Had he already been along here? The streets all looked the same. One-storied houses across the street, and if he turned right, he could see the ones with two stories. What would have happened if he had just surrendered to the two whites? Right at the beginning…
They would have called the police and beaten him.
No. They would have beaten him and then called the police. He had fought back. We didn’t have a choice, they’d have said.
In the station, the cops would have beaten him some more. One of them might have even raped him. Or a cellmate would have taken care of that. Or several of them. And the cops would have stood there and watched.
They would have left him lying there until morning and then set him free with a kick in the ass.
He’d been right to run.
53
Mrs. Viljoen went to her telephone. The older she grew, the longer it took her to cover the distance to the dresser in the hallway. She really needed to get people to start calling her on her cell phone. But that was expensive.
“Yes?”
“Did you hear?” Rose was extremely excited.
“What?”
“George was robbed.”
“What?”
“In broad daylight!”
“Really?”
“Everything’s gone!”
“Everything?”
“A black!”
“Hng!”
“A young black man! And everything’s gone. The jewelry. You know how attached he was to those things. All those mementos from Margaret. He’s in an awful state. Just think. You haven’t seen anything? Not even the security people? There’s so many of them. All you need to do is look out your window. They say they’re going to catch him. He was even in my garden. Just think. He might have broken in my place, too. They don’t respect any boundaries. My sister always says it was wrong to get rid of the death penalty. Just think. At least he wouldn’t do it again. And a woman’s been raped. I don’t know her. She’s new here. What do you think?”
Mrs. Viljoen didn’t say anything. You didn’t wish things like this on anyone, but, well, they happened anyway. Even in a safe neighborhood like The Pines.
“My dear, I can tell you’re at a loss for words over all this,” Rose continued. “And what’s been going on with you?”
54
Nozipho listened through the wardrobe door. The room door had been shut from the hallway. She was trying to hear what the two whites were saying. She recognized the voices. That wasn’t difficult. But she couldn’t make out all the words.
“…car…,” she understood. High Voice.
And again: “…car…,” this time Deep Voice.
The same word again and then once more, then several words from High Voice, “…we couldn’t have guessed… what’s actually going on here?… other plan…”
The other man said something, but for a long time, all she could hear was the voice and not the words it was saying. Then the voice grew clearer. Perhaps he had turned around. “I won’t haul her off in an open vehicle.”
Footsteps. The garage door slammed shut. Squeaking. A motor turning over, then the sound of the garage door again.
“What are they doing?” she heard Thembinkosi say.
“Something with a car.”
“They’re going to dump the body.”
“Not yet. Not with that car. People can see in it.”
“What now?” Thembinkosi asked.
“How would I know? In any case, one of them has left. To get another car.”
55
How could someone get out of a gated community? Through the gate you entered through. But how could he get back to the gate?
Moses was still standing behind the shoulder-high wall, trying to figure out where he was. The walls, the electrified wire, and the surveillance conveyed the message that nobody was allowed in unless they belonged here. All the burglars and tramps, all the poor and disadvantaged, you needed to defend yourself against. It was the same regardless of where you had to live in South Africa. But he wanted to get out. He hadn’t come here voluntarily.
But how to get out? And where? Was there something like an emergency exit here? A gated community didn’t need a fire escape or an evacuation plan. After all, there was only the one exit. He had to get there. But how? The security company’s bakkie drove across his field of vision. An older black man was sitting at the wheel. A few minutes ago, he hadn’t even paid attention to who was driving the car that tried to run him down.
Maybe the nanny could help him. He should have asked her. The first friendly person he’d encountered in here. Moses ducked and crept back to the parallel street. He heard the white guy’s voice again.
“If I were in charge here, none of this would have gotten so far.”
“What do you mean?” a second voice asked. Also masculine. Also white. Also no longer young. Was that the referee? He couldn’t remember how his voice sounded.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes…” The second voice sounded teacherly. “It’s different than it used to be. Be careful. You don’t want to end up in trouble when all’s said and done.”
“Burglary. Rape. Who knows what else he’s up to?”
The two men were standing on the other side of the wall. Moses tried not to breathe.
“Still, there shouldn’t be any shooting unless it’s an emergency. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah… Sure, only in an emergency.”
“And even then… Think about what the newspapers will write about it.”
The footsteps faded. Moses began to breathe again.
56
“Which of the two of them has left?” Thembinkosi leaned out of the wardrobe. His door opened in such a way that he couldn’t see out the window.
“No idea,” Nozipho said. “I only saw the car driving away.”
The garage door slammed. A phone rang.
“Yes,” High Voice said.
Thembinkosi stepped back into the wardrobe and nodded at Nozipho. They both left the doors behind which they were hiding open a crack. Air circulation.
“Everything’s fine,” High Voice said. “No, Mother’s doing well.” He had to be standing right outside the room. “Yes, she went shopping. Uh-huh… I’ll tell her. She probably has her phone turned off again. Sure. Yes, I love you, too. Take care.”
A few moments later, High Voice was in the kitchen. He opened a cupboard and pulled out a glass.
“His mother?” Nozipho asked quietly.
“His mother-in-law.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, just a feeling.”
The sound of a bottle being opened in the kitchen. Something was poured into a glass. Drawers.
“What should we do?”
“Either we wait. Or we do something.” Thembinkosi exhaled through his lips.
“What could we do?”
Thembinkosi stepped out of the wardrobe. Spoke quietly. “As soon as we leave this room, we’ll face a confrontation. We’ll have to…”
“…incapacitate him. They murdered that woman. We can’t tell him that we just happened to be in this house and now want to leave, and that we promise not to say anything.”
The shrill siren of a police car in the distance.
“Great,” Nozipho said. “And now the cops. They were feeling left out.”
57
Moses was still sitting with his back against the wall. He could breathe again, but his legs didn’t want to obey. The white trash guy was dreaming of blowing him away. That meant he had a gun on him that would enable him to do that. Every street he crossed from this point on might be his last one. The guy could be standing anywhere, waiting to just shoot him. I felt threatened, he would say afterward. Scared of a burglar and rapist. After his death, nobody would give a shit what the newspapers printed.