‘Are you telling us to close down the night school, Captain?’
‘Headmaster, the law in this matter is not clear yet, but teaching black people in a white school will not be allowed in the new Group Areas Act. You can see my position, Headmaster. I must tell you also my duty in this matter is very clear. Next time we will not make a mistake with the search warrant. And when we come we will find something.’ He paused and looked again at us. ‘We always find something.’
He rose and extended his hand to Singe ’n Burn. The headmaster did not take it, instead he gripped the side of his desk and leaned forward slightly. ‘We will not be intimidated by the police, Captain Swanepoel. We have not broken the law and as far as I know this is still a free and democratic country.’
Captain Swanepoel shrugged and stooped down to retrieve his cap from the floor by his chair. ‘I am sorry you will not co-operate with the police, sir.’ He adjusted his cap, then turned back to face the headmaster, touching the peak lightly in a casual salute. ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Without a look at Hymie or me he turned and left, closing the door quietly behind him.
‘Shit, what now?’ Hymie said under this breath.
‘What was that, Levy?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
The light from the window backlit Singe ’n Burn’s snowy hair and he looked frail as he continued to grip the desk, swaying slightly as though the motion kept him from disintegrating into a million tiny bits which would silently float away on the dusty beam of sunlight.
‘Bravo, sir,’ Hymie said.
He shook his head slowly, ‘We are beaten.’
‘But you just said …?’
‘Sheer bravado, my boy. We will have your school on Saturday and Captain Swanepoel will officially raid the Prince of Wales School, after which the board of governors will meet and their conclusion is foregone.’ He looked up. ‘Nevertheless, we will open next Saturday evening, a Pyrrhic victory to be sure, but there is an important principle at stake.’
We left the head’s office on a thorough downer. ‘Fuck the Pyrrhic victory, the principle and the principal as well!’ Hymie exploded, once we were out of earshot.
‘We’ll have to let Gideon and the other boxers know. It’s only fair that they decide for themselves whether they’ll come.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Hymie said morosely. ‘What about the others?’
‘Forget it, they won’t come. Last Saturday was enough, there’s no principle involved for them, just another opportunity taken away, another door closed. They spend their lives being screwed by the system. Would you turn up if you knew you were almost certain to be arrested, thrown in jail, lose your job and be branded as a communist?’
‘I’m beginning to realise how lucky I am to have a white skin.’ Hymie was taking it worse than I was. I had been around this kind of intimidation all my life and I knew Captain Swanepoel could have been a lot more difficult had he chosen to be.
‘What are we going to do, Peekay?’
I laughed, ‘You really are a city slicker aren’t you, you still think the police are there to protect you from the big bad wolf? After Saturday night this whole scenario was predictable. The Nationalists don’t see it as a kindergarten for adult blacks, to them we are starting a black revolution in the heartland of white privilege.’
‘You can’t be serious. Our dumb school for boxers and house boys?’
‘From little acorns mighty oak trees grow. The Nats are not stupid. You should know; the Jews made that mistake before with the Nazis, they thought of them as a bunch of thugs whom they could buy off. Have you seen the educational qualifications the Nationalist government has for its cabinet? It’s probably the best educated cabinet in the world. Racism does not diminish with brains, it’s a disease, a sickness, it may incubate in ignorance but it doesn’t necessarily disappear with the gaining of wisdom!’
‘Are you telling me you knew all along this was going to happen?’
‘No, of course not. I thought we had a chance, you were right to be somewhat cynical at the beginning, but it was worth a try.’
‘But just now in the head’s office… you seemed so disappointed?’
‘Christ, Hymie, I’m not saying I wanted it to happen! I was angry and bitterly disappointed. Disappointed that I was right.’
‘You’re a complicated bastard, Peekay. I’m supposed to be the realist in this partnership. What do we do now?’
‘Well Saturday’s out for a start, no point in putting the boxers at jeopardy, not for a Pyrrhic victory anyway.’
‘Well, at least we can teach them after boxing.’
‘No way. That Swanepoel bastard will be watching us like a hawk.’
‘I feel so bloody helpless.’ Hymie looked at me and shrugged, ‘You know, before our visit to Sophiatown I couldn’t have given a damn. Yeah, sure, I’d probably have gone along with you on the school, like you’ve gone along with me on some of our scams. But after the fight, seeing those people, it’s different somehow. I begin to have a concept of the people, of what it means to be oppressed, of what it must have meant to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.’ It was the first time I’d seen Hymie confused. He’d come up against something that couldn’t be resolved with money or influence. ‘It was such a small thing they wanted and we failed. I mean, those poor blighters wanted so badly to learn, just to read and write and do a few sums. It was the least we could do.’ Hymie was almost crying from rage.
‘So, that’s what we’re going to continue to do. I didn’t spend four years with Geel Piet without learning how to beat the system.’
‘What do you mean, Peekay?’
‘Correspondence school. Miss Bornstein’s Correspondence School!’
‘Peekay! You’re a genius! We’ve already got the whole course in three African languages, as well as Fanagalo. It’s in the bag, old chap, we’ll guinea-pig the whole thing. We’ll make it free for the class who have just been expelled, then with Mr Nguni’s help and for a small sum, yet to be determined, we’ll sell a correspondence course for blacks throughout South Africa. We’ll even send one to Captain Swanepoel and tell him to jam it up his arse so that every time he farts he sounds intelligent!’
Miss Bornstein’s Correspondence School would one day become the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere, with Miss Bornstein as actual principal. Mr Nguni simply let it be known that the course came from the Tadpole Angel who wanted the people to take pride in learning to read and write and do sums. It would turn out to be one of the more important elements in his financial and political empire in the years to come.
TWENTY-THREE
Nineteen fifty-one was the year I won the South African Schools featherweight title, and the Prince of Wales School won the schools championship for the third year running. Darby and Sarge were heroes and both had become welcome members of the masters’ common room. Success of any sort seems to break down social barriers. We all sat for our matriculation, although a first-class pass for Sinjun’s People was a foregone conclusion. Atherton was selected for the South African schoolboy rugby team to tour Argentina and Cunning-Spider had made in into the Transvaal Schools cricket team. Pissy Johnson, with a lot of coaching from Hymie and me, felt confident that he’d get the marks in his matric to study medicine. He had become an expert at fixing cuts in the ring and from this small beginning his ambition to be a doctor had blossomed.
I had, by all accounts, a brilliant school career, getting my colours in rugby and three times for boxing as well as being head prefect and a company commander in the school cadet corps. While my music hadn’t really progressed, I was still by school standards considered amongst the more superior musicians.