"Sheri S. Tepper - The Family Tree" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

Dora shrugged. "Let's pretend it's symbolic, like a way of erasing the past."
Her expression said, don't ask; Polly didn't. They polished everything as they left each room, leaving the

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...r/Sheri%20S.%20Tepper%20-%20The%20Family%20Tree.htm (25 of 333)23-2-2006 17:57:17
 THE FAMILY TREE - Sheri S Tepper


keys on the kitchen counter and going out by the kitchen door. As they were driving away, Dora
remembered her secret key, the one she'd hidden in the trellis as a spare. Jared didn't know about it.
Jared wouldn't approve. People who were properly organized didn't need spare keys.
Never mind. Let it stay there.
They took a motel housekeeping unit where they could spend the night, and where Dora could stay until
she found a place of her own. All that night she turned and half wakened and turned again, trying to get
comfortable. Thoughts of Jared were like cracker crumbs in her bed, itchy and annoying. At last, along
toward dawn, she fell asleep, only to be wakened a couple of hours later to take Polly to the airport.



Opalears Tells a Tale
"The sultan wants you," said the eunuch.
I looked around to see who the eunuch meant. In the pool across the courtyard a clutch of concubines
was playing a desultory game of ball. Half a dozen wives reclined on their royal divans in the high,
screened balconies along the wall. A slave gang was scrubbing the tiled floor under the drowsy eyes of a
slave-mistress, but I, myself, was the only person near the eunuch.
"Me?" I faltered, hearing the word come out as a squeak.
"Opalears, daughter of Halfnose." The eunuch didn't actually yawn from boredom, but he very nearly
did, keeping his lips barely closed, so the longer teeth at the corners of his mouth showed, very white
and sharp.
"Now?" I said, squeaking again.
"Now." He turned and slunk away, leaving me tottering behind him, not sure what to do next.
He looked over his shoulder. "Come on, girl. Don't dither."
"But, I'm notтАжnotтАж" I gestured hopelessly at my untidy self, halfway between fixing snacks in the
kitchens and sorting linens in the laundry.
"He doesn't want you for that!" His furry eyebrows went up in astonishment as he grinned fiercely.
"Why would he?"
Which was a good question. Here in the Palace of Delights lived seventeen young wives of Sultan Tum-
myfat, all of them beautiful and voluptuous and politically useful. Here were also over two hundred
young concubines, mostly nice looking, mostly politically useful, mostly selected to gain the support of


file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...r/Sheri%20S.%20Tepper%20-%20The%20Family%20Tree.htm (26 of 333)23-2-2006 17:57:17
 THE FAMILY TREE - Sheri S Tepper


this faction or that. Elsewhere, in the Autumn Garden, Sultan Tum-myfat housed an unknown number of
retired wives and concubines, his own or his father's or uncle's, and between the Autumn Garden and
Palace of Delights, he had hundreds of female slaves, each attractive enough of her type, none of them
heretics or members of an opposition family, and not particularly distinguishable one from another. I
myself was a slave called Opalears, and I was among the youngest and least distinguishable. I was
surprised that the eunuch even knew who I was.