"Barry N. Malzberg - Those Wonderful Years" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

difficult to explain this. It is difficult to explain this but I will try: Elvira
and our relationship are to be a golden oldie of the early eighties. Thinking
this and other muddled thoughts I step briskly from the car, move through
stones and into the lobby of the building where I see she has already come
down to wait for me, a handbag slung over her shoulder, a tight and
aggressive expression across her eyes and cheeks. I know that I will have to
suppress memories of Elvira's aggression in order to be truly moved by her
years hence. "We must make a decision," she says, grasping my arm
between wrist and elbow, in the vicinity of the ulna, and applying modest
pressure. "We cannot go on this way. Tonight we must resolve our
relationship."

"I am not prepared to make any decisions, Elvira," I say, submitting to
her grasp. In ordinary life I am a claims examiner for a large insurance
company which has, partly because of me, one of the lowest payout rates
in the business, a statistic which they do not advertise. In that capacity I
must do a great deal of writing and checking but fortunately this is with
the right hand and not with the left which feels Elvira's pressure.
Resultantly I do not protest at being greeted by her in this way but try to
take a lower key. Cosmo and the Pearls, according to the newspaper
stories at the time of their success, are supposed to have met on an
unemployment line in the Bronx, New York, but I do not believe this. I
discard most public biographies as lies and, trusting nothing, believe that
the truth can only be found in what Cosmo does to me. A little snatch of
MOONSONG buzzes through my head like an indolent fly and I do not
slap at it; I listen. Lost so soon/all I loved/like the stars above. Above,
above. "We will have to take it as it comes, Elvira," I add liking the sound
of her name. El-vi-ra; it carries within it the characteristic sound of the
seventies, posturing and yet somehow childlike, which will surely
characterize this decade in the years which lie ahead.

"No," she says, tightening her grasp on the arm, leading me toward the
one voluminous couch which in shades of orange and yellow dominates
the lobby of her residence, "it cannot be. You've equivocated too much. I
can't waste these important years of my life on someone who doesn't even
know his identity!" She raises a fist to her face, dabs at her eyes. "And
besides that, I sometimes think that you don't even really want me," she
says, "that when you're with me you're already thinking about how you'll
remember me. I tell you, this is no way for a relationship to function. I
have a great deal to offer you but it must be within the terms of the
present. You've got to be here with me now."

"You don't understand, Elvira," I say, guiding her to the couch, gently
easing down and at last her terrible grip eases and I run a fervid hand over
my joint, relocating the source of circulation and bringing the blood to
clear surge yet again. "The past is fixed, the present incomprehensible, the
future without control. If we repudiate our past, well then, what are we?
And if we do not cherish the past, that only immutable part of us, well,
then, Elvira, what will we make of the present and the future?" but even as
I am saying this I feel the hopelessness of the argument overwhelm me.