"Nancy Kress - The Mountain to Mohammed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Jesse stripped away the bedclothes, despite the cold, and told the men how to
boil them. He spread betadine over her distended abdomen and poised the laser
knife to cut.
###
 The hallmark of his parents' life had been caution. Don't fall, now! Drive
carefully! Don't talk to strangers! Born during the DepressionтАФthe other oneтАФ
they invested only in Treasury bonds and their own one-sixth acre of suburban real
estate. When the marching in Selma and Washington had turned to killing in Detroit
and Kent State, they shook their heads sagely: See? We said so. No good comes of
getting involved in things that don't concern you. Jesse's father had held the same
job for thirty years; his mother considered it immoral to buy anything not on sale.
They waited until she was over 40 to have Jesse, their only child.
At 16, Jesse had despised them; at 24, pitied them; at 28, his present age, loved
them with a despairing gratitude not completely free of contempt. They had missed
so much, dared so little. They lived now in Florida, retired and happy and smug.
"The pension"тАФthey called it that, as if it were a famous diamond or a well-loved
estateтАФwas inflated by Collapse prices into providing a one-bedroom bungalow
with beige carpets and a pool. In the pool's placid, artificially blue waters, the
Carlsons beheld chlorined visions of triumph. "Even after we retired," Jesse's
mother told him proudly, "we didn't have to go backwards."
"That's what comes from thrift, son," his father always added. "And hard work.
No reason these deadbeats today couldn't do the same thing."
Jesse looked around their tiny yard at the plastic ducks lined up like headstones,
the fanatically trimmed hedge, the blue-and-white striped awning, and his arms made
curious beating motions, as if they were lashed to his side. "Nice, Mom. Nice."
"You know it," she said, and winked roguishly. Jesse had looked away before
she could see his embarrassment. Boston had loomed large in his mind, compelling
and vivid hectic as an exotic disease.


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There was no peritonitis. Jesse sliced free the spoiled bit of tissue that had
been Rosamund's appendix. As he closed with quick, sure movements, he heard a
click. A camera. He couldn't look away, but out of sudden rush of euphoria he said
to whoever was taking the picture, "Not one for the gallery this time. This one's
going to live."
When the incision was closed, Jesse administered a massive dose of scaramine.
Carefully he instructed Kenny and the girl's father about the medication, the little
girl's diet, the procedures to maintain asepsis which, since they were bound to be
inadequate, made the scaramine so necessary. "I'm on duty the next thirty-six hours
at the hospital. I'll return Wednesday night, you'll either have to come get me or give
me the address, I'll take a taxi andтАФ"
The father drew in a quick, shaky breath like a sob. Jesse turned to him. "She's
got a strong fighting chance, this procedure isn'tтАФ" A woman exploded from a
back room, shrieking.
 "No, no, noooooo..." She tried to throw herself on the patient. Jesse lunged for
her, but Kenny was quicker. He grabbed her around the waist, pinning her arms to
her sides. She fought him, wailing and screaming, as he dragged her back through