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

stayed long, though. Jared didn't look kindly on people like Jimbo. Jared didn't look kindly, period.
Maybe seven out of nine wasn't that bad. In a family with the diddle gene, seven out of nine was damn
near a miracle. Dora didn't call it the diddle gene now, of course. She knew the curse for what it was.
Chronic depression, something you could be born with, something you couldn't do much about,
something you passed from parent to child, begetting misery and suicides and endless dark days of
hopelessness and despair. Dora had seen it, firsthand, and why would she want more babies to pass it on
to? After all the years, she still missed the musicтАж
"Did you ever hear music in your head, Grandma?"
"Like a tune, child?"
"No. Like a huge orchestra, with all the instruments, and playing the most marvelous musicтАж" She had
looked up to find tears in Grandma's eyes. "Grandma?"
"Just remembering, child. Oh, yes. I remember the music. The horns of elfland, that's what it was."
"Elfland?"


file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...r/Sheri%20S.%20Tepper%20-%20The%20Family%20Tree.htm (10 of 333)23-2-2006 17:57:17
 THE FAMILY TREE - Sheri S Tepper


"That's what Tennyson called it. Oh, well, child. I've never heard it since I wasтАжmaybe ten. It's a
childhood thing, I think. Once we're grown, all we can hear are what the poet described: the echoes,
dying."
Dora shook herself. Enough. Here she was, rolling around in the surf again, letting the undertow take
hold of her. Currents of memory. Sadnesses that could turn you upside down, rubbing your face in the
sands of what-if. Get up on your hind legs, as Grandma used to say, and put one foot in front of the
other!
She had three days off, and she wanted to wash all the blinds and take the drapes to be cleaned. They
were such heavy fabric, stiff as a board. Dora would have preferred light curtains that stirred in the wind,
graceful fabric, like the skirts of dancers, but Jared preferred things that remained rigidly in place,
always the same. If he hadn't known the neighbors would laugh at him, he'd have bought plastic rose
bushes and plastic hostas, unfading, unchanging, ungrowing.
She caught herself grinning ruefully. If he hadn't known the neighbors would laugh, he'd have bought
himself a plastic wife.
Wednesday morning she went out to get the paper, and when she came back to the door, there was the
weed again. This time there was no shock. The sight of the unfolding green was almost expected. That
smooth root had been the clue. Jared hadn't even touched the way-down root; it was still there, still
pushing up.
"That was fast," she commented, leaning against the door. "You'll duck down behind the stoop if you
know what's good for you. Jared'll just pull you out again." He'd have to do it himself. She wasn't going
to help him.
She was just letting herself through the front door when the phone rang, and it was her partner, Phil Der-
mont, asking her about some case notes.
"I've got them here, Phil. What's the problem?"
He couldn't read his notes. What was the name of the woman who'd seen that stabbing victim just before
he was killed?
"That's Manconi's case. Did he come up with something new on that?"
"Nah," he muttered. "I'm just cleaning up the reports."
She and Phil had done some interviews for Manconi when his partner had been out sick, but the reports
should have been done months ago! On a scale of one to ten, however, Phil's clerical and note-taking
skills were a minus six. Phil sometimes couldn't decipher his notes five minutes after he took them!