Students all over the world find it hard to make ends meet.

If you are thousands of miles away, studying in Chicago, then the situation is more likely to be worse than better.

Anton was no different. He dutifully went to lectures, trying to save a bit here and there for the odd treat. But what he really wanted was a book.

Not just any book. A rare copy of a Chinese book that fascinated him. No, more than that. He wanted that book. But its price put it way out of his league. There really was not much hope of ever saving up that amount of money and, if he did, he would probably find a dozen other things that he would feel merited more than that book.

He had to content himself with walking into the bookshop each time he went past and savouring a few minutes, leafing through pages of philosophy that was thousands of years old.

As with most things that you just cannot have, Anton had pushed it to the back of his mind and time just plodded steadily on, marked by the plunging temperatures.

One day, he was gazing out of the window on the train, virtually oblivious to the comings and goings of people, when he suddenly turned. Framed in the doorway of the compartment was a middle-aged black man, standing silently, holding out a styrofoam cup. Anton was used to the beggars that quickly ran through the carriages at each stop but they were usually quite brash and aggressive. This man, strangely enough, was standing still, holding out the cup and saying with a profound dignity: “Please, could you spare anything?”

Anton did not hesitate. He fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a dollar, and reached across the compartment to put it into the cup.

He could not even begin to explain what he felt next: not even now, decades later.

An overwhelming feeling of goodness came over him. He felt as though he had passed some sort of test of his kindness and came through with flying colours, and he was sure, absolutely sure, that he would be rewarded.

Time seemed to slow down, notes rising and falling like leaves falling from an autumn tree

The man looked him straight in the eye.

“Bless you, sir. Thank you sir. God bless you sir.”

And then he was gone, back into temperatures of around ‒ 30˚C, wearing just a mishmash of tattered rags.

Anton stared at the empty doorway for what seemed to be hours, unable to shake off the feeling that he was about to receive some money. His mind sped, trying to anticipate what form this would take: winning a lottery. He half expected to find someone waiting for him as he got off the train, pushing wads of money into his hands.

But, of course, nothing like that happened. He shook himself, thinking “What a silly notion!” and set off to his lecture.

He couldn’t resist another look into the bookshop though and as he approached, he looked down and saw what looked suspiciously like money on the ground, a few drifting on the gusts of wind, others being trampled by the usually throngs of people on a main street in Chicago.

He stopped. He looked at the money.

People were trampling on dollar notes... was that a $20 note? Heavens, was that a $100 note?

Why couldn’t anyone else see the money?

Time seemed to slow down, notes rising and falling like leaves falling from an autumn tree and still people walked on, one, two, a dozen of them.

Anton bent down to pick one up, convinced that this would trigger off a stampede.

He picked another. And another. No one took any notice of him.

He soon had a fistful of notes and pulled into the doorway of the bookshop to count them out. Come now, don’t pretend to be surprised. You know exactly what he found: enough money to buy the book.

Coincidence? A reward for his charity? Who knows. But decades later, Anton still wonders about that extraordinary feeling of benevolence that swept over him as he put that dollar into the man’s cup.

This is the tenth in a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta is running every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprinted twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin), is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.