"Kelley Eskridge - Alien Jane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eskridge Kelly)

then I saw Rousseau's face like still water, and I turned away ro i wouldn't have to watch while Novak
put one arm around her and led her away, sa)nng softly, persuasively, "Don't be upset. I didn't mean to
upset you. jane will be fine with ffiтВм, I promise, she'll be fine and you can still manage her therapy, keep
an eye on her. Why don't we just go have a cup of coffee and talk it over...." And I moved closer to jane
and she grabbed me, pulled me in, and I realized she was whispering, her voice becomirtg clearer as
Novak and Rousseau moved away.

"... it keeps you safe, keeps you safe, the pain keeps you safe, because it hurts and you know
something's wrong. People like me die if we're not careful; we pierce our lungs with a broken rib we
didn't know we had; we smile and eat dinner while our appendix bursts inside us; we hold our hands out
over the ftre when we're children and laugh while the skin turns black. Pain keeps you safe. It's how you
keep alive, how you stay whole, it's such a human thing and I don't have it. I don't have it. And you
people ... you think ... no one ever asked if I could.. . but f can, I can, I can feel a touch or a kiss, I can
feel your arms around ffiтВм, I can feel my life, and I can feel hopeful, and scared, and I can see my days
stretching out before me in this place while they forget and leave the heat on too long again and again and
again, just to see, just to see me not knowing until I smell my own skin burning and realize. And when I
look at them they aren't human anymore, they aren't the people that bring me ginger ale and smile at me.
They're the people that turn up the dial... and they hate me because I didn't make them stop, and now
they have to know this thing about themselves. They'll never let rne go."

I held her tight. "Tell them," I said. "Tell them like you told rne. You can make thern stop, Jane, you don't
have fsтАФ"

Alien Jane ' 9I

"I do have to, Rita, I do, I have to be ... I keep thinhng that they'll find a way to hurt me the way they
want to, something that will work and then I'll be okay, I'll be safe, I'll be like everybody else, and I won't
have to be alone anymore."

And then I understood that the smell in the room and the rawness under the bandage was her pain, her
alien pain; and I suddenly knew how she might have taken a knife and stripped her own shn awef,
earnestly, ftercely, tryng to see what made her different, find it and cut it out and take away the alien and
just be jane.

I held her. There was nothing I could say.

The next duy ]ane was transferred to the locked ward upstairs. Tommy Gee didn't want to let them take
her. "There's a mistake," he said. "Wait for Dr. Rousseau. She'll be here in just a minute." But I knew she
wasn't coming. "I'll find her," he said, and went running down the hall.

]ane stood just inside the room, one step from the hallway that would take her further inside her fear and
her need, and she smiled. "I'll come see you when I'm better," she said. "You and Susan."

"Yes," I said.

"We'll go to the beach," she said. "We'll spend all day. We'll swim and lie on a blanket and eat
sandwiches from a cooler. We'll get ice cream. We'll go for a walk and find crabs and sand dollars. We'll
get sunburned and you'll press your finger against my shoulder, it will stand out white and oh, I'll say, oh,
it hurts."