"Wil McCarthy - The Technetium Rush" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCarty Sarah)

it, and we can suppose the brief local fame brought on by its discovery had some
impact on his later thinking. The papers called him a тАЬJoshi Bhopal staff geologist,тАЭ
and he liked the sound of that.

Anyway, while he was hardly a rich man, SolankiтАЩs salary was enough to rent
not only a small apartment in Jaipur, but also an office in which he slowly built a
modest but respectable soil and mineral identification lab, whose services he
advertised in the same papers whoтАЩd reported his copper find. Business was not
exactly booming, but he collected enough odd jobs to build a r├йsum├й, and in his
spare time, through a combination of personal fieldwork and bargain hunting in the
city shops, amassed a rock collection large and photogenic enough to pose in front
of. HeтАЩd be ready for the newspapersтАФor TV, or internet bloggersтАФthe next time
they showed up.

So things were going well, and it seems natural enough that Vyas and Solanki,
lovers now for two and a half years, should tie the knot and move in together, which
is exactly what they did. The ceremony was small, brief, and sparsely reported, and
though the newlyweds expressed a desire to travel overseas, in fact the honeymoon
was a week in Alibag (near Mumbai), paid for by SolankiтАЩs parents and lightly
subsidized by VyasтАЩ widowed mother. Affectionate and outgoing in public, the two
were in many ways the perfect couple, to the relief of both families and the mild envy
of their friends.

But real life hides clouds behind its silver linings, and within that cramped
apartment our lovebirds were not quite as happy as they seemed. The affections of a
good woman had mellowed SolankiтАЩs wandering ways, but the reverse cannot be
said for the bride herself, whose weekend gambling was now fueled by a
substantially higher income. Once a quirky affectation, the betting now assumed the
proportions of a full-blown addiction, for which (at SolankiтАЩs insistence) she several
times sought counseling. But Vyas, now Abha Solanki, either couldnтАЩt or wouldnтАЩt
mend her ways, and by the end of 2003 she had managed not only to spend most of
their combined income, plus her dowry and RockyтАЩs nest egg, but to accumulate
(by some accounts) up to a quarter-million rupees in debt, to unsavory characters in
whom sympathy was not a notable trait.

тАЬIтАЩm trapped,тАЭ Rakesh told a friend that winter. тАЬI canтАЩt afford the pills to
keep her in at night, and without them we come home poorer every week.тАЭ

To which the friend claims to have replied, тАЬSmart guy like you, Rocky, ought
to imagine a way out. Think of a monkey stealing oranges through a fence, eh? He
canтАЩt pull his hand out, or he thinks he canтАЩt, because he wonтАЩt let go of the orange.тАЭ

тАЬBut I like my orange,тАЭ said Rocky. тАЬI adore my orange.тАЭ

тАЬWell, then,тАЭ said the friend. тАЬOnly one thing for it: YouтАЩve got to scale the
fence.тАЭ

тАЬMeaning what?тАЭ

тАЬMeaning youтАЩre the smart one, and IтАЩm hungry. LetтАЩs eat, eh? And then letтАЩs