"Fritz Leiber - Coming Attraction UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

УA few members keep trying to persuade Parliament to enact a law forbidding all masking,Ф I continued, talking perhaps a bit too much.
The second policeman shook his head. УWhat an idea. You know, masks are a pretty good thing, brother. Couple of years more and IТm going to make my wife wear hers around the house.Ф
The first policeman shrugged. УIf women were to stop wearing masks, in six weeks you wouldnТt know the difference. You get used to anything, if enough people do or donТt do it.Ф
I agreed, rather regretfully, and left them. I turned north on Broadway (old Tenth Avenue, I believe) and walked rapidly until I was beyond Inferno. Passing such an area of undecontaminated radioactivity always makes a person queasy. I thanked God there werenТt any such in England, as yet.
The street was almost empty, though I was accosted by a couple of beggars with faces tunneled by H-bomb scars, whether real or of make-up putty I couldnТt tell. A fat woman held out a baby with webbed fingers and toes. I told myself it would have been deformed anyway and that she was only capitalizing on our fear of bomb-induced mutations. Still, I gave her a seven-and-ahalf-cent piece. Her mask made me feel I was paying tribute to an African fetish.
УMay all your children be blessed with one head and two eyes, sir.Ф
УThanks,Ф I said, shuddering, and hurried past her.
У. . . ThereТs only trash behind the mask, so turn your head, stick to your task: Stay away, stay awayЧfromЧtheЧgirls!Ф
This last was the end of an anti-sex song being sung by some religionists half a block from the circle-and-cross insignia of a
femalist temple. They reminded me only faintly of our small tribe of British monastics. Above their heads was a jumble of billboards advertising predigested foods, wrestling instruction, radio handies and the like.
I stared at the hysterical slogans with disagreeable fascination. Since the female face and form have been banned on American signs, the very letters of the advertiserТs alphabet have begun to crawl with sexЧthe fat-bellied, big-breasted capital B, the lascivious double 0. However, I reminded myself, it is chiefly the mask that so strangely accents sex in America.
A British anthropologist has pointed out that, while it took more than five thousand years to shift the chief point of sexual interest from the hips to the breasts, the next transition, to the face, has taken less than fifty years. Comparing the American style with Moslem tradition is not valid; Moslem women are compelled to wear veils, the purpose of which is to make a husbandТs property private, while American women have only the compulsion of fashion and use masks to create mystery.
Theory aside, the actual origins of the trend are to be found in the antiradiation clothing of World War III, which led to masked wrestling, now a fantastically popular sport, and that in turn led to the current female fashion. Only a wild style at first, masks quickly became as necessary as brassieres and lipsticks had been earlier in the century.
I finally realized that I was not speculating about masks in general, but about what lay behind one in particular. ThatТs the devil of the things; youТre never sure whether a girl is heightening loveliness or hiding ugliness. I pictured a cool, pretty face in which fear showed only in widened eyes. Then I remembered her blond hair, rich against the blackness of the satin mask. SheТd told me to come at the twenty-second hourЧio P.M.
I climbed to my apartment near the British Consulate; the elevator shaft had been shoved out of plumb by an old blast, a nuisance in these tall New York buildings. Before it occurred to me that I would be going out again, I automatically tore a tab from the film strip under my shirt. I developed it just to be sure. It showed that the total radiation IТd taken that day was still within the safety limit. IТm no phobic about it, as so many people are these days, but thereТs no point in taking chances.
I flopped down on the daybed and stared at the silent speaker
and the dark screen of the video set. As always, they made me think, somewhat bitterly, of the two great nations of the world. Mutilated by each other, yet still strong, they were crippled giants poisoning the planet with their respective dreams of an impossible equality and an impossible success.
I fretfully switched on the speaker. By luck, the newscaster was talking excitedly of the prospects of a bumper wheat crop, sown by planes across a dust bowl moistened by seeded rains. I listened carefully to the rest of the program (it was remarkably clear of Russian telejamming), but there was no further news of interest to me. And, of course, no mention of the moon, though everyone knows that America and Russia are racing to develop their primary bases into fortresses capable of mutual assault and the launching of alphabet bombs toward Earth. I myself knew perfectly well that the British electronic equipment I was helping trade for American wheat was destined for use in spaceships.
I switched off the newscast. It was growing dark, and once again I pictured a tender, frightened face behind a mask. I hadnТt had a date since England. ItТs exceedingly difficult to become acquainted with a girl in America, where as little as a smile often can set one of them yelping for the police_to say nothing of the increasingly puritanical morality and the roving gangs that keep most women indoors after dark. And, naturally, the masks, which are definitely not, as the Soviets claim, a last invention of capitalist degeneracy, but a sign of great psychological insecurity. The Russians have no masks, but they have their own signs of stress.
I went to the window and impatiently watched the darkness gather. I was getting very restless. After a while a ghostly violet cloud appeared to the south. My hair rose. Then I laughed. I had momentarily fancied it a radiation from the crater of the Hellbomb, though I should instantly have known it was only the radio-induced glow in the sky over the amusement and residential area south of Inferno.
Promptly at twenty-two hours I stood before the door of my unknown girl friendТs apartment. The electronic say-who-please said just that. I answered clearly, УWysten Turner,Ф wondering if sheТd given my name to the mechanism. She evidently had, for the door opened. I walked into a small empty living room, my heart pounding a bit.
The room was expensively furnished with the latest pneumatic
hassocks and sprawlers. There were some midgie hooks on the table. The one I picked up was the standard hard-boiled detective story in which two female murderers go gunning for each other.
The television was on. A masked girl in green was crooning a love song. Her right hand held something that blurred off into the foreground. I saw the set had a handie, which we havenТt in England as yet, and curiously thrust my hand into the handie orifice beside the screen. Contrary to my expectations, it was not like slipping into a pulsing rubber glove, but rather as if the girl on the screen actually held my hand.
A door opened behind me. I jerked out my hand with as guilty a reaction as if IТd been caught peering through a keyhole.
She stood in the bedroom doorway. I think she was trembling. She was wearing a gray fur coat, white-speckled, and a gray velvet evening mask with shirred gray lace around the eyes and mouth. Her fingernails twinkled like silver.
I hadnТt occurred to me that sheТd expect us to go out.
УI should have told you,Ф she said softly. Her mask veered nervously toward the books and the screen and the roomТs dark corners. УBut I canТt possibly talk to you here.Ф
I said doubtfully, УThereТs a place near the Consulate. . . .У
УI know where we can be together and talk,Ф she said rapidly. УIf you donТt mind.Ф
As we entered the elevator I said, УIТm afraid I dismissed the cab.Ф
But the cab driver hadnТt gone, for some reason of his own. He jumped out and smirkingly held the front door open for us. I told him we preferred to sit in back. He sulkily opened the rear door, slammed it after us, jumped in front and slammed the door behind him.
My companion leaned forward. УHeaven,Ф she said.
The driver switched on the turbine and televisor.
УWhy did you ask if I were a British subject?Ф I said, to start the conversation.
She leaned away from me, tilting her mask close to the window. УSee the moon,Ф she said in a quick, dreamy voice.
УBut why, really?Ф I pressed, conscious of an irritation that had nothing to do with her.
УItТs edging up into the purple of the sky.Ф
УAnd whatТs your name?Ф
УThe purple makes it look yellower.Ф
Just then I became aware of the source of my irritation. It lay in the square of writhing light in the front of the cab beside the driver.
I donТt object to ordinary wrestling matches, though they bore me, but I simply detest watching a man wrestle a woman. The fact that the bouts are generally Уon the level,Ф with the man greatly outclassed in weight and reach and the masked females young and personable, only makes them seem worse to me.
УPlease turn off the screen,Ф I requested the driver.
He shook his head without looking around. УUh-uh, man,Ф he said. УTheyТve been grooming that babe for weeks for this bout with Little Zirk.Ф
Infuriated, I reached forward, but my companion caught my arm. УPlease,Ф she whispered frightenedly, shaking her head.
I settled back, frustrated. She was closer to me now, but silent, and for a few moments I watched the heaves and contortions of the powerful masked girl and her wiry masked opponent on the screen. His frantic scrambling at her reminded me of a male spider.
I jerked around, facing my companion. УWhy did those three men want to kill you?ФI asked sharply.
The eyeholes of her mask faced the screen. УBecause theyТre jealous of me,Ф she whispered.
УWhy are they jealous?Ф
She still didnТt look at me. УBecause of him.Ф