackity-clack, clackity-clack of the carriage wheels.
The empty compartment had two bright green leather seats facing each other, each seat big enough for three adults. A small table was positioned between the two windows. The compartment was paneled in varnished wood and above each seat was a framed photograph. It was all very posh. Hoppie Groenewald turned on the compartment lights.
“It’s all yours until we get to Tzaneen. After that who knows? No worries, Hoppie will take good care of you.” He looked down at my tackies; bits of newspaper were sticking out of the sides.
“The old cow can’t get you now. Take them off,” the guard said. I tugged the canvas shoes off. My feet were hot and had turned black from the newsprint rubbing off on them. It felt delicious to squiggle my toes again. Hoppie Groenewald stuck his hand out. “Shake a paw. You know my name but I haven’t had the pleasure.”
I’d already thought about what Harry Crown had said and had decided to take his advice and call myself Peekay. “Peekay,” I said tentatively.
I s
uddenly felt new and clean. Nobody ever again would know that I had been called Pisskop. Granpa Chook was dead and so was Pisskop.
“All the best, Peekay. We will be pals.”
“Thank you for taking care of me, Mr. Groenewald,” I said politely.
He grinned. “Ag, man, just call me Hoppie.”
Hoppie left to check the tickets in the African carriages but promised he would return soon.
It was almost totally dark outside, as I sat alone in a lighted room, flying through the African night, lickity-clack, lickity-clack. I had defeated the Judge and his Nazi storm troopers, survived Mevrou, and I had grown up and changed my name, lickity-clack, lickity-clack.
Opening my suitcase, I took out one of Harry Crown’s green suckers. Harry Crown was right after all—the green ones were a very close second to raspberry; pineapple was definitely third. I examined the photographs above the seats, sepia-toned pictures of a flat mountain with a streak of white cloud resting just above it. The caption underneath one read “World famous Table Mountain wearing its renowned tablecloth.” All there was, was a big white cloud; I couldn’t see a tablecloth. Another showed a big city seen from the air with the caption “Cape Town, home of the famous Cape Doctor.” I wondered what the doctor had done to be famous and rich enough to own a big town for his home. Years later I discovered that the Cape Doctor was a wind that blew in spring to clean out the germs that had gathered during the winter. Another photograph was captioned “Truly one of the world’s natural wonders.”
Well, I thought, this will be a pretty good journey if we visit all those places!
Hoppie returned after what seemed ages but probably wasn’t very long. On a train, with the darkness galloping past, time seemed to disappear; the lickity-clack of the wheels on the track gobbled up the minutes.
He plonked himself on the seat opposite me, then gave me a big grin and a light playful punch to the point of my chin.
“When we get to Tzaneen in an hour we’ll have some dinner. We stop for forty-five minutes to take on coal and water and there’s a café across the road from the station. From Tzaneen I’m only the guard and another conductor takes over. What’s your favorite food, Peekay?”
The Power of One Page 5