Max Annas - The Wall

“It’s my mother’s house. My father lives somewhere else. Mommy says he’s a son of a bitch. But only when I’m not in the same room. What’s a son of a bitch?”

“Uuuhhh,” Moses stuttered. “Someone… Someone who doesn’t love his wife, Flower.”

“Hm!” she said, studying him skeptically.

Moses knew that he’d just given her a very pat answer, but he couldn’t think of a better one. He slowly stood up and looked around.

“Are you the man they’re all looking for?”

Moses’ heart started racing.

“You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

Moses gazed down at Flower and considered how he could explain his situation.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m the one, but I haven’t done what they’re saying… It’s not true.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why?” Moses asked.

“You can tell, can’t you?”

“You mean what they’re saying I did?”

“Aunt Grace says you stole something. And you hurt people. Is that true?”

“Well, I didn’t steal anything.”

“What about hurting those people?”

“Only because they wanted to catch me.”

“You didn’t want to?”

“No.”

“Then you were just defending yourself?”

“Yes. We really need to get out of here.”

“Okay.”

“How far is it to your house?

“Pretty far.”

“Then let’s get going.”

What a shitty stressful day. There’d been a fire in Palm Trees, and before the fire department could get there, the house’s roof had collapsed. They’d been lucky that in this heat other houses hadn’t caught on fire as well. The neighbors had dumped water on their own houses non-stop. When he’d asked one of them why he hadn’t spared at least one bucket of water to toss on the fire, things had gotten out of hand. And now the mess in The Pines.

Warren Kramer opened the door to the monitor room. “What’s going on?”

“They haven’t caught him, Boss,” Happiness said.

“How can that be? How many people are there now?”

“Six vehicles. Fifteen people. Even the Boss is there.”

“Gerrit?”

“Yes, Boss van Lange.”

“So why isn’t it working? It can’t be all that hard to catch that bastard. A tsotsi.”

“I don’t think so, Boss.”

“That it should be easy to catch him?”

“That he’s a tsotsi, Boss.”

“Show him to me.”

Happiness hit a couple of keys and zoomed in on the paused footage. “There, Boss.”

Kramer saw scruffy rags. Too muscular and fit for those trashy clothes, but so what? Clothes made the man, after all. And the guy looked like shit. “What are the cameras showing now?”

Happiness searched for other images of the boy. Ran the footage from the four cameras backward.

“Stop!” Kramer said. “Who’s that?”

With the press of one button, all four cameras stopped. “The two people there. Who are they?” An attractive man and a woman in a smock.

Happiness had never seen either one of them. But Boss Kramer shouldn’t know that. “Two people,” she said.

“Seen them before?”

“I think so,” she said, although the two of them were complete strangers to her. She would’ve noticed and remembered the man. She watched the two for a while. Kramer gradually lost interest, as hers increased. Not because the man was so handsome, though. Something wasn’t quite right about the way the two of them were behaving, though she had no idea what was bothering her. But they were chatting… as if they knew each other well. Really well. Only… why would a man in a fashionable suit and a domestic worker be on such friendly terms? Seem so familiar? Relaxed. Better not to say anything. She must have been watching other footage when they’d been out on the street. Or maybe asleep.

“They must’ve left a long time ago, don’t you think?” the Boss asked.

“Must’ve,” she agreed.

Thembinkosi took the nail file from Nozipho. Stared at it. Raised his arm and jabbed it firmly into a body that wasn’t there.

“What a crappy day!”

The sports commentator had worked himself into a frenzy. His voice kept cracking in excitement.

“Let’s go,” Nozipho said. “It’s time.” She reached for the doorknob.

“Wait. It’s not that easy. What if he’s standing on the other side of the door?”

“Then he’s discovered us either way.”

“But we have to be prepared, make a plan.”

“The best plan is to surprise him.”

“Can you have something to use, too?”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, whatever.”

Outside, a car’s brakes screeched. They heard High Voice run into the garage. The door opened. The car drove in.

“It’s too late anyway,” Thembinkosi said.

“Come on,” Flower said, grabbing Moses’ hand. He didn’t elude her grasp, though he knew the security guys would take him out if they saw this. Luckily, the girl dragged him over to a wall that was so high, she needed both hands to climb over it. She dropped his hand and led the way.

“You’re still thinking that nobody should be able to see us, right?”

“Yeah.” Flower paused at the street and looked around. “I’ll cross first.”

She left him where he was standing and crossed the street. After she reached the other side, she looked around once more before motioning at him.

Moses ran to catch up with her. Ducked behind the next wall. “How do you know your way around here so well?”

“Because of Busi. And my cousin Nandi, too. When she’s here, they sometimes let us go outside on our own. My cousin’s already twelve. Come on.”

Flower studied the lay of the land like a burglar and crept through front yards, over terraces, and under hedges. Moses followed her until she came to a stop at a street. She raised a finger to her lips, then pointed back the way they had just come. Moses didn’t understand immediately what she was trying to say. She pointed once more in the same direction as he heard footsteps. He finally understood and hid. He flattened himself behind a tree and heard a voice he recognized.

“Flower, you’re being a naughty little girl again!” The referee. Flower giggled. “You know very well you aren’t allowed to play here.”

“I’m about to go.”

“I should tan your heinie.” Lecherous pig.

“I’m going, promise.” Flower’s voice was already fading.

“I’ll be watching you,” the referee called after her.

Silence. They had reached a part of The Pines that Moses didn’t recognize. Closer to the road from Abbotsford to Dorchester Heights. However, this did him no good if he couldn’t climb over the wall. Maybe it was at least good that they wouldn’t be looking for him here.

“Moses!” Flower was back.

“What do you actually play with Busi and Nandi?”

“We hide so they can’t see us.” When Moses didn’t say anything, she continued: “We aren’t allowed to play here. All this is private property, but we do it anyway. We just have to make sure nobody sees us.”

Cool girl. If she develops other interests later on, I could fall in love with her , Moses thought.

“Back there,” she pointed toward the river, “are two cars. The people in them are wearing uniforms. And over there,” she pointed in the opposite direction, “I saw a police car drive by. It didn’t head this way, though. And then I saw old Mrs. Peacock, but she doesn’t say anything.”

“Why doesn’t she say anything?”

“She can’t.”

“Did she have a stroke?”

“Tongue cancer.”

“How do you know that?”

“From Nandi. She heard it from her mother. And she heard it from Mommy.”