"Ian McDonald - The Djinn's Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDonald Ian)

THE DJINN'S WIFE by Ian McDonald
"The Djinn's Wife" shares the same background of near-future India as Ian's
last Asimov's story, "The Little Goddess" (June 2005), and his most recent
novel, the 2005 Hugo-nominee River of Gods (Pyr). The author's current
book-in-progress is Brasyl. Ian works in television program development, and
lives just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland with the hills behind him and the
sea before.

Once there was a woman in Delhi who married a djinn. Before the water war, that was not so strange a
thing: Delhi, split in two like a brain, has been the city of djinns from time before time. The sufis tell that
God made two creations, one of clay and one of fire. That of clay became man; that of fire, the djinni.
As creatures of fire they have always been drawn to Delhi, seven times reduced to ashes by invading
empires, seven times reincarnating itself. Each turn of the chakra, the djinns have drawn strength from the
flames, multiplying and dividing. Great dervishes and brahmins are able to see them, but, on any street, at
any time, anyone may catch the whisper and momentary wafting warmth of a djinn passing.

I was born in Ladakh, far from the heat of the djinns--they have wills and whims quite alien to
humans--but my mother was Delhi born and raised, and from her I knew its circuses and boulevards, its
maidans and chowks and bazaars, like those of my own Leh. Delhi to me was a city of stories, and so if
I tell the story of the djinn's wife in the manner of a sufi legend or a tale from the Mahabharata, or even a
tivi soap opera, that is how it seems to me: City of Djinns.
****
They are not the first to fall in love on the walls of the Red Fort.

The politicians have talked for three days and an agreement is close. In honor the Awadhi government
has prepared a grand durbar in the great courtyard before the Diwan-i-aam. All India is watching so
this spectacle is on a Victorian scale: event-planners scurry across hot, bare marble, hanging banners and
bunting; erecting staging; setting up sound and light systems; choreographing dancers, elephants,
fireworks, and a fly-past of combat robots; dressing tables; and drilling serving staff, and drawing up
so-careful seating plans so that no one will feel snubbed by anyone else. All day three-wheeler delivery
drays have brought fresh flowers, festival goods, finest, soft furnishings. There's a real French sommelier
raving at what the simmering Delhi heat is doing to his wine-plan. It's a serious conference. At stake are a
quarter of a billion lives.

In this second year after the monsoon failed, the Indian nations of Awadh and Bharat face each other
with main battle tanks, robot attack helicopters, strikeware, and tactical nuclear slow missiles on the
banks of the sacred river Ganga. Along thirty kilometers of staked-out sand, where brahmins cleanse
themselves and saddhus pray, the government of Awadh plans a monster dam. Kunda Khadar will
secure the water supply for Awadh's one hundred and thirty million for the next fifty years. The river
downstream, that flows past the sacred cities of Allahabad and Varanasi in Bharat, will turn to dust.
Water is life, water is death. Bharati diplomats, human and artificial intelligence aeai advisors, negotiate
careful deals and access rights with their rival nation, knowing one carelessly spilled drop of water will
see strike robots battling like kites over the glass towers of New Delhi and slow missiles with nanonuke
warheads in their bellies creeping on cat-claws through the galis of Varanasi. The rolling news channels
clear their schedules of everything else but cricket. A deal is close! A deal is agreed! A deal will be
signed tomorrow! Tonight, they've earned their durbar.

And in the whirlwind of leaping hijras and parading elephants, a Kathak dancer slips away for a
cigarette and a moment up on the battlements of the Red Fort. She leans against the sun-warmed stone,
careful of the fine gold-threadwork of her costume. Beyond the Lahore Gate lies hiving Chandni Chowk;