"Elizabeth Hand - Prince of Flowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hand Elizabeth)

demons and cleaned them, polished hollow cheeks and lapis eyes before stapling a
number to each figure. A corner piled with tipi poles hid an abandoned desk that she
claimed and decorated with mummy photographs and a ceramic coffee mug. In the
top drawer she stored her cassette tapes and, beneath her handbag, a number of
obsidian arrowheads. While it was never officially designated as her desk, she was
annoyed one morning to find a young man tilted backward in the chair, shuffling
through her tapes.
"Hello," he greeted her cheerfully. Helen winced and nodded coolly. "These your
tapes? I'll borrow this one some day, haven't got the album yet. Leo BryantтАФ"
"Helen," she replied bluntly. "I think there's an empty desk down by the
slit-gongs."
"Thanks, I just started. You a curator?"
Helen shook her head, rearranging the cassettes on the desk. "No. Inventory
project." Pointedly she moved his knapsack to the floor.
"Me, too. Maybe we can work together some time."
She glanced at his earnest face and smiled. "I like to work alone, thanks." He
looked hurt, and she added, "Nothing personal тАФ I just like it that way. I'm sure
we'll run into each other. Nice to meet you, Leo." She grabbed a stack of inventory
sheets and walked away down the corridor.
They met for coffee one morning. After a few weeks they met almost every
morning, sometimes even for lunch outside on the Mall. During the day Leo
wandered over from his cubicle in Ethnology to pass on departmental gossip.
Sometimes they had a drink after work, but never often enough to invite gossip
themselves. Helen was happy with this arrangement, the curators delighted to have
such a worker тАФ quiet, without ambition, punctual. Everyone except Leo left her to
herself.


Late one afternoon Helen turned at the wrong corner and found herself in a small
cul-de-sac between stacks of crates that cut off light and air. She yawned, breathing
the faint must of cinnamon bark as she traced her path on a crumpled inventory map.
This narrow alley was unmarked; the adjoining corridors contained Malaysian
artefacts, batik tools, long teak boxes of gongs. Fallen crates, clumsily hewn cartons
overflowing with straw were scattered on the floor. Splintered panels snagged her
sleeves as she edged her way down the aisle. A sweet musk hung about these
cartons, the languorous essence of unknown blossoms.
At the end of the cul-de-sac an entire row of crates had toppled, as though the
weight of time had finally pitched them to the floor. Helen squatted and chose a box
at random, a broad flat package like a portfolio. She pried the lid off to find a stack
of leather cut-outs curling with age, like desiccated cloth. She drew one carefully
from the pile, frowning as its edges disintegrated at her touch. A shadow puppet, so
fantastically elaborate that she couldn't tell if it was male or female; it scarcely looked
human. Light glimmered through the grotesque latticework as Helen jerked it back
and forth, its pale shadow dancing across the wall. Then the puppet split and
crumbled into brittle curlicues that formed strange hieroglyphics on the black marble
floor. Swearing softly, Helen replaced the lid, then jammed the box back into the
shadows. Her fingers brushed another crate, of smooth polished mahogany. It had a
comfortable heft as she pulled it into her lap. Each corner of the narrow lid was fixed
with a large, square-headed nail. Helen yanked these out and set each upright in a
row.