"Bradbury, Ray - The Illustrated Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Ray)

УTurn around,Ф said Mother.

Her eyes were remote, looking at him.

When he was gone, she never talked of him. She never said anything about anything but the weather or the condition of my neck and the need of a washcloth for it, or the fact that she didnТt sleep nights. Once she said the light was too strong at night.

УBut thereТs no moon this week,Ф I said.

УThereТs starlight,Ф she said.

I went to the store and bought her some darker, greener shades. As I lay in bed at night, I could hear her pull them down tight to the bottom of the windows. It made a long rustling noise.

Once I tried to mow the lawn.

УNo.Ф Mom stood in the door. УPut the mower away.Ф

So the grass went three months at a time without cutting. Dad cut it when he came home.

She wouldnТt let me do anything else either, like repairing the electrical breakfast maker or the mechanical book reader. She saved everything up, as if for Christmas. And then I would see Dad hammering or tinkering, and always smiling at his work, and Mother smiling over him, happy.

No, she never talked of him when he was gone. And as for Dad, he never did anything to make a contact across the millions of miles. He said once, УIf I called you, IТd want to be with you. I wouldnТt be happy.Ф

Once Dad said to me, УYour mother treats me, sometimes, as if I werenТt hereЧas if I were invisible.Ф

I had seen her do it. She would look just beyond him, over his shoulder, at his chin or hands, but never into his eyes. If she did look at his eyes, her eyes were covered with a film, like an animal going to sleep. She said yes at the right times, and smiled, but always a half second later than expected.

УIТm not there for her,Ф said Dad.

But other days she would be there and he would be there for her, and they would hold hands and walk around the block, or take rides, with MomТs hair flying like a girlТs behind her, and she would cut off all the mechanical devices in the kitchen and bake him incredible cakes and pies and cookies, looking deep into his face, her smile a real smile. But at the end of such days when he was there to her, she would always cry. And Dad would stand helpless, gazing about the room as if to find the answer, but never finding it.

Dad turned slowly, in his uniform, for us to see.

УTurn around again,Ф said Mom.



The next morning Dad came rushing into the house with handfuls of tickets. Pink rocket tickets for California, blue tickets for Mexico.

УCome on!Ф he said. УWeТll buy disposable clothes and burn them when theyТre soiled. Look, we take the noon rocket to L.A., the two-oТclock helicopter to Santa Barbara, the nine-oТclock plane to Ensenada, sleep overnight!Ф

And we went to California and up and down the Pacific Coast for a day and a half, settling at last on the sands of Malibu to cook wieners at night. Dad was always listening or singing or watching things on all sides of him, holding onto things as if the world were a centrifuge going so swiftly that he might be flung off away from us at any instant.

The last afternoon at Malibu Mom was up in the hotel room. Dad lay on the sand beside me for a long time in the hot sun. УAh,Ф he sighed, Уthis is it.Ф His eyes were gently closed; he lay on his back, drinking the sun. УYou miss this,Ф he said.

He meant Уon the rocket,Ф of course. But he never said Уthe rocketФ or mentioned the rocket and all the things you couldnТt have on the rocket. You couldnТt have a salt wind on the rocket or a blue sky or a yellow sun or MomТs cooking. You couldnТt talk to your fourteen-year-old boy on a rocket.

УLetТs hear it,Ф he said at last.

And I knew that now we would talk, as we had always talked, for three hours straight. All afternoon we would murmur back and forth in the lazy sun about my school grades, how high I could jump, how fast I could swim.