Memory Is The Weapon

Chapter Five - Dai-Sok

54 chapter five We were shooting dice on the sand pavement nearAh Poen Leong’s Supply Store in Gerty Street, Sophiatown. Dai-Sok passed right through, almost as if we were invisible, bumping me aside, the money in my hand falling into the sand. I swore and cursed, looking up at him: ‘Hey, what the bloody hell!’ But his eyes penetrated my skull, and I tried to re-circulate my blood frozen by his gaze. He said something that sounded like ‘kap-kwai’, which I later discovered to be the Chinese equivalent for ‘kaffir’. He mumbled another weird, incomprehensible syllable, and with a sharp turn, hopped intoAh Poen’s shop, and then suddenly turned around to wave his finger at me: ‘You kap-kwai!’ My friends, and some older people who had been watching, burst out laughing at Dai-Sok, as he was known in our street – a street where women outnumbered the menfolk by four to one. Into this long street came Dai-Sok, walking straight out of an Dai-Sok Dai-Sok 55 American cowboy movie in which he might have played the part of a fastidious Chinese cook. He wore a black silken suit complete with matching cap and slippers , but minus the traditional pigtail. His yellow face was rough and scraggy, with countless deep rivulets of wrinkles that criss-crossed in all directions, even eastwards, from where Dai-Sok’s ship must have set sail for South Africa, the new frontier of milk and honey. Dirty, tobaccostained , racoon teeth jutted out of his small mouth like uninvited guests. Some bad boys even teased that his teeth had been specially shaped for human flesh, creating a fear of all Chinese among the younger children. Only four-and-a- half feet high, Dai-Sok appeared taller at first glance, probably because the pipes of his trousers stopped way above his ankles, as if to indicate that he was growing every day. His hands were small and delicate, with a sensitivity and gentleness found usually in convents and monasteries. Dai-Sok’s eyes had a certain warmth about them, telling you he had seen much in his days; eyes that seemed to understand the hidden meanings of life and death. But he cleverly masked that wisdom under the crust of an abrupt and obstreperous demeanour, so that most of the kids in our neighbourhood developed a deep fear for him. ThetinybitsofEnglishDai-Sokventuredtospeakonlycompounded the problem of communication, so much so that people would actually stop dead in their tracks when he spoke. It was a strange mixture of gibberish and Oriental pidgin, spluttering at jetspeed from his beautiful thin lips. I often tried, perhaps out of a silly sense of bravado, to reach out and break the sheath of icy mystery that hung around him, but to no avail. ‘Don Zinga,’ said Stretch one day, ‘why are you always trying so hard to make friends with that stupid gong?’ Gong was a common derogatory term used in the townships for the Chinese. I did not answer, but he continued probing: ‘It’s not like you to play soft, bra; let’s give him some of our black magic, and who knows we might even break him.’ I nodded. It was time we changed our tactics. Dai-Sok picked up a few English and Afrikaans words, as well as some phrases of Sophiatown tsotsi taal, and before long, he began operating a game of chance called koppie dice, played with three dice and a board numbered one to six. The dice would be covered by a cup, and Dai- 56 Memory is the Weapon Sok would rattle them while the bets were being placed. When he lifted the cup he would pay those who had correctly selected the numbers which came up on the dice. The bets increased on Fridays, and he would make a substantial profit on those days. One Friday I instructed one of my gang members to turn off the lights, and substituted a pair of loaded dice that always called up numbers five and six. We cleaned Dai-Sok out. Hot curses of kap-kwai! reverberated through the shop, and I watched with helpless anxiety as the infuriated Chinese smashed the dice with a hammer, collected the pieces and flung them in my face. The mercury from the loaded dice shone on my cheeks. ‘Youblettee kap-kwai,youtingkeemetom–stupid.Youhumbokkee – cheat Dai-Sokkee weetee lopanee...