Max Annas - The Wall

He turned around. She was actually wearing the white dress with the yellow pinstripes. It fit after all. She looked great.

“It’s a little snug!” she said.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, looking her up and down. “The sneakers look a little funny, don’t you think?”

“Hmm… Yeah, but I’m keeping my own shoes on. But if I end up having to run, this dress won’t just be snug. It’ll rip. We’re not at that point yet, though. Not yet.” She joined him at the window: “What’s going on out there?”

“Lots of people. Too many. Security.”

“Because of the… Who did you see a few minutes ago?”

“I don’t know. A young guy, uh… He was… yeah, young. I only saw him for a few seconds. And then someone was chasing him. A white guy.”

Nozipho shook her head. “We’ll just wait.”

“Until there are fewer of them out there.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” Thembinkosi said. “No!” He sniffed loudly. “Did you put on her perfume?”

“Only a little! Really, it was just a dab.”

Lots of greenery in the fridge. Lettuce, cucumbers, apples, herbs. Other fruits as well. No meat. Several kinds of juice. A white woman , Moses thought. Typical . He reached for a carton of papaya juice and drank out of it. He knelt down beside the cabinets and turned the spigot on the water canister. Let it run and gulped down water. So incredibly thirsty.

In the bathroom, he pulled a towel off a bar and wiped the sweat from his face and arms. The towel smelled of expensive soap. Moses pressed it against his face and inhaled. He wondered what parts of herself the occupant of this house had dried with this towel. He hung it back up. Would she catch his scent later, too?

Though small, the lounge had been decorated with at least a little good taste. Colorful, no excessive frills. A few photos were sitting in a small cupboard next to the TV. A brunette woman with medium-length hair. A photo with her mama, one with a friend, one with another friend, and yet another with a different friend, who looked Asian. No man in any of them. Maybe she was lesbian. Would make sense. Many lesbians were vegetarian. He’d read that somewhere. Or someone had told him that. Way at the back, there was another photo showing her sitting on the beach wearing a bikini. Next to her, another woman in t-shirt and shorts, perhaps ten years older than her. Moses studied the woman in the bikini who had to be the one living here. Tried to mentally undress her, to imagine her naked. He shook his head. He had other worries. Real worries.

Back in the bathroom, he lifted the toilet lid and peed. As he was about to flush the commode, some impulse made him hesitate. It was best to not be too loud. Someone might be standing at the door, someone who knew that the woman wasn’t at home right now. In that case, the sound of flushing would raise red flags.

What should he do now? In here, he was at least safe for the time being. But that safety was only relative to what was going on outside. Who might be searching for him close by? And who might come in the house? And the million-dollar question still hadn’t changed: How could he get out of here?

Moses quietly cursed the fact that he was now farther from the exit than he had been a few minutes ago. If he’d been lucky, he might already be looking at the gate. What now? He was about the same distance away as he had been the moment he started running from the two whites. How much time had passed since then? He looked at his watch. It was already two o’clock.

Only two. It had been less than an hour since he’d started trying to escape. And yet, it felt like an eternity to him. And it was still so damned hot. He was dripping in sweat again.

Somewhere, he heard the rising sound of a siren. They were coming with sirens blaring. Moses listened more closely. And then even more closely. There was something about this tone that bothered him.

It slowly dawned on him that what he was hearing wasn’t a siren.

The highest ranking of the security personnel sent the two colleagues who had come with him off on foot. As he talked, he gestured vaguely in various directions. Do this, do that. The young man and woman, the rookies, disappeared.

He then turned to the bakkie crew. More pointing and talking. The four guards got back in the bakkie and drove off.

“Should we go now?” Nozipho asked, just as another bakkie pulled up. Central Alert, again. Four people, again. Three of them young: two women, one man. In uniform.

As well as an older white man. At least fifty. A little heavier. It was hard for him to climb down from the driver’s seat to the street. Once he emerged, the power structure changed in front of the house. The man who had previously been in charge respectfully approached the white man. Nodded before even a word was spoken.

The chief looked around. Well? He asked the question without speaking.

The other man spoke for him. Pointed, gestured, bootlicked. The white man nodded. Reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a phone.

“That doesn’t look good,” Nozipho said.

“Uh-uh!”

“All because of the boy?”

“Don’t know.”

“He’s calling the cops.”

“So what.”

“But…”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

“Come on!”

“We’d already agreed that they wouldn’t stay here forever.”

“They’ve been here longer than I thought they’d be.”

“No… I mean…”

“The two guys in the car? From earlier?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But they won’t come back in here if the gated community is full of security folks. Not if they’re the ones who stuck that woman in the freezer.”

“You have a point.”

Moses slowly moved away from the terrace door and further into the house.

As he walked by, he glanced once more at the photos, at the picture of the woman in the bikini that stood in the back.

He now knew exactly what he had heard. The kitchen door was there, the bathroom across the hall. Further on was another door, had to be one of the bedrooms. However, Moses strode straight toward the staircase.

He could once again hear the siren that wasn’t a siren. He was glad his shoes had soft soles and that the stairs were covered in carpet squares. Eight, nine, ten. Four steps to go. Right before he reached the top, he leaned a little forward. Another hallway, a wardrobe, and two dressers which looked antique. At the end of the hall, a mirror was hanging on the wall at about his height. In the mirror, he caught sight of a bright glow from one of the rooms. The edge of a bed covered in white sheets. Sunlight reflected off the white walls. He was almost blinded.

The sound resumed. Moses moved a step forward. Climbed the final step to the top. Slid his foot further into the hallway. Pulled his body up after it. Very slowly. Then the other foot, followed again by his body.

He could now see the woman’s hair in the mirror. Her head was moving up and down, though simultaneously forward and backward as well. Even without the sound—which was rising and falling, like the body he could partially see—he would have known what was happening. Just a bit farther. He could now see the contours of the brunette’s body. Her back, her ass, her breast in profile. Her groaning grew more intense. Just a little farther.

Moses was so far down the hall that he was about to lose sight of the reflection in the mirror. One step to the side, and he had a direct line of vision into the room. Wow. The woman was straddling a man. She wasn’t a lesbian at all. The man’s legs were stretched underneath the sheet, his body was completely covered by the woman. He could now hear a sound coming from his mouth as well. He was responding with a slow rhythm to the woman’s continuous tone. A bass line.