The Wall

4

The metallic clang of the gate was still echoing in Moses’ head as he started to question his decision. They all looked the same, these gated communities. Houses facing each other, curving or angular streets, walls on the distant horizon. But he really thought he remembered this place. The six streets that curved away in identical arcs from the wall at the entrance. The houses carefully placed so they didn’t sit directly across from each other. The gently sloping site. To the right, beyond the outer wall, a hilly terrain, quite high at certain points. To the left, the road along which he had just come. Moses had a good visual memory. Yes, this was the subdivision he had visited last year. But where did that classmate live? Danie? Or Janie after all? And what would be the best way for him to try to find him?

Three of the streets started to his right, three to his left, all of them running in similarly soft continuous curves to the left. The houses within sight of the entrance were all one-storied. He could see the two-storied ones starting much further back in the enclave. And behind those flowed the river, if he recalled rightly. The Nahoon River, beyond the back wall. He hadn’t gone back that far last time. Or had he? But how far was that?

“Remember,” Moses said to himself. He walked a few meters to the left and stared down one of the streets, then in the other direction. Decided to start with the rightmost street, tackle things systematically. He’d remember when he saw the house.

How had they actually gotten here last year? Definitely not in his car since he hadn’t owned one at that point. He hadn’t saved up enough to buy the Toyota until a few months ago. Had they taken Ross’s car? Who else had been along? And why in the world was he asking himself these things in the first place?

Because the whole picture would help stimulate his memory. If he could recall the group, their faces, the car, then he’d more easily recognize the house they had visited. And the name would come back to him. Japie? The Boers have such strange names, Moses thought.

A symbolic stretch of wall along the street, a few meters of grass and garden, a half-cube with windows, attached garage. Trees that offered a little shade, but were only half-grown. An old Hyundai was sitting in the driveway, two flat tires. Nobody had driven it anywhere lately. The scent of grilled meat, from where? Laundry on a drying rack in the front yard. Who would be home at this hour? The domestic workers, of course. But who else would be inside these walls this time of day? Everyone around here had jobs. And was Japie at home? Or Janie? What had he even looked like? Moses stopped and concentrated. Tall. Thin. Arrogant. Hairline already receding. Talked a blue streak. Moses had taken an instant disliking to him. Oh well, he’d help him either way.

A woman in a smock stood at a window, ironing, her back turned to the window as her massive arms moved slowly across the ironing board. She reached for a piece of cloth and wiped it across her face. The heat. And she was ironing as well. As she finished with the cloth, she turned around and caught sight of Moses. Was startled to see him just standing there, looking in the window. He walked on without waving, rubbed his hand over his sweaty forehead. He glanced at his watch. Exactly one o’clock. The plan had been to be making out with Sandi by this point.

He approached a T-intersection, the end of the first street. As he walked along, he became increasingly certain that his classmate didn’t live in one of these one-storied houses. Veering off to the right, another street continued in the exact same curve. Everything still on one level. Moses picked up his pace. Another T. The next street was straight, forking this time slightly toward the left. Running between two-storied houses now. The lots weren’t all that large down this street either, the second floors extending over the two-car garages. Flowers were growing in the front yard of one of the houses on the left side of the street. A small bed, every color imaginable. Moses had no idea what kind of flowers these were, but the fact that they were blooming brightly under the brutal sun indicated the amount of work that was being invested in them. He looked around. Who took care of the gardens here? Was there a crew for the entire gated community? Or did each house hire its own gardener? He had no idea how these people lived.

Moses came to a stop a few minutes later and did a double take. There was the house. He remembered the mailbox mounted on a wooden post next to the front door. The box looked like a miniature house open on one side. The wooden roof that extended beyond the two walls protected the box’s opening from the rain. Moses took a few steps toward the house, hesitated. Looked more closely. Wrong. This couldn’t be it. A Kaizer Chiefs jersey was hanging in one of the upstairs windows. The Boers didn’t watch soccer. Ever.

And Japie or Janie or Danie was a typical Boer boy. Moses would have picked up on anything out of the ordinary. He shook his head. Kaizer Chiefs fan. Downright subversive. This wasn’t the house.

He paused again at the next T, glancing all around him. He had now covered most of the distance to the wall running along the river, almost the full length of The Pines. He took a couple of steps down the next street before realizing that something had caught his attention as he’d scanned the area. He looked back at the intersection and then up.

A small camera was mounted on one of the lamp posts.