"Oates, Joyce Carol - Broke Heart Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

"woman in white"--as described by the medical emergency crew who'd rushed to the suite--had left the premises almost as soon as they arrived, slipping away without anyone taking notice, they'd had but a vague, confused impression of her, believing her to have been a nurse, perhaps, a nursecompanion of the stricken man who'd seemed, in the blue-faced of such a death, to be much older than his age. Closely by legal investigators in the hire of the Edgihoffers, who'd valiantly sought to break the Colonel's last, clearly demented will, the medical attendants said that deaths like "that old man's" occurred so frequently in Las Vegas, in the big hotels, it was difficult to remember one from another--"And the women sort of look alike, too."

"The Edgihoffer tragedy"--that was exclusively a subject for the generations. Our parents, grandparents, relatives--and their help, too-spoke obsessively of it in the weeks and months following the Colonel's death. (His funeral was strictly private, attended only by close relatives, at the St.. Luke's Episcopal Church where the Colonel had been baptized, as everyone remarked, almost sixty years before to the day. The funeral was so private that even the Amherst Edgihoffers weren't invited--the large, diverse family of Edgihoffers having split off, at about the turn of the century, into two generally rivalrous factions. ) The Colonel with his drooping white mustache, polished-looking bald head and exaggerated military bearing was something of a local celebrity and a war hero, decorated for his valor in France, in World War II, a friendly acquaintance of General Dwight Eisenhovaer during the war years and an occasional visitor to the when

"Ike" was president, and the Edgihoffers were a well-to-do, much respected local family who owned property in downtown Buffalo, years a thriving Great Lakes city whose original name, Beau Fleuve French, "beautiful rivery meaning the Niagara), wouldn't have seemed so ironic as it would in the economically depressed years to come.

Edgihoffer name was associated with Christian charity, goodness, standards. It was boring and embarrassing to be an Edgihoffer, Reggie complained, even at Colgate where he went to college there'd be an aura attached to his name, or possibly it was just the sound of it--"Like some old echo out of the dead past." Reggie was stricken with embarrassment by any talk of the

"Edgihoffer tragedy" because everybody knew that what meant was sex, but sex involving a man of such an advanced age, even forty, it was mortifying even to contemplate. "Whose is it what Uncle Ez did with his money? Or anything any old guy does?

to do? Christ's sake." We all felt the same way.

The sexual behavior of older generations--just to think of it made queasy. 4't t "But I have the key. Colonel Edgihoffer placed it in my hand, and doesn't have to be probated in any will." It was true. Colonel Edgihoffer had not only willed his family home at 8 Meridian Place to the woman named Dahlia Heart, of whom no one Willowsville had ever heard, he'd presented her with the actual to the house--"For safekeeping," he'd said mysteriously. As if he'd had presentiment of death. Or a sense that things would shortly veer out of his forever.

Naturally, the Colonel's children had expected the house, and other properties, to be willed to them. And, in an earlier will, they'd been the principal heirs. But now there was a new will, said to have been "hastily drawn up" in Las Vegas, Nevada, only a few days before the Colonel's death.

Since the death of Esdras Edgihoffer's wife Mildred a few years before, it was generally conceded that he'd begun to behave strangely.

Unpredictably.

Their marriage had not been a happy one--though, by the standards of their era, it hadn't been an unhappy one, but it had nobly for more than three decades and had acquired, in the view of Willowsville society, the featureless stolidity of the most grave-marker in the Episcopal cemetery, the black marble monument J W W Edgihoffer (1834-1910) who had established the family's early fortune in trading on the Great Lakes in the boom years following War The Colonel and his wife had, in later years, traveled separately, belonged to separate clubs, and had distinctly different favorites among their four adult children. Never would they have established separate residences, nor would they have contemplated divorce, for such things weren't done in good society, but there was a collective sense of relief among the when, after years of querulous illnesses and convalescences, Mildred Edgihoffer settled into a serious kidney condition, and died. "Now nothing scandalous can possibly happen between her and Esdras!" The Colonel had genuinely stricken with grief, for several months.

Around this time, Colonel Edgihoffer was invited to speak at our school for Memorial Day. The red-white-and-blue-striped and starred sixfoot flag was repositioned at stage center, behind the podium at which, in full dress uniform, his left breast gleaming with military decorations bright as tinsel trinkets from our breakfast cereal boxes, the Colonel spoke passionately of "patriotism"--"democracy"--"sacrifice"--"valor"--"vigilance against the Red Menace." You couldn't help but be impressed with the man's rapid-fire speech, which emulated (we thought) the staccato machine-gun fire and flak. And his fierce white mustache of the of Ivory White our moms, or our moms' Negro cleaning ladies, used on day.

And his ramrod-straight posture, and the flash of his bloodhound eyes. Sure, some of us were bored out of our skulls, since infancy we'd heard tales from our dads and other old guys about World War II, and other wars, the Colonel made a strong impression. And then at the conclusion Colonelxs speech, when our principal, Mr.. Stamish, invited questions from the audience a swarthy sophomore named Ricky Calvo shot his hand the air before anyone else and asked in a wise-guy voice, "Colonel, dld the U. S. drop A-bombs on Japanese civilians?" There was a p"Use Mr.. Stamish, a pork-faced man with polished glasses, in dismay. The Colonel's face reddened. Who the hell was Ricky Ca]vo? A kid, belonging to one of those Italian families who lived on the eastern edge of Willowsville on lower Spring, or Water, or Division. His was a carpenter for Skelton Construction. Or worked for Moss Lawn Service.

Ricky Calvo wasn't one of us and we sort of resented him for speaking up like that as if he was, but it was thrilling, too, to see the Colonel's reaction, glaring out at him, like an officer glaring at an underling before he orders him shot, saying in a blustery voice, "Why, son, to stop the war.

Mr.. Truman offered the Japs--Japanese--plenty of opportunities to surrender but they refused. And so--" But wise guy Calvo interrupted, continuing, "On children? on babies? on elderly people? on hospital patients?

My dad says--" The Colonel interrupted, his voice rising, "The Japs--Japanese--would not surrender unconditionally! Their own pride destroyed them! Their madness!

They gave us no choice, son." The Colonel had stepped from behind podium to squint angrily into the audience at this defiant adolescent. Fearful of his bloodhound eyes, we cringed in our seats. "Who's been talking to you, son? You have been imbued with the wrong, wrong, wrong idea."

Calvo could rcfly, Mr.. Stamish quickly cut off the exchange.

One by one four Calvo boys and three Calvo girls, all swarthy-skinned and good-looking, would attend our high school. Sasha Calvo, one day to acquire renown as John Reddy Heart's girl, was the youngest. We'd never forget Ricky, though he wasn't one of us and never would be.

He lived at the wrong end of Willowsville. He'd come along years too early to be Italian. ) After this the Colonel began to miss golf dates with old friends.

He was observed entering the enormous dining room of the Willowsville Club, halting in his tracks, turning, and walking out again.

vividly white mustache began to droop. He declined dinner invitations without excuses or, unforgivably shocking in Willowsville society as a breach of promise, he accepted and failed to show up. It was realized that he'd ceased attending church since his wife's funeral. And he'd ceased giving money to the church. Without informing anyone, including even his housekeeper of twenty years, he began to disappear from Willowsville for varying periods of time. He was rumored to be "gambling." He was rumored to be "drinking." The handsome old landmark colonial at 8 Meridian Place, in which Edgihoffers had lived since the late 1890s, began to be neglected, repainting, repair. The intricate rock garden in the side lawn, much-photographed pride of the Gardeners' Club of Buffalo, began to be overgrown and weedy.

The Colonel's old friend and neighbor Aickley Thrun remarked philosophically, "Even before the blackjack woman, Esdras was consorting with unsavory, treacherous people. The end was foretold." The Edgihoffer family lawyers, the old Buffalo firm of Chase, Rush, Beebee & Pepper, fought to break the Colonel's Las Vegas will, but Heart, following the confidential advice of Jerry Bozer, of Metropolitan Life, with whom she became acquainted (how closely, was disputed)

after moving to Willowsville, countered by hiring the aggressive Buffalo firm i. of Trippe, Schwartz, McVitter and Cranker to defend it. Since, was acknowledged, Mrs.. Heart was already in residence in the late Colonel's house, with her father and three children, and since the Las Vegas will complete and duly executed, there was little the Edgihoffers could do. Public sentiment and a collective sense of justice were on their side, but the law, it seemed, was on the side of the blackjack woman. The case dragged-on for months and was finally settled out of court with an undisclosed amount of money going to the "rightful heirs." How much, in fact, did Dahlia Heart inherit from Colonel Edgihoffer?

No one ever knew definitively. There was much speculation, ranged from a modest $50, 000 to $500, 000. The property at 8