Free Close to the Wind by Jon Walter Page B

changed, that it was safe to be in the street again.
    Malik went and stood at the shattered glass – there were so many people that it didn’t seem to matter if he was seen there now. He watched a man wrestle his way across the cobblestones with a large trunk on a trolley, and he caught the eye of a young girl being carried on the shoulder of her father, who saw the cat in his arms and pointed at him, smiling.
    Malik suddenly thought that Mama might be in amongst these people. She might even be there in the street right now. He began to search the faces of the women, quickly moving from one to the next, and he looked for the hem of a blue dress beneath the winter coats, but there were too many people, too many faces for him to be certain that he had seen them all.
    It would be easier if he went outside. He ran to the front door, pulled at the latch and stepped onto the pavement. He left the front door wide open behind him and stood in the middle of the street so he could see the faces of everyone walking toward him. There was a woman holding a cage with a songbird butthis woman was clearly not his mother. There was a couple who struggled with two bags each, and she stopped to put one down and the man told her to ‘Hurry up’. Malik stepped to one side so he could see behind them.
    He began to move with the crowd along the street, past the bombed-out houses on the opposite pavement, where a woman stopped to smack her child behind the knees. He passed the locked doors of the empty houses, weaving between the luggage and the legs of people, looking for a sign that his mother might be there, and as he walked the rims of his Wellington boots smacked against his bare shins and the dark blue funnel of the ship came closer.
    At the last cottage, the road turned right and opened out to become the quayside. There was a chain-link fence and a tall metal gate across the entrance to the docks. A jeep stood there with its engine running, two soldiers sitting in the front seats, smoking cigarettes and watching the crowd come through. Just inside the fence was the charred wreckage of a small light aircraft that was tilted uneasily to one side with the tip of one wing touching the ground.
    Malik slowed his pace to look at the plane and the corner of a woman’s suitcase caught the backof his head hard enough that it hurt. ‘Keep up,’ she scolded him. ‘Keep up or get out of the way.’
    Malik stepped aside and the cat shifted its position on his shoulder and its claws scratched at the skin beneath his shirt. He didn’t dare go further in case the soldiers wouldn’t allow him back. Behind him there was only a straggle of people left in the street and his mother wasn’t amongst them, so he walked back to the cottages, hugging the cat to his chest.
    When he reached the cottage door he found it closed. He pushed, and when it didn’t open he went to the window and looked into the empty living room. There was no sign of anyone so he decided to try the back door and he ran to the top end of the street, turned the corner into the alley and ran along, tapping each gate till he came to the thirteenth cottage.
    At the back door he hesitated. What if someone had come in from the street and was now inside the house? He put his face to the kitchen window. He could see the tap. He could see through the hall to the front door. There was no one inside. He opened the back door, listened, then crept along into the hall.
    Papa’s voice came from the upstairs room. ‘Who’s down there?’
    Malik was relieved. ‘Papa? Papa? Is that you?’
    ‘Come upstairs, Malik,’ Papa shouted down.
    Malik walked up the wooden stairs and stopped at the bedroom door. He saw the back of a man sitting in the chair, with Papa standing over him. Malik stepped inside and circled the room, saw the face of Hector Valentine, and under his chin saw the blade of Papa’s knife.
    ‘Where have you been?’ Papa addressed Malik, but kept his eyes on Hector. ‘I told you to