"Henry Kuttner & CL Moore - Vintage Season" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Kleph took up a cup of her own and tilted it to her lips, smiling at Oliver over the rim. She was very beautiful. The pale red hair lay in shining loops against her head and the corona of curls like a halo above her forehead might have been pressed down like a wreath. Every hair kept order as perfectly as if it had been painted on, though the breeze from the window stirred now and then among the softly shining strands.
Oliver tried the tea. Its flavor was exquisite, very hot, and the taste that lingered upon his tongue was like the scent of flowers. It was an extremely. feminine drink. He sipped again, surprised to find how much he liked it.
The scent of flowers seemed to increase as he drank, swirling through his head like smoke. After the third sip there was a faint buzzing in his ears. The bees among the flowers, perhaps, he thought incoherentlyЧand sipped again.
Kleph watched him, smiling.
УThe others will be out all afternoon,Ф she told Oliver comfortably. УI thought it would give us a pleasant time to be acquainted.Ф
Oliver was rather horrified to hear himself saying, УWhat makes you talk like that?Ф He had had no idea of asking the question; something seemed to have loosened his control over his own tongue.
KlephТs smile deepened. She tipped the cup to her lips and there was indulgence in her voice when she said, УWhat do you mean Сlike that?ТФ
He waved his hand vaguely, noting with some surprise that at a glance it seemed to have six or seven fingers as it moved past his face.
УI donТt knowЧprecision, I guess. Why donТt you say СdonТt,Т for instance?Ф
УIn our country we are trained to speak with precision,Ф Kleph explained. УJust as we are trained to move and dress and think with precision. Any slovenliness is trained out of us in childhood. With you, of courseЧФ She was polite. УWith you, this does not happen to be a national fetish. With us, we have time for the amenities. We like them.Ф
Her voice had grown sweeter and sweeter as she spoke, until by now it was almost indistinguishable from the sweetness of the flowerscent in OliverТs head, and the delicate flavor of the tea.
УWhat country do you come from?Ф he asked, and tilted the cup again to drink, mildly surprised to notice that it seemed inexhaustible.
KlephТs smile was definitely patronizing this time. It didnТt irritate him. Nothing could irritate him just now. The whole room swam in a beautiful rosy glow as fragrant as the flowers.
УWe must not speak of that, Mr. Wilson.Ф
УButЧФ Oliver paused. After all, it was, of course, none of his business. УThis is a vacation?Ф he asked vaguely.
УCall it a pilgrimage, perhaps.Ф
УPilgrimage?Ф Oliver was so interested that for an instant his mind came back into sharp focus. УToЧwhat?Ф
УI should not have said that, Mr. Wilson. Please forget it. Do you like the tea?Ф
УVery much.Ф
УYou will have guessed by now that it is not only tea, but an euphoriac.Ф
Oliver stared. УEuphoriac?Ф
Kieph made a descriptive circle in the air with one graceful hand, and laughed. УYou do not feel the effects yet? Surely you do?Ф
УI feel,Ф Oliver said, Уthe way IТd feel after four whiskeys.Ф
Kleph shuddered delicately. УWe get our euphoria less painfully.
And without the aftereffects your barbarous alcohols used to have.Ф
She bit her lip. УSorry. I must be euphoric myself to speak so freely.
Please forgive me. Shall we have some music?Ф

Kleph leaned backward on the chaise longue and reached toward the wall beside her. The sleeve, falling away from her round tanned
arm, left bare the inside of the wrist, and Oliver was startled to see there a long, rosy streak of fading scar. His inhibitions had dissolved in the fumes of the fragrant tea; he caught his breath and leaned forward to stare.
Kleph shook the sleeve back over the scar with a quick gesture. Color came into her face beneath the softly tinted tan and she would not meet OliverТs eyes. A queer shame seemed to have fallen upon her.
Oliver said tactlessly, УWhat is it? WhatТs the matter?Ф
Still she would not look at him. Much later he understood that shame and knew she had reason for it. Now he listened blankly as she said:
УNothing. . . nothing at all. A. . . an inoculation. All of us. oh, never mind. Listen to the music.Ф
This time she reached out with the other arm. She touched nothing, but when she had held her hand near the wall a sound breathed through the room. It was the sound of water, the sighing of waves receding upon long, sloped beaches. Oliver followed KlephТs gaze toward the picture of the blue water above the bed.
The waves there were moving. More than that, the point of vision moved. Slowly the seascape drifted past, moving with the waves, following them toward shore. Oliver watched, half-hypnotized by a motion that seemed at the time quite acceptable and not in the least surprising.
The waves Jifted and broke in creaming foam and ran seething up a sandy beach. Then through the sound of the water music began to breathe, and through the water itself a manТs face dawned in the frame, smiling intimately into the room. He held an oddly archaic musical instrument, lute-shaped, its body striped light and dark like a melon and its long neck bent back over his shoulder. He was singing, and Oliver felt mildly astonished at the song. It was very familiar and very odd indeed. He groped through the unfamiliar rhythms and found at last a thread to catch the tune byЧit was УMake-Believe,Ф from УShowboat,Ф but certainly a showboat that had never steamed up the Mississippi.
УWhatТs he doing to it?Ф he demanded after a few moments of outraged listening. УI never heard anything like it!Ф
Kleph laughed and stretched out her arm again. Enigmatically she said, УWe call it kyling. Never mind. How do you like this?Ф
It was a comedian, a man in semi-clown make-up, his eyes exag
gerated so that they seemed to cover half his face. He stood by a broad glass pillar before a dark curtain and sang a gay, staccato song interspersed with patter that sounded impromptu, and all the while his left hand did an intricate, musical tattoo of the nailtips on the glass of the column. He strolled around and around it as he sang. The rhythms of his fingernails blended with the song and swung widely away into patterns of their own, and blended again without a break.
It was confusing to follow. The song made even less sense than the monologue, which had something to do with a lost slipper and was full of allusions which made Kleph smile, but were utterly unintelligible to Oliver. The man had a dry, brittle style that was not very amusing, though Kieph seemed fascinated. Oliver was interested to see in him an extension and a variation of that extreme smooth confidence which marked all three of the Sanciscos. Clearly a racial trait, he thought.
Other performances followed, some of them fragmentary as if lifted out of a completer version. One he knew. The obvious, stirring melody struck his recognition before the figuresЧmarching men against a haze, a great banner rolling backward above them in the smoke, foreground figures striding gigantically and shouting in rhythm, УForward, forward the lily banners go!Ф
The music was tinny, the images blurred and poorly colored, but there was a gusto about the performance that caught at OliverТs imagination. He stared, remembering the old ifim from long ago. Dennis King and a ragged chorus, singing УThe Song of the VagabondsФ fromЧwas it УVagabond King?Ф
УA very old one,Ф Kleph said apologetically. УBut I like it.Ф

The steam of the intoxicating tea swirled between Oliver and the picture. Music swelled and sank through the room and the fragrant fumes and his own euphoric brain. Nothing seemed strange. He had discovered how to drink the tea. Like nitrous oxide, the effect was not cumulative. When you reached a peak of euphoria, you could not increase the peak. It was best to wait for a slight dip in the effect of the stimulant before taking more.
Otherwise it had most of the effects of alcoholЧeverything after awhile dissolved into a delightful fog through which all he saw was uniformly enchanting and partook of the qualities of a dream. He questioned nothing. Afterward he was not certain how much of it he really had dreamed.
There was the dancing doll, for instance. He remembered it quite clearly, in sharp focusЧa tiny, slender woman with a long-nosed, dark-eyed face and a pointed chin. She moved delicately across the white rugЧknee-high, exquisite. Her features were as mobile as her body, and she danced lightly, with resounding strokes of her toes, each echoing like a bell. It was a formalized sort of dance, and she sang breathlessly in accompaniment, making amusing little grimaces. Certainly it was a portrait-doll, animated to mimic the original perfectly in voice and motion. Afterward, Oliver knew he must have dreamed it.
What else happened he was quite unable to remember later. He knew Kleph had said some curious things, but they all made sense at the time, and afterward he couldnТt remember a word. He knew he had been offered little glittering candies in a transparent dish, and that some of them had been delicious and one or two so bitter his tongue still curled the next day when he recalled them, and oneЧ Kleph sucked luxuriantly on the same kindЧof a taste that was actively nauseating.