The Power of One Read Online Free

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    The hugeness of Mevrou with her moustache they found amazing, the injustice of the Judge and jury they took in their stride, for they all knew how the white man passes sentences that have no relationship to what has been done. The pissing upon me by the Judge and jury had them rocking and moaning and holding their hands to their ears. Such an indignity was surely beyond even the white man?
    In the sudden way of Africa it was dark now. A piece of green wood crackled sharply in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. The leaping flames lit Nanny’s face. There was no doubt that they would remember this teller of a great story of misery and woe. Tears flowed copiously as Nanny told of how death finally arrived in a shower of icy piss that jetted from the loins of the great, moustached angel of perdition.
    I must admit, I was hugely impressed, but when Nanny got to the part where my snake had no hat, which, in my opinion, was the most important bit of the lot, they cupped their hands over their mouths and, between the tears, they started to giggle.
    Nanny concluded by saying that the business of my night water was an evil spell brought upon me by the angel of death with the moustache like a man and waterfall loins so that she could return each morning to feed her great beating sjambok on my frail child’s flesh. Only a great medicine man such as Inkosi-Inkosikazi could defeat this evil spell.
    The light from the fire showed the deeply shocked faces of the women as Nanny finally sat down, heaving with great sobs. They knew that such a tale had never been told before and that it might live forever, warped into a Shangaan legend.
    I can tell you one thing, I was mighty impressed that any person, most of all me, could go through such a harrowing experience.
    Inkosi-Inkosikazi rose, scratched his bum, and yawned. With the handle of his fly switch he prodded my weeping nanny. “Get me some kaffir beer, woman,” he demanded.
    Dee and Dum, the twin kitchen maids, served me my dinner, as Nanny was required to attend to the drinking and other needs of the scrawny old wizard. Both little girls were wide-eyed with the excitement of it all and told me I was the bravest person they had ever known.
    By bedtime Nanny was at my side as usual, arriving with a large sweet potato, its tummy open with a spoon sticking out of the middle, tiny wisps of steam curling upwards and condensing on the handle. There is something about a sweet potato that cheers you up when you are low and celebrates with you when you are happy. Sweet potatoes baked in their jackets have a very large comfort factor built into them.
    Nanny’s excitement was still with her. She grabbed me and crushed me to her enormous bosom and laughed and told me how I had thrust greatness upon her with the coming of the old monkey who was, after all, the greatest medicine man in all Africa; how the telling of the tale of the night water showed that a Zulu woman could be a teller of tales superior in every way to even the best told by the most eloquent Shangaan.
    I pointed out that she had entirely missed the matter of my school record for canings. A large tear rolled down her cheek. “In the matter of white man’s punishment, the black people already understand that the body can be broken by a sjambok but never the spirit. We are the earth, that is why we are the color of earth. In the end it is the earth who will win, every African knows this.”
    Whatever all that was supposed to mean, it didn’t answer my question. Nanny finally left me, but first she lit the paraffin lamp and turned it down low, but not so low that I wouldn’t recognize the bogeyman should he try to sneak into my room.
    â€œTonight Inkosi-Inkosikazi will visit you in your dreams to find the way of your night water,” she said, tucking me in.
    The morning after the night Inkosi-Inkosikazi went walkabout in my dreams, he summoned me to sit alone with him again on the