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

limped away.

"Ama?"

"What is it now, Aru?"

"Why did you pick up those vegetables, Ama?"

Mrs Pillay stopped and placed her hand on her son's arm as she al-
ways did when she had something serious to tell him. "Aramugan, we
must always treat old people with respect, whether they are of our own
people or not. This is a law of life." Her hand on his arm grew heavier.

A woman's voice brought Aramugan back to the present. "Are you all
right, sir?"

"Huh?" Aramugan blinked several times, his throbbing mind shift-
ing painfully to the present. The sheet of blue plastic which filled his
field of vision, slowly materialised into a bag of vegetables dangling be-
fore him. He stretched out his hand to accept the bag. As if in a dream,
he watched his hand descend on dark flesh. Too dark. Aramugan re-
coiled.

"These are your vegetables, sir."

The neatly dressed, elderly African woman stood above him with
bowed head and a straight face. Aramugan thought he saw suppressed
amusement and mockery in the composed expression and bowed head.
Gingerly, he took the bag from her. With a glare that belied his mut-
tered "Thank you", he limped away with all the dignity he could
muster.

Back home in the bathroom the soap slipped through his fingers as
he rubbed them together vigorously for the third time. He opened the
tap and let the cold water rinse away the last of the lather. He dried his
hands roughly, trying to vent some of his rage.

"How dared she? Nobody asked her to touch my vegetables. You
can't turn your back for a moment these days without one of these
Blacks trying to steal from you."

Aramugan glared at the bag of vegetables lying untouched on the
kitchen sink. He couldn't eat them now.

The words of Sanjay, his son, sprang to his mind: "You're full of these
silly, unfounded prejudices, Dad. When will you realise that we are all just
human beings?" Aramugan jerked away angrily, struggling to drown the
old surge of pleasure and pride which he used to feel when he thought of
his only child. He remembered with pain the euphoria which he and
Ambigay had felt the day when Sanjay had said he would bring his fi-