Ah! He’d forgotten about the cave. What if those two MKs had been there, were there? Surely they were trying to escape the trap. They had arms. Arms against arms. At least they had a chance…. So why shouldn’t he have the gun? In Mapoteng he’d heard songs about young people going for “training” outside the country. Somehow they found their way across the border. From here it was to the east. What was it like? The high barbed-wire fence around the police station in Mapoteng? What about guards? Police and soldiers would surely be like flies on meat in the area near the border. He would have to travel by night….
Sitting alone in the gulley at the bottom of the ridge, Esi slowly realized that he had made his choice. He had made it at the moment he had let his body go limp, refusing to support Williams. There was no going back now. If only he could say good-bye to his family…hug them, especially his mother…for a last time try and explain to Papa. But it could not be. He would simply climb up to the cave…find out what was there…perhaps have a sleep…and at night, set out east, with the gun.
THE PLAYGROUND
1995
The word “dead!” struck Rosa as she drew near the cluster of children on the other side of the fence. She looked up and saw a boy pointing his forefinger at her through the criss-cross wire fence. He pulled his finger back sharply while his cheeks and lips exploded a short pistol blast. For a second she hesitated, her heart racing. She wanted to run. But that’s what they were waiting for. Instead she forced herself to glance at all their faces. The narrow knife-gray eyes of Trigger-boy glinted with spite from under his corn-tassel fringe. But the others were more curious. Like cats hoping to play with a mouse.
Trigger-boy screwed up his mouth, preparing some new missile. Rosa pressed her lips tightly. She made herself walk steadily on, shifting her gaze into the playground behind the fence. Why shouldn’t she look inside if she chose? But with the children’s laughter now breaking behind her, shefelt hot and angry. They seemed about her own age. Eleven…some even younger. And it was to their school that Mama wanted her to go after Christmas! She and Mama had read the words of the white head teacher in the newspaper. He didn’t like the new law from the new government. Too bad, said Mama. He would have to obey it. When the new school year began in January, he must open the doors of his school. Mama wasn’t prepared to wait a day longer for her own daughter to be admitted.
The playground was alive with chasing, skipping, running, shouting. A few children sat quietly on benches in the shade of lacy jacarandas that formed a boundary of pale-green giant umbrellas between the tarmac and the playing fields. The well-kept grass stretched from the main road as far as a line of distant blue gums. They were the same tall gray trees that Rosa saw as she crossed the rough dry veld separating the township where she and Mama lived from what she had always known as the white people’s town.
It was lunch break at Oranje Primary School. Inside the grand double-storied, orange-brick building with its neat rows of sparkling windows, children hadclasses both morning and afternoon. Not like in her school. Her school in the township had so many pupils they had to take turns to use the classrooms! When she and her classmates finished lessons at twelve, the afternoon children were just arriving. There was no playground to talk of, just a stretch of dry ground and a few straggly cactus plants in front of a long row of single-story classrooms.
Rosa eyed a group of girls around a net-ball post, one poised on her toes with upstretched arm taking aim. Normally she would have stopped or slowed down to watch. Or she would spend a little time looking out for Hennie. Usually she only had to check through the boys chasing after a ball. It was a little game that she still played, seeing if she could spot him. Of course,
Sitting alone in the gulley at the bottom of the ridge, Esi slowly realized that he had made his choice. He had made it at the moment he had let his body go limp, refusing to support Williams. There was no going back now. If only he could say good-bye to his family…hug them, especially his mother…for a last time try and explain to Papa. But it could not be. He would simply climb up to the cave…find out what was there…perhaps have a sleep…and at night, set out east, with the gun.
THE PLAYGROUND
1995
The word “dead!” struck Rosa as she drew near the cluster of children on the other side of the fence. She looked up and saw a boy pointing his forefinger at her through the criss-cross wire fence. He pulled his finger back sharply while his cheeks and lips exploded a short pistol blast. For a second she hesitated, her heart racing. She wanted to run. But that’s what they were waiting for. Instead she forced herself to glance at all their faces. The narrow knife-gray eyes of Trigger-boy glinted with spite from under his corn-tassel fringe. But the others were more curious. Like cats hoping to play with a mouse.
Trigger-boy screwed up his mouth, preparing some new missile. Rosa pressed her lips tightly. She made herself walk steadily on, shifting her gaze into the playground behind the fence. Why shouldn’t she look inside if she chose? But with the children’s laughter now breaking behind her, shefelt hot and angry. They seemed about her own age. Eleven…some even younger. And it was to their school that Mama wanted her to go after Christmas! She and Mama had read the words of the white head teacher in the newspaper. He didn’t like the new law from the new government. Too bad, said Mama. He would have to obey it. When the new school year began in January, he must open the doors of his school. Mama wasn’t prepared to wait a day longer for her own daughter to be admitted.
The playground was alive with chasing, skipping, running, shouting. A few children sat quietly on benches in the shade of lacy jacarandas that formed a boundary of pale-green giant umbrellas between the tarmac and the playing fields. The well-kept grass stretched from the main road as far as a line of distant blue gums. They were the same tall gray trees that Rosa saw as she crossed the rough dry veld separating the township where she and Mama lived from what she had always known as the white people’s town.
It was lunch break at Oranje Primary School. Inside the grand double-storied, orange-brick building with its neat rows of sparkling windows, children hadclasses both morning and afternoon. Not like in her school. Her school in the township had so many pupils they had to take turns to use the classrooms! When she and her classmates finished lessons at twelve, the afternoon children were just arriving. There was no playground to talk of, just a stretch of dry ground and a few straggly cactus plants in front of a long row of single-story classrooms.
Rosa eyed a group of girls around a net-ball post, one poised on her toes with upstretched arm taking aim. Normally she would have stopped or slowed down to watch. Or she would spend a little time looking out for Hennie. Usually she only had to check through the boys chasing after a ball. It was a little game that she still played, seeing if she could spot him. Of course,
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