Beep-beep,
Grr-grr-grrrrrrr.

There was an uncanny sensation of speed and danger as darkness settled and the shadows lengthened and the others held their breath, running away to hell and gone.

Mistaking Tsotsi’s silence for consideration, Miriam spoke on. ‘He needs milk. He needs it more than you think. I’m telling you this boy David is sick. He may die. What do you know? But I will take him because yesterday I was jealous about my milk and it was wrong and feeding him makes me happy.’

Tsotsi wasn’t hearing her anymore. She gave him to me, under the trees. She gave to me. Nobody can take him away. He is mine, he is mine!

She had put the baby down on the bed beside hers and was standing open. Her blouse hung open. In her excitement she had forgotten her modesty.

‘Look at them. I’ll tell you something. Last night I was sad and I bent on my knees and did pray for something and a voice said, “Why should I give you what you ask me for, when you got no milk for babies.” Please give him to me.’

‘He is mine,’ Tsotsi finally said, glad that the words came so easily and did not fall over each other in their hurry to get out.

‘But you are not his father,’ she said.

‘He is mine.’ There was no arguing with the finality in his voice, yet for a long time Miriam remained standing at the table, bent slightly forward so as to see Tsotsi clearly.

‘He is mine,’ he said again and then she moved, dropping her head first, then going back to the bed, where she sat, righted her blouse and watched the sleeping babies.

‘Where did you get him?’

‘He was given to me,’ he said.

‘Where?’ she asked, impatient with his insistence.

‘Under the trees.’

‘And the mother?’

‘She ran away in the night.’

The woman looked at him, a frown between her eyes.

‘She ran away in the night,’ he said, making his words as big as he could, shaping them massively with his hands as they came out. ‘She didn’t cry for him. She didn’t give him no milk. She got him in a box and she gave him to me and she just ran away in the night.’

‘Tell me,’ the woman said.

‘I just told you.’

‘Tell me more,’ she insisted.

So he started again, from the beginning, telling some things many times until he remembered something else, Miriam listening through it all with a frown and patience, telling without shame how he had seen her coming through the night with the box, and had waited for her, and how he was left holding the baby. He stopped there, because what followed was still beyond words, and of no interest to her.

‘When did it happen?’ she asked.

He counted back the days. ‘Three.’ She shook her head and clicked her tongue softly, so he went on about the milk and feeding it and the ants.