"Joe Haldeman - Lindsay and the Red City Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

the gateway to the mysterious labyrinthine medina, where even this moment someone was
being murdered for his pocket change, goats were being used in ways of which Allah did not
approve, men were smoking a mixture of camel dung and opium, children were
merchandised like groceries; where dark men and women would do anything for a price, and
the price would not be high. Scott touched his pocket unconsciously, and the hard bulge of
the condom was still there.
The best condoms in the world are packaged in a blue plastic cylinder, squared off along
the prolate axis, about the size of a small matchbox. The package is a marvel of technology,
held fast by a combination of geometry and sticky tape, and a cool-headed man, under good
lighting conditions, can open it in less than a minute. Scott had bought six of them in the
drugstore in Dulles International, and had opened only one. He hadn't opened it for the
Parisian woman who had looked like a prostitute but had returned his polite proposition with
a storm of outrage. He opened it for the fat customs inspector at the Casablanca airport, who
had to have its function explained to him, who held it between two dainty fingers like a dead
sea thing and called his compatriots over for a look.
The Djemaa El Fna was closed against the heat, pale-orange dusty tents slack and pallid in
the stillness. And the trees through which he stared at the open-air market, the souk, were
also covered with pale dust; the sky was so pale as to be almost white, and the street and
sidewalk were the color of dirty chalk. It was like a faded watercolor displayed under too
strong a light.
"Hey, mister." A slim Arab boy, evidently in his early teens, had slipped into the place
and was standing beside Lindsay. He was well scrubbed and wore Western-style clothing,
discreetly patched.
"Hey, mister," he repeated. "You American?"
"Nu. Eeg bin Jugoslay."
The boy nodded. "You from New York? I got four friends New York."
"Jugoslay."
"You from Chicago? I got four friends Chicago. No, five. Five friends Chicago."
 "Jugoslav," he said.
"Where in U.S. you from?" He took a melting ice cube from the ashtray, buffed it on his
sleeve, popped it into his mouth, crunched.
"New Caledonia," Scott said.
"Don't like ice? Ice is good this time day." He repeated the process with another cube.
"New what?" he mumbled.
"New Caledonia. Little place in the Rockies, between Georgia and Wisconsin. I don't like
polluted ice."
"No, mister, this ice okay. Bottle-water ice." He rattled off a stream of Arabic at the
bartender, who answered with a single harsh syllable. "Come on, I guide you through
medina."
"No."
"I guide you free. Student, English student. I take you free, take you my father's factory."
"You'll take me, all right."
"Okay, we go now. No touris' shit, make good deal."
Well, Lindsay, you wanted experiences. How about being knocked over the head and
raped by a goat? "All right, I'll go.
But no pay."
"Sure, no pay." He took Scott by the hand and dragged him out of the bar, into the park.
"Is there any place in the medina where you can buy cold beer?"
"Sure, lots of place. Ice beer. You got cigarette?"
"Don't smoke."