"Rode, Linda - I, A Living Arrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rode Linda)

ancщe home to introduce her to his parents. And then he had dared step
over the threshold of his parents' home with a black woman on his arm!

"Where is your fiancщe?" Aramugan had asked, refusing to register
what he saw.

"Ha! Always the kidder, my dad!" Sanjay had explained to the
woman. "Meet Nandi, Dad."

Nandi! The holy name of Lord Siva's sacred cow!

It had required all Aramugan's emotional strength to prevent himself
from slamming the door in their faces. Then he had left with a hastily
concocted story about an urgent appointment. Later he informed his
son that all his ties with him would be cut if he did not break up with
the woman immediately. Sanjay, a typically stubborn Pillay, refused.

Aramugan thought of the many changes he and Ambigay had sur-
vived - even the loss of their prize farm in Zeekoe Valley to the Durban
Corporation to make way for the sprawling Chatsworth township, had
not crushed them. But Ambigay's will to live had died on the day they
lost Sanjay. And with Ambigay's death all hope for a reconciliation be-
tween father and son was lost. So Aramugan continued living alone in
his little house in Unit 2, Chatsworth.

He viewed with contempt the transition to a new South Africa and
clung desperately to the belief that Indians were a superior race - despite
the fact that Sanjay and Nandi had angelic children. Despite the kind-
ness shown to him by an unknown black woman, while fellow-Indians
had trodden on his food.

Aramugan wept. He was afraid that the amusement in the woman's
eyes had suggested superiority.

The next morning, just when the dark was beginning to fade,
Aramugan mopped up the last of the tomato and chutney on his plate
with a chunk of brown bread. He washed the plate, glancing out of the
corner of his eye at the plastic bag with its now diminished contents.
Then, lifting the large pumpkin which he had been saving for the win-
ter, he began the journey back to Durban.

Ripples of sunlight played on his thin figure as he entered the mar-
ket-place. He went to where he knew he would find her. "Excuse me,
ma'am," Aramugan said with excruciating slowness.

The African woman turned round with questioning eyebrows.

Aramugan held out the pumpkin. "This is for you as a token of my
gratefulness for your help yesterday."