"James E. Gunn - The Listeners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

MacDonald looked down at her, comparing her features one by one with
those he had fixed in his memory.
Even now, with those dark, expressive eyes closed, she was the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen. What glories they had known! He renewed his
spirit in the warmth of his remembrances, recalling moments with loving
details.
_C'est de quoy j'ay le plus de peur que la peur._
He sat down upon the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss her upon
the cheek and then upon her upthrust shoulder where the gown had slipped down.
She did not waken. He shook her shoulder gently. "Maria!" She turned upon her
back, straightening. She sighed, and her eyes came open, staring blankly. "It
is Robby," MacDonald said, dropping unconsciously into a faint brogue.
Her eyes came alive and her lips smiled sleepily. "Robby. You're home."
_"Yo te amo,"_ he murmured, and kissed her. As he pulled himself away,
he said, "I'll start dinner. Wake up and get dressed. I'll see you in half an
hour. Or sooner."
"Sooner," she said.
He turned and went to the kitchen. There was romaine lettuce in the
refrigerator, and as he rummaged further, some thin slices of veal. He
prepared Caesar salad and veal scaloppine doing it all quickly, expertly. He
liked to cook. The salad was ready, and the lemon juice, tarragon, white wine,
and a minute later, the beef bouillon had been added to the browned veal when
Maria appeared.
She stood in the doorway, slim, lithe, lovely, and sniffed the air. "I
smell something delicious."
It was a joke. When Maria cooked, she cooked Mexican, something peppery
that burned all the way into the stomach and lay there like a banked furnace.
When MacDonald cooked, it was something exotic -- French, perhaps, or Italian,
or Chinese. But whoever cooked, the other had to appreciate it or take over
all the cooking for a week.
MacDonald filled their wine glasses. _"A la tres-bonne, a la
tres-belle,"_ he said, _"qui fait ma joie et ma sante."_
"To the Project," Maria said. "May there be a signal received tonight."
MacDonald shook his head. One should not mention what one desires too
much. "Tonight there is only us."
Afterward there were only the two of them, as there had been now for
twenty years. And she was as alive and as urgent, as filled with love and
laughter, as when they first had been together.
At last the urgency was replaced by a vast ease and contentment in
which for a time the thought of the Project faded into something remote which
one day he would return to and finish. "Maria," he said.
"Robby?"
_"Yo te amo, corazon."_
_"Yo te amo, Robby."_
Gradually then, as he waited beside her for her breathing to slow, the
Project returned. When he thought she was asleep, he got up and began to dress
in the dark.
"Robby?" Her voice was awake and frightened.
_"Querida?"_
"You are going again?"