"Pat Murphy - Rachel In Love" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

red rock canyon that Rachel somehow knows will lead her to the Primate Research Center. Her mother
is lagging behind: she does not want to go to the center; she is afraid. In the shadow of a rock
outcropping, Rachel stops to explain to her mother that they must go to the center because Jake is at the
center.

Rachel's mother does not understand sign language. She watches Rachel with mournful eyes, then
scrambles up the canyon wall, leaving Rachel behind. Rachel climbs after her mother, pulling herself over
the edge in time to see the other chimp loping away across the windblown red cinderrock and sand.
Rachel bounds after her mother, and as she runs she howls like an abandoned infant chimp, wailing her
distress. The figure of her mother wavers in the distance, shimmering in the heat that rises from the sand.
The figure changes. Running away across the red sands is a pale blonde woman wearing a purple
sweatsuit and jogging shoes, the sweetsmelling mother that Rachel remembers. The woman looks back
and smiles at Rachel. "Don't howl like an ape, daughter," she calls. "Say Mama."

Rachel runs silently, dream running that takes her nowhere. The sand burns her feet and the sun beats
down on her head. The blonde woman vanishes in the distance, and Rachel is alone. She collapses on the
sand, whimpering because she is alone and afraid.

She feels the gentle touch of fingers grooming her fur, and for a moment, still half asleep, she believes that
her hairy mother has returned to her. She opens her eyes and looks into a pair of dark brown eyes,
separated from her by wire mesh. Johnson. He has reached through a gap in the fence to groom her. As
he sorts through her fur, he makes soft cooing sounds, gentle comforting noises.

Still half asleep, she gazes at him and wonders why she was so fearful. He does not seem so bad. He
grooms her for a time, and then sits nearby, watching her through the mesh. She brings a slice of apple
from her dish of food and offers it to him. With her free hand, she makes the sign for apple. When he
takes it, she signs again: apple. He is not a particularly quick student, but she has time and many slices of
apple.

All Rachel's preparations are done, but she cannot bring herself to leave the center. Leaving the center
means leaving Jake, leaving potato chips and whiskey, leaving security. To Rachel, the thought of love is
always accompanied by the warm taste of whiskey and potato chips.

Some nights, after Jake is asleep, she goes to the big glass doors that lead to the outside. She opens the
doors and stands on the steps, looking down into the desert. Sometimes a jackrabbit sits on its haunches
in the rectangles of light that shine through the glass doors. Sometimes she sees kangaroo rats, hopping
through the moonlight like rubber balls bouncing on hard pavement. Once, a coyote trots by, casting a
contemptuous glance in her direction.

The desert is a lonely place. Empty. Cold. She thinks of Jake snoring softly in the janitor's lounge. And
always she closes the door and returns to him.

Rachel leads a double life: janitor's assistant by night, prisoner and teacher by day. She spends her
afternoons drowsing in the sun and teaching Johnson new signs.

On a warm afternoon, Rachel sits in the outside run, basking in the sunlight. Johnson is inside, and the
other chimps are quiet. She can almost imagine she is back at her father's ranch, sitting in her own yard.
She naps and dreams of Jake.

She dreams that she is sitting in his lap on the battered old couch. Her hand is on his chest: a smooth pale