‘You should know better than that, Solly.’
Ignoring Hymie’s remark, Solly appealed directly to me. ‘This fight would do you a lot of good, sharpen you up nicely for the South African Schools Championships an’ all.’
‘Christ, Solly, you’re off your rocker!’ Hymie continued. ‘You find a professional bantamweight, probably in his twenties, and you want to put him against Peekay who’s fifteen years old?’
‘That’s just the point, my son. Peekay wouldn’t be mismatched, the black kid is only sixteen. Three professional fights. Would I mismatch Peekay? Don’t insult my intelligence.’
‘Hey, hang on, wait a minute both of you.’ I turned to Solly, ‘There’s more to this isn’t there? First we’re fighting a black man in a black township, that’s not allowed for a start, then an amateur is fighting a pro …’
‘An unregistered pro,’ Solly interjected.
‘You haven’t answered my question, Solly,’ I repeated.
‘It’s not what you’re thinking, Peekay, there’s no money in it, there would be no purse for the fight.’
‘What about the book?’ Hymie asked.
‘No betting niver, Gawd’s onna!’ Solly folded his hands on the desk in front of him and stared down at the untidy blotter.
‘We’re waiting, Solly,’ Hymie said.
‘It’s Nguni, he wants the fight… Mr Nguni.’
‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’ I asked.
‘He’s a black fight promoter. Owns the game in the black townships.’
‘So what’s that to us?’ I asked.
Solly looked up at me. ‘He reckons if ’e was to match you with this Mandoma bloke it would be a t’riffic fight, that’s all.’
‘If you’ll come clean with the real reason you want this fight we could discuss it. What is it, Solly?’ I asked again.
Solly threw his hands up. ‘Okay, it’s business. Mr Nguni brings in the blacks, I train ’em, we share in the action. When you’ve got fifteen percent of fifty black fighters on the black township circuit it’s a nice little earner. I don’t honestly know why ’e wants this fight, I admit it don’t make a lotta sense.’
Hymie spoke as though he was thinking aloud. ‘The black guy is squeezing you and now you’re putting the hard word on us. I can understand that. But even if he is making book, and you say he isn’t, that’s not a big enough reason. He could lose his boxing promoter’s licence if he got caught.’
‘Hymie’s right, Solly. There has to be a better reason. Nguni is either a fool or he’s taking an enormous risk for a reason we don’t know about. Either way, we wouldn’t want to get involved. By the way this Mandoma, is he a Zulu? I had a nanny named Mandoma.’
‘Buggered if I know, until they earn me a quid they’re just black monkeys wearing boxing gloves,’ Solly said absently.
Hymie’s chauffeur was waiting in the Buick which was parked on a vacant lot a block away. As we walked to the car Hymie kept shaking his head. ‘I don’t get it; this Nguni guy would have to be crazy to take the risk of putting on a fight between a nigger pro and an amateur white guy in a black township. The cops would have him on about ten counts. I mean what’s the angle? A fifteen-year-old schoolboy boxer and a sixteen-year-old black bantamweight is not exactly big time, even in a black township.’
‘You haven’t figured it out have you?’ I said quietly.
‘No, not yet, but I will.’
‘Don’t bother, it’s got something to do with the people.’
Hymie spun around and grabbed me, ‘You’re right, Peekay. The Tadpole Angel!’
We turned into the vacant lot to find the Buick shining like a great black beetle among the cut down forty-four gallon drums half filled with solid tar, piles of bricks and the accumulated debris that seems to furnish vacant city blocks. The chauffeur was talking with a tall, well-dressed African and stepped forward as he saw us approaching.
‘Well, we’re going to know what the scam is in about thirty seconds. Look who’s here, Hymie.’ The tall black man straightened slightly as we came up. He was the tall African who always led the people in the chant to the Tadpole Angel.
‘This man he want speak you, baas,’ the chauffeur said to me.
‘I see you,’ I said in Zulu to the African who towered above me.
‘I see you, Inkosi,’ he replied and shook my extended hand lightly, barely touching it. Politeness required that we talk about other things before coming to the reason he wanted to speak to me. This is the Zulu way.
‘The weather has been hot and the rains have not come, where I come from the crops will be thirsty.’
‘It is so also in my place, the herd boys will need to drive the cattle far from the kraal to find grazing and the river will be dry but for a few water holes.’
‘What’s he saying?’ Hymie chipped in.
‘Nothing yet, we’re still talking about the weather.’
‘Your kraal is a far place from here?’
‘Many, many miles, Inkosi, my kraal is near Ulundi in Zululand.’ The royal homesteads of three out of the four great Zulu kings, Dingane, Mpande and Cetshwayo, had been near Ulundi and the chances were that the tall man in front of me was a high-born Zulu.
‘It is a long way from your wives and children, it is not good to be away from them.’
‘It is the custom, Inkosi. For the white man’s pound the black man must leave his family. These are hard times and I have few cattle and land.’
The time had come to introduce myself. ‘I am Peekay,’ I said softly, extending my hand for a second time.
‘I know this, Inkosi. I am Nguni.’ We shook hands a second time, this time first in the conventional manner and then by slipping the hand over the corresponding thumb to grip it in a kind of salute which is a traditional African handshake.
‘I see you, Nguni.’
‘I see you, Peekay.’ It was audacious of Nguni to call me by my name but I didn’t mind. I felt as though he had known me a long time anyway.
‘Is it about the business of the boxing in Sophiatown?’
‘It is so,’ Nguni confirmed softly.
‘Can we speak in English so my friend can share this talk?’
Nguni laughed, showing a brilliant smile. ‘My English she is not so good,’ he said in English.
Nguni’s English turned out to be very good and Hymie seemed relieved that he could share in the conversation.
‘It’s about the Sophiatown business,’ I said to him.
‘Ask him, no wait on, I’ll ask him myself …’
‘Hymie, this is Mr Nguni,’ I turned to Nguni. ‘This is my best friend, Hymie Levy.’
‘How do you do,’ Nguni said to Hymie, instinctively not extending his hand but bowing his head slightly instead.
‘Howzit!’ Hymie said, not yet used to the idea of meeting a black man on equal terms. ‘Why did you ask Mr Goldman if you could arrange a fight with Peekay?’
Nguni looked surprised. ‘It is always so in boxing, to ask the trainer?’
‘I’m the manager, it is me you have to ask.’
Nguni threw back his head and laughed. ‘We knew this thing, but also if your trainer he say this thing cannot happen I do not think you will listen?’
‘What did you offer him to make him agree?’
‘It is not necessary, he has boxing business same like me.’
‘How many boxers have you got, Mr Nguni?’
‘All,’ Nguni replied simply.
‘You’re not bullshitting me, you control all township boxers?’
Nguni turned to me and said in Zulu, ‘Your friend has no respect, Inkosi.’
‘I apologise for him, Nguni. He acts only like a white man from the city.’ I turned to Hymie. ‘Turn it up.’
Hymie shook his head. ‘Sorry, Mr Nguni, no hard feelings hey? This fight you want… it’s just that it doesn’t bloody well make sense.’