"James Morrow - Auspicious Eggs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrow James)

on the nearest pegs. He stares through the gloom, locking eyes with Roger's
old kindergarten teacher, Valerie Gallogher, a robust thirtyish woman whose
incandescent red hair spills all the way to her hips. Grimly they saunter
toward each other, following the pathway formed by the mattresses, until they
meet amid the morass of writhing soulmakers.
"You're Roger Mulcanny's stepfather, aren't you?" asks the ovulating
teacher.
"Father, quite possibly. Stephen O'Rourke. And you're Miss Gallogher,
right?"
"Call me Valerie."
"Stephen."
He glances around, noting to his infinite relief that he recognizes no
one. Sooner or later, he knows, a familiar young face will appear at the
copulatorium, a notion that never fails to make him wince. How could he
possibly explicate the Boston Massacre to a boy who'd recently beheld him in
the procreative act? How could he render the Battle of Lexington lucid to a
girl whose egg he'd attempted to quicken the previous night?
For ten minutes he and Valerie make small talk, most of it issuing from
Stephen, as was proper. Should the coming sacrament prove fruitful, the
resultant child will want to know about the handful of men with whom his
mother connected during the relevant ovulation. (Beatrice, Claude, Tommy,
Laura, Yolanda, Willy, and the others were forever grilling Kate for facts
about their possible progenitors.) Stephen tells Valerie about the time his
students gave him a surprise birthday party. He describes his rock collection.
He mentions his skill at trapping the singularly elusive species of rat that
inhabits Charlestown Parish.
"I have a talent too," says Valerie, inserting a coppery braid into her
mouth. Her areolas seem to be staring at him.
"Roger thought you were a terrific teacher."
"No -- something else." Valerie tugs absently on her ovulation gauge.
"A person twitches his lips a certain way, and I know what he's feeling. He
darts his eyes in an odd manner -- I sense the drift of his thoughts." She
lowers her voice. "I watched you during the baptism this morning. Your
reaction would've angered the archbishop -- am I right?"
Stephen looks at his bare toes. Odd that a copulatorium partner should
be demanding such intimacy of him.
"Am I?" Valerie persists, sliding her index finger along her large,
concave bellybutton.
Fear rushes through Stephen. Does this woman work for the Immortality
Corps? If his answer smacks of heresy, will she arrest him on the spot?
"Well, Stephen? Would the archbishop have been angry?"
"Perhaps," he confesses. In his mind he sees Madelaine Dunfey's
submerged mouth, bubble following bubble like beads strung along a rosary.
"There's no microphone in my navel," Valerie asserts, alluding to a
common Immortality Corps ploy. "I'm not a spy."
"Never said you were."
"You were thinking it. I could tell by the cant of your eyebrows." She
kisses him on the mouth, deeply, wetly. "Did Roger ever learn to hold his
pencil correctly?"
"'Fraid not."