We Are Not Such Things by Justine van der Leun Page B

living room. “Her hair was not tied. It was loose.”
    Evaron and the two women started to pound on the doors of the Caltex, where the station employees had barricaded themselves. The employees shook their heads. Eventually, with no place to run, Evaron, Sindiswa, and Maletsatsi returned to the gas pumps, where they stood next to the soccer team and watched as their friend was hunted.

    At first, Amy was heading toward the mob, as though they might save her. Then, perhaps realizing her error, she swerved away. The mob broke into spontaneous groups. Some were upon her abandoned car, trying to pour out the petrol and burn the thing. A young boy yanked open the door and grabbed some of Amy’s books, Evaron’s backpack and sweater, Amy’s bag, and a camera. He took off in a sprint for his mom’s house on NY111. Others stopped and held their stones limply as the scene unfolded, having lost their taste for murder. The majority of young people stood back on the sidewalk by the houses, spectators now, chanting still: “One settler, one bullet.”
    A group of men and boys—some say it was eight, some say fifteen—pursued Amy. Residents of NY1, lured by the noise, walked out of their houses and stood now by their gates. Mostly, they were older women, and in the background, blaring from their TVs but muted by the frenzy on the street, was a dialogue of romance and scandal from the afternoon soap operas. The women were joined by people returning from the center of town, who had walked among the mob and had then stopped as an unexpected scene unfolded before them. With the exception of the old man, only one onlooker tried to save Amy.
    Pamela was a pretty, curvy twenty-year-old with straight black hair in a short ponytail. She had been hanging out in her backyard, off the main street, when the mob marched by, full of boys and girls she recognized from the neighborhood. When Pamela heard music, something boiled inside her and she had to move, so she joined in the singing and toyi-toyi-ing. Sometimes a protest was just an excuse to do something, to escape the boredom and grind of township life. But when they hit NY1, Pamela realized that this was no normal, peaceful march; to the contrary, this group was in an electric, destructive mood. From a distance, she saw a white person driving toward them.

    Pamela watched as the mob began throwing stones. She watched as Amy, bleeding, fell from her car, as the men chased her. Pamela had never before seen Amy, but as Amy ran, Pamela stepped out of the crowd and began, too, to run. Pamela still doesn’t know why she did it. When the cops came to her door days later, she denied all knowledge of the event, and even seasoned officers couldn’t break her resolve.
    She ran toward Amy, reaching out her arms. Now Amy and Pamela were running to each other. Pamela touched Amy, she grabbed at her, their hands met, their eyes met, too. Pamela was holding Amy, feeling the blood on Amy’s hands. She and Amy were about the same size—small and athletic—but for a moment Pamela shielded Amy with her body.
    But then the men and the boys were there, chanting and yelling and whooping, and bearing down on both of them, waving stones and knives. Pamela knew these boys, but they pushed her aside. Amy pulled away, and Pamela’s hand slipped from hers. Pamela stood on the gravel now, alone, as Amy and the boys ran on.
    “It was a very cruel scene to watch,” she told me in 2013.
    Amy crossed back over the street at a diagonal to avoid those behind her. She headed in the direction of the gas station. Now she was slower, less steady. The mob was trying to throw stones at her as they ran, and the combination of two efforts—running and pitching—made them less effective at both. She reached a patch of grass just before the white fence and turned around, her hands extended, as if to appeal to her attackers, to offer peace or surrender. Then the handsome, broad-faced man who had tried to steal Maletsatsi’s