There's something clean and fresh about the color lilac. Something light, innocent, deliciously appealing. Maybe that's why the image of the milk-woman, the last time she entered the house, was stuck in her mind. Not her face, just the form. A bodice flowing out into a voluminous skirt. A delicately woven basket hanging on her arm.

The lady who let her in never looked into her eyes as she opened the door. She seemed to fix her eyes on a spot far behind her, maybe on the next house, opening the door like she thought she'd heard a disturbance, but finding nothing, was closing it again.

Inside, the landlady stared patiently as the milk-woman bent over the washbasin. Her washbasin. Not the one installed separately for the help. Because there could be no discrimination. Because they were all equal. All castes and tribes, everyone the same. The white-uniformed woman had taught her that yesterday. Given her a half-hour lecture right after plucking the distinguishing board off the wall beside the second washbasin. Her husband, smiling and nodding at her, had sent reproving glances his wife's way as if blaming her for not having thought of it sooner.

The woman dressed in lilac was forgotten after that day ― but me, I always remembered; the image of the crisp bundle of notes pressed against her bosom, her other arm empty, limp by her side.

She'd been fired, and it became glaringly apparent whether they were equal now.