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

weathered woman came and took her very gently away and the two men went down on
their knees in the spreading blood and kissed the wooden floor. They lifted away
the two parts of the goat. I wished they hadnТt done that. I would have liked
someone with me in the big wooden hall. But I was on my own in the heat and the
dark and then, over the traffic, I heard the deep-voiced bells of Kathmandu
start to swing and ring. For the last time the doors opened and there were the
women, in the light.
УWhy have you left me all alone?Ф I cried. УWhat have I done wrong?Ф
УHow could you do anything wrong, goddess?Ф said the old, wrinkled woman who,
with her colleague, would become my mother and father and teacher and sister.
УNow come along with us and hurry. The King is waiting.Ф
Smiling Kumarima and Tall Kumarima (as I would now have to think of them) took a
hand each and led me, skipping, from the great looming Hanuman temple. A road of
white silk had been laid from the foot of the temple steps to a wooden palace
close by. The people had been let into the square and they pressed on either
side of the processional way, held back by the police and the KingТs robots. The
machines held burning torches in their grasping hands. Fire glinted from their
killing blades. There was great silence in the dark square.
УYour home, goddess,Ф said Smiling Kumarima, bending low to whisper in my ear.
УWalk the silk, devi. Do not stray off it. I have your hand, you will be safe
with me.Ф
I walked between my Kumarimas, humming a pop tune I had heard on the radio at
the hotel. When I looked back I saw that I had left two lines of bloody
footprints.

You have no caste, no village, no home. This palace is your home, and who would
wish for any other? We have made it lovely for you, for you will only leave it
six times a year. Everything you need is here within these walls.
You have no mother or father. How can a goddess have parents? Nor have you
brothers and sisters. The King is your brother, the kingdom your sister. The
priests who attend on you, they are nothing. We your Kumarimas are less than
nothing. Dust, dirt, a tool. You may say anything and we must obey it.
As we have said, you will leave the palace only six times a year. You will be
carried in a palanquin. Oh, it is a beautiful thing, carved wood and silk.
Outside this palace you shall not touch the ground. The moment you touch the
ground, you cease to be divine.
You will wear red, with your hair in a topknot and your toe- and fingernails
painted. You will carry the red tilak of Siva on your forehead. We will help you
with your preparations until they become second nature.
You will speak only within the confines of your palace, and little even then.
Silence becomes the Kumari. You will not smile or show any emotion.
You will not bleed. Not a scrape, not a scratch. The power is in the blood and
when the blood leaves, the devi leaves. On the day of your first blood, even one
single drop, we will tell the priest and he will inform the King that the
goddess has left. You will no longer be divine and you will leave this palace
and return to your family. You will not bleed.
You have no name. You are Taleju, you are Kumari. You are the goddess.
These instructions my two Kumarimas whispered to me as we walked between
kneeling priests to the King in his plumed crown of diamonds and emeralds and
pearls. The King namasted and we sat side by side on lion thrones and the long