"M. Rickert - Journey into the Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rickert Mary)

Journey into the Kingdom by M. Rickert
The growing legions of Ms. Rickert's fans will be pleased to know that a collection of her stories
entitled Map of Dreams will be published later this year. Her latest finds her in fine form.
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The first painting was of an egg, the pale ovoid produced with faint strokes of pink, blue, and violet to
create the illusion of white. After that there were two apples, a pear, an avocado, and finally, an empty
plate on a white tablecloth before a window covered with gauzy curtains, a single fly nestled in a fold at
the top right corner. The series was titled "Journey into the Kingdom."

On a small table beneath the avocado there was a black binder, an unevenly cut rectangle of white paper
with the words "Artist's Statement" in neat, square, hand-written letters taped to the front. Balancing the
porcelain cup and saucer with one hand, Alex picked up the binder and took it with him to a small table
against the wall toward the back of the coffee shop, where he opened it, thinking it might be interesting to
read something besides the newspaper for once, though he almost abandoned the idea when he saw that
the page before him was handwritten in the same neat letters as on the cover. But the title intrigued him.
AN IMITATION LIFE
Though I always enjoyed my crayons and watercolors, I was not a particularly artistic child. I produced
the usual assortment of stick figures and houses with dripping yellow suns. I was an avid collector of
seashells and sea glass and much preferred to be outdoors, throwing stones at seagulls (please, no
haranguing from animal rights activists, I have long since outgrown this) or playing with my imaginary
friends to sitting quietly in the salt rooms of the keeper's house, making pictures at the big wooden
kitchen table while my mother, in her black dress, kneaded bread and sang the old French songs
between her duties as lighthouse keeper, watcher over the waves, beacon for the lost, governess of the
dead.

The first ghost to come to my mother was my own father who had set out the day previous in the small
boat heading to the mainland for supplies such as string and rice, and also bags of soil, which, in years
past, we emptied into crevices between the rocks and planted with seeds, a makeshift garden and a
"brave attempt," as my father called it, referring to the barren stone we lived on.

We did not expect him for several days so my mother was surprised when he returned in a storm,
dripping wet icicles from his mustache and behaving strangely, repeating over and over again, "It is lost,
my dear Maggie, the garden is at the bottom of the sea."

My mother fixed him hot tea but he refused it, she begged him to take off the wet clothes and retire with
her, to their feather bed piled with quilts, but he said, "Tend the light, don't waste your time with me." So
my mother, a worried expression on her face, left our little keeper's house and walked against the gale to
the lighthouse, not realizing that she left me with a ghost, melting before the fire into a great puddle, which
was all that was left of him upon her return. She searched frantically while I kept pointing at the puddle
and insisting it was he. Eventually she tied on her cape and went out into the storm, calling his name. I
thought that, surely, I would become orphaned that night.

But my mother lived, though she took to her bed and left me to tend the lamp and receive the news of the
discovery of my father's wrecked boat, found on the rocky shoals, still clutching in his frozen hand a bag
of soil, which was given to me, and which I brought to my mother though she would not take the offering.

For one so young, my chores were immense. I tended the lamp, and kept our own hearth fire going too. I
made broth and tea for my mother, which she only gradually took, and I planted that small bag of soil by
the door to our little house, savoring the rich scent, wondering if those who lived with it all the time
appreciated its perfume or not.