"Laura Resnick - Confessional" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

possible to lose a son of so many tears. It was left entirely to me,
therefore, to attend to the grueling and mundane matter of our daily survival.
Actually, I preferred it that way. The hard work, the hunt for black
market goods, the struggle to secure bread and pasta for another day, and the
careful management of too little money were all occupations that prevented me
from dwelling too long on the desert which my life had become. In some strange
and perverse way, I even welcomed the bombing of Palermo during the battle for
Sicily which raged for five weeks that summer. The thundering of the skies,
the fires which engulfed whole sections of the city, the trembling of the
earth, and the terror of death all quickened my blood and assured me that I




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was still alive. And if I clung to life so tenaciously, surely it must still
be worth living. In the numb years following my marriage, I had often
wondered; I might have even contemplated ending my own bleak existence, did I
not know it to be a mortal sin.
Perhaps it was that renewed vulnerability to life -- the rediscovered
sensation of my heart pounding with fear, the limp pleasure of relief, and the
profound gratitude I knew when experiencing the simplest sensations after
enduring the threat of annihilation -- that plunged me again into the warm and
turbulent sea of human desires after I had spent so long sitting indifferently
on its shores. Perhaps I was seduced by the breath of hope that blew across
our hungry land after the brutal years of war. Perhaps I was swept away by the
exuberance of the young men who conquered Sicily like the Crusaders, those
ancient heroes of so many marionette spectacles and folk songs from my
childhood. Maybe it was the late-blooming scent of the season which awoke me,
the fragrance which escaped from a million unfurling blossoms, the aroma of
ripening crops, the promise of rebirth, the release of Persephone from the
dark underworld where Pluto held her captive.
Or perhaps it was only my first glimpse of _him_ which changed
everything. Was it a sign, I wonder, that I first saw him at the Fountain of
Shame, in the Piazza Pretoria? The nude statues, which had so horrified the
_palermitani_ when first unveiled by the northern artist who had created them
centuries ago, seemed to glow like living things beneath the dazzling
Mediterranean sun on that hot, quiet afternoon. I had expected to be the only
person at the fountain at that hour; everyone else should be either eating or
sleeping. But Americans, he explained to me later, believe it a sin to sleep
in the middle of the day.
Surprised to see him, I stayed in the shadows and stared at him as he
walked around the fountain, studying the voluptuous figures with the intent
interest of a healthy young man. Young, indeed, I thought, feeling a sweet,
forbidden stirring.
Alone and entranced, he gave into his longing and touched one of the
statues at last, running his palm along the smooth swell of her naked breast,
testing the fecund bulge of her marble belly, stroking the eternal grace of
her plump thighs. I swallowed and felt my eyes sting. My heart pounded as if
Palermo were being bombed again, and sharp memories of my wakeful nights as a