"James Morrow - Towing Jehovah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrow James)

Ivory soap, mused Anthony as he rinsed, Procter and Gamble at its
purest. At that exact moment he felt cleanтАФthough the oil, he knew, would
be back the next day. The oil always came back. For what soap on earth
could scrub away the endless black gallons that had spilled from the
fractured hull of the SS Carpco Valpara├нso, what caliber of purity could
erase that particular stain?
 During the cold months, Anthony had kept a Turkish bath towel handy,
but now it was mid-JuneтАФthe first day of summer, in factтАФand a simple
jog through the museum would be sufficient to get him dry. And so he put
on his Jockey shorts and ran, moving past the Pontaut Chapter House . . .
the Nine Heroes Tapestries Room . . . Robert Campin Hall with its homey
Annunciation: the angel Gabriel advising Mary of God's intentions as she
sits in the bourgeois parlor of the artist's patrons, surrounded by tokens of
her innocenceтАФfresh lilies, white candle, gleaming copper kettle.
At the entry to the Langon Chapel, beneath a rounded arch set on lintels
carved with blooming acanthus, a sixtyish man in a flowing white robe
stood weeping.
"No," he moaned, his low, liquid sobs echoing off the limestone. "No . .
."
Except for the man's wings, Anthony might have assumed the intruder
was a penitent like himself. But there they were, huge and phosphorescent,
sprouting from his shoulder blades in all their feathered improbability.
"No . . ."
The glowing man looked up. A halo hovered above his snowy hair,
flashing bright red: on-off, on-off, on-off. His eyes were rheumy and
inflamed. Silver droplets rolled from his tear ducts like beads of liquid
mercury.
"Good evening," said the intruder, convulsively catching his breath. He
laid his hand on his cheek and, like a blotter pressed against some
infinitely sad letter, his palm absorbed the tears. "Good evening and
happy birthday, Captain Van Horne."
"You know me?"
"This is not a chance meeting." The intruder's voice was wavering and
fragmented, as if he were speaking through the whirling blades of an
electric fan. "Your schedule is well known among us angelsтАФthese secret
visits to the fountain, these sly ablutions . . ."
"Angels?"
"Call me Raphael." The intruder cleared his throat. "Raphael Azarias."
His skin, yellow aspiring to gold, shone in the moonlight like a brass
sextant. He smelled of all the succulent wonders Anthony had ever
sampled on his journeys, of papayas and mangoes, guanabanas and
tamarinds, guavas and guineppes. "For I am indeed the celebrated
archangel who vanquished the demon Asmodeus."
A winged man. Robed, haloed, delusions of divinity: another New York
lunatic, Anthony surmised. And yet he did not resist when the angel
reached out, wrapped five frigid fingers around his wrist, and led him
back to the Cuxa fountain.
"You think I'm an impostor?" asked Raphael.
"Well . . ."
"Be honest."