Gideon’s words had been so easily put that I had no trouble making an almost perfect translation and his flow was hardly interrupted. The tears rolled down his cheeks and he made no effort to wipe them away. I realised suddenly that for a Zulu to cry is a great shame, but he couldn’t wipe away his tears with the cup and saucer balanced on his knee. I leaned forward and removed the cup and looked over at Hymie, not daring to look at Singe ’n Burn. I could see Hymie was annoyed that I’d removed Gideon’s cup, the tears were the best part, the clincher. Othello had nothing on Hymie’s cheeky black bastard.
‘The tears are not for myself, they are for the people, Inkosi,’ Gideon said softly, wiping them away with the back of his hand. I sneaked a look at Singe ’n Burn and saw his eyes had grown misty and he too was struggling with his emotions.
‘Remarkable, quite remarkable.’ Then turning to Hymie and me, he said: ‘This young man shall have his school and I charge you both to give of your best.’
We’d won! Singe ’n Burn, the senior house master from Winchester School and trustee of the great private school tradition to the colonies, Renaissance man and liberal thinker, had been made to touch the heart and feel the soul of black Africa.
Hymie was the first to react. ‘Can the school supply exercise books and stationery, sir?’ Singe ’n Burn nodded.
‘See Miss Perkins for a stationery authority, Levy. Your students must be properly equipped.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said then turned to Gideon to tell him the news. Gideon broke into a giant smile.
‘Many boy, same like me, we thank you, Inkosi.’ Singe ’n Burn acknowledged Gideon with a nod of his head. It was plain he was enchanted with the young Zulu chief.
The school began with the black boxers from Solly’s gym its only pupils. Within a month, local chauffeurs, cooks and houseboys had swelled the ranks and Pissy Johnson, Cunning-Spider and Atherton, as well as two guys from School House who could speak Sotho, were roped in to teach on Saturday nights.
Even before the head’s agreement we had despatched a long letter to Miss Bornstein asking her how we should best go about teaching language and numbers to adult Africans; she had responded with a superb set of teaching notes and several textbooks which enabled Hymie and me to prepare a complete curriculum which I was able to translate into Sotho, Zulu, Shangaan as well as Fanagalo.
With Singe ’n Burn’s approval we also set about teaching the curriculum to the newly elected Sinjun’s People so that the night school could be carried on after Hymie and I matriculated at the end of the year.
After only a few weeks the results were astonishing. Students, loaded down with homework after Saturday night’s four-hour teaching session, would return with everything done, anxious for more. Word of the school spread among the Prince of Wales School boys and soon collections of nursery rhymes, primers and all sorts of textbooks were brought in and we had more volunteers than we could cope with. Then Hymie, loath to waste any free resource, hit on a one-to-one teaching method where every black student had a personal white tutor. All our black students would be taught collectively in the school hall for the first hour after which they would break away into a corner of a classroom with their personal tutors. Every tutor worked to a set of notes supplied by us and was required to stick to Miss Bornstein’s outlines.
Progress was much faster than it would have been for any white students in a conventional classroom situation. Hymie, not content with our first curriculum, worked and worked on the notes, ironing out the errors and getting them perfect.
Some four months later we were visited by a reporter and photographer from the Rand Daily Mail and in the following Wednesday morning edition we had a full page write-up, which also contained a picture of Hymie, Gideon and me.
The article, very exaggerated, told a cocked-up version of the fight I had with Gideon and how Hymie and I had opened a school for boxers which continued to grow, giving the impression we had become a major black education resource. It was full of inaccuracies but nevertheless it caused some real excitement in the school. Singe ’n Burn called Hymie and me into his study and admonished us for not checking with him before speaking to a reporter. He suggested it was altogether a rather silly thing to have done in the light of the political situation, where black schools were forbidden in white urban areas.
Coming out of the head’s office, Hymie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Any publicity is good publicity, I guess.’
‘I hope you’re right, I reckon we goofed.’
‘Yeah, so do I,’ he said softly.
The following Saturday night the police raided us. The doors of the hall were suddenly blocked by khaki-uniformed police both white and African. A police lieutenant wearing a Sam Browne belt and a holstered revolver jumped up onto the stage and blew his whistle loudly.
‘This is a police raid, everybody remain seated and nobody will get hurt, you hear!’ He stood on the stage, his legs apart, with his hand on his revolver holster as though daring one of us to move. ‘Who is in charge here?’
‘Ons is,’ I said in Afrikaans, indicating Hymie and myself.
The police officer continued in English. ‘Why is there no adult in charge?’
‘The class is run by the boys,’ I said.
‘You mean white kids teach these blêrrie Kaffirs?’
‘That’s right.’ I was beginning to gain courage after my initial surprise.
‘Ag sis, man, are you telling me you teaching blêrrie stinking Kaffirs their ABC’s? Don’t you have anything better to do with your time on a Saturday night?’
‘Have you got a search warrant?’ Hymie asked.
‘Who’re you, man?’ the policeman asked.
‘You answer my question first,’ Hymie said in an even voice.
‘Hey, you being cheeky?’
‘He merely asked if you have a search warrant, officer,’ I said. The policeman suddenly realised that we were not intimidated. In fact he was wrong, we were both scared to death.
‘And what if I heven’t?’ he challenged.
‘Then you’re trespassing and I must ask you to leave at once,’ I said.
‘You’re only a blêrrie kid, who you think you talking to, hey?’
‘If you haven’t got a warrant to enter this school then piss off!’ Hymie spat at the officer.
To my surprise the police officer suddenly grinned. Then stroking his nose with his forefinger and thumb he said, ‘You’re the Jewboy, hey.’ He turned towards me. ‘And you the boxer who fights Kaffirs.’ He pointed at the Africans seated silently in front of us. ‘Let me see the Kaffir you fought, man.’
Without being asked to do so Gideon rose from his chair. ‘Come here, Joe Louis, come and stand next to the Jewboy and the Kaffirboetie.’
The officer called a black policeman over from the doorway, and as he waited for him to come onto the stage, he undid the shiny brass button holding the flap of his khaki tunic pocket and withdrew a piece of paper which he extended in our direction. ‘Here, Jewboy, read it for yourself.’ Hymie moved over and accepted the paper which was obviously a warrant to enter and search the premises. The lieutenant turned to the black policeman at his side. ‘Tell the black bastards that they must all show their pass books and a pass from their employer to stay out after nine o’clock curfew.’