Otto Müller trains Thobela Mpayipheli in game theory

Otto Müller trains Thobela Mpayipheli in game theory, giving him a way to think about conflict that reaches beyond any single operation. Müller teaches him to resist becoming governed by an opponent’s expectations: understand the strategic pattern, then change it. Nearly twenty years later, Thobela recalls this lesson while travelling at night on a Karoo road, where it becomes a practical guide to evading pursuit and a measure of the change he is trying to make in himself.

The Instructor and His Student

Müller is an East German instructor who taught Thobela when the latter was one of ten operators. The other nine came from the Eastern Bloc, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Thobela was the only Black student Müller had taught, and he fascinated his instructor. Their difference is made explicit in an exchange about authority: Thobela answered Müller’s remark that he had never taught a Black man by joking that he had never taken orders from a white man. He delivered the reply in a deliberately exaggerated German accent, and Müller laughed at the performance.

The joke captures the young Thobela’s conspicuous fire, but the narration also distinguishes his outward defiance from self-knowledge. At the time, he did not understand his attitude as something he possessed; it had so completely engulfed him that it seemed identical with his whole being. Müller’s response was to recognize the quality as an attitude, even while Thobela himself could not yet stand apart from it. Their bond is recalled as a particular connection between instructor and student: Müller was fascinated by him, while Thobela retained both the lesson and the teacher’s voice.

The Lesson in Strategy

Müller explains the Nash equilibrium as a condition in which two players have no reason to change their chosen strategies and therefore continue using them. The problem, as he frames it, is how to break that equilibrium. Merely second-guessing an opponent does not solve it, because anticipating the opponent is already part of the strategic game. In chess, a player who thinks only about the other player’s possibilities risks being overwhelmed by the search for every possible move.

The alternative Müller teaches is to concentrate on one’s own course of action: consider what one will do, examine one’s strategy, and decide how it can be changed to gain control of the situation. His principle, “Be the actor, not the reaction,” turns strategic thought into a demand for agency. The student is not to follow a familiar pattern simply because an opponent expects it. Instead, he can present that expectation as a pattern, then alter it. The lesson does not promise that every opponent can be outmanoeuvred; it offers Thobela a method for refusing to let an opponent’s anticipated response dictate his choices.

A Lesson Recalled on the Road

On the night road, the teaching returns as memory rather than as a new conversation. Thobela hears Müller’s voice and recalls the instructor’s heavy German accent and stilted English. The remembered sound brings the abstract account of equilibrium into his immediate predicament: the authorities expect him to follow the N1, and he recognizes that simply reacting to their pursuit would leave him inside the pattern they have anticipated.

Changing course, however, depends on knowing what alternatives exist. Thobela understands that he needs information and a good road map before he can choose among his options. The recall therefore links Müller’s theory to a concrete constraint: strategic independence is not the same as acting blindly. To become the actor, Thobela must first learn enough about the available routes to make a deliberate change. The lesson gives shape to his problem, but information is still necessary to solve it.

The Meaning of Their Connection

Müller’s importance lies in the connection between a practical technique and a broader possibility of change. Thobela had once treated his attitude as his entire nature; now, at thirty-seven, he has begun to step back from himself and find his habitual responsiveness repugnant. He reflects that people, unlike enzymes, can change their nature and sometimes have to. Müller’s instruction supplies a parallel in the language of strategy: a player need not remain fixed in a pattern merely because that pattern has become familiar.

The two ideas are related but not identical. Müller teaches Thobela how to alter a strategy in a contest; Thobela’s later reflection concerns changing the person whose responses have been shaped by violence. The remembered lesson cannot by itself accomplish that personal transformation, but its insistence on choice gives Thobela a usable form for thinking about it. Their relationship thus persists in the moment of application: the instructor’s method helps the fugitive assess his options, while the act of recalling it also places Thobela’s former certainty about himself beside the possibility that he can choose differently.