"Goonan, Kathleen Ann - The Day The Dam Broke" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goonan Kathleen Ann)

stopped he stared at me for a very long minute as if surprised. Well, apparently
he was. He had expected a man, I'm not sure why nor why that would make a bit of
difference to him. Communication was not terribly good in those times, though it
was much better than now. He had very short red hair and was partly bald. On his
long face was a small mustache which struck me as being rather unpleasant. His
brown eyes were as closed as Mildred's were open. I tried to feel enthusiastic
about my new colleague. Give him time, I thought.
"We have been waiting for you. Your train is very late," he said, after
recovering from his staring fit, then laughed in a way which frightened me, but
Mildred's calm blue eyes caught and settled me. Standing next to Don in a bright
green thin parka, unzipped as it was March and warming, she reached out to shake
hands with me after a brief odd hesitation during which I had the strange
feeling that she was going to hug me, tight.
"We will have your trunks taken to our house, for now," said Mildred.
"Thank you," I said, unworried about all the nan inside, all of my research
materials. They had been packed in anticipation of any number of catastrophes,
anything else would have been terribly irresponsible.
"Are you hungry?" asked Mildred.
I shook my head. "We just had breakfast," I said.
"Well, then," said Don, obviously pleased. "It's just a few blocks to the
hospital, and you can have your sheets there."
"Yes, might as well get that over with," I said, excited. I wanted to know all
about this new place, about my new patients; I wanted to find out how many of
the local population had survived each plague wave, and how the survivors had
been affected. That, and more, would all be in the sheets.
They walked very fast along the sidewalks. On the streets I saw all manner of
vehicles--horses, horse-drawn carriages, and many bikes. I saw only one electric
car, tiny and battered and yellow, and found later that it was owned by Tolliver
Townsby, the man who also owned the Ice Cream Parlor. I was suddenly in another
age, the one which I so craved.
"Where are all the people?" I asked, used to dome satura tion. On either side of
me, Don and Mildred looked at each other. "Our population, including the county,
is fifteen thou sand," said Mildred gently.
"Oh," I said. Much less than I had expected. The sheets toward which we were
heading would prevent me from asking such silly questions.
We passed many stores on the ancient main street, with huge plate glass windows,
and a requisite amount of patrons. Thomp son's Feed and Seed, Elya's Organic
Feast, The Snyder Cafe, it was a community of farmers, really, a completely
self-sufficient organism which I now admire enormously. Above the storefronts
rose tall, old-fashioned skyscrapers, completely empty. At the time I was
stunned. Where are the Italians, I wondered, but was too shy to ask. Don and
Mildred received nods and greetings from every person they passed on that five
block walk.
Then we arrived at the hospital where they kept the cocoons and that's where I
picked up Thurber, with his funny drawings of blunt angry women and cowed men
with big noses and tiny eyes. His grandmother who believed that electricity
leaked from outlets I could identify with in a way for when I actually saw the
co coons after walking through a building which I thought could simply not exist
any more in this day and age I stopped. Did a slight chill envelope my heart? It
should have, but I don't really remember. I do remember trepidation.