Mankurt or Robot Man
Kweku said something quietly to Danylo.
According to him, when the old writer Arsen Tokar created the image of the mankurt, Americans created another image, that of the Robot Man.
Danylo looked at him in surprise and wanted to know what these images had in common.
And Kweku said that it was memory.
Then he corrected himself saying that, it was rather lack of memory.
A mankurt and a robot man were the same kind of people.
How? Danylo frowned.
It was a person who could not remember his parents, his past and who he was, Kweku said that slowly.
He looked into the distance and said it was funny since times and places were different but the fear was the same.
What fear? Danylo was wondering.
Kweku said it was the fear of losing memory and humanity.
Danylo thought deeply for some time.
Then he asked whether mankurt and robot man were indeed the same.
No, Kweku said, it was a warning.
People nowadays lived in that warning.
He made a gesture towards to Graham and suggested Danylo take a good look at him.
Danylo asked what Graham had to do with it.
Kweku said, Graham forgot too.
He used to paint, dream and feel. Now money, power and fear mattered to him.
Was Graham a mankurt? Danylo wanted to know.
Yes, but a modern one. Graham did not need any memory now, since his conscience would only get in his way.
Then Danylo asked about society.
Kweku gave a bitter smile and said that society was even worse, since it forgot on purpose.
It forgot parents, history and truth. Then men like Graham appeared and nobody dared to ask anything.
Danylo lowered his head and wondered whether it was all the same.
But Kweku stopped him and said that as long as a person remembered, then he was human. When he forgot, he turned into a machine.
Or a mankurt, Kweku said that part with a soft tone.
The wind was blowing over the square and some deep silence fell between them for a while.
After some time Kweku rose and said it was enough of talking about mankurtism and robot men. It was time to go.
Where to? Danylo was wondering again..
To visit an English businessman, Mr. Harwood, Kweku said.
Danylo wondered again whether he was not a mankurt too.
No, Kweku answered him, and not a robot man either.
He explained that Mr. Harwood's father, a rich mine owner, Bale, once lived in a far land and mined coal, founded mines, and knew the value of that land.
When the new power came, Bale fled the country. He did not leave it empty handed, he took with him one very valuable thing.
A map of the underground wealth of that land.
Seventy years passed. The old order broke down. Old Bale was dying in bed when he took an old chest, opened it, took out the yellow map, and called his son.
Gideon, he said, rise, buy a ticket and go there. Our fate lies in wait for us there.
Gideon came. He arrived at a dusty town, walked its streets and searched for those who remembered his father and he found them.
Danylo shook his head. He said, memory was stronger than time.
Sometimes it was, Kweku answered him. That was why he said that Mr. Harwood was neither a mankurt nor a robot man.
Kweku rose from the table and said they should go, because such people did not visit every day. They went out into the night.