ja. perfect. you will excuse me, please.
this i do not normally without permission do, ja? but to catch the expression. after all, it is the expression that is important. ja? without the expression the human being is just a lump of meat. you have some problems, i think. i am professor karl von vollensteen.
such a young person with such an
the brain, p.k., has two functions. it is the best reference library ever, which is a good thing to have. ja? but also from it comes original thought. in school you will get all filled up with the facts. here your brain will learn where to look, how to look, how to think. and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been.
if god would choose a plant to represent him, i think he would choose of all plants the cactus. this one plant has all the blessings he tried but failed to give man. it is true. look. the cactus is humble but not submissive. it grows where no other plant will grow. the sun bakes its back, the wind rips it from cliffs, or drowns it in the dry desert sand. not a complaint. in good times or bad it will still flower. it protects itself from danger.
but it harms no other plant. it
everything fits, p.k. nothing is unexplained. nature is one big chain reaction. everything depends on everything else. from the smallest to the biggest. always in life an idea starts small like a tree.
this tree can grow so high it can touch the face of the sky. but this little vine can choke it and keep it small. most people are like these vines. afraid of new ideas. afraid to let things grow.
always listen to yourself. follow your own idea. if you are wrong, so what? you learn something. and with learning you grow stronger. and if you are right at the beginning? an even bigger bonus.
grammar: satisfactory. science: satisfactory. mathetmatics: satisfactory. he looks down at pk.
p.k., if there is one thing i know you to be that is a lot more than just satisfactory. ja?
why not?
my boy, to be smart is not a sin. but to be smart and not use it, that is sin number one. and as for getting beat up on, use your brain to figure out how not to be. he hands pk the report card, his displeasure obvious. as they crest the hill the cottage comes into view along with a parked army car and two armed soldiers leaning against it. seeing doc and pk, the soldiers smarten up, raising their rifles and advancing.
again it begins. the stupidity. do not be frightened.
how is the next joe louis this morning?
you are amazing.
yes, yes, yes. but right now you have to come learn the beethoven fifth for one hour so we can get to the cactus before it's too hot to plant. did you bring her?
excellent. excellent. we make from you a champion and a brain.
of course.
a little i use in some water to make a bug spray for the plants.
what geel piet means is it can be dangerous. something the guards might not want the people to have.
what's wrong is people whose job it is to punish. after a little while it is all they know how to do.
this is for you to answer.
schweinhund.
pk, to me you are the champion of the world already. come. let us go box now with mr. beethoven.
the allied armies have crossed the rhine into germany. it is almost over.
you are a good faker, geel piet. but you don't think it's great at all. it means you lose your star letter writer and tobacco importer.
geel piet, when a painter finishes a work of art he doesn't lose it. he sends it out in the world so everyone can see the genius of his creation. this is what you are going to do. and to celebrate the launch of such a work of art as you have made our boxer here, i have composed an entire concerto -- 'the concerto for the southland' -- which it is my intention to play in concert for the prisoners before i leave.
he'll think it's a concert for him and the brass. but we'll know, ay? and the people will know.
if the black is part of the
they have their voices. each tribe a different voice, a different language -- all singing together. it is brilliant, no?
oh. this is correct. this stupid hatred.
he's right. wunderbar. you are the smartest of us all. geel piet smiles as he lifts the watering pot to exit. a truncheon stops him. all turn to sergeant bormann.
that little maniac with the moustache in berlin you admire. he is the strange german. and soon kaput, i hope.
no, sergeant. god willing.
have you seen my page turner?
he will come.
is there a problem here, kommandant?
ach. you see how beautiful?
mr. going-to-oxford-smarty-pants. of course i know about glycerine. triglycerine. biglycerine. monoglycerine. what do you want to know?
tongues were not made to put little pills under. when i have to start with that, i become something else.
little pills or no little pills -- we don't find cover, we both turn into something else.
look for a cave. always in this kind of rock there is caves. quick! quick! pk starts to move horizontally across the cliff face like a spider on a wall. doc follows. the rain becomes torrential.
don't look at me. go!
exploring.
plenty time for resting when i am something else. look.
when does a cave have wind? this
here. see? there is a passage.
you know the pyramids are nothing more than man's attempt to recreate the first safe home our species had -- the cave. it is the ultimate safe resting place. the first place man could lay down and have a good night's sleep without worrying about waking up as something's supper. doc stops crawling. so does pk. a dripping can be heard.
you hear that? there is something waiting for us.
better, ja?
who can think about rain when you are on the edge of the great unknown cave.
the bats didn't come from a shoebox, mr. know-it-all.
sometimes i think maybe sending you off to that fancy-shmancy school was not such a good idea.
ja. but who knew they do such a good job of boxing up part of
the one where is all the questions. the curiosity center. look.
did i tell you?
wunderbar. the whole chamber glistens with an eerie phosphorescence. toward one end of the crystallized room eight stalagmites grown up from the floor cement to form a huge crystal slab some ten feet off the floor. a buttress of stalg- mites drip off it forming a natural, if uneven, stairway.
how many hundreds of thousands of years to make this masterpiece? everything outside can change, p.k. this remains the same. we are in the heart of africa, p.k. the heart of africa.
you know, if a person stayed here for 100,000 years what would be
this is incredible! the crystal. you can feel the life go right through you. here.
come try it.
we have only just gotten here. what's the matter, p.k.?
i'm 87 next month. it's natural.
you are right. i am sorry. sixteen-year-old ears should only hear life. doc starts to whistle "the marriage of figaro" by mozart. the resonance of the whistling off the crystal sounds beautiful, exotic. doc beckons pk to join in with him. pk does so, hesitantly. then pleased with the sound and the feeling, more fully.
p.k.?
the crystal cave will be our secret, ja?
promise.
ja. good. i rest a little. the heart of africa, p.k.
the heart.
so mr. schmartypants. it did not take you so long to figure out what happened. i hope you forgive me for not saying goodbye, but i did not think it would be necessary between us. what could i say you don't already know.
that i love you with all my heart? that you have given me more in our ten years of friendship than three lifetimes could fill? that the last thoughts i have before becoming something else will be of music, cactus, and you? you know all this.
last night this music came into my head. it is my music for africa. my music for you. so go. be welterweight champion of the world. be a writer. a great writer. remember -- the only thing between a dream and a reality is you. until we meet again, your friend, doc. pk looks down at doc as a piano concerto, beautiful, haunting, begins to play.