Short story: The list

Dim light filtered down from a large skylight in the ceiling four floors above. The amphitheatre formed the base of an open cylinder in the centre of the building, so people could lean over the railings and watch the show.

I sat on the lower steps of the amphitheatre, the unfinished concrete rough against my thighs and hands as I waited with everyone else. The amphitheatre was a depression in the first floor created by five concentric rows of what served as both steps and seating. Around the semicircle facing the stage were small groups of people, some sitting, some standing.

I suspected that only a few people in the crowd with me were family members. Too many people were jostling and whispering, dry-eyed, hands steady. Perhaps some were there out of empathy or solidarity. But is it more comforting to believe a person stood stoic and silent in useless protest than to believe they were witnesses at a gallows?

“Coetzee,” read the man on the stage from a list in his hands. He had to speak loudly to throw his voice across the space, but even so, it was difficult to hear him over the whispering and quiet sobbing of the audience.

Without lifting his head, he raised his eyes and repeated, “Coetzee.”

A young man stood, held there for a moment by the hands and arms of the people surrounding him before he shook them off. He made his way to the stage and a woman I hadn’t noticed before stepped forward to greet him. It was then that I saw an office door under the overhang of the second floor, and a window with the blinds closed.

Without touching him, the woman ushered the young man named Coetzee to the door. It was opened and shut by someone standing on the other side; then the blinds shuddered, and he was gone.

I knew in the way of dreams that if you entered that door and the blinds shuddered like that, you were dead. That door meant an easy death. A death sanctioned, sanitised.

The irony tasted like blood in my mouth. I don’t want this life – have never wanted it – but I don’t want it taken from me. I don’t want this life, but it’s mine to take or to give away.

So when the man on the stage called my name, I sat perfectly still, my breaths shallow. He called my name again and, when others looked around expectantly, I did the same. He called my name a third time, and I was sure I had been caught, but he said something to the woman behind him and made a mark on his list.

“Mandini,” he said, moving on.

I wanted to stand up and run from that place then, but every movement – even wiping the sweat from my palms – felt strange and forced, and I wasn’t sure I could make it more than a few steps before falling.

I made my moves slowly, a name at a time. “Maree,” and I placed my hands on either side of me. “Nagel,” and as the young woman walked the steps up to the stage, I stood. “Norton,” and I stepped one row back. “Olivier,” another row. “Paaw,” and I was standing at the top of the amphitheatre, looking down on the small crowd.

The last name I heard was “Richards,” as I turned my back and walked through the lobby of the building, deliberately slowly. Too slowly? My heart pounded as I passed two policemen with guns hanging heavy in their holsters, but they didn’t look at me so I didn’t look at them, not directly, anyway.

Then I was standing in a warm spring breeze, breathing deeply, my fingers tingling. I was sure that if I looked back, that crowd would be gathered in the entrance of the building, judging me. For which one of my crimes, I can’t tell you.

So I ran for my life, weaving between cars that glinted in the hot sun. I knew I couldn’t outrun this danger forever; they would catch me eventually, but still I ran.

I woke up then but I kept running.