"Theodora Goss - The Rose in Twelve Petals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goss Theodora)

first time when he came into the shop, and leaned on the
counter, and smiled through his golden beard. тАЬIf I had
known there was such a pretty shopkeeper in this village, I
would have done my own shopping long ago.тАЭ
She remembers: buttocks covered with golden hair among
folds of white linen, like twin halves of a peach on a napkin.
тАЬCome here, Madeleine.тАЭ The sounds of the palace, horses
4 The Rose in Twelve Petals
by Theodora Goss
clopping, pageboys shouting to one another in the early
morning air. тАЬYou'll never want for anything, haven't I told
you that?тАЭ A string of pearls, each as large as her smallest
fingernail, with a clasp of gold filigree. тАЬLike it? That's
Hibernian work, taken in the siege of London.тАЭ Only later does
she notice that between two pearls, the knotted silk is stained
with blood.
She leaves the mixture under cheesecloth, to dry
overnight.
Madeleine walks into the other room, the only other room
of the cottage, and sits at the table that serves as her writing
desk. She picks up a tin of throat lozenges. How it rattles.
She knows, without opening it, that there are five pearls left,
and that after next month's rent there will only be four.
Confound your enemies, she thinks, peering through the
inadequate light, and the wrinkles on her forehead make her
look prematurely old, as in a few years she certainly will be.
5 The Rose in Twelve Petals
by Theodora Goss
II. The Queen
Petals fall from the roses that hang over the stream,
Empress Josephine and Gloire de Dijon, which dislike growing
so close to the water. This corner of the garden has been
planted to resemble a country landscape in miniature:
artificial stream with ornamental fish, a pear tree that has
never yet bloomed, bluebells that the gardener plants out
every spring. This is the Queen's favorite part of the garden,
although the roses dislike her as well, with her romantically
diaphanous gowns, her lisping voice, her poetry.
Here she comes, reciting Tennyson.
She holds her arms out, allowing her sleeves to drift on the
slight breeze, imagining she is Elaine the lovable, floating on
a river down to Camelot. Hard, being a lily maid now her belly
is swelling.
She remembers her belly reluctantly, not wanting to touch
it, unwilling to acknowledge that it exists. Elaine the lily maid
had no belly, surely, she thinks, forgetting that Galahad must
have been born somehow. (Perhaps he rose out of the lake?)
She imagines her belly as a sort of cavern, where something
is growing in the darkness, something that is not hers, alien
and unwelcome.