Sherman Alexie - Ten little indians

William didn't want to be having this conversation. He wondered if his silence would silence the taxi driver. But it was too late for that.
"What are you?" the driver asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you are not white, your skin, it is dark like mine."
"Not as dark as yours."
"No," said the driver and laughed. "Not so dark, but too dark to be white. What are you? Are you Jewish?"
Because they were so often Muslim, taxi drivers all over the world had often asked William if he was Jewish. William was always being confused for someone else. He was ambiguously ethnic, living somewhere in the darker section of the Great American Crayola Box, but he was more beige than brown, more mauve than sienna.
"Why do you want to know if I'm Jewish?" William asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, if I offended you. I am not anti-Semitic. I love all of my brothers and sisters. Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, even the atheists, I love them all. Like you Americans sing, 'Joy to the world and Jeremiah Bullfrog!'"
The taxi driver laughed again and William laughed with him.
"I'm Indian," William said.
"From India?"
"No, not jewel-on-the-forehead Indian," said William.
"I'm a bows-and-arrows Indian."
"Oh, you mean ten little, nine little, eight little Indians?"
"Yeah, sort of," said William. "I'm that kind of Indian, but much smarter. I'm a Spokane Indian. We're salmon people."
"In England, they call you Red Indians."
"You've been to England?"
"Yes, I studied physics at Oxford."
"Wow," said William, wondering if this man was a liar.
"You are surprised by this, I imagine. Perhaps you think I'm a liar?" William covered his mouth with one hand. He smiled this way when he was embarrassed.
"Aha, you do think I'm lying. You ask yourself questions about me. How could a physicist drive a taxi? Well, in the United States, I am a cabdriver, but in Ethiopia, I was a jet-fighter pilot."

Příběhy Indiánů v moderní době jsou často velmi smutné a Sherman Alexie je nijak nepřibarvuje. Nekreslí bájné obrazy nepochopených přírodních lidí, píše o problémech s alkoholem, nezaměstnaností, barvou kůže a všobecnou nezařaditelností. A o basketbalu, sám je totiž indián basketbalista. Je tenká hranice mezi osobitostí a kýčem, laciným využitím lákavě senzačního tématu - pro mě je tenhle pán určitě zástupce první skupiny. Já mu to tak nějak věřím.
Dnes se tu ten příběh objevil, protože mi ukázka připomněla včerejší diskusi s taxikářem, jsou nejspíš opravdu všude podobní.