Clark followed the path behind the old factory still carrying Maggie in his arms. While he was holding her, Clark had gently touched the sore spots on her feet and they did no longer hurt. Maggie knew the men would still be there but she did not fear them anymore. She was with her Guardian Angel. She had forgiven him for not having been there for her sooner while she was growing up in the camp.
– “Lookin’ for something, baas?”
Clark stopped. Four black men came out from the dark followed by three others carrying knives and machetes.
Ignoring the men, Clark whispered to Maggie. “Maggie, are you all right?”
Maggie nodded.
The men were now approaching menacingly, ready to attack. “You should’ve stayed in your white neighborhood, baas. This is our territory and we don’t like white people much, right brothers? Hey, isn’t that the little girl that got away?”
The others laughed and hooted.
– “Maggie. Whenever you’re ready, just point at one of them.”
Maggie smiled and pointed her finger at the one closest to them as if she and her Guardian Angel were playing a game. The man instantly lurched back in a scream. He felt as if an invisible giant metallic vise-grip had taken hold of his head and was squeezing it mercilessly. He was on the ground, twitching and jerking, his hands all over his head not knowing what to do to stop the intolerable pain. His friends stepped back unsure of what was happening when the man stopped moving and lay still.
None of his friends were moving.
– “Clark, what happened to him?” Maggie asked.
– “Nothing, Maggie. He’s sleeping but he won’t recognize anybody when he wakes up. He will have to learn to talk and walk again like a baby.”
– “Clark, can we go now? I think he won’t do it again.”
Clark smiled. “Yes, Maggie. We can go now.”
– “We’re closed! Come back tomorrow! Can’t you read the damn sign? I swear to God.” Walter Sisulu yelled at whoever was knocking at his metallic door.
The knocks continued.
– “Hey, are you stupid? I said we’re closed, dumbass!”
Walter grabbed his rifle from under the counter and walked to the door. “If you don’t stop that damn knocking, I’m gonna shoot your ass, you hear me?”
The knocking stopped and Walter had a smile of satisfaction on his face. He stood there staring at his door a while longer just to make sure that whoever was outside had left for good.
Then something he did not understand happened. Something was pushing against his metallic door and the lock snapped. The iron plate that was holding the door did not just bend, it broke into two pieces with a frightening noise.
A man walked in, carrying a little girl in his arms. The man looked at the little girl and she nodded.
Walter was still holding his rifle but was unable to react. Too many things did not fit inside his brain. When his metallic door broke opened, he clearly saw the man pushing it only with two fingers. No, he wasn’t drunk. The man broke his metallic door with only two fingers!
– “Do you recognize this little lady?” said Clark.
Maggie giggled at the words little lady.
– “What are you talking about—?” Walter muttered then he remembered. That damn little girl from earlier.
Walter held up his rifle in shooting position but before he could have the man in line of sight, a sharp pain coming from one of his teeth made him drop his weapon. A pain akin to a tooth being pulled out with a plier without anesthetic. Before he could check what was wrong with his tooth, pains were shooting from all his teeth at once making him slumped down on the ground squeezing his jaws with his hands, moaning. He was now lying on the floor, writhing from a kind of pain he had never imagined could exist. It was as if a dentist was drilling his teeth one by one and hitting all the raw nerves each time. Walter Sisulu needed no more to comply to the man’s whishes.
– “Are you coming back tomorrow?” Maggie asked.
They were inside her Mom’s one-room shack in Sophia Park. It had not been always like this. The Smits had seen better days. Mara had to sell her house after her husband died in a mine accident and she lost her job as a secretary due to the South African affirmative action law, a shift in racial hiring practices that favor employment for blacks. Under apartheid, whites enjoyed vast protection and sheltered employment guaranteeing even the poorest and least educated among them a home and livelihood. In post-apartheid, while many blacks have risen to middle or upper classes, poverty among whites have dramatically increased gaining little sympathy from blacks who perceive them as having profited unfairly during the apartheid years. Mara started drinking soon after and had not stopped since.
But that night, for some reasons, her Mom was smiling all the time at her Guardian Angel and had not yelled or cursed even once since their arrival. Maggie had handed her the envelope that the store owner had given her before they left. She saw her Mom’s opened the envelope and feverishly counting the bills inside.
– “I’ll be here when you’re back from school, I promise.”
– “And then we’ll go see Amina?”
– “Yes, I know Amina is missing you right now.”
Maggie smiled. It pleased her to know that someone was missing her.
– “But after that, I know I won’t see you again.” Maggie said looking down at her bare feet, tears forming in her eyes.
Clark took her in his arms. “Maggie, do you know how to call a guardian angel?”
Maggie shook her head.
– “I’m gonna tell you but this is a secret between us, okay?”
A bobbing of head.
– “All you have to do is to think of me and wish hard that I’m there with you no matter where you are.”
Maggie smiled. That was simple. She could think of him all the time. “Really?”
– “Really, but there’s a catch. We, guardian angels, can feel if you’re just thinking of us or if you really need us. If you’re just thinking of me then I will send a signal back to you and you will know that I’ve heard you. But if you’re really need me, then I will also know it, and I will come to you right away.”
Maggie hugged her Guardian Angel hard and for a long time.
