Max Annas - The Wall

“Now!” Nozipho said.

The momentum of her sudden sprint took Thembinkosi by surprise. He stumbled forward in Nozipho’s wake and dropped what he was carrying in his other hand. Pulled on her hand. In the other direction. They both almost came to a stop. But Nozipho was determined.

“The briefcase!”

“Doesn’t matter. Come on!”

“But…”

“COME ON!” Nozipho shot him a toxic look.

Thembinkosi followed her. Together they ran after the truck as fast as they could.

An engine. Moses peered around the garbage can. Police. For a long moment, he became invisible. The vehicle drove by.

No white trash around. Another engine.

That. Was. The. Ambulance.

Sandi.

It slowly turned the corner. Moses glanced around. At the window behind him–the one right next to the front door of the house to which his trash can belonged—he caught sight of the nanny. The nanny who had helped him earlier. She was smiling at him. A raised thumb. Moses smiled back.

Sandi was still twenty meters away. Wait one second , he thought. Wait one more .

Still ten meters. Then only eight.

He leaped out from behind the trash can and stood on the street with outstretched arms. The vehicle screeched to a stop in front of him. Moses opened the passenger door and sat down. Breathed deeply. Wanted to hug Sandi.

“You have to get in the back!” she insisted, startling Moses.

“Go,” she urged.

He squeezed between the seats into the back and was surprised to find a completely gutted space back there. There was nothing. A metal floor. Bare.

“Get down! We’re leaving.”

Nozipho ran, Thembinkosi clinging to her hand.

The third worker was now climbing into the cab. The door was yanked shut.

Right before they reached the truck, Nozipho dropped his hand. She took a long stride and jumped onto the truck. Right onto the truck flap. Thembinkosi was too breathless to be astonished. Felt love. Felt disgust. Also jumped. Wasn’t even hard to do. Wanted to be next to Nozipho.

He fell on top of her. Felt the air go out of her.

“Bury us under that stuff,” she said.

The truck started moving. What a stench.

“That’s garbage!”

“Bury us.”

The bus started moving but stopped almost right away.

“Check point at the exit. They’re opening all the trunks.” Moses didn’t say anything.

“I think there are still three cars in front of us at the gate. Then a garbage truck. Phew… that reeks. And then us. Now the gate is opening. One car is leaving. Oh! There are people in the back of the garbage truck.”

“What do you mean people? ”

“People, as in people.”

“In the garbage?”

“In the garbage.”

“And?”

“They’re hiding.”

“In the garbage.”

“In the garbage. We’re down one more car.”

“What kind of people?”

“How should I know? They’re buried under the trash.”

“White people?”

“The hand I just saw was black. One more car gone. Now they’re at the garbage truck. They’re looking in the cab. Someone is climbing up on the step. Back down again. And they’re looking in the back. Now it’s being waved through,” she said. “We’re up next.”

For a second, nothing happened, but then he heard Sandi’s voice. “Thank you, officer!”

Moses heard the gears shift. Second gear. Slowed down again. Turned. Drove. Away from here. What a nightmare.

Meli was standing on the terrace behind Mrs. Viljoen’s house. She had set a glass of juice on the plastic table and disappeared again.

“Stay here until it’s over,” she’d said. “Our lives aren’t worth anything these days.”

He could see her through the window on the phone and put his sunglasses back on. She didn’t need to see him watching her. Otherwise he’d get another sermon. She hung up and came back out.

“You may leave now, even though it’s only three o’clock. But you have to go straight to the exit. No detours. Understand? Those are the orders from the police.”

“All right.”

She handed him the hundred-rand bill he’d earned today and turned away. Before she closed the terrace door, she looked back one more time: “We live in terrible times. Next week, you’ll have to make it work for real.”

Meli had learned not to let the woman get to him. She was his oldest client. It had been almost five years since he’d started here. Once a week. She paid less than minimum wage, but she paid. At Christmas, there was a present for the children, usually something sweet, although she never asked about them. He didn’t think she even knew he had three at home. Or how old they were.

He walked past the house, back to the street, and then turned left. Somewhere over there, the thing that had happened had happened. Of course, he’d go straight to the exit. Where else would he go? But he was curious. At the first intersection he reached, he had the option to turn left toward the exit. He decided differently. He wanted to know what had happened. People were coming out of their houses. An older woman in a bright apron and head cloth waved at him briefly.

Another intersection. The uniformed police officer standing there motioned him toward the exit. Meli stopped. A few meters on, another street branched off in the other direction. Yellow police tape. A privacy shield was being set up. Despite that, Meli could see the bodies. And the blood.

They all had to die eventually , he thought. What had happened to the boy with the afro? Meli wondered what had made him think of him. People were coming from all directions. The officer waved more energetically.

He’d seen enough. The others stopped, as he walked on.

The hundred rand would be enough for two days, then he had his job at the Aldersons. A half day. They’d insisted on that. A giant yard, but only a half day of work. Better a half day than no day , he’d told himself. He did as much work in those four hours as he did in a typical full day. And they had three cars.

He would stay home tomorrow. Liziwe would drive into the city. To the… he couldn’t pronounce the name. And didn’t know where they came from. But they weren’t from here. He had to take care of the children tomorrow.

Two police cars were parked in front of a house. Two hearses, as well. Uniformed officers and some out of uniform. But you could still tell they were cops.

“Keep going. Keep going,” one of the officers said.

Meli stopped.

“Keep going.” The officer waved his arms.

The house looked like it had been in a war zone. Shot-out windows. Bullet holes everywhere.

“Keep going!” Louder now.

Two men walked out of the house carrying a stretcher. A white cloth over it, red spots on the white. Meli resumed his course. Everyone was fair game. Even the rich.

More police were coming from the other way. He counted them. Eight cars. If you needed help and called them from Duncan Village, they didn’t send even one. He turned the hundred-rand bill over in his hand. Food and essentials, and if a little was left, a beer for him. Normally, there wasn’t anything left.

Liziwe always looked at him so strangely whenever she caught a whiff of beer on him. They’d even argued about it once. Really argued. That hadn’t been all that long ago.

“We don’t even have enough money for the children, and you’re always off drinking,” she’d said.

Always , she’d said. She’d known that wasn’t true. By the next day, she was very nice to him.

Another convoy. Ambulances this time. Meli walked over to the side and leaned against a wall to wait. They sped off in the direction he’d just come from. The last one came to a stop in the middle of the intersection, though. For a second, it looked as if the driver wanted to ask him something. But then she turned.