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

And now I realized why Kenya had become intolerable. Ngai no
longer ruled the world from His throne atop the mountain, for
there was no longer any room for Him there. Like the leopard and
the golden sunbird, like I myself many years ago, He too had fled
before this onslaught of black Europeans.
Possibly my discovery influenced my mood, for the visit with
my daughter did not go well. But then, they never did: she was too
much like her mother.
* * *
I entered my son's study late that same afternoon.
"One of the servants said you wished to see me," I said.
"Yes, I do," said my son as he looked up from his computer.
Behind him were paintings of two great leaders, Martin Luthor King
and Julius Nyerere, black men both, but neither one a Kikuyu.
"Please sit down."
I did as he asked.
"On a chair, my father," he said.
"The floor is satisfactory."
He sighed heavily. "I am too tired to argue with you. I have
been brushing up on my French." He grimaced. "It is a difficult
language."
"Why are you studying French?" I asked.
"As you know, the ambassador from Cameroon has bought a house
in the enclave. I thought it would be advantageous to be able to
speak to him in his own tongue."
"That would be Bamileke or Ewondo, not French," I noted.
"He does not speak either of those," answered Edward. "His
family is ruling class. They only spoke French in his family
compound, and he was educated in Paris."
"Since he is the ambassador to our country, why are you
learning _his_ language?" I asked. "Why does he not learn
Swahili?"
"Swahili is a street language," said my son. "English and
French are the languages of diplomacy and business. His English is
poor, so I will speak to him in French instead." He smiled smugly.
"_That_ ought to impress him!"
"I see," I said.
"You look disapproving," he observed.
"I am not ashamed of being a Kikuyu," I said. "Why are you
ashamed of being a Kenyan?"
"I am not ashamed of anything!" he snapped. "I am proud of
being able to speak to him in his own tongue."
"More proud than he, a visitor to Kenya, is to speak to you
in _your_ tongue," I noted.
"You do not understand!" he said.
"Evidently," I agreed.
He stared at me silently for a moment, then sighed deeply.
"You drive me crazy," he said. "I don't even know how we came to
be discussing this. I wanted to see you for a different reason."
He lit a smokeless cigarette, took one puff, and threw it into the