He would look up at Granpa Chook and say menacingly, ‘Your time will come, Prisoner of War Kaffir Chicken Rooinek, don’t think we’ve forgotten about you, you hear?’
I was constantly fearful for Granpa Chook but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Like me, he was a prisoner of war. Together we just had to hope for the best and try to muddle through. Besides, Granpa Chook had it easy up there in the jacaranda tree while I was the one who suffered at ground level.
The Nazi Party sessions were held twice a week. Although they would leave me trembling for hours afterwards, the physical damage wasn’t too bad. I only got hit if I dropped the iron bar too soon and in one or two other conditions, like when the Judge got very excited or I failed to answer one of his ranting questions fast enough for his liking.
‘What is your mother, Pisskop?’
‘A whore, sir!’ I had no idea what a whore was, but I knew it was the answer he wanted.
‘Who does she sleep with?’
‘Kaffirs, sir.’
‘Ag sis man! Dirty, stinking Kaffirs!’ the rest of the Nazis would chorus, groaning and sticking their tongues out and clasping their hands to their throats pretending to vomit.
Even the smallest farm kid knows about animal sex, though it never occurred to me that humans performed the same function. I would wonder why this particular answer was so insulting. After all, Nanny had slept with me on her sleeping mat at the foot of my bed all my life and to the Nazis she was a Kaffir.
‘What are you, Pisskop?’
‘A piece of shit!’ I would respond.
‘Not shit! Dog shit!’ they would all chorus back.
You can get used to anything, I discovered. They expected me to make the mistake so that they could all pantomime back. Halfway through the interrogation I would be blindfolded. Then, often in the middle of an interrogation, someone would throw a bucket of water over me. Knowing it might come but not knowing when meant that I would get an awful shock. The imagination is always the best torturer.
Or they would release half a dozen red ants down my trousers and watch me frantically trying to find them as the ants bit painfully into my scrotum and the soft inner parts of my legs. If I tore my blindfold away it would mean a double clout from every member of the Party. I soon learnt that a red ant tends to bite only once if you leave it alone. But, let me tell you something, that one bite isn’t a very nice experience.
If some new trick, like the red ants, worked, they would congratulate each other loudly and yell with laughter as my legs pumped up and down and my hands searched frantically in my khaki shorts to rid myself of the marauding ants.
The Judge encouraged new insults and tortures, but he ruled out any torture that left obvious bruises. For instance, Chinese burns were allowed but pinching was out. As the last term wore on, their limited minds ran out of ideas and as I knew all the answers to all the dumb questions and had admitted to everything they accused me of while happily accepting all their insults, the proceedings quietened down a lot. I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.
One thing got to all of them more than anything else. They couldn’t make me cry. Even the Judge, with all the fear he could provoke, could not make me cry. I suspect they even began to admire me a bit. Many of them had little brothers of my age at home and they knew how easy it is for a five-year-old to cry. In fact I had turned six but nobody had told me, so in my head I was still five.
Not being able to cry was the hardest part for me as well. Crying can be a good camouflage. In truth, my willpower had very little to do with my resolve never to cry; I had learned a special trick and, in the process, had somehow lost the knack of turning on the tap.
What they didn’t know was that behind the blindfold I had learned to be in two places at once. I could easily answer their stupid questions, while with another part of my mind I would visit Inkosi-Inkosikazi. Down there in the night country I was safe from the stormtroopers who were unable to harm me or make me cry.
As they tied the dirty piece of rag over my eyes, I would take three deep breaths. Immediately I would hear Inkosi-Inkosikazi’s voice, soft as distant thunder: ‘You are standing on the rock above the highest waterfall, a young warrior who has killed his first lion and is thus worthy to fight in the impi of Shaka, the greatest warrior king of all.’
I stood in the moonlight on the rock above the three waterfalls. Far below I could see the ten stones wet and glistening and the white water as it crashed through the narrow gorge beyond. I knew then that the person on the outside was only a shell, a presence to be seen and provoked. Inside was the real me, where my tears joined the tears of all the sad people to form the three waterfalls in the night country.
The last term of the year had come to an end, only one more day remained, just one more interrogation, then freedom.
The Judge had pleased Mr Stoffel with his efforts in the final term and his poor performance earlier in the year had been forgotten. He was top of his class by the time term ended. Mr Stoffel would hold him up as an example and I think he also liked to take a bit of the credit. The Judge had been considered a hopeless case and now he was the star performer. The Judge showed me his report card which said, in black and white, that he had passed. He had come to accept his brilliance and expected the compliments of his fellow Party members. Not only was he tough but he was also smart, it was a most satisfactory situation.
Therefore I had no reason to expect anything but a light going over at the last interrogation and torture session before the Judge would disappear from my life forever. After all he owed me something, and as Adolf Hitler, despite his smashing victory at a place called Dunkirk, hadn’t arrived yet he hadn’t been compromised one bit.
Prisoners of War Pisskop and Kaffir Chicken Rooinek were marched off to the jacaranda tree for the last time under the Nazi leadership of the Judge. This time I was blindfolded immediately as I was tied to the tree in the usual manner. I could hear Granpa Chook squawking away in the branches above me. I was about to visit the night country when the Judge’s voice rang out harshly.
‘This is the last time, English bastard!’
With a sudden certainty I knew today would be different. That, in his mind, the Judge owed me nothing. The bad times were back. I tried to get down to the safety of the night country, but the fear rose in me like a Vesuvius spewing vomit and I was unable to detach myself from it.
‘Today, Englishman, you eat shit.’ His use of the word ‘Englishman’ rather than the familiar, almost friendly Rooinek added greatly to his menace.
‘Hold your hands out in front of you.’ I could hear him sniff as I held my hands out in front of me, palms upwards. He grabbed my arms about the wrists and held them so tightly I couldn’t move them. ‘Bring it here, Stormtrooper Van der Merwe,’ I heard him say.
A soft object was dropped first into one hand and then into the other. ‘Close your hands, bastard,’ the Judge commanded.
The pain in my wrists was almost unbearable. Slowly I closed my hands. ‘Take his blindfold off,’ the Judge commanded again. The rest of the Nazis had grown very quiet and one of them unknotted the blindfold. I blinked at the sudden light. My nose as well as my eyes had been covered by the blindfold and even before I’d looked down a terrible smell rose up at me. My hands were sticky and I opened them to see that they contained two squashed human turds.
The Judge released my wrists. ‘Now, lick your fingers,’ he demanded.
I stood with my hands held out in front of me, not knowing what to do.
‘I am going to count to three, if you haven’t licked your fingers I’m going to knock your blêrrie head off, you shit house!’ The Judge stood pop-eyed in front of me and I could see he was trembling.