excerpt
“Come on George, don’t let this upset you so much,”
Anton suggested but George wouldn’t have any of that… “How
could I let it be, how couldn’t I be upset when this animal, who
doesn’t even speak his own language properly, can’t wait for me
to open my mouth and say a word he already has criticized it
as being wrongly said? These are the animals who believe they
relate to people, but you don’t have to go too far, look at how they
abuse these kids here on a daily basis, how they treat them and
all that under the auspices of their mighty Church. Go figure!”
Anton didn’t wish to carry on with this conversation so he
turned his head the other way and sipped his coffee. Anton would
prefer some action on the subject rather than talk about it, but
he kept his thoughts to himself, at least for now.
The sun shone outside the walls of the mausoleum and
truly these two men had been affected by the heat, or the heat
of the kitchen ovens which most likely had gone to their heads,
Anton thought, there shouldn’t be any other explanation for their
argument. George, seeing that Tyson didn’t say a word to his
point, felt that he had the upper hand and carried on with his
convincing metaphors.
“Yes, you brute, when we immigrants came to this country
we took you all down from the trees where you dwelled with the
apes, and we made humans of you; now of course you have the
upper hand, yea, you have the money and the guns, that’s what
you have and see everyone else as inferior, as second class.”
Tyson smiled ironically to George’s comment and went
back to his kitchen to keep busy with other things rather than
to listen to a man he had hard time understanding, so strong was
George’s accent; and yes, he never tried to make the effort to
understand him, anyhow, why did he owe that to the immigrant, he
thought, he only had to do his job and what George would say was…
Hellenic Canadian Literature 