Bryce Courtenay - The Power of One

Bryce Courtenay was born inSouth Africa but has spent the greater part of his adult life in Australia. Hisbestselling books, many of which are published by Penguin, include The Powerof One and its sequel Tandia, April Fool's Day, Jessica, A Recipe for Dreaming,The Family Frying Pan, The Night Country, Smoky Joe's Cafe, Four Fires, andthe Australian trilogy comprising The Potato Factory, Tommo & Hawk andSolomon's Song.

For Maude Jasmine Greer andEnda Murphy. Here is the book I promised you so long ago

BRYCE COURTENAY

THE POWER OF ONE

Copyright Bryce Courtenay, 1989

Version 1.0

ONE

Thisis what happened.

Beforemy life started properly, I was doing the usual mewling and sucking, which inmy case occurred on a pair of huge, soft black breasts. In the Africantradition I continued to suckle for my first two and a half years after whichmy Zulu wet nurse became my nanny. She was a person made for laughter, warmth andsoftness and she would clasp me to her breasts and stroke my golden curls witha hand so large it seemed to contain my whole head. My hurts were soothed witha song about a brave young warrior hunting a lion and a women's song aboutdoing the washing down on the big rock beside the river where, at sunset, thebaboons would come out of the hills to drink.

Mylife proper started at the age of five when my mother had her nervousbreakdown. I was torn from my lovely black nanny with her big white smile and sentto boarding school.

Thenbegan a time of yellow wedges of pumpkin, burnt black and bitter at the edges;mashed potato with glassy lumps; meat aproned with gristle in grey gravy; dicedcarrots; warm, wet, flatulent cabbage; beds that wet themselves in the morning;and an entirely new sensation called loneliness.

Iwas the youngest child in the school by two years, and I spoke only English,the infected tongue that had spread like a plague into the sacred land andcontaminated the pure, sweet waters of Afrikanerdom.

TheBoer War had created a great malevolence for the English, for the Rooineks. Itwas a hate that had entered their bloodstream and pocked the hearts and mindsof the next generation. To their barefoot sons, I was the first live example ofthe congenital hate they carried for my kind.

Ispoke the language which had pronounced the sentences that had killed theirgrandfathers and sent their grandmothers to the world's first concentrationcamps, where they died like flies from dysentery, malaria and black waterfever. To the bitter Calvinist farmers, the sins of the fathers had beenvisited upon the sons, unto the third generation. I was infected.

Ihad had no previous warning that I was wicked and it came as a fearfulsurprise. I was blubbing to myself in the little kids' dormitory when suddenlyI was dragged from under my horrid camphor-smelling blanket by twoeleven-year-olds and taken to the seniors' dormitory, to stand trial before thecouncil of war.

Mytrial, of course, was a travesty of justice. But then what could I expect? Ihad been caught deep behind enemy lines and everyone, even a five-year-old,knows this means the death sentence. I stood gibbering, unable to understandthe language of the stentorian twelve-year-old judge, or the reason for thehilarity when sentence was passed. But I guessed the worst.

Iwasn't quite sure what death was. I knew it was something that happened on thefarm in the slaughter house to pigs and goats and an occasional heifer. Thesqueal from the pigs was so awful that I knew it wasn't much of an experience,even for pigs.

AndI knew something else for sure; death wasn't as good as life. Now death wasabout to happen to me before I could really get the hang of life. Trying hardto hold back my tears, I was dragged off.

Itmust have been a full moon that night because the shower room was bathed inblue light. The stark granite walls of the shower recesses stood sharply angledagainst the wet cement floor. I had never been in a shower room before and thisplace resembled the slaughter house on the farm. It even smelt the same, ofurine and blue carbolic soap, so I guessed this was where my death would takeplace.

Myeyes were a bit swollen from crying but I could see where the meat hooks weresupposed to hang. Each granite slab had a pipe protruding from the wall behindit with a knob on the end. They would suspend me from one of these and I wouldbe dead, just like the pigs.

Iwas told to remove my pyjamas and to kneel inside the shower recess facing thewall. I looked directly down into the hole in the floor where all the bloodwould drain away.

Iclosed my eyes and said a silent, sobbing prayer. My prayer wasn't to God, butto my nanny. It seemed the more urgent thing to do. When she couldn't solve aproblem for me she'd say, 'We must ask Inkosi-Inkosikazi, the great medicineman, he will know what to do.' Although we never actually called on theservices of the great man it didn't seem to matter, it was comforting to knowhe was available when needed.

Butit was too late to get a message through to Nanny, much less have her pass iton. I felt a sudden splash on my neck and then warm blood trickled over mytrembling, naked body across the cold cement floor and into the drain. Funny, Ididn't feel dead. But there you go. Who knows what dead feels like?

Whenthe Judge and his council of war had all pissed on me, they left. After a whileit got very quiet, just a drip, drip, drip from someplace overhead and a snifffrom me that sounded as though it came from somewhere else.

As Ihad never seen a shower I didn't know how to turn one on and so had no way ofwashing myself. I had always been bathed by my nanny in a tin tub in front ofthe kitchen stove. I'd stand up and she'd soap me all over and Dee and Dum, thetwo kitchen maids who were twins, would giggle behind their hands when shesoaped my little acorn. Sometimes it would just stand right up on its own andeveryone would have an extra good giggle. That's how I knew it was special,just how special I was soon to find out.

Itried to dry myself with my pyjamas, which were wet in patches from lying onthe floor, and then I put them back on. I didn't bother to do up the buttonsbecause my hands were shaking a lot. I wandered around that big dark placeuntil I found the small kids' dormitory. There I crept under my blanket andcame to the end of my first day in life.

I amunable to report that the second day of my life was much better than the first.Things started to go wrong from the moment I awoke. Kids surrounded my bedholding their noses and making loud groaning sounds. Let me tell you something,there was plenty to groan about. I smelt worse than a kaffir toilet, worse thanthe pigs at home. Worse even than both put together.

Thekids scattered as a very large person with a smudge of dark hair above her lipentered. It was the same lady who had left me in the dormitory the previousevening. 'Good morning, Mevrou!' the kids chorused, each standing stiffly toattention at the foot of his bed.

Thelarge person called Mevrou glared at me. 'Kom,' she said in a fiercevoice. Grabbing me by the ear she twisted me out of the stinking bed and led meback to the slaughter house. With her free hand she removed my unbuttonedpyjama jacket and pulled my pants down to my ankles. 'Step,' she barked.

Ithought desperately, she's even bigger than Nanny. If she pisses on me I willsurely drown. I stepped out of my pyjama pants, and releasing my ear she pushedme into the shower recess. There was a sudden hissing sound and needles of icywater drilled into me.

Ifyou've never had a shower or even an unexpected icy-cold drenching, it's nottoo hard to believe that maybe this is death. I had my eyes tightly shut butthe hail of water was remorseless, a thousand pricks at a time drilling into myskin. How could so much piss possibly come out of one person?