About halfway to his room, Boston awoke. Tsotsi heard him groan. But it was only when they reached the light of a lamp-post that he knew for certain he was awake. One eye was open wide and staring back. When Boston saw who it was that carried him, he gave a small cry, and with a flurry of legs and arms broke loose and fell to the ground. He staggered up and went lurching away into the darkness, still crying in a strong nasal tone, because of his blocked nose.

Tsotsi followed him as he stumbled, off the pavement and into the gutter, then on the pavement again, but now on his knees because he had fallen over the curb; finally crawling a few more yards until he came to rest under a corrugated iron fence. There was a slogan on it: we won’t move.

But Boston did, a few seconds later. Tsotsi pulled him to his feet, and because he was awake took one of his arms over his shoulders and helped him like that along another stretch of the way to his room. He lost consciousness again and had to be carried for the last few blocks.

In his room Tsotsi lay Boston on the bed, took off his trousers and threw them into the yard where the small dog found them later. He turned away from the window and stopped immediately, drawing in his breath with excitement. He had lit a candle on first entering the room and by its willowy light and the perspective of a few feet he now saw all that there was of Boston, stretched naked on the bed. In the shebeen and when carrying him through the streets, he had deliberately deferred the moment of looking, of really looking at him so that through the touch of his hands and his eyes he would feel him the way he had felt the cripple. But this time there was no preamble to the experience.

As he turned away from the window it hit him. Boston was thinner than he had ever imagined. His ribs stood out clearly, pressing against the skin with the effort of each breath, which seemed to arch his body. In the uncertain light his legs were out of all proportion to the rest of him. Tsotsi went to the bed and examined him carefully, so absorbed in his purpose that he hardly felt the liquid wax fall onto the back of the hand holding the candle.

The head was almost misshapen by blue swellings on the forehead. One eye was so swollen that all that remained of it was a straight fold of skin. Even as Tsotsi looked, a few drops of colourless liquid oozed out and trickled down the cheek. Impulsively he put out his hand and caught up one on his finger. He tasted it. Tears. Tsotsi straightened up and scratched off the candle wax on the back of his hand. He was trembling. He bent down again. From the eyes he moved slowly to the nose—a clotted mass of blood and broken bone—then to the mouth and the cuts about the chin. Very lightly he put a hand on Boston’s chest. The flesh was warm and living and felt like pain. It was as red as pain, too, where he had broken it open.