"Nancy Kress - Unto the Daughters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Sheitha giggles at a bluebird perched on her dimpled knee.
"Adam makes all the decisions, decides all the rules, thinks up all the names, does all the thinking -- "
"So?" Eve says. "Sheitha -- you precious little angel!" She catches the baby in her arms and covers
her with kisses. Sheitha crows in delight.
"Eve, listen -- " Miraculously, she does. She sets the baby on the grass and says seriously, "Adam
says you aren't capable of telling the truth."
"Not _his_ truth," I say. "Or His." But of course this subtlety of pronoun goes right over her head.
"Look, snake, I don't want to be rude. You've been very kind to me, keeping me company while I
do my housework, and I appreciate -- "
"I'm not being kind," I say desperately. Kind! Oh, my Eve ... "I'm too old and tired for kindness. I'm
just trying to show you, to get you to listen -- "
"Adam's back," Eve says quickly. I hear him then, with the two boys. There is just time enough to
slither under a bush. I lie there very still. Lately Adam has turned murderous toward me; I think he must
have a special dispensation for it. _He_ must have told Adam violence toward me doesn't count, because
I have stepped out of my place. Which, of course, I have.
But this time Adam doesn't see me. The boys fall into some game with thread and polished stones.
Sheitha toddles toward her daddy, grinning.
"We're just here to get something to eat," Adam says. "Ten minutes, is all -- what, Eve, isn't there
anything ready? What have you been doing all morning?"
Eve's face doesn't fall. But her eyes deepen in color a little, like skin that has been momentarily
bruised. Of course, skin doesn't stay bruised here. Not here.
"I'm sorry, dear! I'll get something ready right away!"
"Please," Adam says. "Some of us have to work for a living."
She bustles quickly around. The slim pretty fingers are deft as ever. Adam throws himself prone into
a bower. Sheitha climbs into his lap. She is as precocious as the boys were.
"Daddy go back?"
"Yes, my little sweetie. Daddy has to go cut more sugar cane. And name some new animals."
"Animals," Sheitha says happily. She loves animals. "Sheitha go."
Adam smiles. "No, precious, Sheitha can't go. Little girls can't go."
"Sheitha go!"
"No," Adam says. He is still smiling, but he stands up and she tumbles off his lap. The food is ready.
Eve turns with a coconut shell of salad just as Sheitha is picking herself up. The baby stands looking up at
her father. Her small face is crumpled in disappointment, in disbelief, in anguish. Eve stops her turning
motion and looks, her full attention on Sheitha's face.
I draw a deep breath.
The moment spins itself out, tough as spider-thread.
Eve breaks it. "Adam -- can't you take her?"
He doesn't answer. Actually, he hasn't even heard her. He can't, in exactly the same way Eve cannot
hear Him in the cool of the evening.
You could argue that this exempts him from fault. Eve picks up the baby and stands beside the
bower. Fragrance rises from the newly crushed flower petals where Adam was lying. When he and the
boys have left again, I slither forward. Eve, the baby in her arms, has still not moved. Her head is bent.
Sheitha is weeping, soft tears of vexation that will not, of course last very long. Not here. I don't have
much time.
"Eve," I say. "Listen -- "
I tell her how it will be for Sheitha after she marries Cain, who is not as sweet-tempered as his
father. I tell her how it will be for Sheitha's daughter's daughter. I spare her nothing: not the expansion of
the garden until the home bowers are insignificant. Not the debate over whether women have souls. Not
foot-binding nor clitorectomy nor suttee nor the word "chattel." Sheitha, I say. Sheitha and Sheitha's
daughter and Sheitha's daughter's daughter ... I am hoarse before I'm done talking. Finally, I finish, saying