黒人ではなけれど黒っぽい肌をしたその男は
有期雇用の外国人労働者なのだった。
僕とは隣同士で共同住宅の二階に住んでいたが
契約の雇用期間が過ぎたとかで転出してしまった。
しばらくして雇い主の社長がやってきた。
黒っぽい彼にプレゼントをするつもりだったらしい。
せっかく持ってきたからと僕に数本のバナナを手渡す。
「どうして彼は月末まで居てくれなかったのかな」
「貯金なくて、次の仕事を見つけなきゃならんから
のんびり待っていられなかったんだと思いますよ」
僕は渡り廊下みたいなところにバナナを置く。
すると、すでに床にはバナナが山積みになっていた。
見下ろすと、階下は至るところバナナだらけ。
黄色いの、青いの、太いの、大きなの。
どうやら今年はバナナが豊作らしい。
「こんなにたくさんあれば、バナナ屋を開けますね」
冗談のつもりでそう言ったら
実際、ここは本当にバナナ屋なのだった。
自作自演。
Banana Shop
The man who was not black but had a dark skin
was a foreign worker with a fixed term of employment.
He was next to me
and lived on the second floor of a common residence,
but he had moved out
because the employment period of the contract had passed.
After a while the president of his employer came.
It seems that he intended to give him a dark look.
He handed me a couple of bananas
as he brought them with a lot of trouble.
"How could he stay here until the end of the month?"
"I think that he had to find the next job
without saving money, so he could not wait at ease."
I put the bananas in a place like a bridal passage.
Then, banana was already piled up on the floor.
When I look down, downstairs is full of bananas everywhere.
Yellow, blue, thick, big.
Apparently this year the banana seems to be a good harvest.
"With so many, I can open a banana shop, are not you?"
If I said that as a joke,
in reality this was really a banana shop.
