"Kelley Eskridge - Strings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eskridge Kelly)

cool concrete of the building, out of the way of people moving along the sidewalk,
and watched the world go by.

A man stood at a bus stop, absorbed in Wuthering Heights, humming
Brahms. A couple passed her with a transistor radio, Vivaldi trickling fuzzily from
the speaker. A pack of little boys on bicycles pedaled down the street, bellowing the
1812 Overture booming out the cannon with gleeful satisfaction. My audience, Strad
realized with wonder. She thought of all the musicians, all the hours and the work for
a few minutes of song that lived and died from one note to the next. But they hear.
They hear.
She stepped out from the shadow and wandered up the sidewalk. It was as
though the whole world had opened up since she had talked to the Piano, since she
had told someone how it was with her. She saw things she had not seen in a long
time: dirt, childrenтАЩs toys, hot food ready to eat out of paper containers, narrow
alleyways and the open back doors of restaurants where people in grubby aprons
stood fanning themselves and laughing. And everywhere music, the works of the
masters, clear and rich and beautiful, the only music; the sounds and feelings that
had shaped and contained her life since she was young; as young as the child who
stumbled on the pavement in front of her. Strad stopped and offered her hand, but
the little girl picked herself up with a snort and ran on down the street.

Strad smiled. As she craned her neck to watch the child run, she saw a smear
of bright color beside her. She turned and found herself in front of a window full of
lines and whorls and grinning fantastical faces that resolved into dozens of kites, all
shapes and sizes and shades of colors. тАЬOh,тАЭ she breathed, catching her hands up
to her ribs.

тАЬEverybody does that,тАЭ someone said, and chuckled. She saw a woman
standing in the open door of the shop. Bits of dried glue and gold glitter and colored
paper were stuck to her arms and clothes.

тАЬTheyтАЩre beautiful,тАЭ Strad said.

тАЬCome in and have a closer look.тАЭ

She left the shop with a kite bundled under her arm, light but awkward. She
walked slowly; the hotel was only a few minutes away, and she wished she had
farther to go so that she could enjoy herself longer.

She passed a woman who smiled and then wrinkled her eyebrows and gave
Strad an odd look. It was only then that she realized that, like so many others, she
was humming as she walked. But the music that buzzed in her mouth was the alien
music that she had thought was safely locked in her head. She knew the other
woman had heard it; then she began to wonder who else might have heard, and she
spun in a circle on the sidewalk, trying to look in all directions at once for someone
with a hand-held recorder or a wallet with a MonitorтАЩs badge. She was sweating
again. Suddenly the hotel seemed much too far away. She wished for some
sunglasses or a hat or the cool of the Conservatory limousine. The music lapped
against the back of her tongue all the way back to her room.