[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
adjust the sling. His eyes seemed to focus hard on the motion of fingers
protruding from frayed white plaster and gauze. I m thinking, he said at
last. The fingers wriggled, spasmodically at first, like frog s legs to which an
electric current is applied, as though autonomically, then with more pur-
pose and control. The bruises on his cheek and neck resembled the petals
of a purple-bronze iris from the garden the afternoon before the blossom
crumples up like wet tissue paper adhered to his skin like grafts. Will you
get my other glasses and my book for me, Allen? Toby asked.
As I rose from my crouch, Jeremy clasped his hands together, laced the
B
fingers together. Chicken curry for dinner, okay?
O
N
E,
S
I
N
E
W,
F
L
E
S
H
Annapolis, Maryland: April 1987
B
R
E
A
The cat s name was Providence. My
T
nephew Kit named her; he liked the sound of the word, of the city
H
where his uncle lived. She looked up with yellow eyes, then stood up
off her haunches and placed one paw, as tentative as a benediction,
on my thigh. She likes you, said Kit. Her other paw touched, drew
back, touched again, and all the while she stared into my face.
Nonsense, Kit s mother said. That cat doesn t like anyone. She
likes laps.
In any case Providence lost interest. She sat on the floor beside me
for a moment, paws together, perfectly composed, before a shudder
passed over her back and she leapt away with a little grunting cry.
You must be tired, Allen, Steph said. Why didn t you fly down?
Can I get you anything? I bought some good coffee, just for you.
That would be lovely, Steph.
My sister smiled her loving-big-sister smile, which is quite distinct
from the loving-wife and loving-mother smiles, older and because
of that younger, less practiced. Of course, I m not sure I can do it
justice. Her left hand moved just a little before she stood up from
the long blond-wood deal table and turned to the counter. The only
thing I envied about her big, comfortable, bright house was the size
of its kitchen, but her kitchen didn t have a brick hearth and a small
camelback sofa before it where Toby sprawled to do his homework
while I cooked dinner. It had lots of pale wood and wide windows
and a vinyl floor that must have been easy to keep clean.
Uncle Allen? Kit was concentrating on the handheld space-
aliens game I d brought him. How old do I have to be to go to your
school?
My nephew, my elder nephew, was ten, two years younger than
Toby, who is as close to a cousin as he ll ever get on his mother s side.
I spread my hands out flat on the table, feeling its soft, perceptibly
fuzzy, unfinished finish, the grain as clear against my palms as a fin-
gerprint. You could come now, if your parents wanted. Toby started
when he was your age.
Kit s eyes narrowed. His upper lip tightened against his teeth.
Short and pointed like his father s, it gave rise to an odd reflective-
ness between them so that Kit occasionally looked thirty-five and
Derek more frequently ten.
Allen.
I glanced at Steph. Her hand sliced through the air on a diagonal.
I nodded.
Kit looked back at the device in his hand, fired a flurry of LCD mis-
siles at an LCD spaceship. Uncle Allen?
168
Nephew Christopher?
Kit s large head twisted on his long neck, glossy black hair shifted, he
squinted and sucked his teeth. Don t call me that.
Nephew?
Christopher. My teacher calls me that. Christopher. Frowning, he
straightened his shoulders. Christopher Sheridan, just like that, Christopher,
what is the answer?
Nephew Kit, I apologize. I could call you Kitten but you re much too big
for my lap.
Steph s hand cut the air again. Kit was grinning, but it was an indulgent,
baffled, dim smile. Derek, an admirable man in many ways, smiles like that
in my presence, and this is something I do not admire. Call me Kit, my
nephew said.
When I started school it took me several weeks before I learned to an-
swer to my name. Allen. What was Allen? My name was an economical little
gesture of the left hand it doesn t translate. My sister, five years older, had
similar difficulty but she never thought to warn me. Even when we spoke
English together, our private language, so our parents wouldn t hear, we
used our real names. In twenty-five years I ve grown into Allen, I know who
he is, but a persistent sense of unreality remains. Jeremy tells me that when
he first came back from Mexico, after a year of being called Joto by people
who spoke a different language, when people he d known all his life whose
language was his own called him Jeremy (or worse, Jerry), he felt like Alice on
the other side of the looking glass, as if he were an interloper, a doppelgän-
ger for Jeremy whoever that might be. His ex-wife still calls him Joto when
she s in a mood; so do I sometimes, although Joto s no-one I ever knew; and
my name is one sign Jeremy s mastered.
Uncle Allen, why didn t Toby come with you?
Every time Kit asked, every time I visited, he d get a cowed, whipped,
pleading expression along the bowed line of his lip and the pink rims of his
ears that made me want to slap him, to say unkind things to his mother,
because there was nothing at all I could say to his father.
Steph rescued me, set a mug before me. Son Kit, she said, it s time for
bed. You can ask your uncle all the questions you want tomorrow.
The computer game fell to the table with a click that made me worry it
might break. Mom!
It s nine-thirty. She was pouring coffee into my mug. Your sister and
brother are already asleep. She served herself. It s time, Kit. Give Allen a
hug and go to bed.
He was too old, really, to hug his uncle good night, in his mother s pres-
ence at any rate he sort of bumped into me, clumsily put his arm around
my shoulders. I pushed my nose into his hair, for just a moment. He smelled
a little sour, of child sweat and sleepiness. Good night, Kit. Sweet dreams.
I don t dream, he said with great dignity.
SAFE AS HOUSES
169
Good night, Kit, his mother said, closing her hands around the top rung
of the chair opposite mine. Brush your teeth and go to bed. The white-
gold ring on her left hand gleamed between hard white knuckles.
Kit stumbled around the table to embrace his mother, and lurched out of
the kitchen. His voice came around the door frame in a slurred but audible
mumble: Good night, Uncle Allen. Night, Mom.
Steph s grip on the chair loosened. Pulling it out from the table, she sat
down, ran her fingers through her hair. My children are pests. My husband
is a jerk. She smiled a little, an uneven crooking and twisting of her lips.
Hello, Allen. How are you? Derek won t be back till next week you could
have brought Toby. And Jeremy, of course. Not that you couldn t bring them
if he was here. He d never admit it, but Derek prefers my family to his. Even
though his is as conventional as chopped beef and mine isn t. How are
you, Allen, really? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
adjust the sling. His eyes seemed to focus hard on the motion of fingers
protruding from frayed white plaster and gauze. I m thinking, he said at
last. The fingers wriggled, spasmodically at first, like frog s legs to which an
electric current is applied, as though autonomically, then with more pur-
pose and control. The bruises on his cheek and neck resembled the petals
of a purple-bronze iris from the garden the afternoon before the blossom
crumples up like wet tissue paper adhered to his skin like grafts. Will you
get my other glasses and my book for me, Allen? Toby asked.
As I rose from my crouch, Jeremy clasped his hands together, laced the
B
fingers together. Chicken curry for dinner, okay?
O
N
E,
S
I
N
E
W,
F
L
E
S
H
Annapolis, Maryland: April 1987
B
R
E
A
The cat s name was Providence. My
T
nephew Kit named her; he liked the sound of the word, of the city
H
where his uncle lived. She looked up with yellow eyes, then stood up
off her haunches and placed one paw, as tentative as a benediction,
on my thigh. She likes you, said Kit. Her other paw touched, drew
back, touched again, and all the while she stared into my face.
Nonsense, Kit s mother said. That cat doesn t like anyone. She
likes laps.
In any case Providence lost interest. She sat on the floor beside me
for a moment, paws together, perfectly composed, before a shudder
passed over her back and she leapt away with a little grunting cry.
You must be tired, Allen, Steph said. Why didn t you fly down?
Can I get you anything? I bought some good coffee, just for you.
That would be lovely, Steph.
My sister smiled her loving-big-sister smile, which is quite distinct
from the loving-wife and loving-mother smiles, older and because
of that younger, less practiced. Of course, I m not sure I can do it
justice. Her left hand moved just a little before she stood up from
the long blond-wood deal table and turned to the counter. The only
thing I envied about her big, comfortable, bright house was the size
of its kitchen, but her kitchen didn t have a brick hearth and a small
camelback sofa before it where Toby sprawled to do his homework
while I cooked dinner. It had lots of pale wood and wide windows
and a vinyl floor that must have been easy to keep clean.
Uncle Allen? Kit was concentrating on the handheld space-
aliens game I d brought him. How old do I have to be to go to your
school?
My nephew, my elder nephew, was ten, two years younger than
Toby, who is as close to a cousin as he ll ever get on his mother s side.
I spread my hands out flat on the table, feeling its soft, perceptibly
fuzzy, unfinished finish, the grain as clear against my palms as a fin-
gerprint. You could come now, if your parents wanted. Toby started
when he was your age.
Kit s eyes narrowed. His upper lip tightened against his teeth.
Short and pointed like his father s, it gave rise to an odd reflective-
ness between them so that Kit occasionally looked thirty-five and
Derek more frequently ten.
Allen.
I glanced at Steph. Her hand sliced through the air on a diagonal.
I nodded.
Kit looked back at the device in his hand, fired a flurry of LCD mis-
siles at an LCD spaceship. Uncle Allen?
168
Nephew Christopher?
Kit s large head twisted on his long neck, glossy black hair shifted, he
squinted and sucked his teeth. Don t call me that.
Nephew?
Christopher. My teacher calls me that. Christopher. Frowning, he
straightened his shoulders. Christopher Sheridan, just like that, Christopher,
what is the answer?
Nephew Kit, I apologize. I could call you Kitten but you re much too big
for my lap.
Steph s hand cut the air again. Kit was grinning, but it was an indulgent,
baffled, dim smile. Derek, an admirable man in many ways, smiles like that
in my presence, and this is something I do not admire. Call me Kit, my
nephew said.
When I started school it took me several weeks before I learned to an-
swer to my name. Allen. What was Allen? My name was an economical little
gesture of the left hand it doesn t translate. My sister, five years older, had
similar difficulty but she never thought to warn me. Even when we spoke
English together, our private language, so our parents wouldn t hear, we
used our real names. In twenty-five years I ve grown into Allen, I know who
he is, but a persistent sense of unreality remains. Jeremy tells me that when
he first came back from Mexico, after a year of being called Joto by people
who spoke a different language, when people he d known all his life whose
language was his own called him Jeremy (or worse, Jerry), he felt like Alice on
the other side of the looking glass, as if he were an interloper, a doppelgän-
ger for Jeremy whoever that might be. His ex-wife still calls him Joto when
she s in a mood; so do I sometimes, although Joto s no-one I ever knew; and
my name is one sign Jeremy s mastered.
Uncle Allen, why didn t Toby come with you?
Every time Kit asked, every time I visited, he d get a cowed, whipped,
pleading expression along the bowed line of his lip and the pink rims of his
ears that made me want to slap him, to say unkind things to his mother,
because there was nothing at all I could say to his father.
Steph rescued me, set a mug before me. Son Kit, she said, it s time for
bed. You can ask your uncle all the questions you want tomorrow.
The computer game fell to the table with a click that made me worry it
might break. Mom!
It s nine-thirty. She was pouring coffee into my mug. Your sister and
brother are already asleep. She served herself. It s time, Kit. Give Allen a
hug and go to bed.
He was too old, really, to hug his uncle good night, in his mother s pres-
ence at any rate he sort of bumped into me, clumsily put his arm around
my shoulders. I pushed my nose into his hair, for just a moment. He smelled
a little sour, of child sweat and sleepiness. Good night, Kit. Sweet dreams.
I don t dream, he said with great dignity.
SAFE AS HOUSES
169
Good night, Kit, his mother said, closing her hands around the top rung
of the chair opposite mine. Brush your teeth and go to bed. The white-
gold ring on her left hand gleamed between hard white knuckles.
Kit stumbled around the table to embrace his mother, and lurched out of
the kitchen. His voice came around the door frame in a slurred but audible
mumble: Good night, Uncle Allen. Night, Mom.
Steph s grip on the chair loosened. Pulling it out from the table, she sat
down, ran her fingers through her hair. My children are pests. My husband
is a jerk. She smiled a little, an uneven crooking and twisting of her lips.
Hello, Allen. How are you? Derek won t be back till next week you could
have brought Toby. And Jeremy, of course. Not that you couldn t bring them
if he was here. He d never admit it, but Derek prefers my family to his. Even
though his is as conventional as chopped beef and mine isn t. How are
you, Allen, really? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]