Read Online Rus Like Everyone Else by Bette Adriaanse - Free Book Online Page A

has it all. Do you understand?” Rus smiled and wanted to take Wanda’s hand, but he forgot there was glass in between and he bumped his hand against the glass. “Ha!” Rus said. “See-through.”
    Rus did not drink any more vodka after last night. What was happening to him was more like a combination of shock, the cold, and not eating.
    Wanda looked over her glasses. “The letter did not come from me,” she said. “The system sends out those letters. The system has to sign with the name of an employee, because it does not have a name of its own. And the money isn’t for me either; it all goes into the system. Now if you could give me your full name, please.”
    â€œMy full name is Rus,” Rus said. “I’m named after my father.”
    â€œRight,” Wanda said. “Was that your father’s first name or his surname, then?”
    â€œI’ve never met him,” Rus said. “My mother has met him, though. He was a sailor, like me. I was conceived on the deck of a cargo ship not so far from here. I can show you where it was, if you like.”
    Wanda tilted her head and looked at him pensively. “Can I see your passport?”
    â€œâ€˜Name him after me,’ my father yelled at my mother when his ship sailed out. But she never really got his name. She’d been meaning to ask, she said. But there was always something that made her forget. Eight months later I was born. So she just called me Rus until he would come back. But he didn’t.”
    â€œDid she ever even register you?” Wanda asked.
    â€œShe left me a note,” Rus said, his voice growing louder with emotion. “‘Like the birds we are going to Africa. The debit card is in the flowerpot.’”
    He swallowed loudly. He felt just as moved as the first time he’d read that simple, beautiful note. He had to sit down.
    Wanda came up from behind her desk and bent over Rus. She lifted his head up from his chest and looked at him. Her eyes were soft suddenly, and her hands felt nice and cool on his cheeks. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, nodding slowly. “You need someone to help you.”
    â€œRight you are,” Rus agreed, and he watched Wanda’s face and the whole tax office circling around him, and it reminded him of a cinema where he went once with Modu, where you lie on your back in your seat to see all the planets circle around the sun.
    WALKING HOME

    The secretary walked uphill in the sea-green dress. The bus stop was at the train station. Next to her a train was rolling up the hill very slowly. Her sandals hurt her feet. “It is no problem,” she said to herself. “We will see how it goes.”
    The people behind the windows of the train looked at the secretary. It was raining a little bit. She tried to think about her diary, or the helicopter, or the letter she was writing to Glenn, but the thoughts did not really want to come. Instead she looked at the pavement and thought about how it was very likely that by next year she would not even remember walking here.
    MRS. BLUE PHONES THE STUDIOS

    â€œI just think it is not good manners to create characters, let them go through all this trouble, and then leave them there. That is all I’m saying.” Mrs. Blue had called information and asked for the phone number of the people who stopped Change of Hearts. She was now speaking with the public services of the Overall Production Studios.
    â€œBut you must see that they are not real,” the lady at public services said. “Do you understand that?”
    â€œWhen you start telling a story, the characters and the world they live in are created. You have an obligation to Grace and the others to end the story properly,” Mrs. Blue said.
    â€œHave you tried In the Eye of the Beholder ? It’s our new show and I think you will love it.”
    â€œAre you out of your mind?” Mrs. Blue asked. “Do you