"Nancy Kress - Phillipa's Hands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Although officials at the Seismographic institute in Rabat say the quake measured no more than 5.8 on
the Richter scale, structures it toppled include a government-sponsored orphanage which stood near its
epicenter. The orphanage housed 60 children and 17 adults. Rescue crews working around the clock
have PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 4A


Philippa closed her eyes. She couldn't picture the orphanage, the quake, any of it. She didn't know
where Marrakesh was, although she vaguely remembered a song about it when she had been in high
school, the kind of song Johnny Matthis had never sung. Was it in Asia? Africa?

Had the orphanage been white-washed, with a dome? But it was only their pretty heathen churches that
had domes, wasn't it?

Twenty-two dead children.
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Philippa opened her eyes at looked at the ghostly wailing women. Suddenly they reminded her of the
black-clad old ladies attending 6:00 a.m. Mass at St. Stanislawls, every single morning of her childhood.
Every single morning. Shuffling up the steps in heavy, black-laced shoes, dipping holy water with two
gnarled fingers from the font by the carved wooden door, lighting endless candles for the dead. What had
there been in those pious figures to fill a child with such horror?

тАЬAll right, then,тАЭ Philippa said, тАЬI'm ready. Tell me."

The figure on the right raised her sketchy arm. A line of rosy light stretched from its end to Philippa's left
hand, ending at the first joint of her index finger. A faint tingle, and the glowing line vanished. The knife
appeared on the quilt: the same ordinary, murderously sharp hunting knife as always, the same one
Philippa could have bought at Wayne Clarke's in Carter Falls. The old women wailed without comfort,
their rosy tears cascading to the floor, pooling on the carpet, pristine in falling and sodden when done.
Philippa looked at the whole spectacle with sudden distaste.

тАЬOh, stop that racket!"

Which was funny, because there was no noise.

Twenty-two dead children: babies with their skulls crushed before the soft spots had closed, toddlers
carrying . . . whatever toys toddlers carried in Marrakesh.

She picked up the knife and cut off her left index finger at the first joint.


Much later, the doorbell rang. TuesdayтАФthe weekly grocery delivery. Philippa sat weak and sick in the
old rocker with the bottom rung missing, her head thrown back against a tied-on cushion. The grocery
boy wouldn't come in; he would leave the groceries on the porch and take away the check made out to
Hall's Superette, as he always did.

She had not put a check out on the porch.