"Paul Park - A Princess of Roumania" - читать интересную книгу автора (Park Paul)

and I fight, sometimes I look at her and think, 'You're not my real mother. My
real mother is somewhere in Romania.'"
"Why Romania?"
"Because that's where she is." And then she told him about having been adopted
from the orphanage in Constanta. She kicked her foot over the edge of the dam.
"It's on the Black Sea. Have you heard of it?"
Peter shrugged. The stream under the dam was almost dry. Not much wider than a
snake, it slipped back and form over a bed of dry mud.
"I know a poem about Romania."
His mind was full of scraps of poetry that bis mother had taught him. Already
he had given her some recitations. " 'Oh, life is a marvelous cycle of song,'"
he now quoted, and then a few lines more.
This was very annoying, even though she found herself smiling. "Hey, shut up,"
she said, because he wasn't taking her seriously. "Sometimes I feel like
crying the whole time," she said, which was an exaggeration.
Peter was looking up the slope on the other side of the stream, squinting, not
paying attention, it seemed like. Now he turned toward her. He was interested
in things like tears or anger, she thought.
"Why?" he asked.
"Sometimes it's just that word. Romania. It makes my stomach turn."
She was deeper into the conversation than she wanted. She had only planned to
tell him about some of these things. But now she felt she had to continue,
because of the stupid poem. "I was three years old. I have these pictures in
my mind, but I can't tell what's real, what's made up. There's a woman I call
my aunt. There's a journey on a train. There's a man and he's talking to me,
trying to make me do something I don't want. There's a cottage with a tin
roof, and he's talking to me from the terrace above the beach. There's a stone
castle with a steepleтАФit's like a postcard in my mind. There's a little room
overlooking the sea."
Rachel and Stanley had found her in Constanta. They'd told her how her family
had disappeared during the uprising against Nicolae Ceausescu, the dictator
who had destroyed her country. But then who was the woman in the picture? She
had coarse skin, gray hair, dark eyes. Her hair was pinned up on the top of
her head, and she was dressed with great elegance in furs. It was wintertime
and she looked cold. But the smile on her frosted lips was full of love.
"God damn it," Miranda said.
Peter had wedged the stem of grass between his two front teeth, and he was
smiling. "Go on," he said.
"God damn you." Miranda blushed. To her surprise, her face was hot, and some
tears were moving down her cheeks. Was this a real emotion? She couldn't tell.
Peter looked away. "I'm not sure I believe you," he said. "I think you're
trying to make a fool of me."
"What do you mean?"
"Everyone feels as if they're from some foreign place. Or another planet. That
doesn't mean they are."
She scratched her nose. "Yeah," she said. "I guess you're right."
A few minutes before, she had pretended to be angrier than she was. But now
she was furious and she didn't show it. Who was Peter Gross to condescend to
her? Though he was older, he'd never acted like it before.
She looked down the stream, where it disappeared in a tangle of broken