"Burke, Betsy - The Orphan Of San Frediano" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burke Betsy)

I began drinking doubles when I realized that you can only borrow a few lives, then you have to start telling the truth. The hardest part of my job was going to happen when I got home and had to report to the clients, tell them that they were even more alone in the world than they had suspected. So it was good to have someone like Joe who could listen while I unloaded.

Anyway, one afternoon I came in to Harry's and Joe was already there. He was looking a little wild, so I asked him what was up. He ordered for both of us and then he told me.

"I was in my library. It was around 8:30 in the evening, going into dusk and I had taken down a book that caught my eye. Olive green cover with gold lettering. Leopardi. Never been opened. The pages were uncut. So I thought nobody would have objections if I were to slice open the pages. I went to look for something to cut the papers with. Scissors or a letter opener. There's a rolltop desk in the upper hallway, and I'd been into it the other day looking for a pen. They don't make desks like that anymore. And I thought, there will certainly be something here that can do the job. I was sure I had seen a brass letter opener, a letter opener with a dragon handle. I started opening the little drawers in the top and I came across this."

He reached into the pocket of his rumpled gray suit, pulled out a small square of paper, and handed it to me. It was a snapshot. Faded from black and white to brown and white and creased in a lot of places.

It showed a little kid with curly blond hair under a dark hat, winter coat with a furry-looking collar, leggings, the kid smiling and squinting up into the camera. You could see those dark circles around the eyes that everybody had in those days from the lousy diet. I couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl.

"Probably the owner of the house or some relative," I said, and handed it back to Joe.

"No. You keep it in case you come across somebody who knew him. This little boy is familiar to me. When I saw the photo, I felt it right here," he said, and put a fist on his stomach, "the way you feel when you smell something from your early childhood. It's undeniable, but you can't place it."

"Could be you did know him. Shouldn't discount anything," I said it, but my work had taught me to be skeptical. "Have a look around and see if you can find anything else, any pictures, papers, you never know, maybe you were neighbors, maybe you kicked around together."

"I've got this sensation, as though I'm about to make a discovery," he said.

And all through the next morning I wondered if he might have something. So far I had only found a few distant cousins for my clients, and they weren't too excited about knowing their long lost relatives in America. Joe's sensation grabbed me.

That afternoon, he beat me to Harry's again. I was in the habit of taking long lunches, trying any trattorie or osterie that looked half decent. I'd suggested to Joe on several occasions that he join me for lunch, that I was tired of eating alone, but he said he never had much appetite, especially at that time of day. He was nervous, excited, his skin so transparent you could see all the veins. And he gave off a funny smell. Everyone did in that heat. But his was kind of musty.

This time the opening round was on me. I listened while he talked.

"It's the craziest thing, Coombs. I was reading late last night. The first part of the memoirs of Casanova, where they were starving him at school, and I heard a noise like whispering. At first I thought perhaps the wind had finally come up, or it was trees brushing against the terrace. I went out into the upper hallway to have a look. I expected to see the French doors blown open, but they were shut tight. You could hear gypsies or cats come in because the doors creak on their hinges and the floor is parquet. There's an echo. The cats' claws always make a clicking noise against the wood.

"I opened the French doors and went out on the terrace. There was a moon and a nightingale singing. Between the bird noises and the street noises I almost missed it. I listened hard and I could hear child's laughter. Down in the garden. It's not an overgrown or bushy garden. You can see right into it. It's well tended. Everything has been cut back. There's a running fountain with a statue and gargoyles down at the end, some clipped hedges in a sort of maze, and a persimmon tree in the center. I called out 'Who's down there, Chi c'ш laggiu?' But the laughing just went on and on and I could feel it moving closer, but I couldn't see the child.

I said, 'It's okay, you can come out. Vieni fuori, fai ti vedere,' and still just this laughter. But the sound of it. I wish you could have heard it. It was so happy. I've never heard anything like it. I finally had to go inside. I was out there for more than an hour. When I closed the French doors, it stopped."

"That's pretty wild, Joe," I said. "Maybe you want to ease up a little on the booze."

And he smiled his weird pale smile and said, "Yeah, maybe."

The next day I hit the jackpot. I had the lead on a family for one of my clients and had to go to Sienna. I didn't see Joe for a couple of days. In Sienna, I primed myself for disappointment by wandering the whole rust-colored city, along the tunneling streets, through Piazza del Campo, up to the huge white cathedral, dodging into a lot of bars. I wanted to admire the sights before the axe fell.

People are funny about long-lost relatives. They've shut them away in a casket of memory, buried them, mourned them, forgotten about them, and when you exhume them, give them flesh and blood all over again and present them to their kin, you complicate everybody's lives.

These people opened the door quickly when I rang the bell, and when I told them who I was representing, they fell all over me. There were all these wiry old aunts dressed in black and the grandmother who must have been a hundred and three, and they claimed to be clairvoyants, and to have known all along that little Laura was alive and well and it was only a matter of time before she got in touch. The wine started flowing, and I tried to give them as precise a picture of little Laura as I could, working from notes in a folder. It was a celebration. I remember the entire clan kissing me on both cheeks. After that I must have passed out. I woke up the next morning and I was still in their house. They had put me to bed in a guest room and when I limped down to breakfast they started all over again with the kissing and the royal treatment. One of the brothers wanted to give me money. I was tempted. But I didn't take it.

I got back to Florence full of myself, feeling like a real smart son-of-a-bitch. I couldn't wait to get down to Harry's Bar, give my hangover something to drink, and tell Joe.

Well, Joe was there, all right. He was the color of the walls in my pensione. Light gray. And that weird musty smell coming off him again but stronger. And he kept fidgeting, rearranging himself on the bar stool like his skin was too tight for him. He insisted on buying the first round, so I let him. And, being a polite kind of guy who could see I was bursting with news too, he let me talk first. But I could tell he wasn't listening. I was making my story long, trying to jazz it up a little, but about half way through I had to stop when I saw that I was getting no reaction.

"I'm keeping you awake, Joe? Go on. What is it you're burning to tell me?"

"I saw him, Morris, I saw the child."

"What child?"