"Jack Finney - The Other Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

Once again-my head slowly shaking in involuntary approval-I had to admire my own good taste; this was
not a homely woman. "I turned the oven down," she murmured. "It might be better to have dinner a little
later. When it gets cooler," she added softly.

I nodded quickly. "Good idea. Paper says it's the hottest day in five hundred years," I babbled. "Doctors
advise complete immobility."

But the long-legged beauty beside me wasn't listening. "So I'm the reason you like to come home, am I?"
she breathed into my ear. "It's been a long time, darling, since you said anything like that."

"H'mm," I murmured and nodded frantically at the paper in my hands. "I see they're going to tear down
City Hall," I muttered wildly, but she was blowing gently in my ear now; then she pulled the Sun from my
paralyzed fingers, tossed it over her shoulder and leaned toward me. Marion! I was shrieking silently.
Help! Then the raven-haired girl beside me had her arms around my neck, and I simply did not know
what to do; I thought of pretending to faint, claiming sunstroke.

Then with the blinding force of a revelation it came to me. Through no fault of my own, I was in another
world, another life. The girl in my arms-somehow that's where she was now-was singing softly, almost
inaudibly. It took me a moment to recognize the tune; then finally I knew, finally I recognized this
magnificent girl. "Just a Japanese Sand-man," she was singing softly through her lovely nose, and now I
remembered fully everything about the alternate world I was in. I hadn't broken off with this girl at all-not
in this particular world! Matter of fact, I suddenly realized, I'd never even met Marion in this world. It
was even possible, it occurred to me now, that she'd never been born. In any case, this was the girl I'd
married in this world. No denying it, this was my wife here beside me with her arms around my neck;
we'd been married three years, in fact. And now I knew what to do-perfectly well. Oh, boy! What a
wonderful time Vera and I had in the months that followed. My work at the office was easy-no strain at
all. I seemed to have an aptitude for it and, just as I'd always suspected, I made rather more money at
Enterprises, Incorporated, than that Serv-Eez outfit ever paid in their lives. More than once, too, I left the
office early, since no one seemed to mind, just to hurry back home -leaping up the stairs three at a
time-to that lovely big old Vera again. And at least once every week I'd bring home a load of books
under my arm, because she loved to read, just like me; and I'd made a wonderful discovery about this
alternate world.

Life, you understand, was different in its details. The San Francisco Giants had won the 'Fifty-eight
Series, for example; the Second Avenue El was still up; Yucatan gum was the big favorite; television was
good; and several extremely prominent people whose names would astound you were in jail. But
basically the two worlds were much the same. Drugstores, for example, looked and smelled just about
the same; and one night on the way home from work I stopped in at a big drugstore to look over the
racks of paper-back books and made a marvelous discovery.

There on the revolving metal racks were the familiar rows of glossy little books, every one of which,
judging from the covers, seemed to be about an abnormally well-developed girl. Turning the rack slowly
I saw books by William Faulkner, Bernard Glemser, Agatha Christie, and Charles Einstein, which I'd
read and liked. Then, down near the bottom of the rack my eye was caught by the words, "By Mark
Twain." The cover showed an old side-wheeler steamboat, and the title was South From Cairo. A reprint
fitted out with a new title, I thought, feeling annoyed; and I picked up the book to see just which of Mark
Twain's it really was. I've read every book he wrote- Huckleberry Finn at least a dozen times since I
discovered it when I was eleven years old.

But the text of this book was new to me. It seemed to be an account, told in the first person by a young