"Jeff Hecht - The Rumor of the Ruined City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hecht Jeff)

all proper and under control, not even holding hands. How could he see the
hours on the phone, and the thoughts lurking in the back of our minds? How
could he have heard us planning the trip to leave time "just to ourselves"? I
felt myself blush. "What?" we both said.
Nikolai's mouth formed a conspiratorial grin. "You say it in the way
you look at each other. You can not hide that."
Anna recovered first. "No, Nikolai. He is married and has children."
Even in the lantern light, I could see her blushing.
"There are no secrets among those who can read rocks," Nikolai laughed.
"I can read you both. He is in love with you and you are in love with him." He
paused. "I will not tell your wife, Vern."
"You don't understand," I sputtered, grasping for excuses. "We are just
friends."
I couldn't read Nikolai well; it was dark, and my eyes were cloudy. He
did not want to hear our protests. Perhaps he had grown used to lies in the
old Soviet Union. He stood and shrugged, and said, "I will go sleep in the
car, so you can sleep together."
We did not stop him from carrying his sleeping bag from the tent. As he
walked to the car, we looked at each other across the picnic table in the
lantern light, neither moving. The night before I had dreamed of holding Anna,
of exploring her and exploring with her. Now I was a kid caught playing with
fire and doused with cold water to put out the flames.
Anna touched my hand, and I held hers. We heard Nikolai close the car
door behind himself, and listened to night sounds of the forest. The few
others in the campground seemed to be asleep. The stars moved. "Maybe you were
right," I whispered across the table. "Maybe he is crazy."
Anna smiled, "He is not the only one."
I savored the time as the stars crept further across the sky. "I
can't," I whispered at last.
"Nor I," she replied, letting go my hand. We went quietly into the
tent, to crawl into our separate sleeping bags and dream our separate dreams
of the ruined city.
****
Clouds partly covered the sky when we rose for an early breakfast; the
radio forecast steady rain for the afternoon and evening. We would have liked
better weather, but we had done well that far, and Nikolai had to leave the
next day.
We hiked to the site, but in the sober light of that cloudy morning, it
was clear the slab was too big to carry. Anna wouldn't risk cutting it with
the equipment we had. We collected other samples, fragmentary fossils that
might be distantly related to the big one, but didn't examine them closely. We
photographed the fossil on the slab, and protected it as best we could from
the elements. We could come back for it later with a bigger crew, the right
equipment, and a permit from the park authority.
The rains came soon after lunchtime, and we slogged through the wet
forest in plastic rain gear, looking in vain for more signs of the ruined
city. We stayed too long, and the walk back did not go well in the heavy rain.
Nikolai had pushed himself too hard. He complained little, but we could tell
his knees and back hurt.
At camp, we spread a tarp to keep the rain off the stove. While I