"MacLeod, Ian R - Tirkiluk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

My Eskimo-thief is called Tirkiluk. I discovered her sex when, after she'd
finally finished eating, she pulled down the saucepan from over the stove with
some effort, unwound her furs and squatted over it to urinate. She's terribly
malnourished. Painfully bare ribs, a swollen belly.

October 27

Hard to tell under all those layers of fur, but Tirkiluk seems to be improving.
She still mostly wanders up and down the ashen shore muttering to herself, or
sits rocking on her haunches under a sort of awning that she's rigged up in
front of the hut out of canvas from the supply shed and driftwood from the
shore. Did I really save her life? Was she abandoned by the tribe? Was I just
interfering?

October 29

The supply ship came today. The Silverdale Glen. Tirkiluk started shrieking
Kaboola!, and I ran out from the hut and saw the red and green lights bobbing
out in the bay. Thought for one odd moment that the stars were moving.

I got many knowing looks from the sailors when they saw Tirkiluk sitting on a
rock down the beach. Many of them fished these waters before the war, and of
course there are the stories about Eskimo wives being offered as a gesture of
hospitality. So, and despite her appearance, the crew of the Silverdale Glen
assume that I've taken Tirkiluk to comfort me through the months of Arctic
night, and I know that any attempts at denial would have been counterproductive.

They've gone now, and I'm alone for the winter. It's likely as not, I suppose,
that word of Tirkiluk will get back to Godalming.

November 1

Went out to collect water this morning. The storm of the past few days has died
entirely, and waves are sluggish, black as Chinese lacquer. Down on the shore,
discovered that the water around the rocky inlet where the river discharges has
formed a crust of ice. You can almost feel the temperature dropping, the ancient
weight of the dark paleocrystic ice cap bearing down through the mountains, the
weather changing, turning, tightening, notch by notch by notch. Soon, I think,
the whole bay will freeze over.

Tirkiluk still sits outside.

November 6

Tirkiluk and I are making some progress in our attempts to converse. Her
language bears little resemblance to the Inuit I was taught, although she's
surprisingly adept at picking up English. Often, as I try to explain what the
place I come from is like, and about the war and my monitoring of the weather,
or when she describes the myths and rovings and bickerings of her tribe, we meet
halfway. Don't think anyone who ever heard would understand a word of it, and a