"Zenna Henderson - People 1 - Pilgrimage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

Pilgrimage
The First Book of
the People

Zenna Henderson

1961
I

THE Window of the bus was a dark square against the featureless night. Lea let her eyes focus slowly
from their unthinking blur until her face materialized, faint and fragmentary, highlighted by the dim light of
the bus interior. "Look,' the thought, "I still have a face." She tilted her head and watched the wan light
slide along the clean soft line of her cheek. There was no color except darkness for the wide eyes, the
crisp turn of short cuffs above her ears and the curve of her brows-all were an out-of-focus print against
the outside darkness. "That's what I look like to people," she thought impersonally. "My outside is
intact-an eggshell sucked of life."
The figure in the seat next to her stirred.
"Awake, deary?" The plump face beamed in the dusk. "Must have had a good nap, "You've been so
quiet ever since I got on. Here, let me turn on the reading light." She fumbled above her. "I think these
lights are cunning. How'd they get them to point just in the right place?" The light came on and Lea
winced away from it. "Bright, isn't it?" The elderly face creased into mirth. "Reminds me of when I was a
youngster and we came in out of the dark and lighted a coal-oil lamp. It always made me squint like that.
By the time I was your age, though, we had electricity. But I got my first two before we got electricity. I
married at seventeen and the two of them came along about as quick as they could. You can't be much
more than twenty-two or three. Lordee! I had four by then and buried another. Here, I've got pictures of
my grandbabies. I'm just coming back from seeing the newest one. That's Jennie's latest. A little girl after
three boys. You remind me of her a little, your eyes being dark and the color your hair is. She wears hers
longer but it has that same kinda red tinge to it." She fumbled in her bag. Lea felt as though words were
washing over her like a warm frothy flood. She automatically took the bulging billfold the woman
tendered her and watched unseeingly as the glassine windows flipped. "... and this is Arthur and Jane.
Ah, there's Jennie. Here, take a good look and see if she doesn't look like you."
Lea took a deep breath and came back from a long painful distance. She stared down at the billfold.
"Well?" The face beamed at her expectantly.
"She's-" Lea's voice didn't work. She swallowed dryly
"She's pretty."
"Yes, she is," the woman smiled. "Don't you think she looks a little like you, though?"
"A little-" Her repetition of the sentence died, but the woman took it for an answer.
"Go on, look through the others and see which one of her kids you think's the cutest."
Lea mechanically flipped the other windows, then sat staring down into her lap.
"Well, which one did you pick?" The woman leaned over.
"Well!" She drew an indignant breath. "That's my driver's license! I didn't say snoop!" The billfold was
snatched away! and the reading light snapped off. There was a good deal of flouncing and muttering from
the adjoining seat before quiet descended.
The hum of the bus was hypnotic and Lea sank back into her apathy, except for a tiny point of
discomfort that kept jabbing her consciousness. The next stop she'd have to do something. Her ticket
went no farther. Then what? Another decision to make. And all she wanted was nothing-nothing. And all
she had was nothing-nothing. Why did she have to do anything? Why couldn't she just not-? She leaned
her forehead against the glass, dissolving the nebulous reflection of herself, and stared into the darkness.
Helpless against habit, she began to fit her aching thoughts hack into the old ruts, the old footprints
leading to complete futility-leading into the dark nothingness. She caught her breath and fought against the