"James Lovegrove - The House Of Lazarus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lovegrove James)

The House of Lazarus
a short story by James Lovegrove

Visitors were welcome at the House of Lazarus at all times of day and
night, but it was cheaper to come at night, when off-peak rates applied.
Then, too, the great cathedral-like building was less frequented, and it
was possible to have a certain amount of privacy in the company of your
dear departed.
Because it was dark out, the receptionist in the cool colonnaded atrium
betrayed a flicker of amusement that Joey was wearing sunglasses. Then,
recognising his face, she smiled at him like an old friend, although she
didn't actually use his name until after he had asked to see his mother,
Mrs Delgado, and she had called up the relevant file on her terminal.
"It's young Joseph, isn't it?" she said, squinting at the screen. She
couldn't have been more than three years Joey's senior. The query was
chased by another over-familiar smile. "We haven't seen you for a couple
of weeks, have we?"
"I've been busy," Joey said. "Busy" didn't even begin to describe his
life, now that he had taken on a second job at a bar on Wiltshire Street,
but he didn't think the receptionist wanted to hear about that, and, more
to the point, he was too tired and irritable to want to enlighten her.
The receptionist folded her hands on the long slab of marble that formed
her desktop. "It's not my place to tell you what to do, Joseph," she said,
"but you are Mrs Delgado's only living relative, and we do like our
residents to get as much stimulation as possible. As you know, we wake
them for an hour of news and information every morning and an hour of
light music every evening, but it's not the same as actual verbal
interaction. Think of it as mental exercise for minds that don't get out
much. Conversation keeps them supple."
"I come whenever I can."
"Of course you do. Of course you do." That smile again, that smile of old
acquaintance, of intimacy that has passed way beyond the need for
forgiveness. "I'm not criticising. I'm merely suggesting."
"Well, thank you for the suggestion," he said, handing her his credit
card. The receptionist went through the business of swiping it, then
pressed a button on a panel set into the desktop. A man in a white
orderly's uniform appeared.
"Arlene Delgado," the receptionist told the orderly. "Stack 339, Drawer
41."
"This way, sir." The orderly ushered Joey through a pair of large doors on
which were depicted, in copper bas-relief, a man and a woman, decorously
naked, serenely asleep, with electrodes attached to their temples, chests
and arms.
As they entered the next room, a vast windowless chamber, the ambient
temperature dropped abruptly. Cold air fell over Joey's face like a veil
freshly dipped in water, and his skin buzzed with gooseflesh. He craned
his neck to look up.
No matter how many times he came here, the wall never ceased to amaze him.
At least a hundred and fifty feet high and well over a mile long, it
consisted of stacks of steel drawers, each about half as large again as an