THE POWER OF ONE Written by ROBERT MARK KAMEN Based on the Novel by BRYCE COURTENAY February 1990 Draft FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY Copyright � 1990 Warner Bros. 2. THE POWER OF ONE What if the power of one becomes the power of many and the power of many becomes the power of one? FADE IN: 1 EXT. SOUTH AFRICAN FARM - DAY (1939) 1 A white car sits in the yard of the farmhouse. On the door, a decal: "CAPETOWN SANITORIUM." Two men dressed in the white uniforms of the sanitorium exit the farm- house; one gently guiding a rather frail, troubled woman toward the car; the other totes her suitcase. The V.O. of a young man narrates: YOUNG MAN (V.O.) There comes a time in everyone's life when they discover that the only person you can truly depend on is yourself. That the only real power anyone has to get anything done is the power of one. With any luck you can make it through a lot of years before you ever have to face the reality of that fact. (beat) It was a luxury I never had. I discovered it the year my mother had her nervous breakdown. One attendant holds the rear door of the car open for the woman. Before entering, she turns one last time toward the farmhouse. 2 HER POV 2 A young BOY looking one part scared, one part sad, and one part lost stares back at her, his hand held by a large, amiable black woman with tears rolling down her round cheeks. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) I was all of six. 3. 3 BACK TO SCENE 3 The woman enters the car. The car drives off down the road. The Boy watches it disappear behind a plume of swirling dust. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) My father died before I was born, and even though I was raised by my Zulu nanny, with my mother, depending on her health, in nominal attendance, it was decided, with her departure, that I, too, would depart... (beat) ... for boarding school. The dust the Boy has been watching reverses itself. An unseen vehicle comes up the road. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) But before I could be sent out into the world one very serious matter had to be dealt with. (beat) I was a chronic bedwetter. Since my nanny was the one responsible for my well-being, she did what any responsible Zulu mother would do. She called on the greatest medicine man of her tribe -- Inkosi Inkosikazi. Out of the dust a large black Buick ROADMASTER ROARS up the road and into the yard, scattering chickens and geese, stopping in front of the wide-eyed six-year-old and his tremulous nanny. A huge Zulu jumps out of the front passenger seat and opens the rear door. A moment passes, and then two splayed, cracked feet descend from the car and settle into the dust. INKOSI INKOSIKAZI, 100 years old, small, black, wizened, hair and beard whiter than cotton, a leopard skin draped over his shoulders, a beaded fly switch in one hand, a trussed chicken in the other, exits the car. CUT TO: 4 EXT. YARD - NIGHT 4 A fire burns bright in the black African night. The Boy sits holding the chicken, close by the fire, while Inkosi Inkosikazi shuffles around him, drawing a circle in the dust with a stick. 4. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) Legend had it that Inkosi Inkosikazi was the last son of the great Zulu king, Dingaan, who fought both the Boers and the British to a standstill nearly 100 years before, and the night Inkosi Inkosikazi was conceived stars fell from the sky until the sun rose. The circle complete, the old man sits down opposite the Boy. From a leather pouch he produces several bones. He throws the bones on the ground and studies them for a moment. He begins to wave the fly switch back and forth in front of the Boy's eyes, chanting low, softly. The Boy's eyes grow heavy; his lids droop. 5 DREAM - EXT. WATERFALL 5 The Boy and the old man are standing above a great waterfall. In the swirling pool far below are ten stepping stones linking one bank to the other. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) The medicine man instructed me to jump off the falls and climb along the ten stepping stones, counting as I went until I reached dry land. The Boy jumps, cascading down the falls and into the pond below. He clambers up the first rock. It is slippery. He falls off and climbs back on, buffeted by the spraying water. He makes his way stone by stone toward the other side. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) Even though it was only a dream, I felt as if my struggle to reach dry land was terrifyingly real. The water was like ice, bone- chilling, cold, and as I made my way from one stone to the next I could feel my strength desert me. The progress from one step to the next gets progressively harder as the Boy keeps slipping into the swirling water, coughing and sputtering. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) I was three rocks in when I ran out of gas. I couldn't pull myself any further. No matter how hard I 5. tried, the current tried harder. I felt myself going under for the last time. The Boy's grip slips off the rock. He starts to go under. CUT TO: 6 EXT. FARMYARD - DAWN 6 The fire has gone out. The Boy is still sitting in the circle, the chicken still in his lap. His eyes snap open. The first thing he sees is Inkosi Inkosikazi sitting across from him with a big smile. CUT TO: 7 EXT. YARD - DAY 7 Inkosi Inkosikazi enters the Buick. The Boy and his smiling nanny watch. They Boy still holds the chicken. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) Inkosi Inkosikazi said the spirit of the great Zulu warriors lived in me. He told me that whenever trouble arose I should return to the waterfall and keep stepping across the rocks until the trouble passed. He said three rocks were enough to conquer my problem with the night water; that I was very brave. He said I was a man for all Africa, bound to her by my spirit, bound by my dreams. (beat) And he let me keep the chicken. The Boy and his nanny watch the car go off in a cloud of dust. CUT TO: 8 EXT. VELDT - DAY 8 The Boy sits on a train looking out the window at the veldt and the wildlife moving across in the distance. A sack on his lap moves. The chicken's head pops out. The Boy gives him some kernels of corn and scratches behind his scraggly comb. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) Although I was bound by spirit 6. and dream to Africa, I was bound by heritage and language to the birthplace of my grandparents -- England -- a country I had never seen, but one that was to cause me eminently more problems than bedwetting ever did. CUT TO: 9 EXT. ROAD TO SCHOOL 9 A motorcar driving along the road to the school. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) The school I was sent to was attended and staffed entirely by Afrikaaners, the oldest of the two white tribes of Africa. CUT TO: 10 INT. SCHOOL 10 The six-year-old walks timorously through the halls, filled with bigger boys -- brash, noisy, hostile. They only speak the "Taal" -- Afrikaans. Over and over they jostle or verbally deride the six-year-old, knocking his books down so that when he bends to pick them up he is kicked in the butt. Or pulling his shirt out from under his jacket and making it hard to move. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) I spoke only English. The hated tongue. The language of the enemy who had usurped power and stolen the country through political chicanery and military brutality. A mob of boys, led by a big bully, JAAPIE BOTHA, runs the six-year-old through the bathroom and into the showers, fully clothed. He tries to run out. Jaapie Botha grabs him and throws him back in, holding him with one ham-fisted hand under the shower head and turning the shower on with the other. The six-year-old stands miserable as the stinging water pelts him. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) During the Boer War of 1896, 26,000 Boer women and children were herded into detainment camps by the British, where they died like flies from dysentery, 7. malaria and black water fever. And it seemed I was destined to shoulder the responsibility for each and every one of those deaths. The six-year-old in his first soccer game receives the ball. He tries to move upfield, but he is kicked and pushed, the ball taken from him. He gets up gamely to follow the chase, only to be flattened, blindsided by Jaapie Botha. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) And no one made this more evident to me than Jaapie Botha, a wheat farmer's son from the Transvaal. CUT TO: 11 INT. DORMITORY 11 The six-year-old, asleep, his chicken perched alertly atop the bed. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) The only time I was at peace was when I slept. Inkosi Inkosikazi's chicken proved to be, like his previous owner, a salvation. CUT TO: 12 EXT. REAR OF DORMITORY - DAY 12 The Boy builds a small shelter for the CHICKEN, who CLUCKS and forages contentedly. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) During the day he would live outside the dorm, happily scarfing down bugs and grubs, secure in a little house I built for him. CUT TO: 13 INT. DORM - NIGHT 13 YOUNG MAN (V.O.) And at night he would hop through the window and, perching over my bed, squawking if any intruders came near. 8. Several boys sneak up in the dark. The CHICKEN begins to CHATTER. The six-year-old wakes, a shoe in hand ready to throw. The shadows scatter. The Boy gives the chicken a few grains of corn and an affectionate scratch behind the ear, and goes back to sleep. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) He was my best and only friend. CUT TO: 14 INT. SCHOOL 14 Boys and faculty running through the halls excitedly, showing newspapers with pictures of Hitler and Chamberlain on the front. Posters and slogans with swastikas are slapped up on walls. Some boys mimic "heiling" to each other. YOUNG MAN (V.O.) I'm sure in time a status quo would have been achieved between me and my schoolmates were it not for the cataclysmic events occurring in that faraway place none of us had ever seen. (beat) Two montjhs after I arrived at the school World War II broke out in Europe. Hitler had vowed to crush the British Empire. The Boers sharpened their swords in anticipation. The six-year-old comes back to his bed in the dorm to find a swastika carved into it. CUT TO: 15 INT. DORMITORY - NIGHT 15 The six-year-old sleeps fitfully. There is a MUFFLED SQUAWK. He wakes. A blanket is thrown over his head. CUT TO: 16 INT. DARKENED BASEMENT ROOM 16 The Boy is dumped on the floor, the blanket removed. His eyes open in horror. The room is lit by torches. Shadows dance fearfully off two dozen boys with swastika armbands and leather pistol rigs without pistols strapped to their sides. In front of him on a platform Jaapie Botha stands, his shirtsleeves rolled to the shoulder, 9. as another student painfully tattoo-scars his arm with a swastika, using a knife and blue dye. Seeing the six- year-old, Jaapie turns his attention to him and addresses him in Afrikaans. JAAPIE God has sent Hitler to deliver us from the English bastards who stole our country and killed our people. Heil Hitler! The other boys chorus in. ALL Heil Hitler! JAAPIE We will swear a blood oath. When Hitler comes we'll rise up and kill the Verdomde Rooineks. ALL A blood oath! A blood oath! Jaapie bends down and grabs the six-year-old by the shirt front, yanking him up. JAAPIE With your blood. Jaapie slaps the Boy across the mouth three times. Blood flows from his mouth and nose. Jaapie dips his finger in the blood and smears it across his new tattoo. He holds up his bloodied fingers. JAAPIE We swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler. Heil Hitler! ALL We swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler. Heil Hitler! JAAPIE Death to all Englishmen in South Africa. Heil Hitler! The chorus repeats. JAAPIE God bless the fatherland. Heil Hitler! The voices come back to him stronger. 10. ALL Heil Hitler! Jaapie grabs the six-year-old again. JAAPIE See what we have in store for you when Hitler comes, Rooinek. Hoy! He gives a command. The boys at the far end of the room part. The six-year-old's eyes open in terror. 17 HIS POV 17 20 feet away Inkosi Inkosikazi's chicken, his chicken, is hung from a rafter upside down, haplessly flapping against his bonds. 18 BACK TO SCENE 18 BOY No! But before he gets two steps towards the chicken he is gang-tackled and held. Jaapie picks up a sling and a rock. JAAPIE For crimes committed against the whole Boer people. I, Jaapie Botha, the judge and Uberfuhrer, sentence you and your Rooinek kaffir chicken to death. Heil Hiter.! ALL Heil Hitler! Jaapie starts to swing the sling around and around. The six-year-old struggles to get free. ALL Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! The SLING WHISTLES through the air, faster and faster. BOY No! Jaapie releases the stone. It flies true, catching the SQUAWKING, struggling CHICKEN flush in the chest. The flapping stops as blood soaks through feathers. 11. Jaapie flings his hand forward, victorious. JAAPIE Heil Hitler! ALL Heil Hitler! The Boy takes the opportunity to break loose. He rushes Jaapie, whose arm is outstretched, putting him off balance. The Boy catches him low, driving his head into Jaapie's exposed stomach. Jaapie falls back and gets the knife used for his tattooing right in his ass. Jaapie Botha bellows like an enraged bull as he grabs futiley for the embedded blade. His cohorts laugh, thinking it tremendously funny, until Jaapie removes the knife and turns with it, dripping his own blood, his eyes murderous. The laughter dies. Jaapie's breath comes hard. JAAPIE Hang him up! A few boys protest. BOYS Jaapie! No! But Botha is murderous, intent on revenge. JAAPIE Hang him! He waves the bloody knife in the air. Three boys grab the six-year-old and drag him to where the chicken is hanging. Two more boys throw a rope over the same rafter. Others bind the struggling boy, trussing his hands to his sides. JAAPIE You will pay for the deaths of our grandfathers and grandmothers, our aunts and uncles. All Rooineks will pay and you will be first. Pull! The boys who tied the rope now yank it over the rafter. The six-year-old is hoisted up until he is eye-level with the chicken. JAAPIE In the name of Adolf Hitler and the fatherland, I sentence you to die, Verdomde Rooinek. 12. BOYS Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Jaapie swings the sling overhead, faster and faster. 19 ANGLE ON SIX-YEAR-OLD 19 He watches as Jaapie bears down. As Jaapie is about to let the rock fly the door to the room opens and two STAFF MEMBERS burst in, surprising in. STAFF MEMBER What's this? The rock flies from the sling, but Jaapie's attention is diverted. His aim is off. The rock grazes the boy above the eye. He loses consciousness. The scene FADES TO BLACK. FADE IN: 20 INT. ST. JOHN'S STUDY - DAY 20 Prince of Wales School, 1950. PK, 17 going on 18, well- built, intense, clear-eyed, handsome, stands in front of a seminar and continues reading to 10 students, honor students, Headmaster St. John's chosen few. St. John, with the demeanor of an Oxford don and a mane of snowy white hair that reaches his shoulders, sits off to the side, listening. PK 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. PK (CONT'D) (beat) 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 13. glasses off and wipes the lenses deliberately. After a long moment he turns to face the class. ST. JOHN Very evocative, yes. Particularly the image of the chicken. Good choice there. St. John rises, lecturing. ST. JOHN Any ideology that needs to attack the thing that least threatens it is an ideology that will not outlive its own generation. Inclusion, gentlemen, not exclusion, is the key to survival. (beat) Something our new government should take heed of, eh? His eyes roam from face to face, fixing his point. ST. JOHN Next week we have Mr. Levy who will enlighten us on... MORRIE, a bright-eyed kinetic, speaks up. MORRIE Sport and wager in Imperial Rome, sir. ST. JOHN (facetious) Very apt, Mr. Levy. We look forward to the experience. (pause) All right. The boys bolt for the door. ST. JOHN P.K. PK approaches. ST. JOHN Well-written. PK Thank you, sir. ST. JOHN I've received notice from the 14. Oxford selection committee. You are to appear before them in three weeks. I assume you'll be reading a piece of your fiction as your presentational. PK Yes, sir. ST. JOHN A word of caution. Contemporary to most of these fellows means the seventeenth century. Try and keep your theme, um, classical, if you know what I mean. PK Yes sir. I will. (beat) Will the scholarship be decided at the same time, sir? ST. JOHN Money's a different matter. Different committee. PK 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. ST. JOHN And P.K... PK turns at the door. ST. JOHN Good luck tonight. PK Thank you, sir. St. John returns to his book. PK exits. CUT TO: 21 EXT. HALL 21 Morrie waits in the now nearly-empty hall, taking some money from another boy and making notations in a black book. PK comes up to him. 15. PK How we doing? Morrie consults the book. MORRIE You win and your dream comes true. You lose, we're back to bread and butter sandwiches till term's end. What'd he want? PK My appointement before the Oxford committee came through. MORRIE A snap. PK For a brain like you, maybe. MORRIE Come on, you'll read one of your pieces, they'll be begging you to attend. PK But will they pay for the privilege? MORRIE Well let's bloody hope so. It'll be a lonely time without you there. PK Morrie Levy. Is that the voice of sentimentality I hear coming from you? MORRIE Sentimentality my ass. Practicality. Where am I going to find a sure thing like you to make book on at bloody Oxford? PK Go on. He shoves Morrie playfully out the door and follows. CUT TO: 16. 22 INT. LONG HALLWAY - CLOSEUP - PK AND MORRIE 22 as they walk down the long hall looking straight ahead. Sweat dapples PK's face. Both boys are focused on double doors at the end of the hall. There is the distant MUFFLED sound of a CROWD CHEERING. MORRIE You hear Sutcliffe screwed Bartlett's sister when he stayed with them over holidays? PK I don't believe it. MORRIE I heard it from Bartlett's own lips. He's selling reservations for next holiday. A pound for one night; three pounds for four. PK You register? MORRIE For both of us. Took the whole holiday. The CHEERING crowd grows LOUDER the closer they get to the double doors. MORRIE You nervous? PK No. MORRIE Christ! I'm about to have a calf. This bloody Boer gets lucky, we're in the poorhouse. They reach the double doors. Still in CLOSEUP, Morrie turns to face PK for the first time. MORRIE Now remember. We're not here to exhibit our wares. We go in, we do the job, we get out. Right? PK is so focused his eyes seem to bore through the doors. He does not move his head a hair. PK Right. 17. Morrie and PK draw a deep breath. Together they push open the double doors. Together they stride into a floodlit, fully-packed sports arena and head down the fan-lined aisle to the raised boxing ring in the center. Schoolboys in their respective school blazers, Afrikaan and English, yell, whistle and clap. PK and Morrie, in FULL FRAME, reveal PK in a boxing robe with taped hands, and Morrie with towel and bucket. ANNOUNCER And at the end of six matches in all weight divisions, the score is Prince of Wales three victories, Helpmakeer three victories. The stands explode with cheers. ANNOUNCER And now for the final bout to determine which school will win the Johannesburg 1950 public school boxing team championship. In this corner, weighing 140 pounds, standing 5'8", from the Helpmakeer School with a record of 13-0 on the year, Jannie Geildenhaus. A huge cheer goes up for JANNIE, muscular, bare-chested, as he dances and shadowboxes for the crowd. PK enters the ring. He stands, robe on, eyes intent on Jannie. When the noise subsides the Announcer continues. ANNOUNCER And in this corner, representing the Prince of Wales School, the current Johannesburg Public School welterweight champion, also with a record of 13-0 on the year, also 140 pounds, Kid P.K. Now the English schoolboys cheer for their man, but PK does not respond. He barely moves. He raises an arm in bare acknowledgment. His attention stays focused across the ring on his shadowboxing opponent. PK watches Jannie dance closely when a low CHANTING begins from outside the stadium -- African, tribal, mystical harmonies of black voices building until the white voices inside the stadium are stunned to silence. The song carries beautifully in the night. For the first time PK's focus is broken, but not like the others in the audience, who haven't a clue as to what's happening. He has heard this before. This is familiar. 18. This is for him. A distant knowing flickers in his eyes like a man who has heard the voice of fate whisper his name. Over and over, one phrase is indistinguishable -- the chorus of the song. "Ono bi shobi ingelosi." The chanting stops as suddenly as it began. A moment passes before the crowd begins to buzz with the phenomenon. The Announcer attempts to bring everyone's attention back to the business at hand. ANNOUNCER We thank the native population for their spirited display of enthusiasm. But now, on to the main event. Fighters to center ring, please. PK, focused again, meets Jannie at the REFEREE. REFEREE You both know the rules. No butts, no elbows, no low blows. First man to score three knock downs wins. Let's have a good clean fight. Good luck to you. The fighters slap leather. PK turns back to his corner when his focus is broken dramatically by a face in the crowd. 23 HIS POV - FRONT ROW - HALF-DOZEN SCHOOLGIRLS 23 sit; one of them MARIA ELIZABETE MARAIS, 17, with honey- blonde hair and lapis-blue eyes, turns her head and engages PK's eyes and his heart. She quickly looks away. But a connection has been made -- fire passed. 24 PK 24 goes back to his corner and takes off his robe. Morrie stands, holding PK's mouthpiece. PK First row, third from the left. Find out who she is. Morrie looks down at Maria. MORRIE We're in a bloody war here, in 19. case you forgot. Let's keep our mind on that, hey? He jams the mouthpiece into PK's mouth as the BELL RINGS. PK turns to an onslaught by Jannie, a real brawler. Jannie's big, overhand rights almost nail PK until he finds his footing and dances away. Jannie comes after him hard, his schoolmates bellowing encouragement. But PK's far superior boxing skills put Jannie at an immed- iate disadvantage. It is a classic battle of a boxer versus a fighter. PK's jabs keep Jannie at an arm's length, until he closes with a combination. Jannie, willing to take three punches to land one, absorbs PK's point scoring combinations and tries to land knockout punches. When he has had enough punishment he lunges into a clinch. JANNIE Blery Rooinek. I'll kill you. PK pushes off as Jannie hammers at his kidneys. Backing up, PK repays the compliment with two quick jabs to the face. PK works Jannie, turning him left then right, working the angles, keeping him off balance while he racks up the points. Jannie goes left. As PK chases him that way his eyes fix on something out of the ring. 25 HIS POV - REAR EXIT DOOR - TALL BLACK MAN 25 with a younger black companion of more average height, the only black faces in a crowd of 2,000 people. 26 BACK TO SCENE 26 Their presence distracts PK for a split second, and in that split second Jannie seizes the opportunity. He comes across with a big right hand to PK's jaw. Jannie connects. PK goes down hard. The crowd goes wild. Morrie leaps up and down in the corner. MORRIE Get up! Get up! But PK is seeing double. He shakes his head, trying to clear it. MORRIE Up! Up! 27 PK'S POV - JANNIE 27 dancing in his corner, sensing victory, the Ref over 20. him, counting. 28 BACK TO SCENE 28 PK forces himself up. The Ref checks him. REFEREE Okay. Fight. Jannie comes rushing in, banging PK with a series of hard rights, but dropping his left each time he throws one. PK absorbs the punishment as best he can, backing up, dancing away. Jannie is all over him just as the BELL RINGS. Jannie goes back to his corner, triumphant. PK goes back to his and sits down with a blank ex- pression. Morrie goes to work on a small cut over his eye. MORRIE What are you trying to do, bankrupt us? What happened? PK turns and looks at the two Africans at the rear door. Morrie's eyes follow him, tensing as he sees the two men. MORRIE Christ! If they get caught in here they're dead. (beat) What the hell's going on? PK I don't know. MORRIE Well, worry about it later. In case you haven't noticed, this Boer bastard is trying to kill you. PK You see the way he drops his left when he throws the right? MORRIE Yeah? The BELL RINGS. PK and Morrie trade a look. Jannie comes rushing over and throws a big right. PK steps to his own right side and pops Jannie right over his dropped left hand. He looks at Morrie again. 21. 29 ANGLE ON MORRIE 29 MORRIE Thank you, God. Jannie comes after PK, paying for each big right he throws as PK finds his mark. PK plants one, then two, then three punches on Jannie's face. Finally, frus- trated, Jannie forsakes all pretense of boxing and tries to nail PK with wild, flailing blows. PK bobs and weaves and feints. Jannie's punches grow weary. PK begins to bear down, driving his man back with rapid-fire com- binations until he delivers the coup de grace, a left hook to the heart and a driving right uppercut. Jannie goes down in a heap. The crowd goes wild. The Referee counts him out. Jannie's seconds rush into the ring to lift their fallen fighter. Morrie also rushes in, followed by the Prince of Wales boxing team. They hoist PK up on their shoulders. 30 PK'S POV - MARIA MARAIS 30 rising from her seat, and leaving with the other girls. Their eyes meet. Her hint of a smile breaks his heart. She disappears in the crowd. 31 BACK TO SCENE 31 PK's eyes rise to the rear exit. The tall African and his companion have vanished. CUT TO: 32 INT. LOCKER ROOM 32 The boxing team and a number of their supporters are in raucous celebration. Morrie comes bouncing through the crowd, until he enters the empty dressing room in the rear, where PK is getting dressed. Morrie takes a wad of money out of his pocket. MORRIE Here you go, pal. He hands PK the money. PK You're the treasurer of this company. You hold it. Did you find out what I asked for? MORRIE 22. Uh, listen, P.K. You know in this world there is no greater proponent of sins of the flesh than Morrie Levy. But do yourself a favor on this one. Take my advice. Pass. PK Thanks for the advice. The information please. MORRIE Do you know who her father is? Professor Daniel Marais. PK So? MORRIE So? He's the Nationalist Party's resident intellectual. The man is one of the architects of this damned system of -- what are they calling it? -- apartheid? He has about as much use for a Rooinek Englishman rutting after his daughter as the Queen does for balls, pardon my French. PK What's her name and where do I find her? Morrie sighs. MORRIE Maria Elizabete Marais, Seniors Cottage, Room 22, Devilliers School. They don't call it 'Fortress Virgin' for nothing. You'll never get in. PK slips his school blazer on. PK You going to take book on that? MORRIE Already have. Three-to-one says you don't. PK Where'd you bet? MORRIE I took a big position you do. 23. PK smiles at his friend and starts to leave. Morrie stuffs some banknotes in his breast pocket. MORRIE In case you have to bail yourself out. PK boxes him around playfully and skips out, running the gauntlet of the celebration outside. CUT TO: 33 EXT. DEVILLIERS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS - NIGHT 33 Indeed, "Fortress Virgin." Surrounded by a high stone wall, the school's gothic towers loom medieval in the African moonlight. A security guard mans the front gate. PK takes a route through shadows and shrubs, searching for a way in. He finds one in a tree whose massive limbs reach over the wall. In a flash PK is up the tree and over the wall. CUT TO: 34 EXT. SCHOOL GROUNDS 34 PK makes his way through the darkened campus. A few stu- dents and some staff are about. PK hugs the shadows as best he can. PK passes a statue dominating the quad -- a Boer family from the last century; the man looking for- ward, his gun braced for action; the women and children at his shoulder, brave, resolute. CUT TO: 35 EXT. SENIOR COTTAGE 35 PK comes up to the cottage where a few girls can be seen through the windows studying at lamplit desks or readying for bed. Other rooms are already dark. PK slips inside the building. CUT TO: 36 INT. BUILDING 36 PK moves along the hall looking for room 22. He is about to turn a corner when TWO GIRLS chattering in Afrikaans come down a staircase. PK backs into a 24. darkened room to his left. The girls appear in robes with towels and toiletries and step into the same room. One flicks on the light to reveal the shower room -- 14 separate cubicle stalls. Still chattering, the girls disrobe. 37 ANGLE ON PK 37 pressed hard against the inside wall of a stall with a clear view of the proceedings. He holds his breath as one of the girls heads towards his stall. Her girl- friend cautions her. GIRL Those are always cold. Use this one. The girl turns away to another stall just in time. The SHOWERS START. PK allows himself to breathe again. He exits quickly. CUT TO: 38 INT. ROOM 38 Maria Marais sits at her desk in a nightgown, working on a paper, when there is a KNOCK on the door. With her mind still on her work, she opens the door. Her eyes go wide with shock when she sees PK. He puts a cautionary finger to his lips. PK May I come in? Maria, frozen with surprise, steps back. PK enters, gently closing the door behind him. PK I'm sorry to scare you. MARIA (nervous) You can't be here. She speaks in Afrikaan-accented English. PK I didn't know how else to meet you. MARIA I could be expelled. PK 25. Girls don't usually come to boxing matches. MARIA We went on a dare. Please. PK ignores her anxiety. PK Did you like it? MARIA It was... (beat) ... exciting. You were very good. PK (in Afrikaans) Thank you. I'm glad I impressed you. MARIA (surprised) You speak the Taal. PK I'll speak Zulu if it'll help me see you again. MARIA I can't. PK Why not? MARIA I need my father's permission. PK Is it hard to get? MARIA Hard for an Afrikaaner boy. Impossible for an English one. PK How about your permission? Do I have that? Maria blushes. All of a sudden there is a KNOCK on the door. Maria starts. PK moves quickly behind the door as it opens to TWO GIRLS. 26. GIRL #1 We're having coffee upstairs. Want to come? MARIA I have to finish this paper. GIRL #2 Come when you're finished. We'll be up late. They close the door. Maria reinforces it with her body. MARIA Please go. PK You didn't answer my question. MARIA There are plenty of English girls. What makes me so important? PK The way I felt when I saw you. He is so direct she can only blush deeper. Her response is indirect but affirmative. MARIA My father will insist on meeting you. PK I can't wait. O.S., the outside door to the dorm opens. A matron's voice calls out. MATRON (V.O.) Lights out, ladies. MARIA Now please. PK opens her window and starts to climb out. PK (in Afrikaans) Good night, Maria Marais. MARIA (in English) Good night, PK. 27. PK pauses. PK I don't remember telling you my name. MARIA (smiling) And I don't remember telling you mine. PK smiles back at her. He drops to the ground. Maria closes the window and watches him scoot across the campus until he is swallowed by the night. CUT TO: 39 INT. MARAIS HOUSE 39 An ample house. PAN ACROSS a gallery of oil paintings depicting great moments in Boer history -- the Great Trek, an endless progression of oxcarts heading north, the Battle of Blood River against the Zulu armies, the hang- ing of Boer farmers by British regulars. Women and children herded into a detention camp as their farms burn in the background. Boer kommandos sniping at a British column on the veldt. PAN FROM the pictures TO photographs, sepia-toned, his- torical, and DR. DANIEL MARAIS and PK, strolling past the pictures. Marais points to a photo of a young Boer, turn of the century, posed stiffly with a rifle in the slouched hat of a Boer kommando. MARAIS Jan Piet Marais. My uncle. At 22 he led a kommando for three years before your people caught him and hung him. PK My people? MARAIS The English. PK I consider myself an African, sir. MARAIS As do I. As do the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Pongo, the Ndebele. We're all Africans. But all from separate tribes, ay? 28. PK Unfortunately. MARAIS Why do you say that? PK Because it's the whole tribal idea that creates our problems here in South Africa. MARAIS The problems of South Africa, my boy, do not come from tribalism. They come from counter-tribalism. From people insisting that natural laws which have been in place and operating since God's creation, should be tampered with. Does the gazelle sleep with the lion? Does the rhino graze with the mouse? The separation of things is not coincidental. Do you think a Zulu wants to see his culture, his sense of identity, replaced by someone else's anymore than I do? PK No, sir. But I don't think he wants being a Zulu to mean he is denied the same rights as everyone else has. MARAIS Which is why civilization is defined by the ability to live under the rule of law. Laws define rights. PK But do they define justice? MARAIS Ah. Justice. The banner behind which the English marched as they gobbled up a quarter of the world? Justice, my boy, is only relative to who's in charge. PK And how long they stay in charge is only relative to how well they dispense that justice... (beat) ... with all due respect. 29. Marais fixes PK with a stare. PK's eyes meet his evenly, unwavering. Maria enters. MARIA Papa, would you like coffee in the library or the parlor? MARAIS (pleasant) The library, mein leib. Maria smiles at PK and exits. He leads PK towards the library. MARAIS I can't figure out if you're brave or foolish. PK Why is that, sir? MARAIS You come here to ask for permission to see my daughter. Correct? PK Yes, sir. MARAIS And knowing who I am, what I stand for, do you think this sort of discussion is going to put that request in a favorable light? PK I thought a man of your intellectual reputation wouldn't want his daughter seeing someone who didn't think. MARAIS Let me give you some advice then. You're right. I admire a keen mind. But intellectual reputation or not, I am first a Marais, a member of the Volk. MARAIS (CONT'D) And if you're trying to impress a member of the Volk with your intellect, don't do it espousing liberal ideas picked up in an English private school. 30. PK These ideas I picked up somewhere else. Marais opens the library door. MARAIS (joking) No doubt from an expert on race relations. PK Actually, sir, from an expert on cactus. CUT TO: 40 EXT. ROCK OUTCROPPING - DAY 40 A brilliant African sun beats down on the veldt below. On the rock, a seven-year-old PK sits looking somewhat sadly over the landscape. A long shadow covers him. The CLICK of a CAMERA is heard. PK turns, shielding his eyes with his hand against the glare of the sun to a tall, white-haired figure, shirtless, in hiking boots and kneesocks, holding a box camera. DOC (FIGURE) Ja. Perfect. You will excuse me, please. DOC, speaking in German-accented English, moves off from the sun's glare down to PK's level. On his back is a knapsack with a cactus sticking out of it. DOC 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. Doc clicks his heels together and bows his head slightly. PK I'm P.K. He holds out his hand. Doc takes it. DOC Such a young person with such an 31. old expression. I think we can be friends. Ja? Eighteen-year-old PK narrates. PK (V.O.) 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. (pause) So began my education. Doc and PK walk the veldt across craggy mountain trails, down dry river beds, through the jungle, always collecting cacti and aloe samples, Doc always talking, always explaining. PK (V.O.) Doc believed the brain had two functions and that the South African public school system unfortunately dealt with only one. DOC 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. Doc and PK sit high up. PK watches the endless animal migration below while Doc points things out across the landscape. PK (V.O.) Doc knew everything. He had a love of learning. But his real passion was centered around two things -- music and cacti. CUT TO: 41 EXT. DOC'S HOUSE 41 PK and Doc walk up a steep road toward Doc's house which sits on top of the hill, both carrying cacti-filled 32. packs. PK (V.O.) 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: 42 EXT. CACTUS GARDEN - DAY 42 Behind Doc's simple, whitewashed cottage is a magnif- icent cactus and aloe garden filled with the samples Doc has collected for years. PK and Doc plant another specimen. Doc photographs it. PK records its genus in a notebook. PK (V.O.) Every specimen Doc found would be carefully photographed and catalogued. CUT TO: 43 SUNSET 43 Doc an PK walk through the cactus garden. DOC 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. Doc touches a cactus needle. DOC But it harms no other plant. It 33. has patience and solitude and modesty. In Mexico there is a cactus that blooms once in a hundred years and then only at night. That is saintliness of the highest order I think. Ja? From cactus comes medicine to heal the wounds of men and little buttons if you eat one you can touch the face of God or stare into the mouth of hell. It is the plant of patience, solitude, love, and madness. Modesty, beauty. Toughness and gentleness. Of all the plants I think it is closest to God. Ja? PK (V.O.) 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: 44 INT. GRANDFATHER'S PARLOR 44 Shabbily-genteel, Doc sits in his Sunday best, a cup of tea on his lips, talking in earnest to PK's pipe- puffing, also shabbily-genteel grandfather as PK looks on. PK (V.O.) 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. CUT TO: 45 INT. DOC'S COTTAGE 45 Doc and PK practice on a beautiful Steinway, so grandly out of place in Doc's simple abode. PK (V.O.) 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. 34. CUT TO: 46 EXT. JUNGLE 46 Doc and PK wander through the jungle looking for flora. DOC 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. Doc shows PK a small tree with an even smaller vine attached to it. DOC 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. Doc rips the vine away from the tree. DOC 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. CUT TO: 47 EXT. VELDT - DAY 47 Doc and PK move alongside the great herds. PK (V.O.) 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. (pause) I also played a lot more 'God Save the King' due to my new musical celebrity. 35. CUT TO: 48 EXT. BARBERTON - DAY 48 TRACK THROUGH Barberton, a small town on the low veldt, in all its colonial backwater splendor. PK (V.O.) 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: 49 INT. CONCERT HALL 49 PK plays "God Save the King" on the stage. The town's population stands -- the men, stoic; the women, dewey- eyed, at patriotic attention. Some people file out -- the men in officers' uniforms of the South African penal system and their wives -- Boers. They exit to the dagger stares and some undertoned hissing and booing from Her Majesty's loyal subjects. PK (V.O.) 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. PK (V.O.)(CONT'D) 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. CUT TO: 36. 50 EXT. ROAD TO DOC'S COTTAGE - DAY 50 Doc and PK walk toward the cottage. Doc reads PK's report card. DOC Grammar: satisfactory. Science: satisfactory. Mathetmatics: satisfactory. He looks down at PK. DOC P.K., if there is one thing I know you to be that is a lot more than just satisfactory. Ja? PK But I don't want to be known as a brain. DOC Why not? PK Who do you think gets beaten up on all the time in school? DOC 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. Doc's face grows pale, his lips tight. PK pulls close to him for support. DOC Again it begins. The stupidity. Do not be frightened. Doc puts na arm around PK's shoulder, drawing him close, comforting him. One of the soldiers pulls a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket as he advances. CUT TO: 37. 51 EXT. BARBERTON PRISON 51 A car pulls up. Doc, in shackles, is escorted from the car. PK exits after him. Two guards lead Doc toward the doorway to the prison, a square in the looming gates. Doc walks, his head held high. PK walks alongside holding his hand. BRITISH OFFICER (V.O.) Karl von Vollensteen, for the failure to register as an alien during times of war in accordance with His Majesty's government orders to do so, you are hereby sentenced to be confined at Barberton prison for the duration of the war with Germany. At the door a guard touches PK's shoulder, holding him back. The door opens. Doc goes through. Just before the door closes he looks back at PK one last time. The door slams shut. PK, with tears streaming down his cheeks, is left outside. CUT TO: 52 INT. PK'S ROOM - NIGHT 52 Morrie lies in bed, asleep. PK sits up at his desk, writing. PK (V.O.) And again I was alone with nothing to depend on to see me through except the power of one. PK puts down his pen and sits, regarding the pages. He raises his eyes to a photo on the desk of a boy on a rock. PK smiles at hidden memories, caps his fountain pen, turns off the light. The room is pitched into darkness. CUT TO: 53 EXT. DOWNTOWN ALLEY - AFTERNOON 53 The seedy side of town. PK carrying a gym bag and Morrie looking a bit out of place in their school blazers come striding up the alley. 38. MORRIE Look, even if the scholarship doesn't come through, my old man said he'd lend you the money. PK Morrie. MORRIE All right. All right. We'll call it the 'Levy Carpet Emporium Scholarship for Poor but Proud Christian Gentlemen.' How's that? PK Tell your father I appreciate the offer. MORRIE God, I hate people who can't be bought. PK Why is that? MORRIE I don't know. Personality disorder. PK nods in agreement. PK Undoubtedly. The boys come to their destination marked by a rickety, faded sign: "GOLDMAN'S GYM." Excitement shines in PK's eyes. He bounds up the narrow flight of stairs. CUT TO: 54 INT. STAIRCASE 54 Morrie and PK rush up the stairs, stop at the landing, and collect themselves before opening the door to the gym. They take a breath and enter. CUT TO: 55 INT. GYM 55 A down and dirty boxing gym, humming with the rhythm of 39. men training. Sweat and smoke fill the air along with the faint scent of blood. Fighters, both black and white, train with each other. Morrie is amazed. MORRIE How do they get away with this? But PK has his mind on other things. His eyes fix on an OLD MAN across the room standing by ringside. PK There he is. MORRIE Christ, he's old. PK 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. SOLLY (OLD MAN) No, no. God gave you two hands so you can knock a man out from either side. Left-right. He moves his creaky body back and forth to demonstrate. PK Mr. Goldman? Solly turns to the boys. A look of bemusement comes over his face when he sees their blazers. SOLLY What? You boys lost? PK I'm the one who called you yesterday. From the Prince of Wales School? SOLLY Oh yeah, yeah. The champeen. Right? PK (smiling) Right. 40. SOLLY And who are you? MORRIE The champeen's manager. Solly rolls his eyes to heaven. SOLLY Oy gevalt. (beat) You know you train here it's not like those nice school fights you're used to. Three knockdowns you win. Just then, as if to underscore his point, one of the fighters in the ring gets caught witha solid shot to the jaw. He hits the canvas inches from where they are standing. Solly, PK and Morrie all look at him, and then at each other. MORRIE What does it cost for you to train him? SOLLY For my personal attentinons, Mr. Manager? Fifty pounds a month. For one of them... (points to the other men working with fighters) ... less. Morrie pulls out a wad of money and proffers it to Solly. MORRIE Here's for six months in advance. Three hundred pounds. Solly pushes the money back. SOLLY Six months? I don't know your boy'll last six minutes. PK I'll last. Solly notices that every black fighter in the gym has stopped working and is staring at PK. SOLLY 41. What are you staring? Punch, don't stare. C'mon. Work or you're out. The blacks go back to work. SOLLY That your gear? PK Yes, sir. SOLLY Go change in the back. We'll see if you couldn't find a better use for all that money. PK Thank you, sir. PK heads towards the rear. Solly turns to Morrie. SOLLY Why's he want to do this, a nice- looking schoolboy? MORRIE He wants to be welterweight champ of the world. Solly breaks up laughing. SOLLY Oh sure, sure. And I'd like to be twenty-five again. MORRIE You like to make book on it? SOLLY (joking) You giving odds? MORRIE You name them. Solly gives him a long look. SOLLY You both meshugah. Solly walks away. CUT TO: 42. 56 INT. GYM - RING 56 PK is in the ring getting ready to spar with a well-built opponent. Morrie stands at ringside with Solly. SOLLY Let's just start out nice and easy now. He hits the bell. The fighters circle. PK's opponent starts punching, jabbing, probing. After two feints he comes after PK in earnest. PK steps left and peppers him with three quick blows to the face. Solly's interest is suddenly piqued. Again the fighters circle. Again the opponent sets up with jabs and again he attacks. This time PK dodges, hits him hard and spins him around, hitting him twice more. A smile appears on Solly's face. The opponent, angered now, gets more aggressive. PK keeps bobbing and weaving, sticking and slipping punches. The opponent unloads, banging away at PK with everything he has. PK backs up two steps, then shifts positions. The opponent's momentum carries him into the ropes. As he comes off the ropes PK throws him an eight-punch combination, demolishing his opponent. PK steps back. The opponent sags. Solly hits the bell, clearly excited. SOLLY Never I seen someone so young throw an eight-punch combination. Where did you learn such a thing? PK In prison, sir. SOLLY You trying to be a comedian and a boxer? Mr. Manager, come to my office. We'll talk terms. You, get showered, and see me after. We'll talk training. Solly and Morrie head off toward Solly's office. PK watches them go, a small victorious smile on his face. CUT TO: 57 EXT. BARBETON PRISON GATE 57 Seven-year-old PK stands at the gate holding a bucket, waiting to be let in. CUT TO: 43. 58 INT. PRISON HALL 58 PK sits on a bench in the hall. Black prisoners are marched by, guarded closely. At PK's feet is the metal bucket. The door to Kommandant Von Zyl's office opens. A guard summons PK. PK rises, takes his bucket and enters the office. CUT TO: 59 INT. VON ZYL'S OFFICE 59 The KOMMANDANT, a brusque man with a salt-and-pepper brush cut sits behind his big desk. VON ZYL (KOMMANDANT) So you are PK. PK Yes, sir. VON ZYL I am Kommandant Von Zyl. The professor has requested you to be his visitor so you can continue your studies on piano and he can continue with his studies on cactus. This is the first specimen? He alludes to the bucket. PK Yes, sir. Kalanchoe Thrysiflora. He holds the bucket up. 60 VON ZYL'S POV 60 A small cactus resting on some tobacco leaves. 61 BACK TO SCENE 61 VON ZYL The professor taught you this, ja? Of course to your English town he is a prisoner, a criminal. To us who respect such learning and culture, he is an honored guest. 44. He hands PK a pass. VON ZYL This pass is good for any time, any day. Would you like to see him now? PK Yes, sir. VON ZYL Come. I will take you myself. Von Zyl rises and opens the door for PK. They exit. CUT TO: 62 INT. PRISON CORRIDOR 62 PK and Von Zyl walk together. VON ZYL We have cleared a little plot behind the cellblock for the cactus. And tomorrow we have the professor's piano moved here. There is not another instrument like it in the territory. Maybe one day the two of you can give a concert for us, hey? PK Yes, sir. Just then the sound of GRUNTING and THWACKING fills the air. PK passes a room set up as a boxing gym. Through a crack in the door he sees a dozen boys being coached by some guards. Some guards are also being coached by a second man. A third man, LIEUTENANT SMIT, oversees the whole training session. PK watches, mesmerized. VON ZYL You like to box? PK I would like to learn, meneer. Are the boys prisoners? VON ZYL (laughs) No, no. The sons of the guards. See that one there? (points to a 45. little pudge boy flailing away) That's my son, Danie. It's a club. Lieutenant Smit. Smit comes over. SMIT Sir? VON ZYL We have room for one more on the squad? Smit looks down at PK. SMIT He's a little small, Kommandant. VON ZYL We'll build him up then. SMIT Yes, sir. But I really don't have anyone to spare to teach him right now. You know, with the tournament coming up. VON ZYL There must be someone. Smit looks around the hall. 63 HIS POV 63 A crumpled, old BLACK MAN, a lifer with broken, bandied legs and a fighter's flattened face, wiping the floor, picking up used towels. 64 BACK TO SCENE 64 SMIT Piet. GEEL PIET comes shuffling over, properly submissive. GEEL PIET (BLACK MAN) Yes, sir. SMIT You teach this boy basics, and you teach him good or I knock your black head flat, you hear? 46. GEEL PIET I teach him best I know, baas. SMIT We train every day. First thing in the morning. Miss two trainings, you're gone. PK Yes, meneer. SMIT Come tomorrow. See this old kaffir. PK Yes, meneer. Thank you, meneer. VON ZYL Lieutenant, a word? The two men step off to the side. GEEL PIET Don't worry, little baas. Little can beat big any day. First with the head, then with the heart. Little defeat big when little is smart. You can remember that? PK Yes, sir. GEEL PIET No, no. Don't never call me sir. 'Specially in front of the guards. PK What should I call you? GEEL PIET Piet. Geel Piet. COACH Kaffir. Towels. Geel Piet assumes his submissive posture again. GEEL PIET Okay, baas. Coming, baas. He winks at PK and shuffles off. A BELL SOUNDS. CUT TO: 47. 65 EXT. CARNIVAL 65 A bell at the top of a strongman's game sounds. A big Boer farmer, mallet in hand, roars in triumph, swinging the mallet again and ringing the bell again. 66 ANGLE ON PK AND MARIA 66 walking through the carnival, munching popcorn. MARIA You took a big chance talking to my father the way you did. PK Not really. Going in I was behind on points with him. I'm English. I attend a politically suspect school. I'm a boxer. MARIA He likes boxers. PK All men like boxers. But not for their daughters. So I had to find some way to make an impression. They get on line for the Ferris wheel. MARIA You could have picked a more agreeable topic. PK 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. MARIA Do you spend hours thinking about how to deal with me, too? PK Days. MARIA Know what I think? (beat) 48. You're dangerous. Their turn comes to mount the Ferris wheel. They get into the seat and strap in. MARIA When I was little we would go to my grandfather's farm in the high veldt for holiday. The Ferris wheel starts to go up. MARIA My father would take me to the top of the highest hill and we'd play this game, 'What Do You See' until we ran out of things to see. Do you ever play that? PK No. MARIA Want to try? PK Sure. The Ferris wheel stops to let more people on. Johannesburg glitters beyond. MARIA I see a forest. It goes on forever. There are giant trees which keep getting bigger and bigger over thousands of years. Now you. The wheel begins to move a little higher and then stops. PK 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. MARIA I see the big trees getting bigger, their leaves and branches making one great green umbrella over all of Africa. The wheel stops again at its highest point. PK 49. I see the sun growing weaker, giving off less light. I see the big trees dying because they cannot live without a lot of light. I see the little trees take over the forest because they learn to adapt. MARIA You tell a very good story. Her eyes sparkle, making her irresistible. PK leans forward. Maria turns her face towards him. Her lips part slightly. They kiss tenderly. The CAMERA RISES FROM them TO the star-littered sky twinkling above. The sky goes from black to grey as the CAMERA PANS DOWN. GEEL PIET (V.O.) (sing-song) Can't hit you, can't hurt you. Can't hit you, can't hurt you. Can't hit you, can't hurt you. That's it. Good. Good. CUT TO: 67 INT. PRISON BOXING ROOM 67 Geel Piet is punching at PK, slowly, with a large pair of gloves. The seven-year-old bobs and weaves quite expertly. Geel Piet stops, winded. GEEL PIET You wear out this old man. See? See how it can work? How little beat big? PK Yes, sir. But when do I get to punch? GEEL PIET You not going to just punch, man. You going to combination. He demonstrates. GEEL PIET One-two. One-two. C'mon. Now you. One-two. One-two. 50. PK does his best to mimic. GEEL PIET Oh do we have a boxer here. Yes sir. We build you to eight-punch combination. The Geel Piet eight. Then you catch afire. One-two. One-two. Doc appears in the doorway. DOC How is the next Joe Louis this morning? PK Try and hit me. Doc chuckles. PK No. C'mon. Doc takes a half-hearted swing. PK bobs expertly. PK No. Try hard. Doc sets up and swings left, then right. PK avoids both swings. DOC You are amazing. PK And I'm going to learn the Geel Piet eight. DOC 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? PK points to a nearby bucket. PK Parchypodium Namquanium. DOC Excellent. Excellent. We make from you a champion and a brain. 51. GEEL PIET (furtive) Excuse me, big baas. But can I talk to the small baas? DOC Of course. Geel Piet looks hesitantly from the man to the boy and then begins. GEEL PIET Every day I see you bring the bucket and in the bottom is some tobacco leaf. PK It keeps the roots wet. GEEL PIET What happens to the leaf after? DOC A little I use in some water to make a bug spray for the plants. PK And the rest we throw away. Geel Piet fidgets. He drops his head, speaking low. GEEL PIET If you leave the pail when you go plant is a problem, small baas? PK I don't understand. GEEL PIET Is like this. You see how hard the life is for the people here in prison. Only little pleasure they take from this hard life maybe sometimes when no one watching late at night -- a little smoke. Now with the big war in Europe tobacco is plenty hard to get outside. Inside it is gone. We are the forgotten in here. PK We have bunches of leaves at home. I'll bring a whole bucketful tomorrow. 52. GEEL PIET No, no. Mustn't do that, little baas. PK I don't understand. DOC What Geel Piet means is it can be dangerous. Something the guards might not want the people to have. PK What's wrong with tobacco? Why wouldn't they want them to have it? DOC What's wrong is people whose job it is to punish. After a little while it is all they know how to do. PK What should I do? DOC This is for you to answer. The sound of a TRUNCHEON on METAL turns them to the door where SERGEANT BORMANN, a side of beef with a sadist's eyes, stands, truncheon in hand. He enters the room and circles the trio. BORMANN I smell something not right here, ay, kaffir? He pokes Geel Piet with his truncheon. GEEL PIET (submissive) No, meneer sergeant. Everything okay here. Bormann swings his truncheon into the back of Geel Piet's knees, buckling the little man to the floor. BORMANN I don't fuckin' believe you. He glares at Doc and PK. BORMANN If you're up to something I'll find out. 53. Bormann, still eying them suspiciously, exits. Doc and PK help Geel Piet up. DOC Schweinhund. GEEL PIET No, no. This old kaffir's okay. Sorry to make any trouble, little baas. We just stick to the boxing now on. Sorry, sorry. Geel Piet goes hobbling off, picking up towels. Doc and PK go to exit. At the door PK turns. PK Geel Piet. Geel Piet turns. PK I leave my bucket on the side by Doc's toilet when I practice piano. Geel Piet breaks out a smile he usually keeps to himself and exits. PK looks up at Doc who tossles his hair approvingly. DOC PK, to me you are the champion of the world already. Come. Let us go box now with Mr. Beethoven. PK and Doc exit. CUT TO: 68 INT. SOLLY'S GYM 68 PK in the ring is about to start sparring. Solly gives him instruction as Morrie stands by. SOLLY Now at the end of the Geel Piet eight you do this... one-two... (he punches the air) One-two-three... the Solly Goldman thirteen. Okay? PK nods. Solly hits the BELL. The sparring begins. PK works his way in. 54. SOLLY That's it. That's it. Move him around. Jab jab. Slip slip. Now. PK pours it on, laying in the Geel Piet eight. Solly is silently counting. SOLLY And... one-two... one-two-three. PK fires the last three punches like lightning and backs up. SOLLY That's it. That's it. Now work around the defense. Jab jab. The opponent becomes aggressive. PK starts dancing, slipping punches. MORRIE How do you get away with this, Mr. G? Why don't they close you down? I mean, there are laws about blacks and white boxing each other. SOLLY In a public match. Not in a gym. Not yet anyway. The Boer is a funny people. Outside the ring the black is not equal. Inside he is. But only in private, not in public. So I keep my mouth shut, the police go a little blind, and that's that. It's a crazy world, huh? A WHISTLE from across the gym draws Solly's attention. He and Morrie turn to his office where his assistant stands with the tall black man from the Schoolboy Championships. Solly's face takes on a serious ex- pression. He rings the bell. He turns to Morrie. SOLLY Work him on the heavy bag. Solly heads for his office. 69 ANGLE ON PK 69 turning away from his opponent. He and the tall black man trade a glance just before the man enters Solly's 55. office and Solly closes the door. CUT TO: 70 INT. GYM 70 PK pounds the heavy bag as Morrie stands by. MORRIE Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That's it. PK stops, relaxing. Morrie throws a towel over his shoulders. One of Solly's ASSISTANTS comes over. ASSISTANT Solly wants to see you two. PK and Morrie look at each other and head for Solly's office. CUT TO: 71 INT. OFFICE 71 Solly faces the door as it opens. PK and Morrie enter. MORRIE You wanted to see us, Mr. G.? SOLLY Close the door. (beat) Someone I got a lot of respect for asked me to make a request. He wants to put you in a match. MORRIE With who? SOLLY A young guy just turned pro. Gideon Mandoma. MORRIE A black fighter! They want him to fight a black fighter? SOLLY In a black township. Sofiatown. MORRIE Out of the question. Not even up for discussion. C'mon, P.K. 56. Morrie goes to exit. PK doesn't. PK Who asked you to ask? SOLLY The man who promotes all the fights in Sofiatown -- Elias Nguni. PK And you trust him? SOLLY In thirty years I know him, number one on the list. MORRIE You're both out of your minds. PK Did he tell you why he wants the match? SOLLY I told you what he told me. PK Just talking boxing -- how do I match up with Mandoma? SOLLY Pretty even. MORRIE I mean besides getting thrown out of school and into jail, do you know what else happens you do this? He's a pro. The minute you fight him you're a pro. SOLLY There's no purse being offered. MORRIE That's a good career move. Risk everything to gain nothing. Very sound business sense. PK Tell Mr. Nguni I'll think about it. PK exits with Morrie steaming behind. They head for the locker room, PK clearly perturbed. 57. MORRIE Okay. What's going on? PK I don't know. MORRIE Well why don't you tell me what you do know. PK 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? MORRIE For you? PK I haven't heard it in years. PK begins to disrobe. MORRIE And how did this honor fall on your broad back? PK 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. MORRIE So you did it for them. PK Right. MORRIE And after that? PK A clothing program for their families and a food program. One thing sort of led to another. 58. MORRIE I can see where 'angel' would be an appropriate title. (beat) But it was, uh, this Geel Piet who was really behind all of it, wasn't it? PK He was very good at pointing things out. MORRIE Man like that should be running a country, not rotting in prison. PK He's not in prison anymore. (pause) He's dead. PK steps into the shower pulling the curtain closed. CUT TO: 72 INT. GYM 72 PK and Morrie exit the locker room. 73 PK'S POV - ACROSS GYM TO MARIA 73 talking to Solly. She sees PK and smiles. 74 BACK TO SCENE 74 PK and Morrie come up. MARIA I thought I'd surprise you. PK Well, you succeeded. MARIA Mr. Goldman was explaining the theory behind the left hook. MORRIE Beats talking about the weather. You may have heard about me? 59. I'm Morrie. MARIA Oh yes. How d'you do. Solly's Assistant whistles for him. SOLLY Well, nice meeting you, Maria. MARIA Nice meeting you, Mr. Goldman. SOLLY We never had a girl come to the gym. (beat) It's not such a bad thing, huh? Solly moves off. PK You got a pass to come out on a weeknight? Maria lifts her jumper a bit, displaying the results of treeclimbing on her knees. MARIA Your tree pass. PK moves Maria and Morrie off down the stairs. MARIA Do you box too, Morrie? MORRIE Do I look that daft? PK Morrie's the brains of the operation. MORRIE He means the bank. Your boyfriend has a great head for literature but none for finance. They exit the staircase. 75 THEIR POV - ACROSS THE WAY - NGUNI 75 in the shadow of the alley stands, smoking a cigarette. 60. 76 BACK TO SCENE 76 PK (in Zulu) I see you, Nguni. NGUNI I see you, P.K. They talk across the narrow street. NGUNI You have heard my request? PK Yes. Why do you make it? NGUNI A woman has thrown the sacred ox bones. She has made a fire and read the smoke. PK What did she read? NGUNI That the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi who is a chief must fight the one who one day will be a chief. PK But it's not true that I'm a chief. NGUNI Who knows what is true and what is not. The legend of Onoshobishobi Ingelosi is very powerful among the people. They see you box the Boer and always you win. They have heard the stories from Barberton. The people live with little hope. They must see if the spirit of the boy still lives in the man. PK And if I lose? If the spirit of the Onoshobishobi Ingelosi does not exist in me anymore, then what will they live with? NGUNI Less hope. But still they must 61. see. It is our way. At that moment a spotlight blinds them. A police car comes up the alley, stopping in front of them. The POLICE exit, threatening. POLICE #1 What's this here? Maria is gripped by fear. Morrie is cautious, unmoving. PK An old family servant, Officer. From home. We just ran into each other. POLICE #2 Papers, man. Come on, be quick. Nguni reaches into his pocket. POLICE #1 Where you coming from? PK Gym, sir. I train there. POLICE #1 And you? MORRIE I'm his manager. The Police look at each other and share a laugh. POLICE #2 (to Maria) And you're the sparring partner, hey? The Police laugh. Police #2, satisfied Nguni's papers are in order, hands them back. POLICE #2 You have an hour to curfew and a long way to go, kaffir. Be off. NGUNI (subservient) Yes, baas. Going right now. Nguni moves off, no semblance of the proud man in his gait. PK 62. Nguni. Nguni turns. PK I'll do it. Nguni smiles and disappears into the night. PK watches him go. CUT TO: 77 EXT. DEVILLIERS SCHOOL 77 PK and Maria stand by the tree set to climb over the wall. MARIA I'm scared for you, PK. PK Solly's a great teacher. He wouldn't put me in a fight I couldn't handle. MARIE I mean about how involved you are with the black people. That scares me. PK Because you don't understand them. MARIA No I don't. PK If you did you wouldn't be so scared. You ever have a conversation with a black person? MARIA Of course. PK Besides a servant. Maria's silence is her answer. PK You should sometime. MARIA I hate it when you tease me. 63. PK Sorry. He kisses her. MARIA (pouty) No you're not. PK Yes I am. He kisses her again. This time she responds, kissing him back. The kisses become more passionate, touching, feel- ing. The heat in both of them begins to rise when a car passes, its headlights arcing across the tree, startling them out of their passion. They cling to the shadows until the car turns the corner. MARIA I better go. They kiss once, lightly. PK boosts her over the wall and waits until she is safely on the other side before run- ning off into the night. CUT TO: 78 INT. OXFORD BOARD OF EXAMINERS ROOM - DAY 78 The Oxford Board of EXAMINERS, eminent academics all, sit four across at a lecture table, looking absolutely musty with learning. Across from them PK sits, a folder in his lap. One man, PROFESSOR LEWIS, peruses the file in front of him. LEWIS According to your submission you have ambitions to be a writer and the welterweight boxing champion of the world. Lewis reads the last sentence with a tinge of amusement in his voice. PK Yes, sir. LEWIS Don't you find seeking a career as a pugilist and reading for a degree at Oxford a bit, how shall we put it, intellectually 64. incompatible. PK Lord Byron was a boxer, sir. And I've never heard anyone question his intellectual integrity. One of the other Examiners coughs theatrically to hide his smile. Lewis looks down the table at the man. LEWIS I do not recall Lord Byron actually engaging in matches for money. PK Actually, sir, there are several recorded instances of Lord Byron engaging in matches for quite large sums of money. EXAMINER #2 Quite right. Yes. In a letter to his wife Shelley makes mention of just such a thing. For hundreds of pounds, actually. Lewis has heard enough. LEWIS Let's move along, shall we? As your presentational you've requested to read from a work of your own fiction. PK Yes, sir. LEWIS Well, then, let us hope we'll be treated to the stirrings of another Byron. His sarcasm is not lost on PK. PK ignores it, opens his folder, and begins to read. PK The Concerto for the Southland and the Death of Geel Piet. (pause) 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 65. deserted his mother before he was born. His stepfather threw him out to survive on the streets of Capetown when he was nine. CUT TO: 79 INT. BARBERTON PRISON BOXING RING 79 Geel Piet is instructing a nine-year-old PK in the Geel Piet eight. Both boy and man are enjoying what they do -- and each other. PK (V.O.) 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. As the narration continues, the SCENE FADES TO: 80 TWELVE-YEAR-OLD PK 80 with a much better grasp of the Geel Piet eight. He and Geel Piet seem closer than ever. PK (V.O.) 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: 81 INT. PRISON ROOM 81 PK sits opposite a black prisoner who talks to him. PK, thirteen years old now, writes what the man says on a piece of paper. When he is finished, he folds it, puts it into an envelope, and hand it to the man. The man smiles, shakes PK's hand profusely, and exits. PK turns to Geel Piet who is on his hands and knees polishing the floor, seemingly part of the surroundings. Geel Piet and PK share a smile. PK (V.O.) Geel Piet bore no animosity, held no hate. Should a guard beat him he regarded it as self-inflicted, 66. the result of some carelessness on his part. To survive the system he lived in he became an expert in the art of camouflage, a master of the invisible. In this he strove to be perfect, and in the end it was his quest for perfection that provoked anger from above and killed him. CUT TO: 82 EXT. PRISON CACTUS GARDEN 82 Quite advanced after five years of planting. PK and Geel Piet are bent over a cactus, transplanting it. A group of prisoners on the way to a hard-labor work task march by. They chant a verse to Onoshobishobi Ingelosi. PK is a little embarrassed by it. PK 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. GEEL PIET To them you are. You are the one who brings the smoke, the one who writes the letters, the one who puts clothes on their children when they are cold. You are Onoshobishobi Ingelosi. PK But you know that's not true. GEEL PIET Who is to say what is true and what is not true, kleine baas. Doc comes running up, excited, waving a newspaper. DOC The Allied armies have crossed the Rhine into Germany. It is almost over. PK That's great, isn't it? He turns to Geel Piet. GEEL PIET 67. (subdued) Yes, kleine baas. DOC 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 No matter that, Professor. We always manage here. What pains me most is I lose my boxer. PK I'll come back. GEEL PIET (adamant) No, kleine baas. You leave this damn place you don't come back never. DOC 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. GEEL PIET Not possible. The kommandant never allow the people to have such a thing. DOC He'll think it's a concert for him and the brass. But we'll know, ay? And the people will know. PK He'll never let black be with white here, Doc. DOC If the black is part of the 68. orchestra, like the piano, he will. GEEL PIET But the people have no instruments in this place, big baas. DOC They have their voices. Each tribe a different voice, a different language -- all singing together. It is brilliant, no? PK Except the tribes don't trust each other. They don't even talk to each other. DOC (crestfallen) Oh. This is correct. This stupid hatred. GEEL PIET They will do it for you, kleine baas. You are Onoshobishobi Ingelosi. You bring the tobacco. You write the letters. You put clothes on their children's bodies and food in their bellies. All you do is ask and they all sing for you. DOC 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. BORMANN A kaffir smarter than all of us? You are a strange German, Professor. DOC That little maniac with the moustache in Berlin you admire. He is the strange German. And soon kaput, I hope. BORMANN If that's true you'll not be long for this place, eh, Professor? 69. DOC No, Sergeant. God willing. BORMANN And you, too, little Rooinek. But you, kaffir, Hitler comes or goes... He takes Geel Piet's hand. BORMANN You are going to stay with me. He forces Geel Piet's hand closer and closer to a cactus with long thorns. BORMANN And I will find out all your secrets once your friends are gone. One slip... He pushes Geel Piet's hands onto the cactus needle. Geel Piet does not cry out. BORMANN I have you. He lets go of Geel Piet's hand. Geel Piet removes it from the cactus, bloodied. BORMANN Get out of here. Geel Piet takes his watering can and goes. BORMANN You see, Professor, they are not like us. A white man would scream bloody murder. Doc and PK glare at Bormann. He smirks and walks away. PK (V.O.) 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. PK (V.O.) Having obtained the cooperation of all the tribal groups, we set about instructing them. Four men from each tribe were taught the 70. intricacies of their group's parts. They were the choral leaders responsible for teaching the others. PK and Doc instruct. Doc plays the piano. PK leads the singers. Geel Piet turns the pages for Doc. PK (V.O.) At night the prison hummed with the men in their cells practicing. CUT TO: 83 EXT. PRISON TOWER 83 Nervous guards patrol as the SOUNDS of the prisoners singing wafts through the air. CUT TO: 84 INT. BOXING ROOM 84 Geel Piet instructs PK. P.K. (V.O.) My boxing instruction accelerated as well. It was as if Geel Piet was trying to give me every bit of boxing knowledge he had before we parted. And always from the corners and shadows Bormann watched and waited. Bormann watches PK and Geel Piet from the door of his room, his truncheon beating idly against his leg. CUT TO: 85 INT. RING 85 A photographer sets up a group picture of the boxing squad -- kids and guards. Geel Piet stands off to one side, OUT OF FRAME. PK (V.O.) 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 71. more. The group disperses. PK beckons the photographer to wait. He grabs Geel Piet and forces him to stand, much to the little man's protestations, for a photo of the two of them. As the picture is taken Geel Piet has the widest smile imaginable. 86 INT. PRISON YARD - NIGHT 86 The guards, all in crisp uniforms, patrol nervously, truncheons at the ready. The towers bristle with guns as hundreds of black prisoners file into the yard. PK (V.O.) 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. PK (V.O.) (CONT'D) 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. All the prisoners are seated on the ground behind Doc, who is raised with the piano on a small stage. Guards surround the prisoners -- a solid, edgy border encasing a black center. The front of the yard is filled with seats on which sit the Kommandant, his wife, assorted prison brass, politicians, and a smattering of the local Afrikaan Hierarchy. PK is overseeing the seating of the prisoners when Doc comes up to him. DOC Have you seen my page turner? PK No. He asks a prisoner in Zulu. PK Have you seen Geel Piet? The man shakes his head. PK looks worried. 72. DOC (reassuring) He will come. The Kommandant, all medals and polished leather, mounts the stage, signaling a beginning to the festivities. VON ZYL Where is Bormann? I need Bormann to translate to the prisoners. SMIT I don't know, Kommandant. DOC Is there a problem here, Kommandant? VON ZYL I want to address these filthy kaffirs but I don't have a translator. PK I'll translate. VON ZYL You can speak Zulu, PK? PK Yes, sir. VON ZYL All right. Listen up. He addresses the prisoners. VON ZYL Tell them this concert is the gift to them from the professor who, even though he is in prison, is not a dirty criminal like them but a man of culture and learning. PK (subtitled) The Kommandant welcomes you and looks forward to the great singing. VON ZYL For such a man I am happy to do this. But one hair of trouble and it's finish. 73. PK (subtitled) He hopes each tribe will sing its best and bring honor to its people. VON ZYL One wrong move and you get marched back to your cells and don't come out for a month. PK (subtitled) He says tonight let us be one people under the African sky. The prisoners break into spontaneous applause. Von Zyl looks at PK, unsuspecting, pleased. VON ZYL You did a good job. PK Thank you, sir. VON ZYL Professor? He turns the stage over to the professor and takes his seat. The professor sits at his stool, poised. PK, in front of the singers, watches him for a cue. Doc drops his head. PK points to a group of singers. MUSIC and VOICE blend spontaneously. "The Concerto for the Great Southland" begins. Doc plays magnificently with great style. PK focuses on leading the singers. Each section, each tribe singing its own songs with its own distinct cultural imprints on rhythm, pace and tone. 87 CLOSE UP ON PK 87 leading the singers in and out of the MUSIC. 88 FLASH TO TRUNCHEON 88 being raised and lowered on a familiar back. 89 BACK TO SCENE 89 PK is caught short by the flash. He falters a bit, then regains his concentration. 74. 90 FLASH TO TRUNCHEON 90 coming down on a familiar head -- Geel Peit's. 91 ANOTHER ANGLE 91 Instinctively the first four prisoners in each group, the leaders, stand and turn to face their people. They take up the lead. PK, distracted by his inner vision, runs off stage. Doc looks after him, worried, but keeps playing. CUT TO: 92 INT. PRISON 92 PK runs through the empty cell blocks looking for some- one. PK runs through the corridors. He runs through the kitchens, the empty dining area, the SOUND of the concert chasing after him. He runs through the recreation area and past the boxing room when he hears a THUD, and another. 93 INT. BOXING ROOM 93 He bolts into the room and hits the light switch. The light over the ring comes on, illuminating Bormann, truncheon raised over the lifeless, broken body of Geel Piet. PK No! Startled, Bormann jumps out of the ring and runs off. PK scrambles into the ring and cradles the lifeless, blood- ied head in his lap, and begins to sob. PAN DOWN along Geel Piet's arm to his bloodied hand, holding the snapshot of him and PK. The Concerto grows LOUDER around PK until it enfolds him in its melodies. The voices of Africa, the music of Europe, reaching for a musical and spiritual crescendo. PK (V.O.) 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 75. voices rising to heaven above, even as her blood soaked the ground below. The MUSIC SWELLS until the voices meld as one. CUT TO: 94 INT. EXAMINERS' ROOM 94 The four examiners all sit enthralled by the story. When PK looks up, a tear runs down his cheek. Lewis, who is visibly moved, clears his throat. Another man blows his nose with a handkerchief, covering his emotions. LEWIS Thank you very much. You will be notified as to the University's decision by mail. PK rises and goes to exit. LEWIS Point of curiousity. PK turns. LEWIS Your headmaster told me your work is somewhat autobiographical. PK Yes, sir. LEWIS This Bormann, he was real? PK Yes, sir. LEWIS Was justice ever served? PK Yes, sir. Sergeant Bormann died of cancer... (pause) of the rectum. PK turns and exits. CUT TO: 95 EXT. SCHOOL 95 76. Solly Goldman sits behind the wheel of his old car. Two figures sneak out of the school and come running toward the car. 96 INT. CAR 96 Solly starts the engine as PK and Morrie hop in. PK We have to make a stop first. SOLLY The night won't last forever, boychick. PK It'll only take a minute. Solly puts the car in gear and drives off. CUT TO: 97 INT. MARIA'S ROOM 97 Maria is sleeping when a hand goes over her mouth. She awakes, startled, to PK, finger to lips. CUT TO: 98 EXT. BLACK TOWNSHIP 98 A police car patrols the edge of the vast, dark, ram- shackle township, its cruiser light scanning the openings to the dark rutted alleys. It passes and disappears down the road. A moment later an African steps out of the shadows and whistles a signal. CUT TO: 99 DOWN THE ROAD 99 in the shadows, Nguni hears the whistle. He looks at his watch and up the road, tense, as another set of head- lights appears. Nguni steps back into the shadows. CUT TO: 100 INT. CAR 100 77. Solly strains to see out his dirty windshield with the headlights as his car bumps along the unpaved road. SOLLY The night I escaped from the Tsar's Army it was just like this. Six of us -- four Jews, two Ukranians. Dark as anything. No streets. In the day we hid in bushes. At night we went. MORRIE You deserted? SOLLY Whey they come take you at thirteen years old and tell you it's twenty-five years in the Army, it's your duty to desert. Nguni steps out right into the path of the headlights. Solly hits the brake hard, throwing everyone forward. SOLLY You said the end of the road. NGUNI Yes, yes. Sorry. I drive. He opens Solly's door with some urgency. Nguni sees Maria. NGUNI (smiling) Welcome, miss, welcome. MARIA Thank you. Nguni turns into the township and is swallowed by the dark. CUT TO: 101 INT. CAR 101 The car bounces along the rutted darkened streets of the township. The glow of smoldering cooking fires through open doorways offers minimal illumination to the squalid lives within. Maria peers out at a world she has never seen. As the car drives, women and children gather along the road peering in. Mothers point to PK, instructing their children. 78. VOICES Onoshobishobi Ingelosi. NGUNI The people have come from everywhere to see you. Maria takes PK's hand, a little nervous. PK smiles at her confidently. MORRIE Where are the men? NGUNI They are to be witness. The muffled sounds of VOICES SINGING reaches them, grow- ing louder as they approach. Maria is tense. Nguni senses this. He turns to her. NGUNI No worry, miss. It is the sound of happiness. He stops the car at a door in a high wooden wall guarded by two big men. NGUNI We are here. Everyone gets out of the car and passes through the door which shuts behind them. CUT TO: 102 INT. DIMLY LIT CORRIDOR 102 Nguni leads everyone down the hallway. PK is dressed to fight, hands taped, robe thrown over his shoulders. MORRIE I don't see why we have to weigh in. They're going to fight anyway. NGUNI It is very important the people see everything is correct. They come to an arch which leads into a big empty room. In the center of the room stands a scale and a dozen Africans, all dressed in worn but neatly pressed suits. Mandoma, the other man who attended PK's fight at school, clad only in boxing gear, waits on PK. 79. PK (in Zulu) I see you, Gideon Mandoma. MANDOMA I see you, PK. PK 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. MANDOMA It is not for you or me to say what it means. An old man, one of the dignitaries says something to Nguni. NGUNI Please. He motions for PK to step on the scale. PK does. The weight is duly noted. Mandoma then does the same. The twelve men are satisfied. They head for the exit. NGUNI It is time. He motions for the others to follow. PK goes to walk with Maria. Nguni pairs him with Mandoma. They exit the room. CUT TO: 103 INT. CORRIDOR 103 The party walks towards a big double door behind which a single VOICE PREACHING can be vaguely heard. Nguni knocks on the door. 104 EXT. SOCCER FIELD 104 The doors open to an entire soccer field jammed with humanity. A boxing ring is raised in the center. The only lights in the area directly over it. With the twelve witnesses in the lead, the party makes its way through a path in the crowd. An OLD WOMAN with a fly switch, not unlike Inkosikazi's, speaks from the ring. As PK passes the whispers start. WHISPERS Onoshobishobi. 80. The Woman in the ring begins to chant. The crowd picks it up. CROWD Onoshobishopi Ingelosi. Shobi shobi Ingelosi. PK looks back at Maria who is a bit unnerved, as are Morrie and Solly. He looks across at Mandoma whose face is a mask looking straight ahead, betraying nothing. The two men climb into the ring and stand in their corners. The Old Woman shuffles over and peers into PK's face. She mutters something inaudible, then turns to the crowd. OLD WOMAN Onoshobishobi Ingelosi. The crowd picks up the chant. She waves and the crowd goes silent. Somewhere in the darkness a single voice begins to sing "Nkosi Sikelel I Afrika" -- the African national anthem. The crowd picks it up. PK looks down to the front row where Nguni sits courteously attending to Maria in a seat of honor among the twelve men in suits. The African national anthem finishes. The BELL RINGS three times. The Old Woman is led from the ring. An Indian Referee in all white enters the ring and waves the two fighters forward. REFEREE You are listening to me please. When I am shouting break, you must break at once. When a knockdown is coming, it is for an eight count. No heads, no elbows. You fight clean or by golly I am giving you penalty points. Good luck, boys. PK and Mandoma touch gloves and go to their respective corners. PK What do you see? Solly watches Mandoma dancing across the ring. SOLLY A very tough fight. The BELL RINGS. 81. SOLLY Watch the left hook. Mandoma comes charging across the ring and begins to fire everything in his arsenal at PK, overwhelming him. PK cannot get away from him and takes a series of devastat- ing combinations which end in a left hook to PK's jaw. PK drops like lead. The Referee starts counting. PK shakes his head clear and rises at eight. The Referee checks his gloves. There is a cut under his right eye. REFEREE Continue. Again, Mandoma comes charging hard. PK defends himself as best he can, trying to counter. But Mandoma's offense won't allow it. He beats on PK until the round ends. PK sits down in his corner. Morrie works on his eye. PK God, he hits like a truck. SOLLY He's going for the quick knockout. He can't keep it up. Soon the truck runs out of gas. PK If he catches me again like that I'll run out of gas -- permanently. The BELL SOUNDS. PK is hardly off his stool when Mandoma is on him, pummeling him. PK backpedals, bobs and weaves. Mandoma's punches come fast and furious, each one looking to end the fight. Mandoma gets PK against the ropes and bangs away. PK covers up. Mandoma punishes his arms and kidneys. PK swings back and es- capes. Mandoma pursues him. He catches PK with a body chop and then a chopping left. PK goes down again. The Referee starts to count. The crowd is completely silent. The BELL RINGS. PK returns to his corner, shaking his head, trying to clear it. He flops onto his stool. SOLLY He's had it. He's got no strength in his punch. PK Could've fooled me. SOLLY I'm telling you. PK 82. Tell him. MORRIE Look -- he's taking water. They all look. 105 THEIR POV 105 of Mandoma, breathing heavily, sweating profusely, drinks deeply from his water flask. 106 BACK TO SCENE 106 SOLLY See. Where that water goes -- you go. Right to here. He pokes PK's belly. SOLLY You put your punches there, you win. You don't, you lose. The BELL RINGS. Mandoma comes charging out. PK goes on defense. He hits Mandoma hard to the head. Mandoma whips around and hits him hard. PK spins and hits the canvas. His vision blurs, doubles. The SOUND of a WATERFALL fills his head. FLASH TO: 107 PK 107 struggling to climb the rocks in the pool below the waterfall. He is halfway across this time. CUT TO: 108 REFEREE 108 REFEREE Three... four... five... FLASH TO: 109 PK 109 struggles to mount the fifth rock. He clings to it, wet, exhausted, as the water pummels him. CUT TO: 83. 110 REFEREE 110 REFEREE ... seven... eight... nine... PK rises. The crowd goes wild. The Referee holds up six fingers. REFEREE How many fingers? PK Six. REFEREE Where are you? PK In a fight behind on points. REFEREE Okay. Continue. Mandoma rushes in for the kill. PK feints and comes up under one of Mandoma's punches, burying a body shot into his gut. Mandoma grunts and backs up. PK pursues him. Mandoma tries to recover. He throws another big punch. PK ducks under it and puts two more hooks into Mandoma's stomach. Mandoma starts to back up for the first time in the fight. PK boxes, jabbing, feinting, pushing Man- doma around the ring, taking control. Mandoma, heading for exhaustion, throws another big punch in desperation. PK hits him with three punches in return. Mandoma swings again with a last desperate effort, and PK buries the Solly Goldman thirteen into every part of his body. PK steps back and with his last punch, puts Mandoma down. The crowd goes silent. The Referee counts Mandoma out. He raises PK's hand. Still, the crowd is silent. MORRIE We're in the shit now. Nice knowing you, Solly. He and Solly look around at the somber black faces flick- ering in the shadows of the ring light. PK looks down at Mandoma in silence. Mandoma rises unsteadily. He stands in front of PK, staring into his eyes, and then he raises PK's arm above his head. MANDOMA Onoshobishobi Ingelosi. The crowd goes wild, chanting, singing over and over as PK and Mandoma stand in center ring, arms raised. 84. 111 EXT. DEVILLIERS SCHOOL - PRE-DAWN 111 PK stands with Maria by the tree they use to climb over the wall. In the b.g. Solly and Morrie wait in the car. MARIA The Seniors Dance is two Saturdays from now. I would like it if you could escort me. PK Maria Marais with a rooinek at the Senior Dance? What will people think? MARIA They'll think what they think and I'll think what I think. PK And what is that? Maria touches his face. Her eyes soften. MARIA I think I love you. PK swallows hard. They kiss and embrace. PK caresses her face. PK I would be honored to be your escort. Maria beams. MARIA I didn't doubt it for a minute. Solly HONKS the HORN. PK kisses Maria once more. PK I'll give you a boost. PK stirrups his hands. Maria boosts up to the first branch of the tree. She crests the wall. MARIA Thank you for tonight. You were great. She smiles and drops down behind the wall. PK runs back 85. toward the car. CUT TO: 112 EXT. PRINCE OF WALES SCHOOL - DAWN 112 Solly's car pulls up opposite the gate. CUT TO: 113 INT. CAR 113 Morrie is sleeping in the back seat. Solly and PK are sitting in the front. SOLLY When you and your manager first came to me with that meshuganah idea to be welterweight champion of the world you did not have a big believer here. But I gotta tell you. Now you do. In London lives Benny Rosen, the greatest trainer in the world today. When you go to your Oxford I give you a letter to Rosen. Whatever I can't do for you, he can. PK Thanks, Mr. G. Solly pokes Morrie awake. SOLLY And I give the address of a very good bookmaker. Teach you also a thing or two. Now, go on back to being fancy-schmancy English gentlemen. I'm proud of both of you. PK and Morrie exit the car and run back to the school. 114 EXT. CAMPUS 114 As PK and Morrie jog toward their dorm a VOICE stops them from behind. ST. JOHN (V.O) Gentlemen. PK and Morrie stop cold. They turn to St. John, up early 86. for his daily constitutional. MORRIE You're up early, sir. ST. JOHN Best time for walking. PK Best time for running too, sir. MORRIE Have to put in the roadwork, sir. You know, keep those legs strong. St. John eyes the bruise on PK's cheek. ST. JOHN Yes. Quite a fresh bruise there. PK I tripped. ST. JOHN Maybe you should change your footwear. He looks down at their shoes. Both boys are wearing pro- per shoes; not at all what would be worn for roadwork. ST. JOHN To something a little more appropriate for... (beat) roadwork. Busted, the boys squirm uncomfortably. BOTH Yes, sir. St. John fixes them with a look, and then walks off. The boys bolt into the dorm. CUT TO: 115 INT. PK'S ROOM 115 PK and Morrie open the door and stop cold. Gideon Mandoma sits in a chair facing the door. He rises. MANDOMA Please excuse me for coming like a thief by the window. 87. PK You speak English? PK is surprised. Mandoma nods. PK You are a great fighter, Gideon. MANDOMA Second greatest in this room. PK But you didn't come to talk about fighting. Mandoma shakes his head. He waits for a moment, then begins. MANDOMA When you say to me, Onoshobishobi Ingelosi means nothing, you are right. And you are wrong. The legend gives the people hope for a good tomorrow. But hope alone will not make a good tomorrow for the people. You cannot write our letters, get us clothes, food, work. These things we must do ourselves, so we can be part of this country's good tomorrow. If we are not, the hope will disappear. The people will grow tired. The tired will grow angry and there will be no good tomorrow for anybody -- black or white. PK What are you asking from me? MANDOMA To be part of something you must know what everyone else knows. We have our own knowledge. We need yours. MORRIE We get our knowledge in schools, Gideon. We're not born with it. MANDOMA Then it must be the same with us. MORRIE You have schools. 88. MANDOMA Yes. And teachers who cannot do more than their own ABC's. We have a system made not to teach us. PK (anxious) I am only seventeen years old, Gideon. I cannot teach five million people how to speak English and do sums. MANDOMA You taught the singing to thousands at Barberton Prison. You were only twelve. Mandoma rises. MANDOMA (CONT'D) You are a great fighter, PK. PK Second greatest in this room, Gideon. Mandoma exits through the window. CUT TO: 116 INT. ST. JOHN'S STUDY 116 PK stands in front of a pondering St. John. ST. JOHN You are asking me for a lot, young man. PK I'm only asking you to put what you've taught us into practice, sir. ST. JOHN You are asking me to put the reputation of this school in jeopardy. PK The reputation of this school, sir, is based on its integrity. 89. ST. JOHN I'm aware of that. I'm also aware of what will happen if this ever gets out. We live in a country where the rules are being rewritten. PK Then we'd better be careful to keep a firm hand on our pens... (beat) ... sir. St. John regards PK. ST. JOHN All right. I will allow it on a trial basis. Here are my conditions: you tell no one; you operate at night on Saturdays when the student body is gone; you involve no one besides yourself and Mr. Levy. If you can comply, you can have your school. CUT TO: 117 EXT. BEACH - LATE AFTERNOON 117 Maria and PK are about to race. Maria is given a head start of ten yards. MARIA Ready. Set. Go! They both take off. Maria runs as hard as she can. PK catches up to her. She strains with the effort. PK crosses the finish line first. Maria trips and falls, rolling in the sand. PK comes back to her. He kneels down. PK You okay? MARIA You're supposed to let me win. PK Then you'd say I was being condescending. MARIA You were guilty of that when you gave me a head start. 90. She kisses him and stands up. They begin to walk along the beach. MARIA Get your formal yet? PK grows uncomfortable. PK Uh... no. MARIA The dance is only a week away. PK Maria... (beat) I can't come to the dance. MARIA (shocked) Why not? PK I have an obligation. MARIA Can't you change it? PK It's a permanent obligation. Every Saturday night... (beat) It starts tonight. Maria cannot believe what she is hearing. MARIA You're breaking up with me. PK No. MARIA Then what could be so important that it takes all your Saturday nights? PK I really can't say. Maria starts to cry. She throws her arm around him. MARIA 91. P.K., I love you. Please don't go away. PK I'm not going away. MARIA Yes you are. I can feel it. PK I'm not. I'm just tutoring. Maria pulls back. PK I started a school... (beat) ... for Gideon Mandoma and some others in the seniors library. Maria's sadness turns to anger. MARIA I'm losing you to a bunch of kaffirs? PK You're not losing anything. MARIA No? Are you escorting me to the dance? Are you going to see me on the only free night they give us? PK Maria, this is important to me. MARIA And my life's important to me. Damn you. She runs off in tears. A pained PK doesn't attempt to go after her. FADE TO. 118 EXT. CLIFF FACE 118 On an escarpment high above the dense green rainforest cover, PK and Doc move along the sheer cliff face with photographic equipment and rucksacks. PK notices Doc's labored breathing and slow movements. They reach some small cacti growing out of the side of 92. the cliff in full bloom. DOC (breathing hard) Ach. You see how beautiful? PK You ever hear of glycerine, Doc? DOC Mr. Going-To-Oxford-Smarty-Pants. Of course I know about glycerine. Triglycerine. Biglycerine. Monoglycerine. What do you want to know? PK Why you don't use it. It's only a little pill under the tongue. DOC Tongues were not made to put little pills under. When I have to start with that, I become something else. PK Well, until you become something else, the little pills would make this easier on your heart. A CLAP of THUNDER cuts into their conversation. Thick roiling rain clouds appear suddenly. DOC Little pills or no little pills -- we don't find cover, we both turn into something else. Lightning splits the sky. Rain begins to fall, pelting the escarpment. DOC 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. PK turns to look back at Doc. DOC Don't look at me. Go! 93. PK forges ahead. 119 HIS POV - OPENING 119 some 20 yards ahead. 120 BACK TO SCENE 120 PK 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. CUT TO: 121 INT. SMALL CAVE 121 PK stoops in the small cave, dripping wet. A moment later Doc's foot appears at the entrance. PK helps him in. Doc slumps down, exhausted. PK You okay? Breathing too hard to reply, Doc shakes his head in the affirmative. PK looks out at the rain forming a sheer wall of water outside. He turns to Doc, who is getting up, flashlight in hand. PK What are you doing? DOC Exploring. PK Why don't you just rest? DOC Plenty time for resting when I am something else. Look. He strikes a match. A wind from inside the cave blows it side to side. DOC When does a cave have wind? This 94. is more than some little cave, my friend. Doc crouches down and follows the beam of his flashlight to the rear of the cave where there is a small opening. He shines the light into it. DOC Here. See? There is a passage. Before PK can say anything else, Doc has wriggled through the small opening. PK, a bit peeved, takes his own flashlight and follows. CUT TO: 122 INT. SMALL TUNNEL 122 PK crawls after Doc, making his way through the small tunnel on his stomach. DOC 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. DOC You hear that? There is something waiting for us. Doc starts moving quicker. PK Let's hope it's not hungry. Doc squeezes out of the small space. PK joins him in a slightly larger tunnel, the same size as the first one -- stoop height. DOC Better, ja? PK What's that smell? 95. All of a sudden there is a RUSTLING noise. PK 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. 123 PK'S POV - BATS 123 flying wildly through the flashlight beams. In a blur, the bats are gone, disappeared into another tunnel entrance to the left. 124 BACK TO SCENE 124 Doc an PK rise slowly. The silence of the cave is punctuated by the DRIPPING. PK Maybe it's stopped raining. DOC Who can think about rain when you are on the edge of the great unknown cave. PK You don't know that. DOC The bats didn't come from a shoebox, Mr. Know-It-All. Doc heads off. DOC Sometimes I think maybe sending you off to that fancy-shmancy school was not such a good idea. PK It was your idea. Your'e the one who pushed for me to go. DOC Ja. But who knew they do such a good job of boxing up part of 96. your brain. PK Which part is that? DOC The one where is all the questions. The curiosity center. Look. Ahead in the tunnel is a luminous glow, filling an entrance. DOC Did I tell you? Doc and PK hurry on. 125 THEIR POV - TUNNEL OPENING 125 As they come to a tunnel opening: a large cave, perhaps 200 feet wide by 100 feet high, filled with stalactites and stalagmites composed of pure, crystallized calcium carbonate. DOC 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. 126 BACK TO SCENE 126 Doc and PK stare at the crystal cave in amazement. DOC 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. Doc, in his own world of wonderment, wanders down into the cave among the stalactites. PK follows, soon losing sight of Doc behind the large crystal columns. DOC (O.S.) You know, if a person stayed here for 100,000 years what would be 97. left? Crystal. Like a crystal mummy. Incredible, ja? PK (to himself) Incredible. Doc's preoccupation with death irks him. He studies a piece of crystal. PK I wish we had brought the camera. Think there's enough light to shoot? Doc does not answer. PK Doc? His concern rises. He moves through the maze of crystal, his pace quickening. PK Doc? Still no answer. His vision obscured, PK reaches the elevated slab. He clambers up the buttress for a better view. When he reaches the top he stops cold. 127 HIS POV - DOC 127 lying on the crystal slab, eyes closed, hands folded on his chest. PK This is not funny. Doc opens his eyes. DOC This is incredible! The crystal. You can feel the life go right through you. Here. Doc rises. DOC Come try it. 128 WIDER ANGLE 128 98. PK (short) No. That's all right. Can we go? DOC We have only just gotten here. What's the matter, P.K.? PK All day long you've been talking about becoming something else, about dying. You never talked about dying before. DOC I'm 87 next month. It's natural. PK Not to a sixteen-year-old it's not. It's painful. Doc realizes what PK is saying. DOC 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. Doc and PK exit through the stalactites, whistling. CUT TO: 129 INT. DOC'S HOUSE - NIGHT 129 PK and a very exhausted Doc enter. Doc sits down heavily on the bed while PK, shrugging off his rucksack, heads right for the small kitchen area. PK I'll just set you up with some coffee here, so in the morning you won't have to bother making it. He begins to prepare the coffee. PK I didn't mean to tell you what 99. you can and can't talk about back in the cave today. I guess I just don't like to think of you being... (beat) PK (CONT'D) ... becoming... (beat) ... something else. I know it's natural law and it's the way it is with everybody... (beat) I just wish it weren't with you. There is no reply. PK Doc? PK turns to Doc, dead asleep, still sitting up. PK goes over and gently lays the old man down. He removes his boots and throws a blanket over him. PK blows out the kerosene lamp and goes to exit. He is about to hang their two rucksacks on two hooks by the door when Doc's voice turns him. DOC P.K.? PK I'm here, Doc. DOC The crystal cave will be our secret, ja? PK Whatever you say. DOC Promise. PK I promise. DOC Ja. Good. I rest a little. (beat) The heart of Africa, P.K. Doc lays down. DOC The heart. 100. He is asleep when his head hits the pillow. PK watches Doc's chest, washed in moonlight, rise and fall lightly. A sudden sadness falls over him. The corners of his mouth turn up in a bittersweet smile. He finishes hanging the rucksack and exits. CUT TO: 130 EXT. PRINCE OF WALES BACK GATE - NIGHT 130 PK and Morrie stick close in the shadows. PK looks at his watch and then twenty feet away to the locked gate. MORRIE Christ! If someone would have told me this is where I'd be on a Saturday night, last term of my senior year, I'd call them batty. (beat) You know, you're going to owe me for the rest of your life on this one. PK That all? I figured you'd hold me to it longer. MORRIE You get the insider friend's rate. PK Thanks, mate. A black groundskeeper comes walking along, seemingly on his duties. PK pokes Morrie. 131 THEIR POV - GROUNDSKEEPER 131 walks up to the gate. He looks left and right, then quickly unlocks it. He walks away. 132 BACK TO SCENE 132 PK and Morrie advance. PK opens the gate. As he does, 101. Gideon Mandoma, followed by 15 men and 5 women, enters. MANDOMA I see you, P.K. PK I see you, Gideon. MORRIE Let's get inside before the whole bloody world sees us. MANDOMA Morrie. He clasps Morrie's hand, first in a traditional hand- shake, then in an African handshake. Mandoma smiles. MANDOMA You some great friend. Morrie is taken by his sincerity. PK Let's go. Stay to the fence. The group moves out. CUT TO: 133 INT. LIBRARY 133 The Africans are seated around desks, waiting for Morrie and PK to tell them what to do. PK 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. He taps his chest. PK P.K. This... (taps Morrie) ... is Morrie. Now you all have a chalkboard. He holds up the chalkboard. PK Chalk and an eraser. I will say 102. the letter. You will say the letter. I will write the letter. You will write the letter. PK (CONT'D) Morrie will check the letter. All right? Here we go. 'A'... (in Zulu) ... say it. 'A.' ALL 'A.' The door to the library suddenly opens. Everyone freezes. Maria enters the room. PK is stunned. PK Excuse me. PK hurries over to Maria. Not a word needs to be spoken. Her presence says everything. MARIA I thought you might need some help. Or I can just sit and watch. PK hands her the chalk. PK Class. This is Maria. She is now the teacher. (to Maria) We're doing alphabet, from the letter 'A.' PK takes up his position with Morrie, ready to check the chalkboards. Maria takes the front of the class. 134 HER POV - BLACK FACES 134 before her, watching intensely. 135 BACK TO SCENE 135 She battles the butterflies in her stomach as she writes an "A" on the blackboard. She clears her throat. MARIA 'A.' No one says anything. Maria looks a little lost. 103. PK (in Zulu) Repeat what she says. (to Maria) Say it again. MARIA 'A.' ALL 'A.' She writes it on the blackboard again. PK and Morrie trade a look and a smile. MARIA 'A.' Write 'A.' She mimes to the chalkboards. All the Africans obey. PK looks up from checking the students. Maria's eyes are twinkling. CUT TO: 136 EXT. SCHOOL GATE 136 The Africans are exiting. Maria, Morrie and PK stand, receiving their heartfelt thanks one by one. Mandoma is the last to leave. MANDOMA (to Maria) You are one brave Boer, Miss Maria. MARIA Thank you. MANDOMA And you are one lucky English. He kids PK. PK blushes. PK Good night, Gideon. He playfully pushes Gideon out the gate and closes it. He turns to Maria and Morrie. MORRIE Well, I think I'll go... um... lay on my back and count the cracks in the ceiling. 'Night. Nice to see you, Maria. 104. MARIA Good night, Morrie. Morrie runs off. PK takes Maria around. PK I am one lucky English. They embrace and kiss. MARIA P.K. Can I ask you a favor? PK Anything. MARIA We don't have to go in or anything. You can hear the music from outside. I'd love to have one dance with you before I graduate. PK Done. MARIA I feel so good. Race you to the gate. PK You need a headstart? MARIA No. She takes off. PK follows. 137 SOMEONE ELSE'S POV 137 They disappear into the night. 138 ANGLE ON FIGURE 138 in the shadows, watching them run off. CUT TO: 139 INT. SCHOOL GYM 139 105. PK is working on a speed bag. Morrie comes running in with two open letters in hand. MORRIE We made it! We made it! He thrusts one of the letters at PK. MORRIE Sorry. I couldn't bear the suspense after I read mine. I had to open it. PK looks at his letter. MORRIE Three months and we're out of here. PK You're out of here. MORRIE What the hell are you talking about? He snatches PK's letter. MORRIE (reading) 'Dear sir. It is our pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted to matriculate at Trinity College, Oxford,' etc., etc., etc. PK It says nothing about the scholarship. MORRIE A technicality. Another BOY comes over. BOY St. John wants to see you two in his study. MORRIE Good news travels fast. PK I'll get showered and changed. 106. BOY He said to come as you are. Immediately. The Boy runs off, leaving PK and Morrie wondering. CUT TO: 140 INT. ST. JOHN'S STUDY 140 PK and Morrie enter to a somber St. John. PK Wanted to see us, sir? ST. JOHN Yes. Come in. Close the door. As the door closes, BRIGADIER JOHANNES BRETYN, a quiet but formidable man, comes into their line of vision. Trouble is in the air. ST. JOHN This is Brigadier Bretyn from the police department. Bretyn just nods his head. ST. JOHN He has come to deliver, in person, an order to close the Saturday school. PK Why? BRETYN Because it is illegal. MORRIE We're only teaching them how to read and do sums. BRETYN You don't have certification to do that. PK Prince of Wales is a certified school. BRETYN Yes. But not certified for that 107. sort of thing. PK Can he do this, sir? BRETYN Of course I can do it. Would I be here if I couldn't? Come now meneer headmaster. Let's end this now. I have a full day ahead of me still. St. John meets Bretyn's steely eyes. He cannot hold the man's gaze. ST. JOHN (resigned) The Saturday school is to be disbanded until further notice. BRETYN Thank you, meneer headmaster. Your cooperation in this matter is very appreciated. Good day. Bretyn goes to exit. PK You know it can't go on like this forever. St. John tenses. BRETYN What can't? PK What you're doing. BRETYN I'm just doing my job. And if you'll take some advice, you should just do yours. Bretyn exits. MORRIE Is that really the end of it, sir? ST. JOHN For the moment I'm afraid it is. PK If we let them get away with it on our own grounds, it will never 108. change. It'll just get worse. ST. JOHN History disputes you. PK History takes too long. ST. JOHN Yes it does. But it is never kind to those who try to hurry it. PK I feel we should resist, sir. ST. JOHN So do I, P.K. But this is not a subtle government. They mean to have their way and damn the consequences. And I cannot jeopardize this school, no matter how I personally feel. I'm sorry. (beat) I heard you were accepted at Oxford. MORRIE Yes, sir. Received notification today. ST. JOHN Well, congratulations. MORRIE Thank you, sir. St. John looks at PK who remains silent. ST. JOHN To both of you. PK (tight) Thank you, sir. An uncomfortable silence lingers. ST. JOHN We'll talk before you go. PK Yes, sir. Will that be all? ST. JOHN That'll be all. 109. PK turns immediately and exits. Morrie and St. John trade an uncomfortable look. CUT TO: 141 INT. HALLWAY 141 PK walks down the hall, anger building in his face. He exits the hall. CUT TO: 142 EXT. DEVILLIERS SCHOOL 142 PK comes up to the main gate. A GUARD stops him. PK I'd like to see Maria Marais please. The Guard checks his list. GUARD Sorry. She's not allowed visitors. PK Well, if I could just talk to her. GUARD Sorry. PK backs away and moves off down the street. He turns the corner. 143 HIS POV - TREE 143 he uses to scale the wall is in the process of being cut down. CUT TO: 144 INT. PK'S ROOM - PRE-DAWN 144 Morrie is asleep. PK wakes him. PK Morrie. Morrie. MORRIE What? 110. PK I want to show you something. MORRIE What time is it? He looks at his watch and turns over. MORRIE Can I see it later? PK No. Come on. He pulls Morrie out of bed. Morrie groggily starts pulling his clothes on. MORRIE You know, when we get to Oxford -- separate rooms. PK Will you hurry. MORRIE Is there some girl out there waiting for me? PK Yeah. Stunning. Breasts like casabas. Just waiting for you. MORRIE Bullshit. PK throws a jersey into his chest and pulls him out of the room. CUT TO: 145 EXT. PRINCE OF WALES CAMPUS 145 The campus is swaddled in early morning fog. PK and Morrie stand on the side of the school chapel while a black groundsman opens the door to the basement. PK What do you think? MORRIE I think you're fooling yourself into thinking the bastards won't 111. come after us in here. The groundskeeper opens the door to the basement. The boys enter. CUT TO: 146 INT. BASEMENT 146 PK switches on a light switch to a cavernous space cluttered with old desks, blackboards and church pews. PK This is a church. Didn't you ever hear of the Christian concept of sanctuary? MORRIE Yes. But I'm not the one who has to respect it. PK Even the Boer has limits, Morrie. MORRIE I'm sure he does, but I'd still like to see a big bolt on the inside door. CARETAKER Mr. Levy? The Caretaker pulls a large deadbolt out of his pocket, with a smile. CUT TO: 147 INT. SOLLY'S GYM 147 Mandoma and PK, both with protective equipment on, square off. SOLLY Now move it nice and easy, the both of you. Time. PK and Mandoma circle. Mandoma throws a jab. PK They want us to close the school. PK counters. 112. MANDOMA I know. Mandoma lays in a combination. PK We are still game. PK throws a combination. MANDOMA So are we. SOLLY Would you two find some other time to chat. This is a boxing ring, not a social club. Mandoma and PK start boxing in earnest, both smiling. CUT TO: 148 EXT. DEVILLIERS SCHOOL - NIGHT 148 A watchman makes his rounds. He passes by Maria's window. When he is gone, PK appears from behind a tree. He taps on the window. Maria comes to the window and sees him. Her face lights up. She opens the window. PK (cool) I was in the neighborhood. Maria puts her finger to her lips and waves him in. PK climbs through the window. CUT TO: 149 INT. ROOM 149 Maria points to the door. She puts a record on her phonograph. She turns to PK and embraces him fiercely, holding on tight. MARIA (whispering) They're sending me away to school in Pretoria. I told my father I wouldn't go. He said if I didn't he'd see they arrest you and ruin your chances. I couldn't let him do that. 113. 150 ANGLE ON PK'S PAINED FACE 150 as he holds Maria. PK When do you go? MARIA Next week. (beat) I want to make love to you, P.K. PK's eyes fill with her words. She releases him. They look at each other. MARIA I do. PK leans forward and kisses her, awkward, as if for the first time. As their lips part, their breath shortens. Maria moves forward slowly, lifting PK's hand to her breast. He touches it. The heat builds. Passion overwhelms them. They begin to make love. CUT TO: 151 INT. ROOM - LATER 151 Maria sleeps peacefully in PK's arms on her small bed. PK lies awake, staring at the ceiling. He rises quietly so as not to wake her. He pulls on his clothes, gently brushes a wisp of hair away from her eyes, kisses her forehead, and exits through the window into the breaking dawn. CUT TO: 152 EXT. SCHOOL GROUNDS - NIGHT 152 PK and Morrie stand by a side gate near the athletic field looking alertly about. The gate opens. The Africans led by Mandoma come through. PK and Morrie greet them. When they are all through Morrie closes the gate and runs after them. CUT TO: 153 EXT. ATHLETIC FIELD - STANDS 153 A man with a walkie-talkie sits in the shadows, watching 25 people run across the athletic field. He talks into his walkie-talkie. 114. CUT TO: 154 INT. CHAPEL BASEMENT 154 The light switch is on. The four lights above the center of the room illuminate a classroom area -- desks set up in neat rows with stools, a blackboard. The other furniture has been piled high against the walls on either side of the room where the light does not reach. PK If you'll all be seated we can begin. The Africans head toward their desks. PK turns to Morrie. PK So far so good. Morrie's response is to throw the new deadbolt into its slot with a skeptical eye. PK takes his place at the head of the class. PK I want to thank you all for having the courage to come tonight. (in Zulu) Thank you. ALL (in Zulu) You're welcome. PK 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. PK Gideon? MANDOMA Miss Marais. Will she not be coming? PK Not anymore. 115. This causes a flurry among the women. PK writes on the blackboard the word "see." PK See. He says the word in Zulu. PK I see. You see. We see. He moves his hands, eliciting response. ALL I see. You see. We see. PK holds up a book with a picture of a boy. PK Boy. ALL Boy. PK I see the boy. ALL I see the boy. PK holds up another picture. PK Girl. I see the girl. ALL I see the girl. There is a KNOCK on the door. Everyone freezes. MARIA P.K., it's me. Morrie pulls the bolt, opening and shutting the door quickly. PK and Maria look at each other. MARIA I wanted to say goodbye to my students... (beat) ... and to you. 116. The four women in the class speak in unison. WOMEN We see the girl. Maria smiles, surprised. The moment is shortlived as a SOUND from behind the pews in the rear of the room turns everyone. In the shadows, risen from behind the piles of furniture against the two opposite walls, stand 20 policemen with long menacing riot sticks. Bretyn steps into the light. Mandoma gives a command and the Africans form a phalanx around the women. BRETYN Once warned. Twice punished. PK You're violating the sanctity of the church. BRETYN No. You are with your damned race mixing ideas, rooinek. 155 ANGLE ON MORRIE 155 by the door, slowly slipping the bolt lock, trying to remain innocuous while doing so. PK sees him and trades a look with Mandoma, who also sees what Morrie is doing. PK At least let the women go. BRETYN You want everything to be equal, little Boetie. Why not men and women too? Just then Morrie throws the bolt. MORRIE Now! He goes to charge out the door, but to his chagrin the door does not open, locked from the outside. 117. Bretyn smiles cruelly. BRETYN Locks keep people out but they also keep them in. He has walked right up to Morrie, not taking his eyes off Morrie's for a moment. Morrie meets his gaze evenly. The moment is broken as Bretyn's baton slams into Morrie's stomach, dropping him to this knees. BRETYN Get up, you bloody commie Jew! He bangs Morrie hard in the jaw, knocking him out cold. BRETYN Captain. The two police lines start to move towards each other, sandwiching the Africans, PK and Maria. Mandoma gives an order. The blacks pick up anything they can to face the inevitable--stools, chairs, a flagpole. PK No. Wait. We'll leave. BRETYN Too late. You never should have come. At the ready. The two police lines tense to charge forward. The blacks brace to defend. PK No! Stop! BRETYN Now. The police charge from both ends of the room, yelling, clubs held high. The Africans respond with their own war cry and engage the club-swinging police. A policeman swings at PK who ducks and buries a hook into the man's ribs followed by another to his jaw. The man goes down. 156 PK'S POV 156 118. Morrie has risen to take a policeman out with a stool over his head. Two other police beat Morrie from behind. He goes down once again under their brutal clubs. 157 BACK TO SCENE 157 PK turns just as another club comes for his head. He slips past the blow and punches out his assailant with a lightning combination. As the man falls another cop charges from behind. MARIA PK! PK turns off-balance. Maria leaps. The club cuts through the air. Maria is caught flush on the forehead as she comes between PK and the club. She falls to the floor dead. PK swings a stool with all his might, breaking the cop's face open. PK Maria! PK drops to the fallen girl's side. He is frantic at the sight of her gaping bloody wound and the sight of her open blank eyes. The battle raging around him recedes before his pain and rising rage. All at once he explodes, screaming like a madman. He leaps at Bretyn and bangs one punch after another into the startled man. Bretyn's face is broken over and over against PK's fists. Still PK keeps pounding blow after blow into the fallen man. Three cops descend on PK and beat him mercilessly until he drops to the floor, unconscious. Mandoma is hit hard and goes down. The few Africans left fighting go down before the withering assault of clubs, fists, and boots. 158 EXT. CEMETERY - DAY 158 Maria's funeral. Hundreds of Afrikaaners are gathered. Daniel Marais and his wife stand by the open grave, grieving, as the minister reads the final prayers. 119. The coffin is lowered. Daniel Marais steps forward and shovels the first dirt down after it. As Marais looks up he sees PK standing behind the mourners, 20 yards off. His anger replaces grief. Marais advances towards PK, clutching the shovel as a weapon. Several MEN restrain him. MEN Daniel. No. Marais glares at PK. All of a sudden a thousand African voices cut through the air, SINGING songs of mourning. CUT TO: 159 EXT. CEMETERY WALL 159 Thousands of Africans and a smattering of whites have gathered outside the cemetery. The singing rises from them. Gideon, Morrie, St. John and Solly stand in front of the crowd. CUT TO: 160 EXT. CEMETERY 160 Marais glares at PK, tears of rage in his eyes. PK stands his ground. Marais turns away, back to his daughter's grave. PK stands, tears streaming down his cheeks, as the SINGING ENGULFS the SCENE. 161 INT. PK'S ROOM - DAY 161 PK sits at his desk filling out application forms. Morrie enters. He picks one up off the desk and looks at it. MORRIE 120. (surprised) You're applying to South African universities? PK In case the scholarship doesn't come through. MORRIE Why are you so bloody stubborn? You don't belong in a South African university any more than I belong in the priesthood. Will you take my father's loan? PK takes the applications back just as a TELEGRAPH DELIVERY BOY comes to the door. BOY There a Mr. P.K. here? MORRIE It's your scholarship. Morrie grabs the telegram. BOY Sign here. Odd name -- P.K. MORRIE What's your name? BOY Waldo. MORRIE You're not one to talk about names. Morrie scribbles his signature and proceeds to open the telegram. PK snatches it away from him. He pulls the telegram out. His face falls to worry. MORRIE What's it say? PK Doc's missing. CUT TO: 162 INT. DOC'S HOUSE 162 121. PK walks through the small house followed by Commandant Von Zyl. Nothing is out of place. VON ZYL Since his pneumonia last year I've had one of the men drop by once a week to see if he needed anything. Of course you know the professor. He never did. PK looks out at the cactus garden, watered now by drip irrigation. VON ZYL At the beginning of the week he wasn't home so I decided to drop by myself. Waited a whole day here. When he didn't come back I sent search parties. After three days I sent the telegram. Seven days is a long time for him to be gone. Do you have any ideas where he went? PK looks at the pegs where the rucksacks hang. There is only one hanging. CUT TO: 163 EXT. JUNGLE FLOOR 163 PK hikes along, watching the trail. His eyes spot something. He kneels over the remains of a small campsite. PK touches the ashes. His eyes rise to the escarpment soaring above the jungle floor. CUT TO: 164 EXT. ESCARPMENT CLIFF FACE 164 PK climbs along the cliff face. He drops down into the entrance to the crystal cave. CUT TO: 165 INT. CRYSTAL CAVE 165 PK stands at the bottom of the crystal slab almost dreading what he will find. He resolutely climbs the stalagmites to reach the top. PK's eye level shifts from below the slab to even with it, then to above it. As his sight rises Doc's corpse comes INTO VIEW -- 122. laid out, serene hands clasped on his chest. From above the stalactites drip onto his body ever so slowly, turning him, molecule by molecule, into crystal. PK stands off to one side. 166 HIS POV 166 a small metal box by Doc's feet. 167 BACK TO SCENE 167 PK picks it up and opens it. Inside is a letter. PK unfolds it, and with trembling hands reads: DOC (V.O.) 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. (MORE) DOC (V.O.) (CONT'D) 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. PK turns the sheet to page two which is a whole side of music. DOC (V.O.) 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. 123. FADE TO: 168 INT. DOC'S HOUSE - NIGHT 168 PK plays the music Doc wrote with only the moonlight illuminating the page. The music is soul-stirring, rich, evocative. Tears run down PK's cheeks. PAN FROM PK THROUGH the CACTUS GARDEN to the FULL MOON illuminating the African veldt as the MUSIC dominates and then FADES into the night. CUT TO: 169 EXT. JOHANNESBURG TRAIN STATION - DAWN 169 The overnight train pulls in. PK disembarks. 170 HIS POV - STATION CLOCK 170 reads 6:30. PK exits the station. CUT TO: 171 EXT. GOLDMAN'S GYM 171 PK comes down the street. A police car sits in front of the gym. The two cops inside eye PK. He eyes them back and enters the building. CUT TO: 172 INT. GYM 172 The gym is empty. PK enters and is stopped by the uncustomary silence. PK Hello? Mr. G? Anyone here? SOLLY (O.S.) In here. PK heads for the office. He finds Solly packing up his mementos from the cluttered office. PK Mr. Goldman, why isn't anybody 124. training? What's going on? SOLLY A repeat performance of history, my boy. Solly Goldman's being deported. Of course last time I didn't have the luxury of being able to pack. PK For what reason? SOLLY Their reason is that I'm here illegal. I didn't enter the country with a passport. Like the Czar was issuing passports to Russian Jews in 1910. PK This is because of me, isn't it? SOLLY No, boychick. This is because of them. They are the problem, not you. Don't ever think different. You look tired. Want a glass tea? PK No, no. I have to get back to school. Solly opens his arms. PK hugs him. SOLLY You got your head screwed on right. Don't let these meshuganahs screw it on wrong. Now go on. You want to find me, look at Benny Rosen's gym in East End, London. PK Thank you for everything. SOLLY We're not finished yet. PK smiles and exits. Solly waits for a moment, then goes back to packing. CUT TO: 125. 173 EXT. PRINCE OF WALES SCHOOL - MORNING 173 PK comes up to the school gates. He notices two plain- clothes police cars just across the road. PK enters with a growing sense of uneasiness. CUT TO: 174 INT. PK'S DORM 174 PK hurries down the hall to his room. He opens the door to Daniel Marais, sitting at his desk, reading from his fiction-filled notebook. MARAIS You're a very good writer. The subject matter is a little inflammatory but the style is interesting. PK What are you doing here? MARAIS I came to inform you that you will not be receiving aid from the National Scholarship Fund. Neither will you be admitted to any of the South African universities. Here are your applications back. He hands PK the applications as he rises. MARAIS I told you when you came to my house. I am first a member of my tribe and I will defend it any way I know how. He and PK glare at each other, implacable enemies. Marais exits. PK looks out his window, thinking. 175 HIS POV - MARAIS 175 walking off across the campus. MORRIE (O.S.) They don't want you here any more than they want me. 126. 176 BACK TO SCENE 176 PK turns. MORRIE Take the hint. Screw the scholarship. Come on. Let's leave. PK If I leave or if I stay in South Africa it's because I choose to, not because they choose for me. He takes a small handbag, throws a few books into it and Doc's picture. He picks up his notebook and packs that too. He goes to exit. MORRIE Where are you going? PK Save my place at Oxford. PK exits the room. Morrie chases after him. MORRIE P.K., goddammit! He grabs PK, stopping him. PK Save my place. Morrie's grip releases. PK walks out. FADE TO: 177 EXT. COPPER MINE - DAY 177 Hundreds upon hundreds of black laborers and white mine workers descend into the mines. A milling mass of disenfranchised humanity come to work the underground hell of the copper mines. PK exits the management shack and walks through the crowd. PK (V.O.) Dear Morrie. Here is how it works. 127. The copper of the mines in Northern Rhodesia is mined below ground. All day a behemoth of a man, a diamond driller, works a stope which is like the top of a funnel. CUT TO: 178 INT. STOPE 178 A huge diamond driller at work drilling and blasting in the stope. PK (V.O.) 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. CUT TO: 179 TRAPPED DOORS AT BOTTOM OF FUNNEL 179 opening, as the haulage cart fills with ore and moves away on the track in the tunnel below. PK (V.O.) 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. 180 ANGLE ON GRIZZLY 180 six bars with men working them. PK (V.O.) 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' 128. work earns a year's stay at Oxford. Yesterday, on receiving my blasting license from the School of Mines, I signed on to work the bars for a year. CUT TO: 181 INT. MINER'S BAR 181 A crude place where the bar runs the back length of the room and the bare concrete surroundings offer nothing in the way of diversion from the main purpose of being there -- to drink hard and long. THOMAS, a harsh, ruddy-faced Welshman, the School of Mines instructor, downs a drink, pours another and looks up at PK. THOMAS Are you crazy? To sign on for a year? PK You said I was the best you ever taught, sir. THOMAS And you are, boyo. The absolute best. THOMAS (CONT'D) But even the best doesn't survive a year on the bars. Down in that damn tube the luck runs out sooner than later. You may be a genius at reading the rock but you ain't no fuckin' fortune teller. Thomas throws back another drink. PK You worked grizzly a year. THOMAS And let me show you what I have to show for it to this day. He holds up his hand. It shakes noticeably. THOMAS And that's thirteen years after the fact, boyo. 129. A NOISE from the doorway turns Thomas's attention. He looks over as four huge men enter, drillers, men whose faces and bodies are as hard and massive as the rock they work. One of the men pauses at the door and grabs his head as an enormous jolt of pain runs through it. He shakes it off and follows his friends to a table. Thomas looks concerned. PK Something wrong? THOMAS (unconvincing) Nothing. The BARTENDER comes over and puts another shot in front of Thomas. BARTENDER One double brandy. One... (derisive) lemon soda. He puts the lemon soda in front of PK. THOMAS Come on, then. Thomas lifts his glass. THOMAS On being the best damned blaster ever taught by Ian Thomas. Cheers. Thomas and PK clink glasses. Thomas knocks his shot back. THOMAS Another. The bartender pours another. THOMAS Sure you don't want one? PK I don't like the taste. THOMAS Taste? You don't drink for the taste. 130. He holds out his hand. It is steady now. He fixes PK with a portentous stare. Thomas looks over at the table of drillers. The man with the headache is downing one shot after another. THOMAS Hell's comin'. He draws PK's attention to the drillers. THOMAS Drillers. He's got a powder pain from breathin' too much of that damn gelignite. The pain's bad enough. Mixed with a little alcohol it's fuckin' lethal. He watches the driller down two more shots of liquor. THOMAS Come on. We ain't got much time. Thomas directs PK towards the door. THOMAS The two most dangerous things you'll ever see in your life, boyo: a hangup of rock that won't blast free on first shot and a driller with a powder headache drinkin'. As they reach the door the behemoth explodes with a roar. He grabs his head and staggers backwards; a mad look comes into his eyes. His three huge frineds rush to grab him. He throws them off as if they were ants. He rips a table out of its bolting to the concrete floor and flings it across the room. The men drinking in the bar, all tough cases, begin to flee. Thomas grabs PK whose eyes stare in amazement as the behemoth struggles against his three massive friends and pulls him out of the bar. CUT TO: 182 EXT. MINER'S CAMP - TWILIGHT 182 Pk is watching a rugby match being played at twilight. The players are a rough, brutal bunch and play their 131. game accordingly. Fights continually break out. Off a play a fight breaks out. One of the men is kicked unconscious. Two of his teammates carry him off the field, dumping his body unceremoniously like a sack of potatoes on the sidelines. They run back as play resumes. PK turns and walks back through the camp. CUT TO: 183 EXT. CAMP - NIGHT 183 A company-built miner's camp. Cement huts with steel doors and corrugated roofs. No shrubbery, only dust, cement, and the roughest-looking bunch of men assembled on earth. PK (V.O.) 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. PK comes down a side street. A half a dozen men at cards, hard-faced desperadoes, see him pass, eyeing him closely. PK averts his eyes. From behind his back comes the sound of LIPS PUCKERING loudly, indecently. PK swallows hard. The sound of a CHARGE turns him to the six men bolting from their card game after him, whooping with lascivious intent. PK takes off. The chase takes PK and his pursuers flying through the streets of the camp, past one identical cement hut after another. People watch, disinterested. No one raises a hand to help. PK comes racing around the corner to three of the men 132. blocking the street in front of him. He whirls. The others catch up behind, yelling and hooting. The two lines advance. PK gets ready. When the first man is close enough he hits him hard, breaking his jaw. He swings at another, catching him flush in the face. But then the rest are upon him. Even though PK fights like hell, he is overwhelmed. The blows come from everywhere, beating him to the ground. His arms and legs are firmly grabbed by four men. He is banged hard face down onto a concrete table. The fifth man pulls down his pants and the sixth begins to undo his own fly. All the men scream obsceni- ties, anticipating the rape. PK struggles like hell to no avail. As he is about to be violated, a roaring giant of a man tears into the pack like a bear shredding dogs. He scatters the men, knocking some unconscious, sending the rest to flight. He stands over PK, a looming block of granite with a wild black beard and coal-black eyes. His intent only becomes clear as to whether he is claiming a prize or helping a friend when he offers PK his hand, lifting PK effortlessly. He examines PK's bruised face with some concern and then smiles. PK 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. CUT TO: 184 INT. PK'S HUT - NIGHT 184 A TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY plays on a rickety OLD RECORD PLAYER. PK works out on a speed bag and a heavy bag he has hung in the room while Rasputin, the giant Russian, sits next to the record player, finishes drinking a bottle of brandy, tears running down his face as he fol- lows the symphony. When he finishes the bottle he takes another one out of a case sitting by his side and begins to drink anew. PK (V.O.) Friendships are rare--arising out of mutual need rather than 133. any shared interests. But they do exist and even flourish. Except between the drillers and their grizzlies. No one wants to get too close to the man who might be buried at night by what you drilled loose in the day. CUT TO: 185 EXT. MINE - NIGHT 185 PK inspects his nightly quota of gelignite charges and fuses. Five Africans, all serious faces, keep their eyes firmly on PK. PK (V.O.) The Africans who come here looking for work are driven by a different desperation--drought, famine, locusts. Satisfied with the equipment, PK nods for the box to be closed. ELIJAH, his head man, closes the boxes. PK (V.O.) 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. CUT TO: 186 INT. MINE ELEVATOR 186 The elevator descends into the mine. PK (V.O.) 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. 134. CUT TO: 187 INT. TUNNEL 187 PK and his crew make their way through a narrow tunnel and come to the grizzly. It is dark. The only light comes from the lamps attached to their helmets. Boulders litter the bars. PK and Elijah are onto the bars first. Their light beams move along across the boulders. ELIJAH Baas. Baas. PK turns to Elijah. His lamp catches Elijah's face which is looking upward. PK looks up. His POV in the narrow bands of light: a bunch of rocks big and small, packed into the funnel. His face grows dim. CUT TO: 188 CLOSEUP ON HANGUP OF ROCKS 188 Five feet across a rock wall with stones of all sizes blocking up the funnel's mouth. PK (V.O.) Hangups are the worst of it. When the top of the funnel gets blocked up and the ore won't flow. PK scales the sheer rock wall of the funnel, his shirt packed with explosives. PK (V.O.) 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. PK reaches the hangup. He works at taking a prepared parcel of gelignite sticks and jamming them carefully into a crevice. As he does the hangup creaks deeply, shifting, ominous. A few rocks fall. PK freezes, holding his breath. CUT TO: 135. 189 THE AFRICANS 189 peeking out of the safety shaft below, terrified. Elijah remains on the grizzly bars, his light shining on PK. CUT TO: 190 PK 190 holding very still, listening. PK (V.O.) Sometimes the rock doesn't need the provocation of explosives. Sometimes the earth shifts... (beat) a pebble moves... (beat) you talk too loud... (beat) and in the moment before you are turned into something else by fifty tons of rock you understand why it is called grizzly. PK finishes setting the charge. He scales down the wall. A large rock is expelled from the hangup and comes bouncing down the sides to the funnel, just missing PK, crashing through the bars below. PK freezes. Elijah holds his breath. The crew in the safty tunnel quakes. Nothing happens. PK comes down the rest of the way. He takes the cordtex rope dangling from the bomb and inserts a fuse. He nods to Elijah. Elijah lights a cheesa stick. He hands the glowing stick to PK. PK waves towards the tunnel. One of the Africans sounds the WARNING WHISTLE. Two blasts followed by two blasts. PK nods for Elijah to be off. Elijah stands his ground. ELIJAH I wait for you, baas. PK lights the fuse. Elijah takes off like a scared rabbit for the safety of the shaft. PK is right on his tail. The fuse travels quickly toward the bomb. 136. Elijah trips. PK, coming behind him, grabs him by the collar and flings him into the safety tunnel, diving after him a second later, just as the BOMB EXPLODES. A few rocks come down, but nothing else. The Africans look at each other with real apprehension. PK rises from Elijah and peeks out. 191 HIS POV - HANGUP 191 is still in place. PK studies the hangup, stepping out onto the grizzly, listening, looking. The hangup groans. The Africans are petrified at the mouth of the tunnel. PK stops midway on the bars. He studies the hangup intently, then picks up a rock. Choosing a target he heaves the rock with all his might toward the hangup and runs like hell. The rock hits the hangup. PK springs off the grizzly, right into the Africans as the hangup thunders down. Dust and small rocks fill the safety tunnel. When the avalanche has stopped PK raises himself off the Africans. They are all covered in dust but smiling and babbling, happy to be alive. PK peeks out and up. He signals to Elijah who hits the LL-CLEAR WHISTLE. Three blasts. PK Let's clean her off and call it a night, hey? Happy, the Africans lift shovels and crowbars to clear the bars. As they pass PK they touch him reverentially as one would an icon. PK (V.O.) 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: 137. 192 INT. PK'S HUT - NIGHT 192 PK and Rasputin play a game of chess as TCHAIKOVSKY plays in the background. There is a KNOCK on the DOOR. PK Come in. JOCKO, the bookmaker, enters. JOCKO Ay, man. If you'd let him win once in a while we could take a little book on it here. PK He doesn't care if he wins. He just likes to play. JOCKO And you? PK I like to win. JOCKO Which is why I'm about visiting you. You've come on the board, man. There are odds on your making it or not. PK How are they? JOCKO (low) Not in your favor, my boy. PK Why are you telling me this, Jocko? JOCKO When you come up on the boards, boyo, it's time to bow out. It's an omen. PK I bow out you can't make book. JOCKO PK, it's not a bet I want to collect. 138. PK Tell me, Jocko, how high will the odds go on something like this? JOCKO The shorter your time, the higher they go. With you probably ten, twelve, thirteen to one when you're short a month. PK When the odds hit the top put me in against all bets for two hundred quid. JOCKO I did not come here to solicit your bet. PK I know that. I appreciate it. But if you don't take it, someone else will. JOCKO All right. You're a bleery fool. And I'll be prayin' every night it's the only bet I ever have to pay off on. PK And so will I. Jocko rises to exit. JOCKO You should let him win once in a while. PK When he wins it won't be because I let him. Rasputin says something in Russian as he moves a piece, excited to have taken one of PK's pieces. PK turns and checkmates him. PK Checkmate. Rasputin laughs, speaks in Russian, and starts to set the board up again. Jocko exits. 139. CUT TO: 193 INT. MINE ELEVATOR 193 The elevator descends into the shaft. PK and his crew exit. There is a low sound of a blast, muffled, that stops them all. PK Did you hear a blast whistle? ELIJAH No, baas. Then after a moment the vague sound of a drill leaps through the rock. PK I never heard a drill at night. The Africans get nervous. They chatter to one another. PK 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. CUT TO: 194 INT. END OF TUNNEL 194 PK steps out onto the bars with Elijah and examines the debris. ELIJAH (whispered) Baas. There is a tremor of fear in his voice. PK follows Elijah's face upwards to a hangup. PK Not the first bloody thing! ELIJAH Bad sign, baas. PK Bad drilling's more like it. Come on. Let's get it going. 140. Elijah goes back to fix the charge while PK studies the hangup. He hears the Africans talking in the dark. When his light points on them they stop, turning their heads away. Elijah comes back with the bomb. PK (whispered) What's the matter with them? ELIJAH They say juju. Bad magic is in the mine tonight. PK heeds the warning, somberly. He takes the bomb from Elijah and starts to climb the wall. TRACK with PK as he makes it up to the hangup. He quickly seals the bomb and drops the cordtex. CUT TO: 195 ELIJAH 195 on the bars, catching the rope. He is growing more nervous by the moment as he fastens the fuse. CUT TO: 196 PK 196 making it down the side of the tunnel. The hangup shifts. PK freezes. CUT TO: 197 THE AFRICANS 197 peeking out of the safety tunnel, scared. CUT TO: 198 ELIJAH 198 scared, but standing his ground. CUT TO: 199 PK 199 141. making it back onto the bars. He carefully makes his way to Elijah as the hangup sends some pebbles down. PK She's playing with us tonight. Fuse set? Elijah nods. PK holds his hand out for the cheesa stick. Elijah lights the flare. He goes to hand it to PK. PK notices Elijah's hands shaking. He sees the fear in Elijah's eyes. PK Go on. ELIJAH I stay with you, baas. PK That's an order. Elijah, released from his responsibility, retreats quickly. PK stands holding the flare, a little distracted by Elijah's fear, wondering. Elijah sounds the BLAST WHISTLE. PK 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 ANOTHER BLAST. PK lights his own fuse and runs like hell over the bars toward the tunnel. The hangup, loosened by the explosions inside, gives before PK's bomb ignites. The rock is crashing down. PK races the rock. The tunnel is within sight. The men yell for him to jump. PK is about to leap when a rock hits the bar, bounces up, and catches him in the stomach. He loses his balance and goes over the side as the hangup comes crashing down. PK hits the wall of the lower funnel -- once, twice -- and then lands in the soft stuff -- the shale flake, cushioning the steel doors below. 142. 200 HIS POV 200 against the wall of rock. A rock ledge carelessly left when the funnel was originally built. PK rolls under it. A moment later fifty tons of ore in large chunks and small chunks and dust comes crashing down, burying PK. He lays there, semiconscious, buried but alive. CUT TO: 201 INT. TUNNEL 201 The falling rock has stopped. The funnel is full. The bars as well. Elijah and the crew look out of the safety tunnel tremulously. Elijah looks up the stope. His light catches a man at the very top of the stope climbing out. Elijah pulls the WARNING WHISTLE. Five blasts over and over. CUT TO: 202 INT. HAULAGE 202 Men hear the WHISTLE and stop work. CUT TO: 203 INT. LASHERS 203 Men shovelling ore stop shovelling. CUT TO: 204 INT. TUNNEL 204 Rasputin is timbering with his crew, fitting huge timbers into place, making new haulage, when he hears the whistles. RASPUTIN PK! He yells at his crew to grab the tools and he runs off down the tunnel. CUT TO: 143. 205 INT. PK'S GRIZZLY 205 A deep hole has been dug through the rock piled in the lower funnel. Rock comes up in a bucket and is carted off. Timber is passed down. A crowd of miners, black and white, watch and help where they can. MINER #1 He's dead. No doubt about it. MINER #2 You give me a fair odds on ten quid? MINER #1 Four to one. MINER #2 Make it a sixer and you got me. MINER #1 You're on. MINER #2 Anyone else? Six to one he's dead. CUT TO: 206 INT. HOLE 206 Rasputin works like a man possessed, piling rocks in the bucket to be passed up, shoring timbers as they are passed down. CUT TO: 207 INT. BARS 207 Elijah is pointing up the stope to two Mine Managers as dozens more mill around, hauling the rock out, trying to help. TWO MINERS observe Elijah and the managers. MINER #3 He says someone was up there. Blasted it out on PK from the other side? MINER #4 Who's the driller? MINER #3 Botha. 144. MINER #4 No one drills Botha's stope but Botha, and he only works days. The miners look at each other knowingly and return to work. CUT TO: 208 INT. SHAFT 208 Rasputin, bloodied, his hands ripped apart by the stones, his chest torn by the rough timbers, labors on, Herculean. CUT TO: 209 PK 209 buried. He hears movement above, faint but perceptible. PK (strangled) Help. Help. CUT TO: 210 INT. SHAFT 210 Rasputin sends another bucket up. He stands, his chest heaving. He hears something. He drops his ear to the floor. He hears the FAINTEST SOUND. PK (V.O.) Help. RASPUTIN PK! He starts tearing away at the rock, doubling his effort. RASPUTIN PK! PK! CUT TO: 211 PK 211 almost unconscious, hearing Rasputin's voice. He breaks into the smallest of smiles and passes out. FADE TO: 212 INT. HOSPITAL BED 212 145. Pk sits in the hospital bed, battered but otherwise in good shape. Rasputin sits in a wheelchair by his bed- side, his hands and chest bandaged, pondering the chess- board between them. Jocko enters. JOCKO Well, look at ya now, boyo. Up and at 'em in no time. And rich as a fuckin' lord. He tosses a fat wad of cash on PK's bed. PK What's this? JOCKO Your ticket to ride. Two hundred quid at fourteen to one. PK But I didn't make it. I'm a month short. JOCKO Not according to managment. They cashed you out at twelve months for eleven worked. Last thirty days was bonus. And until someone shows me a calendar reads different, twelve months and a year are one and the same kind of thing. And the bet was for a year. So get yourself mended and get your ass out of here. PK There's someone I have to see first. Jocko grows uncomfortable. JOCKO What do you want to go pressin' it for? You're rich, lad. You're whole. Why do you want to go pressin' it? PK Because I want to know. JOCKO Know what? That the man has 146. blasted so much gelignite he's permanently deranged in the attic? That even the other drillers leave the bar when the man drinks, so crazed does he get. All right. He tried to kill you. But he didn't. You're alive is all that matters. Do us all a favor, boyo. Get out of here. Get on a train and don't come back. We've no liking to be burying someone we're all so fond of. PK No worries. The luckier you are, the longer you last. The longer you last, the luckier you are. Rasputin moves a chesspiece and bellows. RASPUTIN Checkmate! Checkmate! He is ecstatic, bubbling with his joy. Laughter springs from him. Jocko and PK trade a look. JOCKO There's an end to everything, boyo. Even luck. Jocko exits. CUT TO: 213 EXT. HOSPITAL - DAY 213 PK walks to the seamy metal gate dressed, healed. Rasputin, his hands still bandaged, walks alongside of him. Rasputin is concerned. PK Well I guess this is goodbye, my friend. I'll never forget you. Rasputin speaks urgently in Russian. RASPUTIN PK. Botha. Nyet, nyet. Nyet, Botha. PK does not respond. PK 147. Take care, my friend. He grasps Rasputin's bandaged hand to shake it. Rasputin takes him around in a huge bear hug, smothering him. Pk survives, a bit rumpled. He smiles at Rasputin and exits. As he walks away, RASPUTIN PK. Botha. Nyet. Nyet. PK. PK turns the corner and is gone. CUT TO: 214 EXT. MINING TOWN 214 PK walks through the huts of the drillers, massive to a man. Most of them are coming off shift. Some of them rub their temples, trying to soothe the pain of the powder. PK comes to one hut. He knocks. No answer. He knocks again. A DRILLER comes by. DRILLER Who you lookin' for? PK Botha. The driller from stope number five. DRILLER He's at the bar. PK Thanks. DRILLER I wouldn't disturb him. There's a reason he's there and we're here. The Driller enters his hut. PK absorbs the warning. CUT TO: 215 EXT. MINER'S BAR 215 The three BARTENDERS stand outside along with a dozen other customers. BARTENDER #1 PK. You're not going to go in, 148. ja? PK Is Botha the driller in there? BARTENDER #2 Ja. Always we give him one hour alone before we open. You don't know this because you work at night, but it is the rule. FRITZ Ja. In one hour it is pffft. He motions a man falling on his face. PK regards them for a moment and then enters the bar. CUT TO: 216 INT. BAR 216 In the murky light one hulking figure sits at the bar, drinking shot after shot of whiskey. PK enters and walks across the room to the massive man. PK Are you Botha? Botha does not turn around. BOTHA Ja. PK I'm PK. I worked your grizzly. BOTHA Ja. PK Why'd you try to kill me? Botha turns slowly to reveal his face, swollen with anger and drink. He tears the short sleeve off his left arm, revealing a crudely tattooed swastika. BOTHA Because I missed the first time, rooinek. PK Jaapie Botha. 149. Botha rises drunkenly. PK backs up. BOTHA You remember, rooinek. PK Botha. It was thirteen years ago. BOTHA Because of you they expelled me. Because of you my father beat me. Threw me out from the farm. Because of you. He throws back another drink and rushes PK with a roar. PK sidesteps and heads for the door. Botha gets there first and bolts it. PK Botha. We've made a lot of money working together. Let the past be the past. BOTHA You ruined the country, all you rooineks. You come and ruin the country. He rushes PK again. Again PK sidesteps. PK No, Jaapie Botha. It's hate ruining the country. BOTHA Jaah. He swings at PK. PK ducks. PK Boer hate. BOTHA Our country. At that moment the powder headache strikes. Botha bellows, grabbing his head staggering backward. PK runs for the door. As he reaches it a table slams against it, thrown halfway across the room by a powder-mad Botha. 150. PK jumps out of the way at the last minute. Men's faces begin to appear at the iron-meshed windows. People start to bang at the door. PK, realizing there is no talking to Botha now, does his best to stay out of the charging giant's way. Botha charges him. PK sidesteps and hits him with a left hook. The punch has no effect. Botha swings out wildly. PK easily dances away. Botha picks up another table and heaves it at PK. PK jumps to avoid it, but trips on an overturned stool. He goes down. The miners outside, crowding three deep, yell and shout. People start to make bets. Botha charges PK as PK scrambles up. Botha swings. The blow glances off PK's shoulder and sends him flying, spinning over a table. Botha leaps at PK, driving him into the wall. PK grimaces, sagging. Botha picks him up and starts to squeeze him to death in his massive arms. PK, his hands free, starts to pound on Botha's ears with his palms. Botha screams as the powder head- ache accelerates through the top of his skull. He drops PK. PK rolls away and swings a stool at Botha's midsection. Botha is driven back. PK goes to swing the stool again. Botha catches it as if it were made of balsa. He rips it out of PK's hand and flings it back at him, charging behind it. PK goes topping end over end. Botha gets a hand on him and lifts him from behind. He flings PK over the bar. PK hits the floor, stunned. Botha pulls at the bar trying to get at PK. He rocks the bar and rocks the bar as PK is trying to regain his bearings. Finally, with one tremendous rip, the bar comes away from its bolting. Botha pulls it aside. PK rises just as Botha moves in. PK hits him three solid shots to the stomach but Botha hardly feels them. He grabs PK and starts to squeeze him again. Face to face, Botha's crazed eyes watch the life fade from PK's. 217 CLOSEUP 217 PK's eyes going blank. SMASH CUT TO: 218 PK 218 151. diving off a waterfall into the turbulent water below. SMASH CUT TO: 219 BOTHA 219 squeezing harder, breaking PK's concentration. SMASH CUT TO: 220 PK 220 swimming, exhausted, climbs on a rock, one more in front of him. He dives into the water again. SMASH CUT TO: 221 BACK TO SCENE 221 The crowd yells and screams as Botha squeezes harder. Odds are called out. Blood starts to trickle from PK's mouth. VOICE #1 (V.O.) He's dead. He's dead. SMASH CUT TO: 222 PK 222 as he swims to the last stone. He reaches it and struggles on top. He stands on the stone, trimphant. SMASH CUT TO: 223 BOTHA 223 squeezing again, bellowing. PK opens his eyes, draws his head back, and butts Botha in the face. Botha's nose shatters. The grip slackens a bit. PK hits him in the face again. Botha drops PK to the floor as he screams at the unbelievable pain. Blood pours from his nose. 224 PK 224 catches his breath and is on Botha. He throws three hard punches to his face. Enraged, Botha howls and swings at PK. PK goes underneath his arm and hooks three times into the ribs. Botha grunts, hurt. He swings again with the other hand. 152. SMASH CUT TO: 225 INT. PRISON BOXING ROOM - CLOSEUP - GEEL PIET 225 GEEL PIET First with the head, then with the heart. Little defeat big when little is smart. SMASH CUT TO: 226 PK 226 pounds into Botha's ribs under another wild swinging punch by the giant. Botha shouts and keeps advancing, swinging. PK backs up, peppering him, leading him forward. Left-right. He punishes Botha for each punch the big man throws, but always backing up. Botha, half blind, spitting blood follows. The crowd screams for him to move side to side. The betting changes fast and furious. PK glances over his shoulder to the cement wall behind him. He takes two more steps and then fires two jabs at Botha's face and then stands stock still. Wild with anger, Botha throws a huge right hand to PK's head. SMASH CUT TO: 227 CLUB 227 coming down on Maria's head. SMASH CUT TO: 228 PK 228 At the last moment PK sidesteps. Botha's hand smashes into the cement wall. His hand shatters into a hundred pieces. The pain is so immense he is rendered helpless. PK doesn't waste a second. He starts banging away at Botha with hard, fast combinations. PK Want to see the wages of hate? Botha feels the punches. He steps back, faltering. PK pursues him. PK Here. Here is what hate gets you. PK hammers away, punching with each word, harder and faster. 153. PK For my chicken. For Geel Piet. For Doc. For Mandoma. For Maria. Botha is out on his feet. PK For Africa. PK unleashes a final pjnch -- the hardest one he ever threw. It catches Botha square in the jaw. Botha goes over onto his back like a tree falling. The crowd outside screams and yells with delight. Money changes hands. PK collects himself and steps over Botha. He unbolts the door and steps outside. CUT TO: 229 EXT. BAR 229 The crowd goes silent as PK emerges. The crowd parts. PK, looking neither right nor left, begins to walk away. PK (V.O.) 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. ZOOM OUT as PK continues walking out of the camp and toward tomorrow. FADE OUT. THE END