"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Little Once" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

LITTLE ONCE
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
It didn't cry much past its sixth month; that seemed to be when it learnt what the
slaps meant. On the other hand, it refused to die. She couldn't bring herself to kill it
directly; somehow she just couldn't. Maybe that was the last gasp of the Catholic in
her. Of all the commandments to get stuck on, why that one? She didn't keep any of
the rest.
She tried leaving it out on the balcony in the snowтАФthe balcony, that little strip of
a thing about a foot wide with an iron railing just beyond it. Just an excuse to up the
rent, she thought; no person of a decent size could stand on that little fragment of
floor. She had been angry with the balcony since she moved into the ninth-floor
apartment, just before she hadтАФthe thing. So one night when the snow was falling,
she wrapped the thing in a light blanketтАФwithout a blanket it would be too plain,
somehowтАФand put it carefully on the balcony, in the wet. Wouldn't it be lovely, just,
if it squirmed a little and happened to slip through the railings? A fall like that. Its little
head might burst open. Nobody in the street below would know which apartment it
came from.
When she opened the window in the morning, pulling her robe tighter against the
cold and watching her breath mistтАФand that was another thing, not enough shillings
for the heater, and here she was letting out all that paid-for warm, when would the
thing stop leeching off her?тАФit lay there with snow in its blanket and ice in its black
hair, and it stared at her. Such a pale little thing. Not a bit like its gypsy da. Horrible
yellow eyes, now whose fault was that?
She wasn't sure if it were alive or not. It shouldn't be, of course, just as it
shouldn't have lived through that week when she didn't feed it. If she closed her eyes
and gave it a little push with the toe of her slipper, wouldn't it just slide over the
edge? And then she could move. That snoopy nosy parker, Mrs. O'Malley next
door, was always threatening to report her to the child welfare authorities.
It blinked. After that she had to fetch it in. Couldn't kick it, could she, not over
the edge, anyway. She took it in and gave it a few slaps for making her lose the warm
air. It made a tear or two, but it had learned not to yell. Leave it in the same diapers
all day, see if that taught it anything. Lock it up in the closet.
By suppertime she relented. She brought it out and changed it and fed it some
nice hot soup. Maybe a little too hot but it could learn to blow, couldn't it, then? She
patted its head. It leaned against her hand and closed its eyes. Almost like a cat.
She'd had a kitten once, when she was little. What a soft tiny thing, and making the
sweetest noises, like a funny music box, warm against her. Da broke its neck one
night because it clawed him.
She picked the thing up and held it against her. Warm, phaw! but what a smell!
What was the use in changing it when it always made another mess? She couldn't go
on like this. The paper didies were killing her. And the neighbors. "What's its name?
Ooh, isn't it a charming one." Fat lot they knew. Couldn't keep their noses out of
other people's business, could they? Bloody great cows.
She was carting it along like a packet one day in Petticoat LaneтАФusually she left it
home; but that day, she just had the impulse; and, as little as it ate, it hardly weighed
anythingтАФwhen the gypsy woman came nagging after her.
The old creature wore a flowered scarf over her hair, a man's tweed suit-jacket,
trousers, and plimsolls. "A mother, are you? A nice mother? A sweet little mother?"
said the woman, tugging on her coat.
"Shab off, old cow," she said, jerking her coat out of the old woman's hand.