Max Annas - The Wall

“Good. You had a right to do it, I think,” Thembinkosi said. “And here, we might not have any other choice.”

“But what should we do? Smash him over the head with something?” Steps in the hallway. High Voice was going back to the lounge.

“If necessary.”

“If so, you’ll be the one doing it.”

Outside, a police bakkie drove up, parking next to the one remaining security company Polo. Inter-vehicle communication. One man and one woman were sitting in the police vehicle.

“Shit,” Thembinkosi said.

The security car started and drove off. The police truck followed. The street was free.

“Great!” Thembinkosi said.

The couple didn’t say anything for a few moments.

“How are you going to do it?” Nozipho asked.

Thembinkosi didn’t answer.

A young man ran down the street. In the other direction.

“There he is!” Thembinkosi said. “The guy from earlier.” A guard hurried after him. “But how can he still be running around out there?” Nozipho asked.

The police vehicle trailed the guard. Flashers on. Sharp yelp of a siren.

“He’s the cause of all this mess?” Nozipho said.

“Apparently.”

“But they have to catch him eventually. He’s just one against so many.”

“True.”

“What do you think he’s done?”

“Rich people live around here. We’re not the only ones interested in that fact.”

“But the whole cavalry against one person who stole something?”

“Doesn’t make sense to me either.”

For a few seconds, it was peaceful both inside and out.

“Now’s our best chance to get out of here, Thembi. We have to do something.”

“You’re right.”

The security Polo rolled up again, stopping in the exact same spot it had been parked earlier.

“Shit!” Nozipho.

“We still have to figure out what to do. We can’t stay here.”

61

“Home invasion, burglary, attempted rape, theft, assault, anything else…?” Warrant Officer Zolani Mafu glanced to the side.

“Aggravated assault,” Police Sergeant Yolanda Baker corrected. “On top of that.”

“Aggravated assault,” Mafu repeated into the radio.

“How could anybody commit so many crimes in such a short time?” a voice crackled down the line. “Is the suspect armed?”

“No one knows.” Mafu.

“How did he commit assault and aggravated assault?”

Mafu glanced at Baker. “Beat an old man and injured his wife with a chair. Broke the leg of a security guard when he tried to hold on to him.”

“And the rape?”

“He broke into a house that belonged to the woman.”

“With his haul?”

“Apparently.” Baker looked at Mafu. He nodded.

“Then nab him. Reinforcements are on their way.”

A TV was switched on in the lounge. Loud. Some show with a jeering audience.

“One thing’s clear,” Thembinkosi said. “We don’t want to kill him, just incapacitate him. We want to get out of here, and he’s in our way. But there’s another problem.”

“What?” Nozipho asked.

“Actually there are two problems…”

“We don’t have any weapons?”

“That’s the one. I also don’t know how we can attack him.”

“With our hands. There’s two of us, only one of him.”

“But what if he’s prepared for something? If he has a gun on him? If he notices us before we reach him?”

Nozipho started to open the wardrobe doors, before crouching down and opening the dead woman’s small suitcase. Underneath the clothes, she found a cosmetics bag and unzipped it. Rummaged around in it a little. Pulled out a nail file and held it up. “Women know how to defend themselves.”

In the other room, High Voice was channel surfing. A sports show.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

Nozipho pondered this for a second, then stood up, smoothed her dress, raised her arm, and stabbed the file downward a few times.

“That?” she asked.

“You want me to slaughter him?”

“I want to get out.”

The two of them said nothing for a moment. The sports reporter was shouting enthusiastically.

“And what’s the second problem?”

“He’s just murdered a person, maybe more than one. Which means he isn’t likely to just let us go. When he realizes that we’re in the house, he’ll do everything he can to make sure we’re the ones who are knocked out.”

“We won’t both fit in the freezer.”

“That’s comforting. Although…” Thembinkosi said, looking around. “As big as it is…”

No sounds from within the house. No footsteps, no calls of “Could you answer the door?” Moses looked around. Nobody in sight. No threat from the side.

He knocked one more time. Not too loudly, not too insistently. He didn’t want to alarm the whole street, just the people in this house. In this one house. Somebody had to help him.

“No one’s home.” He heard a child’s voice behind him.

Moses gave a start and spun around.

The girl was maybe eight years old. She was wearing a blue and black school uniform, her cornrows caught into a single braid down her back. She was carrying a writing case and a pen. “Busi is still at ballet, but her mom will pick her up soon. You’ll have to wait.”

She was his rescue! Wherever she was heading was where he wanted to go. A door that would open, that would also open to him. The face of an adoring mother who would also show him favor and respond to him with general philanthropic love. Black solidarity. Now the new South Africa would show itself to be more than just a constitution that nobody had ever read.

“Say,” Moses began. “Would you like to play a game with me?” Even as he said this, he knew the question was inappropriate.

“Yeah!” the girl said. “What kind of game?”

Good. She wasn’t yet leery of questionable activities.

“Tell me… Who’s waiting on you at home?”

“Mommy!”

“Mommy. Super. The game… The game goes like this: We have to get home to your mommy without anyone seeing us.”

The girl thought about this for a few seconds. Moses wondered if maybe she did know something about adults and their less-upstanding intentions. But then she glanced around and said: “Interesting.”

“Does that mean, yes?”

“Sure!”

Moses dropped to the ground.

“Is this part of the game?”

“Yes,” Moses said. He had just caught sight of a guard out of the corner of his eye. “We have to start right away. Follow me.”

Moses crawled to the furthest corner of the little garden. The wall there was tall enough to conceal both of them.

The girl sprang after him like a puppy, laughing all the while.

“But we have to stay completely silent. Nobody, absolutely nobody, should know what we’re doing.”

“Oops!” she breathed, covering her mouth with her one free hand. She then crouched down behind the wall as well.

Moses raised his head and looked over the top of the wall. The guard, a young woman, was very diligently looking down the sides of each house. Thoroughly, but not too thoroughly. She was doing what she’d been ordered to do, no more, no less.

“A woman’s coming,” Moses told the girl. “She shouldn’t see us.”

“Okay,” she answered, ducking down even further.

The young woman’s footsteps were now quite audible. Tap, tap, each one a little louder. Her steps were measured, rhythmic. Tap, tap, the steps grew quieter.

“Good!” Moses said.

“Good!” the girl said.

“My name’s Moses. What’s yours?”

“Flower. What should we do now?”

“Now we’ll go to your parents’ house, without anyone seeing us.”