"Judith Merril - Connection Completed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

"Well-l-l ... thank you." She smiled tightly, and transferred her bag from her right hand to the left, then
set it down, carefully, as though jarring might explode it, on the left-hand side of her empty cup.

Todd heard himself saying smoothly, naturally, "Do you take cream and sugar?" It was startling that
his voice should behave so well, when every nerve cell and fiber in him was vibrating with incredulous
exaltation. He wanted to reach out and grab her, hold her face between his two hands, pull her head to
rest on his shoulder, soothe her, explain, reassure, until the sharp-etched lines of fear and tension
vanished from her face and he could see her, really her, not in a dream or vision or in some unknown
receptive part of his mind, but see her in the flesh, smiling with her whole face as she always had before.
And he couldn't do it.
Not yet.
He'd planned that first request to be a signal, nothing more. It wasn't enough to go on. It could be
coincidence, accident; he might even have anticipated from some unconscious memory of an earlier
action of hers, that that move was the one she would make, and so have set up the signal to get the
answer he wanted.
This time it wouldn't be like that.
"I'll make that phone call, and bring the coffee back with me," he told her slowly and distinctly. She
nodded, and then he thought as clearly as he could:
Only if you hear me, baby, if you understand and want to believe it like I do, don't wait for me
to bring it back. You get the coffees while I'm in the booth. You understand? Do you, babe? You
get the coffees while I go in the phone booth ... then I'll know for sure. You wouldn't do that for
any other reason, see? That way I'll know. You just do that, and you can leave the rest to me . . .
Understand?
She was nodding again. All right. Go ahead. I understand. But there was a feeling of irritationтАФor
impatience? He couldn't tell. Go on. Hurry up.
Impatience. He turned and walked across the white-tiled floor, his heels sounding loud and hollow all
the way. He didn't look around. He was sure she understood. He knew she was somehow irritated. He
didn't know what she would do. But what he had to do was walk across the endless rows of tiles to the
phone booth, and not give himself any chance to give her a signal of any kindтАФin case he was wrong.
He didn't trust himself to give her enough time if he faked it, so he looked up the post office in the
directory, and stepped into the booth, pulled the door shut, without ever looking around, put his coin into
the slot, and let the number ring twenty times before he hung up again and stepped out.
He glanced at the counter, and the wrinkle-faced man was leaning back against the wall next to the
coffee urn, turning a racing form over in his hand. He looked toward the table, then, and she was gone.
Handbag, raincoat, green suit, scarf, and all. Gone.
You little fool!
The thought was hopeless and tender and the loneliest thought of his life. He was at the door, looking
out, up and down the street but she was gone completely, vanished, like ...
Like the illusion she was?

He went back to the table, or tried to. He couldn't find it. He wanted to see her coffee cup there; he
thought she might have left the newspaper she was reading. Something, anything, to prove she had been
there, flesh and blood, a real girl. Not just an image his own mind had made for him six months ago, to
live with and talk toтАФand love.
Nothing. All the tables in the center of the room were clear and clean. There was a boy dumping
cups and clattering silver in the far corner. Todd strode over, stood behind him, and couldn't think what
to say.
"Did you take two cups off a table over there?" It sounded ridiculous.
The boy looked around, sleepy, stupid, glazed-eyed. "Huh?"
I said, "Did you take some coffee cups off a table just now?"