"Somtow Sucharitkul - The Fallen Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sucharitkul Somtom)

тАФFOUND HALF-DEAD ON THE LEDGE, HIS ARMS
AROUND THE STEEPLE ON THE SIDE OVERLOOK-
ING ANGEL PLAZA. FATHER EPSTEIN, SUMMER-
TIME PASTOR STANDING IN FOR FATHER SANTINI,
WHILE TRYING TO RING THE BELLтАФ
"It says here,тАЭ I said, "that you were suffering from
severe frostbite."

"Yes. From the snow."

"It doesn't snow in Florida in the middle of AugustтАФ"
No point trying to argue with him yet. My job was to listen,
only to listen. I wasn't trained to root out traumas. It wasn't
up to me to pronounce the kid an attempted suicide either,
or to solve the mystery of how he got to the topmost turret
of a locked historical monument, or to elucidate the medi-
cal wonder of frostbite in a hundred-degree heatwave- I
was only a counsellor in a parochial school too poor and
stupid to afford an expert.

I wouldn't get anywhere by questioning his story.
Perhaps I should start with something else. "How often do
they beat you up?" I said.

"What?" Terror flecked his eyes for a second. Then they
went dead. He said, "Almost every day." It was in the
same tone of voice.

"Who?"

"Pete, my Mom's boyfriend."

"What?"

He told me about it, never raising his voice. I had been
doing this for twenty years. After a while you grow iron
railings round your brains. Nothing hurts anymore. I lis-
tened, staring at my hands and wishing a ton of Porcelana
on them. I knew I would sit there and endure until the
catalogue of beltings and poundings had dissolved into
incoherence, into tears, into hysteria, and then I would
flow Into the cracks in the kid's soul like epoxy glue and
make him seem whole for a while . . . but he didn't give
me a chance. He went on in that same monotone, detail
after detail, until it was I who was ready to crack. I held up
my hand. He stopped.

"Don't you ever cry?" I said.

"Not any more," he said. 'IтАЩve promised."