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

trying to -- "
Connie cuts himself off, intimidated by the sudden arrival of a
roly-poly man in a white hooded robe.
"Friar James Wolfe, M.D.," says the monk.
"Come forward, Friar Doctor James Wolfe," says Xallibos.
"It would be well if you validated this posthaste." James Wolfe draws a
parchment sheet from his robe and lays it on the archbishop's desk. Connie
steals a glance at the report, hoping to learn the baby's fertility quotient,
but the relevant statistics are too faint. "The priest in question, he's
celebrating Mass in" -- sliding a loose sleeve upward, James Wolfe consults
his wristwatch -- "less than an hour. He's all the way over in Brookline."
Striding back to his desk, the archbishop yanks a silver fountain pen
from its holder and decorates the parchment with his famous spidery signature.
"_Dominus vobiscum,_ Friar Doctor Wolfe," he says, handing over the
document.
As Wolfe rushes out of the office, Xallibos steps so close to Connie
that his nostrils fill with the archbishop's lemon-scented aftershave lotion.
"That man never has any fun," says Xallibos, pointing toward the
vanishing friar. "What fun do you have, Father Monaghan?"
"Fun, Your Grace?"
 "Do you eat ice cream? Follow the fortunes of the Celtics?" He
pronounces "Celtics" with the hard _C_ mandated by the Third Lateran Council.
Connie inhales a hearty quantity of citrus fumes. "I bake."
"Bake? Bake what? Bread?"
"Cookies, Your Grace. Brownies, cheesecake, pies. For the Feast of the
Nativity, I make gingerbread magi."
"Wonderful. I like my priests to have fun. Listen, no matter what, the
rite must be performed. If Angela Dunfey won't come to you, then you must go
to her."
"She'll simply run away again."
"Perhaps so, perhaps not. I have great faith in you, Father Cornelius
Dennis Monaghan."
"More than I have in myself," says the priest, biting his inner cheeks
so hard that his eyes fill with tears.
****
"No," says Kate for the third time that night.
"Yes," insists Stephen, savoring the dual satisfactions of Kate's thigh
beneath his palm and Arbutus rum washing through his brain.
Pinching her cigarette in one hand, Kate strokes Baby Malcolm's
forehead with the other, lulling him to sleep. "It's wicked," she protests as
she places Malcolm on the rug beside the bed. "A crime against the future."
Stephen grabs the Arbutus bottle, pours himself another glass, and,
adding a measure of Dr. Pepper, takes a greedy gulp. He sets the bottle back
on the nightstand, next to Valerie Gallogher's enigmatic flower.
"Screw the unconceived," he says, throwing himself atop his wife.
On Friday he'd shown the blossom to Gail Whittington, Dougherty High
School's smartest science teacher, but her verdict proved unenlightening.
_Epigaea repens,_ "trailing arbutus," a species with at least two claims to
fame: it is the state flower of the Massachusetts Archipelago, and it has lent
its name to the very brand of alcohol Stephen now consumes.