i came to after being unconscious for two days, the rock missing my eye by half an inch. after a week in hospital it was decided i'd be sent to my grandfather's house in the english town of barberton, at least until passions at school cooled. jaapie botha was expelled; sent home to his family's farm in disgrace.
and so the first recorded south african casualty of hitler's insanity was not a boer, nor a rooinek, but a tatter-feathered, half-bald kaffir chicken. pk finishes. the end of class bell rings. offstage, other classrooms are exiting into the common hall, but no one in st. john's study moves. st. john takes his
thank you, sir.
yes, sir.
yes sir. i will. will the scholarship be decided at the same time, sir?
very good, sir. st. john picks up a book and opens the pages. he begins to read. pk takes it as a cue for his dismissal. he goes to exit.
thank you, sir.
how we doing?
my appointement before the oxford committee came through.
for a brain like you, maybe.
but will they pay for the privilege?
morrie levy. is that the voice of sentimentality i hear coming from you?
go on.
i don't believe it.
you register?
no.
right.
first row, third from the left. find out who she is.
i don't know.
you see the way he drops his left when he throws the right?
you're the treasurer of this company. you hold it. did you find out what i asked for?
thanks for the advice. the information please.
so?
what's her name and where do i find her?
you going to take book on that?
where'd you bet?
may i come in?
i'm sorry to scare you.
i didn't know how else to meet you.
did you like it?
thank you. i'm glad i impressed you.
i'll speak zulu if it'll help me see you again.
why not?
is it hard to get?
how about your permission? do i have that?
you didn't answer my question.
the way i felt when i saw you.
i can't wait.
good night, maria marais.
i don't remember telling you my name.
my people?
i consider myself an african, sir.
unfortunately.
because it's the whole tribal idea that creates our problems here in south africa.
no, sir. but i don't think he wants being a zulu to mean he is denied the same rights as everyone else has.
but do they define justice?
and how long they stay in charge is only relative to how well they dispense that justice.  .  with all due respect.
why is that, sir?
yes, sir.
i thought a man of your intellectual reputation wouldn't want his daughter seeing someone who didn't think.
these ideas i picked up somewhere else.
actually, sir, from an expert on cactus.
i'm p.k.
that was how i met doc, as he insisted i call him. a chance meeting between a directionless seven-year-old boy and an old german professor out collecting cacti on the african bush veldt. so began my education.
doc believed the brain had two functions and that the south african public school system unfortunately dealt with only one.
doc knew everything. he had a love of learning. but his real passion was centered around two things -- music and cacti. cut to:
until he was fifty, doc had a successful career as a concert pianist all over europe. on his fiftieth birthday he gave it all up and moved to south africa. from that point on it was all cactus. cut to:
every specimen doc found would be carefully photographed and catalogued.
doc was a hard man to disagree with. so when he decided i must spend as much time with him to remedy the flaw in my educational environment i didn't argue. cut to:
appealing to my grandfather's stoic belief in the primacy of european culture in all its forms, doc offered to instruct me in piano in return for my helping him locate and gather his precious cacti.
as a student of music i was never more than adequate, something i suspect doc knew from the start. it is the love of music that is most important, he would tell me, and i would believe him.
i roamed the kloofs and ridges, the dry riverbeds and jungle floors with doc for over a year, learning more than i realize even today. i also played a lot more 'god save the king' due to my new musical celebrity.
barberton was a very proper english town with a proper square, a wide main street, and the colonials' overblown patriotism for a homeland most people had never seen, hanging in the air like fine dust. not quite seen, but there nonetheless. cut to:
the only afrikaaners to live in barberton were sent there to work at the government prison, just outside town. germany had covertly supported the boers in their two unsuccessful wars against british rule, supplying food and medical supplies as well as ample stocks of ammunition.
germany was an old friend, a trusted friend. and in a country where a handshake is a friendship and a friendship a bond for life, as the war in europe grew fiercer tensions in barberton heated up. suspicion was afoot. spies were everywhere.
but i don't want to be known as a brain.
who do you think gets beaten up on all the time in school?
and again i was alone with nothing to depend on to see me through except the power of one.
morrie.
tell your father i appreciate the offer.
why is that?
undoubtedly.
there he is.
and he's the best. c'mon. pk leads morrie across the gym. pk passes an african fighter. he stops training when he sees pk. he turns to another african fighter, glancing at pk. one by one the blacks in the gym stop training to look at pk. pk and morrie approach the rheumy old man yelling at the two fighters in the ring above him in a thick polish- jewish accent.
mr. goldman? solly turns to the boys. a look of bemusement comes over his face when he sees their blazers.
i'm the one who called you yesterday. from the prince of wales school?
right.
i'll last.
yes, sir.
thank you, sir.
in prison, sir.
yes, sir.
yes, sir. kalanchoe thrysiflora. he holds the bucket up.
yes, sir.
yes, sir.
i would like to learn, meneer. are the boys prisoners?
yes, meneer.
yes, meneer. thank you, meneer.
yes, sir.
what should i call you?
not really. going in i was behind on points with him. i'm english. i attend a politically suspect school. i'm a boxer.
all men like boxers. but not for their daughters. so i had to find some way to make an impression.
and made much less of an impression. talk to someone about their passion. even if they disagree they'll remember you. it was really the most logical strategy if you think about it.
days.
no.
sure.
i see little trees growing on the forest floor, learning to grow with the little bit of light the big trees let in. now you.
yes, sir. but when do i get to punch?
try and hit me.
no. c'mon.
no. try hard.
and i'm going to learn the geel piet eight.
parchypodium namquanium.
it keeps the roots wet.
and the rest we throw away. geel piet fidgets. he drops his head, speaking low.
i don't understand.
we have bunches of leaves at home. i'll bring a whole bucketful tomorrow.
i don't understand.
what's wrong with tobacco? why wouldn't they want them to have it?
what should i do?
geel piet. geel piet turns.
i leave my bucket on the side by doc's toilet when i practice piano.
who asked you to ask?
and you trust him?
did he tell you why he wants the match?
just talking boxing -- how do i match up with mandoma?
tell mr. nguni i'll think about it.
i don't know.
there's an african myth about an outsider who comes one day and unites all the tribes into one against their oppressors. they call it the myth of onoshobishobi ingelosi -- the tadpole angel. that chanting at the school championships?
i haven't heard it in years.
i told you about bringing tobacco to the prisoners at barberton? well after that was going for a while i learned that even though they could send and receive letters, they never did. they couldn't read or write.
right.
a clothing program for their families and a food program. one thing sort of led to another.
he was very good at pointing things out.
he's not in prison anymore. he's dead.
well, you succeeded.
you got a pass to come out on a weeknight?
morrie's the brains of the operation.
i see you, nguni.
yes. why do you make it?
what did she read?
but it's not true that i'm a chief.
and if i lose? if the spirit of the onoshobishobi ingelosi does not exist in me anymore, then what will they live with?
an old family servant, officer. from home. we just ran into each other.
gym, sir. i train there.
i'll do it.
solly's a great teacher. he wouldn't put me in a fight i couldn't handle.
because you don't understand them.
if you did you wouldn't be so scared. you ever have a conversation with a black person?
besides a servant.
you should sometime.
sorry.
yes i am.
yes, sir.
lord byron was a boxer, sir. and i've never heard anyone question his intellectual integrity.
actually, sir, there are several recorded instances of lord byron engaging in matches for quite large sums of money.
yes, sir.
the concerto for the southland and the death of geel piet. his name was geel piet -- yellow peter. he was a mix of half the blood in africa -- dutch, portuguese, zulu, sotha, and who knew what else. his father
when i met him he had spent forty of his fifty-five years in one south african prison or another. he was a thief, a con man, a black marketeer.
he may even have killed a man or two in his time. but despite all that he was one of the kindest, wisest, most self-effacing persons i ever knew. he was my teacher; he was my friend. fade to:
geel piet bore no animosity, held no hate. should a guard beat him he regarded it as self-inflicted,
you know every time they do that i want to jump up and say i'm just a twelve-year-old. i'm not anything else.
but you know that's not true.
that's great, isn't it? he turns to geel piet.
i'll come back.
he'll never let black be with white here, doc.
except the tribes don't trust each other. they don't even talk to each other.
as the weeks went by and the date for the concert grew closer, my life was a whirlwind. pk and geel piet appear before various tribal leaders, talking, agreeing, shaking hands.
having obtained the cooperation of all the tribal groups, we set about instructing them. four men from each tribe were taught the
at night the prison hummed with the men in their cells practicing.
our boxing squad, the barberton blues, won the state championship with a perfect record. i won at 100 lbs. it was my first championship. it made me want
finally the night of the concert arrived. the prison atmosphere, normally tense, was keening. each prisoner entering the yard is searched. it was prison policy to keep tribal rivalries boiling. divide and conquer. the policy of control.
this was to be the first time in the history of the south african prison system that the tribes were allowed to mingle. and if trouble came, it would be the last.
no.
have you seen geel piet?
i'll translate.
yes, sir.
the kommandant welcomes you and looks forward to the great singing.
he hopes each tribe will sing its best and bring honor to its people.
he says tonight let us be one people under the african sky.
thank you, sir.
no!
geel piet died of massive internal hemorrhage, the result of bormann's ramming a truncheon up into the little man's body until his entrails spilled out. when i reached him he was already dead. i sat there crying, stroking his head and crying with african
yes, sir.
yes, sir.
yes, sir. sergeant bormann died of cancer.  of the rectum.
we have to make a stop first.
it'll only take a minute. solly puts the car in gear and drives off.
i see you, gideon mandoma.
i just want you to know you fight a man. onoshobishobi ingelosi is just a name i was given at barberton prison. it means nothing.
what do you see?
god, he hits like a truck.
if he catches me again like that i'll run out of gas -- permanently.
could've fooled me.
six.
in a fight behind on points.
maria marais with a rooinek at the senior dance? what will people think?
and what is that?
i would be honored to be your escort.
i'll give you a boost. pk stirrups his hands. maria boosts up to the first branch of the tree. she crests the wall.
thanks, mr. g.
best time for running too, sir.
i tripped.
you speak english?
you are a great fighter, gideon.
but you didn't come to talk about fighting.
what are you asking from me?
i am only seventeen years old, gideon. i cannot teach five million people how to speak english and do sums.
second greatest in this room, gideon.
i'm only asking you to put what you've taught us into practice, sir.
the reputation of this school, sir, is based on its integrity.
then we'd better be careful to keep a firm hand on our pens.  .  sir.
you okay?
then you'd say i was being condescending.
uh.  no.
maria.  i can't come to the dance.
i have an obligation.
it's a permanent obligation. every saturday night.  it starts tonight.
no.
i really can't say. maria starts to cry. she throws her arm around him.
i'm not going away.
i'm not. i'm just tutoring.
i started a school.  .  for gideon mandoma and some others in the seniors library.
you're not losing anything.
maria, this is important to me.
you ever hear of glycerine, doc?
why you don't use it. it's only a little pill under the tongue.
well, until you become something else, the little pills would make this easier on your heart.
i've found something. the rain is so heavy pk can barely make out doc behind him. when he can, he sees the old man pause, breathing hard. pk makes his way back to doc. halfway there, doc waves him forward and starts to move. pk reaches the small opening and slips in.
you okay?
what are you doing?
why don't you just rest?
let's hope it's not hungry.
what's that smell?
what's that? doc recognizes the sound. he pounces on pk, knocking him to the floor and covering him with his body. not a moment too soon. for a thousand bats fill the tunnel flying through.
maybe it's stopped raining.
you don't know that.
it was your idea. your'e the one who pushed for me to go.
which part is that?
incredible.
i wish we had brought the camera. think there's enough light to shoot?
doc?
doc?
this is not funny.
no. that's all right. can we go?
all day long you've been talking about becoming something else, about dying. you never talked about dying before.
not to a sixteen-year-old it's not. it's painful.
i'll just set you up with some coffee here, so in the morning you won't have to bother making it.
i didn't mean to tell you what
 becoming.  .  something else. i know it's natural law and it's the way it is with everybody.  i just wish it weren't with you.
doc?
i'm here, doc.
whatever you say.
i promise.
that all? i figured you'd hold me to it longer.
thanks, mate.
i see you, gideon.
let's go. stay to the fence.
all right, class. i know you don't understand a word i'm saying, but part of learning a language is hearing it spoken. so -- i am p.k.
p.k. this.  .  is morrie. now you all have a chalkboard.
chalk and an eraser. i will say
morrie will check the letter. all right? here we go. 'a'.  .  say it. 'a.'
excuse me. pk hurries over to maria. not a word needs to be spoken. her presence says everything.
class. this is maria. she is now the teacher. we're doing alphabet, from the letter 'a.'
repeat what she says. say it again.
good night, gideon. he playfully pushes gideon out the gate and closes it. he turns to maria and morrie.
i am one lucky english. they embrace and kiss.
anything.
done.
you need a headstart?
you're out of here.
it says nothing about the scholarship.
i'll get showered and changed.
wanted to see us, sir?
why?
prince of wales is a certified school.
can he do this, sir?
you know it can't go on like this forever.
what you're doing.
if we let them get away with it on our own grounds, it will never
history takes too long.
i feel we should resist, sir.
thank you, sir.
yes, sir. will that be all?
i'd like to see maria marais please.
well, if i could just talk to her.
morrie. morrie.
i want to show you something.
no. come on.
will you hurry.
yeah. stunning. breasts like casabas. just waiting for you.
what do you think?
this is a church. didn't you ever hear of the christian concept of sanctuary?
even the boer has limits, morrie.
they want us to close the school.
we are still game.
i was in the neighborhood. maria puts her finger to her lips and waves him in. pk climbs through the window. cut to:
when do you go?
if you'll all be seated we can begin.
so far so good.
i want to thank you all for having the courage to come tonight. thank you.
i will be teaching the first part of class tonight and mr. levy will teach the second. a woman whispers something to mandoma. mandoma raises his hand.
gideon?
not anymore.
see.
i see. you see. we see.
boy.
i see the boy.
girl. i see the girl.
you're violating the sanctity of the church.
at least let the women go.
no. wait. we'll leave.
no! stop!
maria!
in case the scholarship doesn't come through.
doc's missing.
hello? mr. g? anyone here?
mr. goldman, why isn't anybody
for what reason?
this is because of me, isn't it?
no, no. i have to get back to school.
thank you for everything.
what are you doing here?
if i leave or if i stay in south africa it's because i choose to, not because they choose for me.
save my place at oxford.
save my place. morrie's grip releases.
dear morrie. here is how it works.
setting charges and drilling the rock. the only way for the raw ore he takes from the sides of the stope to get to the haulage below is to pass through the spout of a funnel and out the steel doors at the bottom -- sixty feet down.
halfway down the spout area is a set of six tungsten steel bars called a grizzly which catch all the rocks too large to make it through the funnel mouth to safe haulage.
these are taken care of by a grizzly, an explosives expert whose job it is to keep the ore flowing, and since when the ore doesn't flow, neither does the money, working the grizzly is a very crucial and therefore very well-paid position. three months'
you said i was the best you ever taught, sir.
you worked grizzly a year.
something wrong?
i don't like the taste.
dear morrie. to answer your question: yes--sports are played here, but only in the loosest sense of the words "sport" and "play". the rules are different for everything, in games as well as in the rest of our lives. the managers, the foremen, the company people. they live apart from the miners. they have families. proper gardens. sunday dinners. the miners--the crud, as we are called -- don't. this is a society of men, many of whom have pasts better left behind. future does not apply. it is a society only in the loosest sense of the word. the laws of survival are simple-- you either do or you don't.
you know, rasputin, i had them right where i wanted them. another minute they were done for. rasputin claps pk on the back and addresses him in russian, to which pk responds with a smile. the two men walk off together.
friendships are rare--arising out of mutual need rather than
the africans who come here looking for work are driven by a different desperation--drought, famine, locusts.
they come and risk their lives to send money back home to the families sitting on the barren farms, starving, waiting for death or rain. when the boxes are closed the other five men in the crew lift them and follow pk out.
superstition runs deep in them, so a good grizzly man attracts a good crew. on the bars, the longer you live the luckier you are. and by association -- they are.
hangups are the worst of it. when the top of the funnel gets blocked up and the ore won't flow.
the only way to unblock it is to set a charge to blow inward. and the only way to do that is to set the charge in mud, which means climbing up to the mouth of the stope and coming face-to-face with the devil.
sometimes the rock doesn't need the provocation of explosives. sometimes the earth shifts.  a pebble moves.  you talk too loud.  and in the moment before you are turned into something else by fifty tons of rock you understand why it is called grizzly.
let's clean her off and call it a night, hey?
the africans think the longer you survive the luckier you are. and the luckier you are the longer you survive. i know there's something inherently wrong with their logic. still, i'm beginning to see their point. especially with less than six months to go. cut to:
come in.
he doesn't care if he wins. he just likes to play.
i like to win.
how are they?
why are you telling me this, jocko?
i bow out you can't make book.
tell me, jocko, how high will the odds go on something like this?
when the odds hit the top put me in against all bets for two hundred quid.
i know that. i appreciate it. but if you don't take it, someone else will.
and so will i. jocko rises to exit.
when he wins it won't be because i let him.
checkmate.
did you hear a blast whistle?
i never heard a drill at night.
it's not a ghost. it's just some driller trying to squeeze extra pay. come on. pk moves forward. the africans follow him out of the elevator with reluctance.
not the first bloody thing!
bad drilling's more like it. come on. let's get it going.
what's the matter with them?
she's playing with us tonight. fuse set?
go on.
that's an order.
one.  two.  three. a muffled blast comes from the other side of the hangup deep in the stope. pk freezes, confused, and then a second blast goes off. the hangups starts to give. and
help. help.
help.
what's this?
but i didn't make it. i'm a month short.
there's someone i have to see first. jocko grows uncomfortable.
because i want to know.
no worries. the luckier you are, the longer you last. the longer you last, the luckier you are.
well i guess this is goodbye, my friend. i'll never forget you.
botha. the driller from stope number five.
thanks.
is botha the driller in there?
are you botha?
i'm pk. i worked your grizzly.
why'd you try to kill me?
jaapie botha.
botha. it was thirteen years ago.
botha. we've made a lot of money working together. let the past be the past.
no, jaapie botha. it's hate ruining the country.
boer hate.
want to see the wages of hate? botha feels the punches. he steps back, faltering. pk pursues him.
here. here is what hate gets you.
for my chicken. for geel piet. for doc. for mandoma. for maria.
for africa.
i knew as i walked out of the mines, out of africa, that i wasn't fleeing. that one day i would return. inkosi inkosikasi was right. i was a man for all africa. bound to her by my spirit. bound by my dreams. and africa had taught me the lesson i would take out into the world and one day bring back. great changes can come from the power of many. but only when the many join together and create what is invincible. the power of one.