The Wall

90

2:53:17

“I took care of the kaffir,” the white man yelled.

Legs spread, smug, a trace of a grin on his ugly face. Jay-Jay Dlomo held Nkosi tightly against him and said nothing. Nobody in the circle made a sound. But the dog wanted something. Dlomo could sense it. Nkosi couldn’t speak, but made up for that in his ability to run and jump and bite. Jay-Jay knew this dog and adored him. He had molded him into his own image as much as you can do that with an animal. And Dlomo was completely certain the dog was feeling what he was feeling right now. Loathing. Loathing toward the white idiot. How arrogant he was. How he stood there waiting for something to happen. Dlomo slowly leaned down. He caressed Nkosi’s head and murmured: “Go ahead.”

The dog trembled and strained against his leash. With his thumb and forefinger, Dlomo pinched the ring on the harness. Nkosi’s tugging was rewarded. He didn’t even need to pull to verify his freedom. He availed himself of it instantaneously. One, two, three, four leaps and he was within striking distance of the white man. Everyone’s eyes were on the dog. Only the white man was watching Dlomo. And Dlomo was gazing into his eyes. Hopefully, he’d had time to realize how closely triumph and defeat were linked. Nkosi was airborne. His legs were extended into the spring, his jaws wide. In anticipation of warm flesh. White flesh. Do it, Nkosi, Dlomo thought.

2:53:25

Stevie van Lange had just reached The Pines as the shooting started. Ugly affair. It was the company’s responsibility to prevent things like this from getting out of hand and blood being spilled. And God knew blood was flowing. Now that jerk was standing here. A loser in the new system. Not every white had been able to maintain their previous standard of living. Of course. Regardless, no one needed to talk like this. Sometimes it was necessary to kill someone—this was a violent country, after all. But not because of skin color. Skin color was no longer a factor. But nobody was arguing against what the jerk had said. The dog handler leaned down slightly. A low growl from the dog. Like a warning. Stevie automatically reached behind his back and under his shirt. The animal only needed a few strides to launch himself. Stevie was already cocking his pistol. A stabilizing step backward with his right foot. Focus. Track the dog with both arms. Fire. By the time the dog reached the white man, all of his energy had already drained away. He took the man down and then remained on top of him.

2:53:37

White people had lost their freaking minds. Yolanda Baker wanted to blast the jerk’s head off of his shoulders. Reached for her holster, while nobody said a word.

The way he was standing there. But then the dog startled her. She momentarily loosened her grip on her gun. A good practice she’d spent long enough drilling. Grab your gun, release your gun, grab your gun again. The dog was already in the air when she noticed the other white man was aiming his gun at her. She pulled out her service pistol as swiftly as she could and cocked it. Registered that the young white man wasn’t aiming at her at all. He was tracking the dog. But she had already shifted gears. Yolanda Baker could no longer stop the motion sequence she had trained for so often. In the miniscule acoustic interval between the white man’s shot and her own, she thought: Just stop, pull your weapon up. But she couldn’t manage that in time. She shot the man in the chest. The fountain of blood out of it was the last thing she saw.

2:53:41

People didn’t say kaffir anymore. It didn’t fit the times, Gerrit van Lange was thinking when the dog started its attack. The group’s mood instantly changed. From the baffled astonishment that had descended when the idiot had appeared to this tension that didn’t bode well for a leaderless unit. Too late, he caught sight of his son, in his own state of tension, trying to compensate for that state by reaching behind his back. He was still so young. Don’t do it, Gerrit van Lange thought. His eyes flitted across the part of the group he could see without turning his head. The young policewoman was watching Stevie, as she pulled her pistol out of her holster with shaking hands. Van Lange tried to comprehend what both movements meant, but the distance between them was too great. He registered the dog, which was now strangely airborne. Floating. A frozen image. He saw Stevie only as a particle, his movement, his step backward, because he couldn’t take his eyes off the police officer. Whose weapon was pointed at his son. Gerrit van Lange shoved his right hand under his flowing shirt as he sprang forward. Two people were between him and the officer. As he fell, he twisted around as he’d been taught in the army. The fall seriously hurt his shoulder, but by the time he hit the pavement, he had already squeezed off his shot.

2:53:19

The pig. They should shoot him in his tracks. From behind his ornamental bush, Moses watched the group of people caught in lethargy. Why weren’t they doing anything? He had murdered a person. The white man had slaughtered him. Him, Moses. Why wasn’t anyone furious? Why were they just standing there? The only one moving was the man with the dog that was blocked from his line of sight. He was doing something with the animal. That was the second it dashed off. Moses saw its front and back paws push off the pavement, again and then again. One last time and the dog was leaping at his target. Something was happening after all. At least, he had understood that much. The white man still hadn’t grasped that, hadn’t even raised his hands to fend off the teeth that were a second away from ripping his skin. A millisecond and vengeance would be achieved, Moses thought. He didn’t hear the shot until his eyes saw its devastation. Just like your senses can betray you if everything falls apart in your life. The dog continued to fly through the air toward the white man, slamming into him like the fist of a powerful boxer. Moses then heard the shot, and then another, and then another. And as these first shots catalyzed what followed, he threw himself back down on his stomach.