The Wall

63

No sounds from within the house. No footsteps, no calls of “Could you answer the door?” Moses looked around. Nobody in sight. No threat from the side.

He knocked one more time. Not too loudly, not too insistently. He didn’t want to alarm the whole street, just the people in this house. In this one house. Somebody had to help him.

“No one’s home.” He heard a child’s voice behind him.

Moses gave a start and spun around.

The girl was maybe eight years old. She was wearing a blue and black school uniform, her cornrows caught into a single braid down her back. She was carrying a writing case and a pen. “Busi is still at ballet, but her mom will pick her up soon. You’ll have to wait.”

She was his rescue! Wherever she was heading was where he wanted to go. A door that would open, that would also open to him. The face of an adoring mother who would also show him favor and respond to him with general philanthropic love. Black solidarity. Now the new South Africa would show itself to be more than just a constitution that nobody had ever read.

“Say,” Moses began. “Would you like to play a game with me?” Even as he said this, he knew the question was inappropriate.

“Yeah!” the girl said. “What kind of game?”

Good. She wasn’t yet leery of questionable activities.

“Tell me… Who’s waiting on you at home?”

“Mommy!”

“Mommy. Super. The game… The game goes like this: We have to get home to your mommy without anyone seeing us.”

The girl thought about this for a few seconds. Moses wondered if maybe she did know something about adults and their less-upstanding intentions. But then she glanced around and said: “Interesting.”

“Does that mean, yes?”

“Sure!”

Moses dropped to the ground.

“Is this part of the game?”

“Yes,” Moses said. He had just caught sight of a guard out of the corner of his eye. “We have to start right away. Follow me.”

Moses crawled to the furthest corner of the little garden. The wall there was tall enough to conceal both of them.

The girl sprang after him like a puppy, laughing all the while.

“But we have to stay completely silent. Nobody, absolutely nobody, should know what we’re doing.”

“Oops!” she breathed, covering her mouth with her one free hand. She then crouched down behind the wall as well.

Moses raised his head and looked over the top of the wall. The guard, a young woman, was very diligently looking down the sides of each house. Thoroughly, but not too thoroughly. She was doing what she’d been ordered to do, no more, no less.

“A woman’s coming,” Moses told the girl. “She shouldn’t see us.”

“Okay,” she answered, ducking down even further.

The young woman’s footsteps were now quite audible. Tap, tap, each one a little louder. Her steps were measured, rhythmic. Tap, tap, the steps grew quieter.

“Good!” Moses said.

“Good!” the girl said.

“My name’s Moses. What’s yours?”

“Flower. What should we do now?”

“Now we’ll go to your parents’ house, without anyone seeing us.”

“It’s my mother’s house. My father lives somewhere else. Mommy says he’s a son of a bitch. But only when I’m not in the same room. What’s a son of a bitch?”

“Uuuhhh,” Moses stuttered. “Someone… Someone who doesn’t love his wife, Flower.”

“Hm!” she said, studying him skeptically.

Moses knew that he’d just given her a very pat answer, but he couldn’t think of a better one. He slowly stood up and looked around.

“Are you the man they’re all looking for?”

Moses’ heart started racing.

“You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

Moses gazed down at Flower and considered how he could explain his situation.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m the one, but I haven’t done what they’re saying… It’s not true.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why?” Moses asked.

“You can tell, can’t you?”

“You mean what they’re saying I did?”

“Aunt Grace says you stole something. And you hurt people. Is that true?”

“Well, I didn’t steal anything.”

“What about hurting those people?”

“Only because they wanted to catch me.”

“You didn’t want to?”

“No.”

“Then you were just defending yourself?”

“Yes. We really need to get out of here.”

“Okay.”

“How far is it to your house?

“Pretty far.”

“Then let’s get going.”