"RESNICK, Mike - The Land of Nod" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

men working for him. Seventeen!"
I must not have looked impressed, for he continued, less
enthusiastically, "It is he who got me this job, so that I
_wouldn't_ have to live with him."
"The job of paid companion," I said.
A bittersweet expression crossed his face. "I love my son,
Koriba, and I know that he loves me -- but I think that he is also
a little bit ashamed of me."
"There is a thin line between shame and embarrassment," I
said. "My son glides between one and the other like the pendulum
of a clock."
Kamau seemed grateful to hear that his situation was not
unique. "You are welcome to live with me, _mundumugu_," he said,
and I could tell that it was an earnest offer, not just a polite
lie that he hoped I would reject. "We would have much to talk
about."
"That is very considerate of you," I said. "But it will be
enough if I may visit you from time to time, on those days when I
find Kenyans unbearable and must speak to another Kikuyu."
"As often as you wish," he said. _"Kwaheri, mzee."_
_"Kwaheri,"_ I responded. _Farewell._
I took the slidewalk down the noisy, crowded streets and
boulevards that had once been the sprawling Athi Plains, an area
that had swarmed with a different kind of life, and got off when I
came to the airbus platform. An airbus glided up a few minutes
later, almost empty at this late hour, and began going north,
floating perhaps ten inches above the ground.
The trees that lined the migration route had been replaced by
a dense angular forest of steel and glass and tightly-bonded
alloys. As I peered through a window into the night, it seemed for
a few moments that I was also peering into the past. Here, where
the titanium-and-glass courthouse stood, was the very spot where
the Burning Spear had first been arrested for having the temerity
to suggest that his country did not belong to the British. Over
there, by the new eight-story post office building, was where the
last lion had died. Over there, by the water recycling plant, my
people had vanquished the Wakamba in glorious and bloody battle
some 300 years ago.
"We have arrived, _mzee_," said the driver, and the bus
hovered a few inches above the ground while I made my way to the
door. "Aren't you chilly, dressed in just a blanket like that?"
I did not deign to answer him, but stepped out to the
sidewalk, which did not move here in the suburbs as did the
slidewalks of the city. I prefered it, for man was meant to walk,
not be transported effortlessly by miles-long beltways.
I approached my son's enclave and greeted the guards, who all
knew me, for I often wandered through the area at night. They
passed me through with no difficulty, and as I walked I tried to
look across the centuries once more, to see the mud-and-grass
huts, the _bomas_ and _shambas_ of my people, but the vision was