"Thomas M. Disch - The Priest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

Yet she knew she was a Catholic, as surely as she knew her own sex. She knew
she was old, but not how old; poor, but not how poor; educated, but not how
well. She could remember being in churches and schoolrooms and even hospitals,
but only abstractly. Their names, like her own, had been erased, like names on
a blackboard, leaving just a smear of white chalk dust.
"Would you like to go visit Dad's grave?" her son the priest asked her.
She made a joke of her own unknowingness: "Your dad or mine?" He bowed
his head and lowered his eyes and offered not the glimmer of a smile. "My
own."
"Sure, why not. Is it far? I mean, can we walk from here? I'd prefer to
walk."
"It's not far," he said, and led the way among the markers, following no
path but as sure of his direction as if he were walking through the rooms of
his own house. They went by the graves of MARTIN 5WEIGER and his wife
GERALDINE; of SGT. JOHN KOSKINEN, who'd died in 1944 at the age of twenty-two;
of ED WARD and PATRICIA MANGAN; and of an entire SHEEHY family who'd all died
on the same day in the late seventies. She pointed out to the priest how each
of the markers had the same date of death.
"Don't you wonder what happened?" she asked, to which he only nodded.
"Probably a car accident," she theorized.
"Probably," he agreed.
She wondered if he knew what actually had happened to the Sheehys and if
he thought that she ought to, too. He must be irked by her forgetfulness.
After all, what people said about someone who had gone through some enormous
change was that his own mother wouldn't recognize him.
"Well, here we are," he said, taking up a semiprayerful position in
front of a wide, white, knee-high marker not far from where the Sheehys were
buried. It was set up like a double bed with the husband's name on the left,
PAUL BRYCE, and his dates beneath:

FEB. 9, 1902
*
NOV. 23, 1949

On the left side of the marker the name of MARGARET BRYCE had already
been incised in the marble, and a birthdate as well, MAY 14, 1919. Apparently
Margaret Bryce was not yet dead.
Apparently, _she_ was Margaret Bryce.
"A little premature, isn't it?" she remarked caustically.
The priest raised a questioning eyebrow.
"My name on the stone," she explained. "It seems a little overeager to
me."
"Well, Mother, it was your decision. Maybe it was a way of economizing.
I wouldn't know. You didn't consult Petey or me at the time."
"How _is_ Petey?" she asked, in a tone that dared him to doubt she knew
who Petey was. "What's he up to?"
The priest made a little grimacing frown and then a glance that showed
that he knew what she was up to. "Petey's fine, I imagine. We're not that
closely in touch, you know."
Of course she _didn't_ know, and he must know she didn't, and so his