Angel speaks the languages of all the tribes, is he not the chosen leader of the people?’
When I reached the gymnasium I switched on the lights in the gym and the shower room. The lights above the boxing ring were on the wall opposite and the ring was in semi-darkness, but there was enough light for me to see into the box containing the boxing gloves and I quickly selected one of two pairs I liked to use. I went to the showers where I undressed and put on my boxing singlet, shorts, socks and boots, then I loosely tied the laces of the gloves together and slung them around my neck for Doc to lace up for me later.
I returned to find Doc still alone in the hall, the expression of concern showing clearly on his face as he absentmindedly gloved me up. ‘It is too late to wait longer, we must go now, I will tell Geel Piet I am very cross because this happens.’
The door I’d used to enter the building couldn’t be opened from the inside, so we left the hall and walked down the long passage into the main administration building which led out to the parade ground. We passed through the small hallway where I had first entered the prison four years earlier. The lights were out in what was then Lieutenant Smit’s office but which was now occupied by Lieutenant Borman. I allowed Doc to walk ahead and moved over to the service window and peered for a moment into the darkened office. In the half light I could see where Klipkop sat and next to him the larger desk which was Lieutenant Borman’s. My eyes wandered around the room and stopped when they rested on a thin strip of light showing under the door of the interrogation room which led off from the main office. The door must have been slightly ajar, because I heard the unmistakable thud of a blow and a sudden sharp groan such as men make when they receive a hard punch to the solar plexus. It was not an unusual occurrence but it seemed inappropriate on this full moon night of the playing of the Concerto of the Great Southland.
The prisoners were already seated in their marked off sections when we arrived, the warders walking up and down the corridors striking their sjamboks against the sides of their legs and looking business-like. The prisoners avoided looking at them, almost as though they were not there. Talking was not allowed, but as we passed I could see the people smiling and a low murmur swept over the seated prisoners as Doc and I stepped onto the platform.
The Kommandant arrived shortly after us and stood on the platform to address the prisoners. Lieutenant Borman was to have done the translation into Fanagalo but appeared not to have arrived. The Kommandant was clearly annoyed by this and after a few minutes during which he looked at his watch repeatedly, he started to speak in Afrikaans.
‘Listen to me, you hear,’ he said and I quickly translated into Zulu. He looked surprised. ‘Can you translate, Peekay?’ I nodded. ‘Okay, then I will speak and stop after every sentence so you can translate.’
The Kommandant was uncomfortable talking to the prisoners and he spoke too loudly and too harshly. ‘This concert is a gift to you all from the professor who is not a dirty criminal like all of you, you hear! I don’t know why an important person like him wants to make a concert for Kaffirs, not only Kaffirs, but criminals as well. But that’s what he wants so you got it because I am a man of my word. I just want you to know it won’t happen again and I don’t want any trouble, you hear, you just listen to the peeano and you sing then we march you back to your cells.’ He turned to me, snorting nervously through his nostrils. ‘That’s all. You tell them what I said now.’
I said the Kommandant welcomed them and that the professor welcomed them and thanked them for coming to his great singing indaba. He hoped that they would sing, each tribe better than the other so they would be proud. They should watch my hands, and I took my boxing gloves off to demonstrate the hand movements. When I had finished the sea of faces in front of me was smiling fit to burst and then spontaneously they started to clap. ‘You done a good job, Peekay,’ the Kommandant said, pleased at this spontaneous response to his speech.
Doc played the Concerto for the Great Southland through entirely and the prisoners listened quietly with nods of approval as they heard the melodies of their own tribal songs. At the end they all clapped furiously.
I then stood up and showed them how I would bring each tribe into their part and stop them by fading their voices out or simply ending a song or a passage with a downward stroke of the hands, a slicing gesture. I asked them to raise their hands if they understood and a sea of hands rose.
Doc played the prelude which was a musical medley of each of the melodies and then I brought in the Sotho singers. Their voices melded into the night as though they had caused the early summer air to vibrate with a deep harmony before they broke into song. It was the most beautiful male singing I had ever heard. They seemed instinctively to understand what was required of them and followed every gesture as though anticipating it. They were followed by the Ndebele who carried a more strident melody and whose voices rose deep and true, repeating the thread of the song carried by a single high-pitched male voice, chasing the single voice, sometimes even catching it to surround it and nourish it with beautiful harmony before allowing it to escape once more to carry the song forward again. The Swazis followed as beautiful as any, then the Shangaan. Each tribe sounded different, seemingly building on the tribe before, each separated by a common refrain which was hauntingly African and seemed somehow to be a mixture of all. The Zulus took the last part which rose in power and majesty as they sang the victory song of the great Shaka, using the flats of their hands to bang on the ground as the mighty Zulu impi had done with their feet, until the parade ground appeared to shake. The other tribes soon got the rhythm and they too hit the ground to add to the effect. The concerto lasted for half an hour, the last part being the by now familiar refrain which all the tribes hummed in a glorious finale. Never had a composer’s work had a stranger debut and never a greater one. Eventually the composition would be played by philharmonic and symphony orchestras around the world, accompanied by some of the world’s most famous choirs, but it would never sound better than it did under the African moon in the prison yard when three hundred and fifty black inmates lost themselves in their pride and love for their tribal lands.
Doc rose from the Steinway and turned to the mass of black faces. He was crying unashamedly and fumbling for his bandanna and many of the Africans were weeping with him. Then without warning came a roar of approval from the people that would have been impossible to stop. Doc would later tell me that it was the greatest moment of his life, but what they were saying was ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ Tadpole Angel! Tadpole Angel! chanted over and over again.
The Kommandant looked worried and some of the warders had started to slap the sjamboks against the ground. Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! Onoshobishobi Ingelosi! Doc had risen from his seat to take a bow and I jumped up onto it and started to wave my hands to indicate that the chanting must stop. Almost instantly there was silence. Doc looked up surprised, not sure what had happened. I said, ‘The great music wizard and I thank the people for singing, you are all men who tonight have brought honour to your tribes and you have brought great honour also to the great musical wizard and to me.’ I would have lacked the maturity to make such a speech in English but the African tongue is gracious and by its very nature fits such words easily. ‘You must go quietly now in the names of your wives and your children, for the Boers grow restless.’ My voice was a thin piping sound in the night.
Suddenly a shower of stars sprayed across the sky above the town and then another and another, single red and green stars that burst high, cascades that danced in the heavens. The prisoners looked up in awe, some even covering their heads against the magic. A warder came hurrying up to the Kommandant, whispered in his ear and the Kommandant turned towards Doc and then extended his hand. ‘You are free to go, Professor. The war in Europe is over. The Germans have surrendered.’ He pointed in the direction of the town. ‘See the fireworks, the blerrie Rooineks are already celebrating.’ A final cascade of stars burst against the dark sky and the black men cried out in awe; they had never seen such a happening before.
Was this not the final sign? Even the heavens spoke for the Tadpole Angel, spoke for all to see. The myth of the Tadpole Angel was complete. Now it could only grow and shape as legends are wont to do. Nothing I would ever do could change things. I had crossed the line to where only the greatest of the medicine men have ever been, perhaps even further, for not even the greatest were known by all the tribes and honoured by all of the people. I had become a myth.
Each tribe rose when they were commanded to do so and marched silently away until the parade ground was empty but for the guards who manned the walls, and the Kommandant.
‘Magtig! I have never seen such a thing in all my life, man,’ the Kommandant said, shaking his head. He turned to Doc, ‘Your music was beautiful, man, the most beautiful I have ever heard and such singing we will never hear again. Peekay, someday you will make a great Kommandant. I have never seen such command of black men. It is as though you are some kind of witchdoctor, hey?’
Quite suddenly there was a single voice in the night as though from the direction of the gymnasium, ‘Onoshobishobi Ingelosi!’ I heard it just the once and the sad voices in my head began chattering; the trouble in this place had returned.
