"Oates, Joyce Carol - Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

A gusty whitely glowing November day. She'll remember.

He has just informed her that they are in debt. He has borrowed money not only from the loan company that financed their 1953 four-door Mercury sedan but from a second loan company.

has borrowed money from his brother Leslie... and from friends of whom, in several instances, Persia has never before heard. Duke has been forced to confess since, today, embarrassingly, before noon, he is obliged to drive their car, the very car he requires for his job as a salesman, to the loan company headquarters uptown. Such words as "repossession," "default," "in lieu of," resound like drunken song lyrics in her head.

My God. Duke has even borrowed money from Madelyn.

"But the poor woman works in that terrible beauty salon.

she doesn't have any money!"

"Maddy wanted to go in with me on a bet at the Downs," Duke says evasively, running a hand through his hair. "It wasn't exactly a loan.

Only seventy-five dollars."

He smiles one of his reflex smiles. His nostrils are wider and darker than Persia recalls. In his fair, thin-skinned, handsome face, the narrow-bridged nose is becoming swollen and venous.

"Strictly speaking, we both lost. The bet." He smiles again.

"But I repaid the loan."

"You repaid it? You did?"

"I said I did."

"How much do you owe? I mean... in all." Persia is frightened but tries to keep her voice level. Though their daughter is at school she has a perilous sense that there is a third party in the flat with them, listening.

"Why does it matter, Persia, how much? A sum."

They are standing in the kitchen, a formal space between them. Persia in her pink quilted bathrobe, a surprise gift, and a luxury gift too, from Duke, on a Valentine's Day long past. Going grimy at the cuffs, frayed at the hem. Persia is barefoot and almost naked beneath the robe. Begins to feel the linoleum-tiled floor tilt under her feet.

.

. like the teakwood deck of that gleaming white yacht Erin Maid.

Since confiscated, among other items, by the Hammond City Council.

Duke is trying to joke. "We owe, darling. Not just me. You've spent most of it yourself, in fact-groceries, clothes. Things Iris 'simply has to have."" "But how much?"

"Not all that much."

"Duke, honey, please"-Persia's voice begins to falter-"how much?"

Duke sighs; rummages through a drawer for a pencil and a note pad; scribbles down the figure to show Persia as if the numeral is too shameful, or too intimate, to be disclosed orally. Persia whispers, "Oh, God." She yanks out a chair, sits blindly at the kitchen table, her hair, having endured elaborate pin curls through the night, now suddenly limp, straggling in her face. She hasn't put on any makeup yet this morning, so her skin is ivory pale, glazed.

Without lipstick her lips look unnatural.

'And all this went for cards? At the racetrack?"