"Kathe Koja - Queen of angels" - читать интересную книгу автора (Koja Kathe)

and a son close enough for daily visits. It was two days after Christmas, his annual
appearance and he poked Deborah again.
тАЬShe smellsтАЭ he said;
тАЬWeтАЩll take dare of it,тАЭ Deborah said.
тАЬDonтАЩt patronize me,тАЭ he said. тАЬIтАЩm paying for all this.тАЭ
And heaven too. тАЬWeтАЩll take care of it,тАЭ she said, in the tone of voice she
sometimes used when a patient was particularly hysterical, an iron gentility that
usually worked on some level and it was working now, the man was turning away,
pulling on his coat; expensive coat. After he had gone she went into SusannaтАЩs room
and stood beside her for a moment. In the room a faint antiseptic smell, less
offensive than an open container of Vicks. SusannaтАЩs closed eyes were lidded in
layers, like sand dunes, like snow drifts. Deborah felt tired, exquisitely tired,
exquisitely sorrowful, but did not cry. Sometimes the patients cried, when the pain
got too bad. тАЬKill me, Debbie.тАЭ ThatтАЩs what they said. Kill me, Debbie; oh, Debbie
let me die.
тАЬI canтАЩt do that,тАЭ she would say. тАЬThatтАЩs not what IтАЩm here for.тАЭ Then she
would go home and vomit--or sit in a chair without moving, without taking off her
coat or shoes, a peculiar red illness moving like a secret snake through stomach and
lungs as if her body itself were crying, tears of slow and heavy blood.
Elliot never cried. Or moved. Or spoke. ElliotтАЩs muscles were holding up
surprisingly well; he was not withering as quickly as expected. The first time his eyes
came open, Deborah immediately beeped his doctor, who upon inspection informed
her that what she had reported had not happened.
Nothing there, pale gray as winter water frozen in the last moment of motion.
Drowning Elliot, slender bony chin, sarcophagus profile and her stethoscope
brushed against his chest as now she bent, back painful, to adjust the slender slope
of a tube
and his eyes did not move
and from his lips extruded a delicate drop of matter as fragile as a pearl, that
rolled across his cheek to lie like an angelтАЩs tear on the black-stamped linen of his
bed.
She picked it up.
There in the baggy pocket of her clinicianтАЩs coat and her hand kept moving to
touch it, roll it between nervous fingers; she had checked him twice as often as
necessary through her shift but there was no change, no others like it lying beside
him, Elliot inert, winter windows gray with the breath of others; it was a creamy
color, hard as bone. Maybe it was bone.
She checked him once more before leaving; the pillows, the linen beside him
was bare. His lips looked slightly sore, as if chapped by the wind. His vitals were
okay. тАЬElliot,тАЭ she said, not to him.
His mouth moved, lips pursing almost like a kiss, an exaggerated Hollywood
kiss, but nothing came out, nothing she could see. Her hands shook as she bent to
the pillow, the face upon it calm as a dead saint; his eyes did not open, but moved,
slow, slow, beneath the shelter of his lids, back and forth like thoughts, the nature of
rumination, the play of muscles whose services are by time made moot.
тАЬElliot?тАЭ she said again, to him, a question.
In the hall the sound of the midnight shift, the aides talking quietly to one
another; the pearl was in her hand as she left the room.
Instead of sleeping she sat up, the pearl before her on the kitchen table, a
space pushed clear of half-empty cereal boxes and Sanka jars and a napkin holder