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

Persia contemplates the Garlock baby for some minutes, dangerous minutes maybe, for what if it's Vernon Garlock upstairs and he's about to come down, what if that nasty-eyed boy comes back; she's heard plenty of things about the Garlocks and other hillbilly families and how the men treat the women, including sometimes their own daughters.

.. but the baby sleeping, just lying there sleeping, holds her transfixed.

She's thinking how her little girl Iris is growing up so fast, she'd dearly love to have another baby... oh, God, how she'd love to have another baby. The happiness of feeling it inside her, coming to life slowly, then not so slowly; then, after it's born, the countless hours of hugging, rocking, whispering... giving baths where each movement of her hands is special, privileged... napping together in the afternoons when Duke is gone... a darling little blue-eyed baby looking at Persia, at her, fixing its wondering stare on her, alone of all the world. D'ya love me, honey? Mommy loves you too.

Except: if Persia Courtney has another baby she'll have to feed it formula this time, not nurse. Because Duke Courtney doesn't want his wife's lovely breasts to get all saggy and broken-veined and the nipples ruined, like some women 5... and neither does Persia.

And if she nurses, as she did with little Iris, she wouldn't be able to drink with Duke, wouldn't be able to go out drinking with him, share his good times with him; God, how Persia and Duke need their good times!

Persia wonders, suddenly inspired, would she have time to change that poor baby's diaper, before one or another Garlock came in and discovered her? If she could find a clean diaper, that is, in all this mess.

don't stare, Iris. Haven't I told you that's rude?"

She wonders if their blood too, like their skin, is darker than the blood of Caucasians. Of "whites." She has heard the mysterious words "black blood," "Negro blood."

Aunt Madelyn murmuring with a fierce shake of her head, "That's black blood for you!"

At the racetrack one day, a gentleman friend of Duke's slyly observing of another not immediately within earshot, he wouldn't be surprised if the fellow wasn't trying to "pass... pass for white."

And the scandalized laughter in response.

Persia scolding prettily: "Oh, what a thing to say! Oh what a thing to say."' "Look at his lips: the size of them! And his hair."

Staring after them in the street, on the trolley car, on the city bus, where, as if by a natural tug of gravity others cannot register, they drift to the rear, polite, courteous, silent; choosing to stand hanging from hand straps back there where the ride is bumpier, where exhaust fumes accumulate, rather than take empty seats nearer the front where "whites" are sitting. The dividing line, sharp-eyed little Iris observes, shifts from day to day, from bus ride to bus ride. It's fluid and unpredictable, depending upon the numerical proportion of "whites" to "blacks."

"Why don't they sit with us? there's room," Iris whispers in Persia's ear. The two of them are together in one of those odd open seats flush with the side of the bus and there is plenty of room beside Persia for a young black mother and her two-year-old, but the woman, hanging from a hand strap, gazes sightlessly beyond them and Persia nudges Iris into silence: "Just hush."

As Hammond eases downward toward the river, as Uptown shifts to Lowertown and the buildings and houses and even the trees become shabbier, there is an increase of dark faces, an ebbing of white faces; and Persia sighs, runs a hand through her hair, says, "You can tell we're getting near home, can't you. Uh-huh."

They've moved again. From Java Street to Curry, from Curry to Holland.

Each time the moves are sudden and rapidly expedited "expedited" is Duke's word, one of his favorites.

Now they live on the very edge of Lowertown. (You would not want to say Niggertown; the only people Iris has heard say that have been drunk.) The Courtneys don't go to church, but around them many others go to church. Sunday mornings on East Avenue are amazing: the streams of churchgoing Negroes.... The gorgeous colors of the women, their hats, dresses, like peonies, big luscious plumphearted flowers. Men with their slicked-down pomaded hair. (And how it strikes Iris's eye, the strangeness of Negroes with gray or silver or white hair.) The boys in suits, white shirts, neckties.

Are these the sloe-eyed boys Iris sees in the park the boys she knows she should be wary of and avoid? And the pretty little girls Iris's age in starched cotton dresses, sashes tied in bows and bows in their hair...

like dolls. Walking self-consciously in their dressy shoes. Little white anklet socks.

Iris stares greedily. These skins like cocoa... milk chocolate bittersweet chocolate. A darkish purple sheen like the sheen of fat Concord grapes. And shoe polish: the rich black oily polish Daddy allows her to dab on his good shoes with a rag, then rub, rub, rub until the leather "shines like a mirror... can you see your own face?"

Dark dark eyes flashing slantwise to her.

Strange nappy woolly hair.

"Don't stare, I said," Persia whispers, giving her a poke.

Iris starts to ask, "Why" and Persia says, "Just don't."