The Wall

62

A TV was switched on in the lounge. Loud. Some show with a jeering audience.

“One thing’s clear,” Thembinkosi said. “We don’t want to kill him, just incapacitate him. We want to get out of here, and he’s in our way. But there’s another problem.”

“What?” Nozipho asked.

“Actually there are two problems…”

“We don’t have any weapons?”

“That’s the one. I also don’t know how we can attack him.”

“With our hands. There’s two of us, only one of him.”

“But what if he’s prepared for something? If he has a gun on him? If he notices us before we reach him?”

Nozipho started to open the wardrobe doors, before crouching down and opening the dead woman’s small suitcase. Underneath the clothes, she found a cosmetics bag and unzipped it. Rummaged around in it a little. Pulled out a nail file and held it up. “Women know how to defend themselves.”

In the other room, High Voice was channel surfing. A sports show.

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

Nozipho pondered this for a second, then stood up, smoothed her dress, raised her arm, and stabbed the file downward a few times.

“That?” she asked.

“You want me to slaughter him?”

“I want to get out.”

The two of them said nothing for a moment. The sports reporter was shouting enthusiastically.

“And what’s the second problem?”

“He’s just murdered a person, maybe more than one. Which means he isn’t likely to just let us go. When he realizes that we’re in the house, he’ll do everything he can to make sure we’re the ones who are knocked out.”

“We won’t both fit in the freezer.”

“That’s comforting. Although…” Thembinkosi said, looking around. “As big as it is…”