The Wall

79

The two mem in the room were very quiet. The dog outside wasn’t. He was yapping like there was no tomorrow. Thembinkosi was drenched in sweat, and all he wanted was to get out. Out of the wardrobe, out of the room, out of the house, out of the gated community.

They really needed to consider if they wanted to continue doing this. After today.

“What’s it mean?” High Voice’s voice almost cracked. “Look, that dog’s barking at our house. What for?”

“I don’t know.” Deep Voice was as quiet as usual, but he was starting to stretch out his words. Thembinkosi could feel the tension in each one.

“But what does the dog want here? Why did they even bring it here?”

“Be quiet. Very quiet. Do you understand? I don’t want you to say anything else. Not a sound, not a word. Can you manage that?”

“But… I mean…”

“Not a word!” Deep Voice was barely audible. That was how much his voice had dropped.

“Okay.”

The dog was barking incessantly.

“Out there,” Deep Voice whispered. “Something’s not right.”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“And I told you to keep your mouth shut!” They hadn’t heard Deep Voice speak so loudly.

“Okay.”

“The dog can’t help it. It’s followed a scent. And the scent has led it here. It can’t have anything to do with us. You may say something now. Fine by me. Say something if you want to contradict me.”

High Voice said nothing.

“Good.”

There was a flurry of activity outside. The dog kept barking. Cars pulled up. Doors slammed. Thembinkosi heard voices that were increasingly frantic. The dog stopped.

“Finally,” High Voice breathed.

The dog started up again. All he’d done was take a breath.

“Shit,” High Voice said. The dog barked continuously.

“Shit!” High Voice repeated.

But it sounded different somehow. Not as fatalistic as before. Not resigned. Not as a commentary on something everyone had known and seen for a long time.

“Shit!” he said again. And his tone changed from excitement to panic.

“Forget it!” Deep Voice urged.

“But look!”

“But he hasn’t seen us. Forget it!”

“That’s a pistol. He’s holding a pistol.”

“I can see it’s a pistol, but that still doesn’t have anything to do with us.” Deep Voice was trying to stay cool, which he was managing to do with effort. “Put. That. Thing. Up.”

“I won’t let them take me out.”

From what Thembinkosi had understood, someone outside was pointing a gun at the house. And one or two meters away from his hiding place, someone else was aiming at that same person. He had to do something. Anything.

“Put it away.”

“You’ve ordered me around long enough.” Footsteps moving around. Someone leaping. Someone falling.

“Stop it.”

“See that?”

“We have to consider how to get out of here.”

Thembinkosi opened his wardrobe door. He didn’t say anything.

High Voice was standing with gun in hand over Deep Voice. High Voice was the skinny man with blonde curls that had seen too much sun. Faded jeans, gray polo shirt, sneakers. Deep Voice was more powerfully built, no gun in sight.

Bald head, white t-shirt with an ocean wave on it, darker jeans, leather shoes. He hadn’t imagined the two of them so shabby.

They hadn’t imagined that someone was in the wardrobe.

High Voice pointed his gun at Thembinkosi. Deep Voice sprang up and grabbed his arm.

High Voice fired.

The bullet shattered the window.

After the shot and the crashing glass, total silence descended for a second. Maybe a little longer. Even the dog didn’t make a sound.

Then the silence ended again.