It was his father. It was the thought of his father coming here. His father coming and himself alone. It was different now. It was totally different from the homecoming his mother had talked about and he had thought about last night and all the other nights in the unending telling of the story. Then she, his mother, had been present, in his thoughts, at the moment of homecoming. His big, gentle, warm, protective mother behind whom he had hidden and escaped from the whole world of a child’s fears.

That is how he had prepared himself to meet his father. Behind her. Holding on to her. Now he was alone and waiting.

He watched the passage of time in the movement of the square of sunlight from the window. He noticed that the grey fly had gone. It must have been near noon, because the sunlight had reached the table and the noise of the street had settled down to a lazy, comforting hum, and he was still alone, and still waiting heavy-eyed, when he fell asleep again.

The knocking on the door was soft but persistent. He awoke and a second later his terror sprang and caught him because unlike the first awakening he knew immediately where he was and what it was outside the door. He had put a box there to hold it closed—being too small to do anything about the nail—and when after a few more seconds of knocking a voice, a deep thundery voice, called softly: ‘Tondi’ and after that the box was pushed back a few inches, he clawed his way out from under the blanket and ran into the backyard.

There, after a whimpering, desperate moment of indecision, he dived into a deserted fowl hok where he closed his eyes and his ears. But still he heard the feet walk into the room, and then the softer sound as they came a few steps into the backyard. He even heard the softer sound of a deep breath that was almost a sigh. The steps went back into the room, and then to the front door from where the voice called out, ‘Tondi!’ The world seemed to still itself and listen. He called a second time, ‘Tondi!’

From somewhere else someone answered: ‘She’s gone brother.’

‘Tondi?’

‘Yes brother, gone. They took her this morning. The police took her this morning.’

‘Tondi!’

‘They took many this morning’ and it was many voices answering him now, but he still only had the one word: ‘Tondi!’ the one name, ‘Tondi!’ and it was a cry now, cried with a terrible sound.

The footsteps walked about in the room, and David heard the sound of a crash and then more noise, wild breaking noise. The footsteps came into the backyard again where, loudest of all, almost in pain, he still called, ‘Tondi!’ until the chain rattled and he heard the snarl of the bitch and a heavy, dull sound, and a thin screech of dog pain.

‘Tondi!’ The steps receding, the dog screaming.