Behind the Wall

 

 

From their hiding place behind the burnt out hulk of a ’49 Chevy, the family of four could see the wall.

Twenty feet tall, topped by razor wire and patrolled by armed guards, it was the one remaining barrier to a better life on the other side.

At the base of the wall signs warned of hidden mines, explosives buried and waiting for the unwary and the disloyal, waiting for those that would dare leave the country of their birth and try to start again.

The father of the family was sweating, their escape had been in planning for years, before even the birth of their youngest but they’d run out of time. If they stayed then their lives were forfeit, if they fled then perhaps they had a chance.

Perhaps.

It was almost sunset, the best and perhaps the only time when the family would have a chance to make it across. The wall was formidable but it wasn’t impregnable, long years of experimentation had found its weaknesses, knowledge paid for with the blood of fleeing immigrants and would be refugees.

The guards on the wall looked bored. The sun was still hot and the family knew that by this time those patrolling the wall would be tired, distracted and bored. That was good.

Already the father could see a trio of the guards leave their posts and gather together atop the wall, taking out and lighting cigarettes as they shouldered their rifles to take a break.

The sun dipped below the horizon, bathing the desert vista in glorious orange light.

The guards turned away from the sunset, it would blind them for a few minutes and while it did the family could take their chances. The father watched as the three guards turned away from their posts and then waited with his breath caught in his throat as the last of the dog patrols disappeared into a guard shack.

“Let’s go.” He whispered to his family.

Two children, his wife and himself; each carrying a rucksack stuffed full of their most valuable possessions made towards the wall. Their destination was a small, two foot wide broken panel that offered a tempting glimpse of the other side. This was the chink in the wall’s armour the family had paid so much money to know about; this gap and the cleared path through the minefield directly in front of it. The youngest child, a girl stumbled and almost fell, the mother’s tight grip on her wrist dragging her upright and forward.

The sun hurt the father’s eyes but he kept them fixed on the wall, fixed on his freedom.

The desert sands seemed to envelop his feet, holding him back like grasping hands. He pushed on, determined that they would be free of the violence, free of the poverty, free of the oppression that had led them to make this desperate decision.

There was a shout from the wall, now only metres away; twenty feet above and maybe fifty yards to the East, a guard had spotted them and was training his rifle on the family.

The rifle barked and the sand to the left of the father exploded into the air; his wife cried out and for a second the father thought his beloved was hit. He stopped to catch her but she ran past him, terror sending her eyes wide.

The father’s son barrelled past, resolute that he would find his freedom, the twelve year old’s  determination steeled the father’s heart as he ran on once more.

The rife barked again and this time the bullet whipped past the father’s head, the force of its passage snapping his head around, shocked.

They were at the wall and the mother urged her children climb through; first the son, then the daughter. The guards were climbing down the rung ladders and shouting abuse. The father stood protectively in front of his beloved wife as she pushed herself through the gap, gasping as the ragged edges of the iron panel scraped away her skin.

“Stop or we shoot.” Ordered the closest guard, his rife pointed at the father’s head.

His wife was through, he bound towards the gap.

The rifle barked.

He fell.

His wife and children screamed as he crashed against the wall, his blood splattering against the battered barrier.

“Run.” He urged.

The gun barked once more, then twice then three times. The father collapsed to the ground, his last sight watching his wife and children escape to freedom, away from this place.

The guards watched them go, they watched the pickup on the other side of the wall roar into view and swing round to block any gunfire directed towards the refugees. The guards laughed at the corpse of the father where he lay on the dry hot sand.

One fished an ID card from the dead man’s pocket, then read it to his companions.

“Joseph Smith, Citizen of the United State of America. From Alabama.”

The guard spat on the dead man’s corpse.

“There won’t be no running for you no more, you born here, you stay here; should’ve learned that in school. Suffer not the traitor to live.”

The trio of gathered guards laughed as they lit cigarettes and stood around the Joseph Smith’s corpse.

In the pickup truck, the mother and children cried and a grim faced driver tried to comfort them as they sped away from the wall. “You’re safe now, welcome to Mexico.”