"The Little Goddess" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDonald Ian)

clouds across the mountain, in the ripple of the grey river far below, and the
flap of the prayer banner in the wind. My parents saw it as a sign of my inborn
divinity, one of the thirty-two that mark those girls in whom the goddess may
dwell.
In the failing light I read the story of Jayaprakash Malla playing dice with the
devi Taleju Bhawani who came to him in the shape of a red snake and left with
the vow that she would only return to the Kings of Kathmandu as a virgin girl of
low caste, to spite their haughtiness. I could not read its end in the darkness,
but I did not need to. I was its end, or one of the other nine low-caste girls
in the god-house of the devi.
Then the doors burst open wide and firecrackers exploded and through the rattle
and smoke red demons leaped into the hall. Behind them men in crimson beat pans
and clappers and bells. At once two of the girls began to cry and the two women
came and took them away. But I knew the monsters were just silly men. In masks.
These were not even close to demons. I have seen demons, after the rain clouds
when the light comes low down the valley and all the mountains leap up as one.
Stone demons, kilometers high. I have heard their voices, and their breath does
not smell like onions. The silly men danced close to me, shaking their red manes
and red tongues, but I could see their eyes behind the painted holes and they
were afraid of me.
Then the door banged open again with another crash of fireworks and more men
came through the smoke. They carried baskets draped with red sheets. They set
them in front of us and whipped away the coverings. Buffalo heads, so freshly
struck off the blood was bright and glossy. Eyes rolled up, lolling tongues
still warm, noses still wet. And the flies, swarming around the severed neck. A
man pushed a basket towards me on my cushion as if it were a dish of holy food.
The crashing and beating outside rose to a roar, so loud and metallic it hurt.
The girl from my own Shakya village started to wail; the cry spread to another
and then another, then a fourth. The other woman, the tall pinched one with a
skin like an old purse, came in to take them out, carefully lifting her gown so
as not to trail it in the blood. The dancers whirled around like flame and the
kneeling man lifted the buffalo head from the basket. He held it up in my face,
eye to eye, but all I thought was that it must weigh a lot; his muscles stood
out like vines, his arm shook. The flies looked like black jewels. Then there
was a clap from outside and the men set down the heads and covered them up with
their cloths and they left with the silly demon men whirling and leaping around
them.
There was one other girl left on her cushion now. I did not know her. She was of
a Vajryana family from Niwar down the valley. We sat a long time, wanting to
talk but not knowing if silence was part of the trial. Then the door opened a
third time and two men led a white goat into the devi hall. They brought it
right between me and the Niwari girl. I saw its wicked, slotted eye roll. One
held the goatТs tether, the other took a big ceremonial kukri from a leather
sheath. He blessed it and with one fast strong stroke sent the goatТs head
leaping from its body.
I almost laughed, for the goat looked so funny, its body not knowing where its
head was, the head looking around for the body and then the body realizing that
it had no head and going down with a kick, and why was the Niwari girl
screaming, couldnТt she see how funny it was, or was she screaming because I saw
the joke and she was jealous of that? Whatever her reason, smiling woman and