"Laura Resnick - Under a Sky More Fiercely Blue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

have looked to him, a man who had lived like a king in the gold-paved streets
of America.
At first, I ignored the airplane as it soared above the ancient hills
of Western Sicily. But when the parachute blossomed under a sky more fiercely
blue than any other, my heart burned like the heart of a fire, and I hid
behind some rocks to watch its slow descent. I knew that a solitary man
falling out of the sky and landing secretly in this rocky, barren landscape
could only mean one thing: the Allies had finally sent someone to Sicily.
Of course, one man was not an army, and I quickly began to suspect that
_this_ man was not even a soldier. He fell to earth with a harsh crash and




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cursed fluidly in Sicilian dialect as he rolled downhill, getting tangled up
in his parachute. I watched as he finally fought his way out from beneath its
folds, rose stiffly to his feet, and gathered the billowing heap of silk into
a careless bundle which he then hid beneath a prickly pear. That made me grin,
for I knew no Germans would want to look for it there; I had seen them howl
like children after trying to pick the sweet fruit of the _fico d'India_.
Having hidden the parachute, he retrieved the small knapsack he had
dropped upon landing and looked around, as if trying to guess where he was.
Who knows how different the shape of my life might have been, had I stayed
hidden and let him go his way? But I realized that he was Sicilian, despite
his foreign clothes, for such things are clear to the ear and the eye. I was a
more curious boy than my mother had taught me to be, and, hoping the stranger
had food with him, I cautiously came out of hiding.
He was as alert as a wild animal, for he fell to the ground, rolled
away, and drew a pistol out of nowhere in one smooth, swift movement. I
crossed myself and tried, with a dry, sluggish tongue, to confess my sins
before God.
"Holy shit," he said in English, and I frowned at the strange sound of
the words. "A kid."
He rose slowly from the ground and looked around again, more carefully
this time.
"Are you alone?" he asked. His Italian was guttural, like my mother's.
I nodded. "Where's your father?" he demanded, as if he supposed I was lying.
I found my voice. "Dead."
"Ah. Then where are your brothers?"
I was silent until he cocked the hammer of the gun. "Marco and Rosario
are dead. Tommaso has been in Africa since 1938." I looked at the ground and
admitted, "He might be dead, too."
There was a long silence between us, and it grew so heavy that I
finally looked up. Our gazes locked, and I couldn't have looked away if my
life had depended upon it. In that moment, his eyes were as cold and flat as a
snake's, utterly indifferent to my youth and my fear. I did not tremble or beg
for mercy, for I had been raised to be a man; but I know that I could throw
myself into the fires of Mount Etna more easily than I could face a look like
that again. If I live another century, I will never forget the expression in