"Michael Moorcock - Von Bek 2 - The Brothel in Rosenstrasse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

warehouse or workshop, would elsewhere be envied and admired as art. On a September
morning, shortly before dawn, little paddle-steamers begin to sound their horns in the grey
mist. Only the twin Gothic spires of the Cathedral of St-Maria-and-St-Maria are visible at this
time, rising out of the mist as symmetrical sea-carved rocks might thrust above a sluggish
silver tide.
I was completely alive in Mirenburg. Ironically, during the days of the Siege, I feared
death far more than I fear it now when death exhibits itself in every limb, in every organ; an
unavoidable reality. Life was never to be experienced so fully. For years I yearned for the
dark, lifting sensuality, that all-embracing atmosphere of sexual ecstasy I had known in
Mirenburg. To have maintained that ambience, even if it had been in my power, would have
led to inevitable self-destruction, so I have not entirely regretted living past the Mirenburg
days. I have made I think the best of my life. Since I retired to Italy it has been simpler of
course and I have been forced to review many habits I had not much questioned. Friends
visit; we have memories. We relive our best times and usually joke about the worst.
Changing events have not greatly disturbed us. But there is no-one who shared the
Mirenburg period and few believe me if I speak of all that happened. There was so much.
Alexandra. My Alice. She is still sixteen. She lies surrounded by green velvet and she is
naked. I have arranged blossoms upon her skin, pink and pale yellow against her tawny
flesh; flowers from a Venetian hothouse to warm her in our early autumn days, while in the
ballroom below we hear the zither, the Cafe Mozart Waltz, and I smell my sex mingling with
her scent, with honey and roses. Her eyes are heated, her smile is languid yet brilliant in the
dark curls which surround it. She spreads her little arms. Alexandra. She called herself Alex.
Later it will be Alice. I am enchanted; I am captured by Romance. Beyond the window the
spires and roofs of Mirenburg glitter like a mirage. I am about to be betrayed by my own
imagination. Those huge eyes, the colour of ancient oak, seem to give me all their attention
and I am flattered, overwhelmed. My Alexandra. Her head moves to one side, her shoulder
goes up, she speaks my name:
'Ricky?'
I am tempted to put down my pen and push myself higher in
my pillows to try to peer over the top of the writing-board and look to see if I really did hear
her; but I continue to write, glad to touch just a little of that ambience again.
As a child, when I played with my toy soldiers, arranging battalions, positioning
cavalry and artillery, I would sometimes receive an unexpected thrill of intense sexual
pleasure, to the point of achieving not only an erection but often an orgasm. Even now, when
I see a display of toy soldiers in a shop, I may be touched by that same sensation, almost as
poignantly as when I was twelve or thirteen. Why I experienced it then and why I continued to
experience it I do not know. Perhaps it had something to do with my complete power over
those little men which, in turn, released in me all the power of my sex, full and unchecked by
convention or upbringing. Certainly I had very little power as a boy. My brothers and sisters
being so much older than I, I had a relatively solitary childhood. My mother was never
mentioned. I was to discover she was in disgrace, somewhere in Roumania, with a
Dutchman.
Shortly before her death, I met her briefly, by accident, in a fashionable restaurant off
the Avenue Victor Hugo and recognised her from her photograph. She was small and
serene and was very polite to me when I pointed out our relationship. Both she and her
Dutchman were dressed in black. My father's interest was in politics. He served the
government and was close to Bismarck. At our estates in Bek I had been brought up chiefly
by Scottish governesses, doted on by pretty housemaids who, when the time came, had
been more than willing to educate me sexually. I have been in the power of women, it
seems, all my life.