The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay Page B

another one and for lunch the last one. Then you can eat on the train. Do you understand now?”
    â€œJa, Mevrou, for the next three meals I eat the sandwiches.”
    â€œNo, man! That’s not what I said. For tonight and for breakfast tomorrow and lunch tomorrow. And also; eat the meat first because the jam will keep the bread soft for tomorrow. Do you hear?”
    â€œJa, Mevrou.”
    She took out a small square of white cloth about the size of a lady’s hankie and placed it on her lap. In the center she placed a shilling.
    â€œWatch carefully now, Pisskop. I am putting this shilling in here and tying it so.” She brought the two opposite corners together and tied them over the shilling and then did the same with the remaining two. She took a second large safety pin from her handbag. Then, pushing the doek with the shilling into the pocket of my khaki shorts, she pinned it to the lining.
    â€œNow listen good. 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, it is his change.”
    The stationmaster entered and told us that the train was on time and we had five minutes.
    â€œQuick, man, get your tackies,” Mevrou said, giving me a push toward the suitcase.
    I was seized by a sudden panic. What if I opened my suitcase and she saw my suckers? I placed the case flat 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 in my shorts, and my heart went thump. Phew!
    I removed the tackies and quickly snapped the case shut. I slipped each foot carefully into a paper boat and Mevrou tied the laces. I tried desperately to memorize how she did this but wasn’t sure I had the idea.
    â€œPlease, Mevrou, will you teach me how to tie the 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 difficult and very different from the three or four tentative steps I had taken in Harry Crown’s shop. I stumbled several times as I went phlijft-floft, phlijft-floft from the waiting room to the edge of the platform. Bits of newspaper crept up past my ankles and I had to stop and press them back in.
    With a deafening choof of steam, immediately followed by two short, sharp hisses and a screeching sound of metal rubbing on metal, 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 . I had seen pictures of trains, of course, and sometimes at night as I lay in the small kids’ dormitory I had heard a train whistle carried in the wind, the beautiful sound of going to faraway places, away from the hostel, Mevrou, the Judge, and his Nazi storm troopers. But I must say I wasn’t prepared for anything quite as big and black and blustering with steam, smoke, fire, brass pipes, and hissing pistons.
    Africans appeared as if from nowhere. They carried bundles on their heads that they handed up through the third class carriage windows to the passengers inside and then they climbed aboard, laughing with the excitement of it all. From inside the carriages came song and more laughter and a great deal of shouting and good-natured banter. I knew at once that I would like trains.
    The guard