"The World Jones Made" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

It wasn't Jones, not really. It was a tape recording. But the presence, the vital, cruel spirit, was there. In rows of chairs, men and women sat intently listening. The storeroom was filled with bales, boxes, huge packages heaped everywhere. The corridor had carried him to a totally different building; it linked various establishments, a variety of businesses. This was the loading stage of a commercial house.

On the wall were plastered posters. As he stood in the doorway listening to the furious, impassioned voice, he realized that this was an official meeting hall. This was a before-dawn gathering; these were working people, coming together before their work-day began. At the far end, where the speakers blared, hung Jones' emblem, the crossed flasks of Hermes. Scattered through the groups were various uniforms of the Patriots United organizations: both the women's and youth groups, armbands, badges and insignia. In a comer lounged two helmeted Security police: the meeting was no secret. The meetings were never secret: there was no necessity.

Nobody interfered with Cussick as he made his way back up the corridor. Now the building was beginning to stir; outside, rumbling commercial trucks were beginning to load and unload. He found Nina's room and entered.

She was awake. As he turned from the door she sat up, eyes wide. "Where did you go? I thought--"

"I'm back. I heard sounds." The distant snarl of Jones' voice was still audible. "That."

"Oh." She nodded. "Yes, they're meeting. That's part of this. My room."

"You've been working for them, haven't you?"

"Nothing important. Just folding papers and writing addresses. The sort of thing I used to do. Giving out information. Publicity, I guess you'd call it."

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Cussick picked up his wife's purse and opened it. Papers, cards, lipstick, a mirror, keys, money, a handkerchief . . . he poured everything out onto the bed. Nina watched quietly; she had pulled herself up to sit leaning on one bare elbow. Cussick pawed through the contents of the purse until he came to what he wanted. "I was curious," he said. "The specific grade and date."

Her membership card in Patriots United was dated February 17, 2002. She had been a member for eight months, since before Jack was born. Code symbols with which he was familiar identified her as a full-time worker, at a fairly responsible level.

"You're really involved in this," he commented, shoveling the contents back into the purse. "While I've been busy, you've been busy, too."

"There's a lot of work," she agreed faintly. "And they need money. I've been able to help there, too. What time is it? It's about six, isn't it?"

"Not quite." He lit a cigarette and sat smoking. Amazingly, he was collected and rational. He was conscious of no emotion. Maybe it would come later. Maybe not. "Well?" he said. "I suppose it's too early to leave here."

"I'd like to sleep some more." Her eyelids drooped; she yawned, stretched, smiled at him hopefully. "Could we?"

"Sure." He stubbed out his cigarette and began unlacing his shoes.

"It's sort of exciting," Nina said wistfully. "Like an adventure--the two of us here, the locked door, the secrecy. Don't you agree? I mean, it's not--stale. Routine." As he stood by the bed unbuttoning his shirt, she went on: "I get so bored, so darn tired of the same thing, day after day. The drab ordinary life; a married woman with a baby, a frowsy housewife. It's not worth living . . . don't you feel that? Don't you want to do something?"

"I have my work."

Saddened, she answered: "I know."

He clicked off the light and approached her. White, cold sunlight filtered into the darkened room, past the edges of the window shade. In the stark luminosity, his wife's body was clearly-etched. She pushed the covers aside for him; at sometime or other she had taken off the rest of her clothes, got out of bed and neatly hung her dress up in the closet. Her shoes, her stockings, her underclothes were gone, probably into dresser drawers. Moving aside for him, Nina reached out hungrily, arms avid, demanding.

"Do you think," she said tensely, "this will be the last time?"

"I don't know." He was conscious only of fatigue; gratefully, he eased himself down onto the bed, hard and narrow as it was. Nina covered him over, smoothed the wool blankets tenderly down around him. "This is your little private bed?" he asked, with a trace of irony.

"It's sort of--like in the Middle Ages," she answered. "Just this little room, just the single bed--like a cot. The dresser and wash stand. Chastity, poverty, obedience . . . a sort of spiritual cleansing, for me. For all of us."

Cussick didn't try to think about it. The sensual, orgiastic vice of the earlier evening, the drugs and liquor and floor show, the degenerate spectacle--and now this. It made no sense. But there was a pattern, a meaning beyond logic. It fitted.

Pale shoulders, bare and lovely, pressed tight against his. Her lips parted, eyes large, Nina gazed up at him, suffused with the melting closeness of love. "Yes," she whispered, searching his face, trying to see into him, seeking to understand what he thought and felt. "I love you so damn much."

He said nothing. He touched his lips to the burning torrent of honey-flaming hair that spilled out onto the pillow and blankets. Again and again she clutched at him, clung mutely to him, tried to hold onto him. But he was already slipping away. He turned on his side, remained for a time, his hand on her throat, by her ear, fingers touching her.