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

"Dosta want it, the wee one?"
She glanced at the old thing's pinched face. The permanent squint in the eyes
lifted the lip so one could see the gold front tooth. Had the creature ever been alive
and young? "What's your game, ma?" she asked.
"If you was to find the babe a burden, if you was to lighten your purse fifty quid,
say, and lighten the load as well, if you was wanting such a thing, fine ladyтАФ?"
She glanced about. In the pell-mell of the open air marketтАФshoppers rushing, folk
hawking, singing out their wares, racks of clothes lining the walks, booths where
knives in jeweled sheaths and leather goods and cheap finery hungтАФno one looked
toward her and the old woman. "What are you on about? You with the Yard?"
"Oh, no, lady," said the creature, darting glances both ways. "Not a bit of it."
"What would you do with it?" She glanced at the thing. Its yellow eyes were fixed
on the old woman. "You wouldn't snuff it, would you?"
"No. No," said the creature, staring into the thing's eyes. "I'd send it off
somewhere else. It'd be safe and lively, lady. It'd be gone. Mayhap fifteen years
down the road, it'd come back; but oh, you'll be away by then, eh, lady?"
She'd meant to spend the money on a new handbag and a good pair of lined
leather gloves, what with winter coming on. But if the little thing were goneтАФthink of
the savings in didies alone. She'd save her tips up and soon have enough for a pair
of gloves again. With the thing gone, maybe she could bring a man home again; and
a man gave presents, sometimes. She could say she'd sent it off to be with relatives.
She'd been planning to say that for ages; and it would be true, too; so far as she
knew, all her relatives were dead, Da being the last to kick off.
There in the center of the market, with the action and noise all around them, time
seemed to slow. She handed the thing to the old gypsy woman. She counted out
money, the last pound in loose shillings. She turned and walked away, the quiet
following her.


It was snowing the night it came back.
She had been on and on at the landlord about the caulking around the windows.
All the cold seemed to come in, especially around the windows leading to the
balcony. Every winter she complained. Some years he sent somebody by to take a
look, but the handyman would always just say there was nothing off about it, she
must be a bloody lunatic. So she shivered through the nights. There were not enough
blankets in the world to keep her warm, she sometimes thought.
She was huddling in the blankets, drinking tea with a splash of gin, when the
knock came.
She thought it might be Harry. She didn't really care who it might be. "Come," she
said, and sipped tea.
And it was the monster. But for the yellow eyes, she wouldn't have known it.
From such a little bit of a thing it had grown so big. She looked at it and felt all the
years on her, each like a weight crushing her down, and the cold that had seeped so
deep inside her it never left.
"I'm tired," she said.
It came in and sat down and stared at her. It looked so much like Da, but they all
did after a while, all the monsters the world called men.
"You were little once," she said. Then she laughed a terrible laugh that did not
end.