"Duncan, Andy - Fortitude" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Andy)

had been given a trick question, the kind that tormented me at West Point.
Papa kept rocking back and forth, but without the comforting squeal of his
chair. I missed it. I missed him. Sixteen months since I had waved to him
on the dock from the Governor's Island ferry. Finally I said: "I believe
in you, Papa."
He chuckled, nodded. A mortar exploded nearby. "Jesus!" cried Angelo, and
clods rained down as Papa said: "Good answer, Georgie. But do you know, I
never had visions myself. Never. Not even as a child, after the war, when
I almost died with the typhoid. All I could envision then was the pitcher
of water across the room, and that was certainly real, because I crawled
across the floor and pulled it over on top of myself, didn't I?" He
chuckled and rubbed the palms of his hands along his thighs, patted his
knees.
Private Angelo slid down the crumbling slope on top of Papa, then crawled
through him and leaned over me, examining my eyes and face.
"Now, other people in the family have seen them," Papa said. "You know
that, don't you?"
"Yes, Papa," I said.
"Sorry, Colonel," Angelo said. "Can't understand a word you're saying.
Follow my finger with your eyes, Colonel. OK? Please, Colonel."
"Why, Georgie, your step-grandfather, Colonel Smith, told me that once as
he was walking through a hotel lobby in Sacramento, he heard a dance in
progress behind a closed door, and was drawn to open the door and look in
-- curiously drawn, he said, because he was not a prying man, as you know,
Georgie. He was the very figure of a Virginia gentleman, was your
step-grandfather."
"Shit," Angelo said, wiped his mouth, and scrambled back up the slope,
kicking through Papa's head as he went.
"And he found that ballroom filled, Georgie, with officers in Confederate
uniform, and their women and servants, all in the dress of a generation
before." Papa again made familiar motions, drank the air. "Excuse me," he
said, covering his mouth and puffing his cheeks. "And the Colonel found
himself in the middle of the room, and everyone had fallen silent, even
the musicians, and one of the violinists -- the Colonel would never forget
this -- was scratching his nose with a bow. What a thing for him to
notice, Georgie, in the circumstances!" A splatter of guns and some
not-so-distant shouts briefly drowned his voice as he examined his string
tie. " -- stood there as each of the officers in the room passed before
him in silence, single file, to bow and shake his hand and look him in the
face, and he recognized each man in turn as a man who had served under him
in the Shenandoah, and died there. Died there, Georgie."
"Hail Mary, full of grace," said Angelo, from the edge of the pit.
"But he wasn't afraid, Georgie. And when he came to himself, why, he was
out in the lobby again, leaning against a wall and staring into a
spittoon. A colored man asked him if the Colonel was all right. 'All
right?' he replied. 'Why, this is the most honored day of my life.'" Papa
chuckled and hitched up his trouser legs as he rocked backward and rubbed
the side of his face, no doubt because the sun was high and hot through
the study window that looked out onto the vineyards. No doubt Papa soon
would reach up and pull the shade. "Now, you don't have to tell me a