"James Tiptree Jr - Beyond the Dead Reef" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

time after that; Chuc seemed to calm down. Then the tall Belizan waved me over.

"Will you say exactly what I tell you to say?"

"WhyтАФ" But his expression stopped me. "If you say it's important."

"It is. Can you say in Spanish, 'I ask your pardon, Mr. Chuc. I mistook myself in your language. I did not
say anything of what you thought I said. Please forgive my error. And please let us be friends again.'"

"I'll try."

I stumbled through the speech, which I will not try to reproduce here, as I repeated several phrases with
what I thought was better accent, and I'm sure I threw several verbs into the conditional future. Before I
was through, Chuc was beginning to grin. When I came to the "friends" part he had relaxed, and after a
short pause, said in very tolerable English, "I see, so I accept your apology. We will indeed be friends. It
was a regrettable errorтАж And I advise you, do not again speak in Spanish."

We shook on it.

"Good," said my companion. "And he'll take you out tomorrow, but not the Dead Reef. And keep your
hands off your wallet tonight, but I suggest liberality tomorrow eve."

We left Chuc to finish up, and paced down to a bench at the very end of the muelle. The last colors of
evening, peaches and rose shot with unearthly green, were set off by a few low-lying clouds already in
grey shadow, like sharks of the sky passing beneath a sentimental vision of bliss.

"Now what was all that about!" I demanded of my new friend. He was just tucking the flask away again,
and shuddered lightly.

"I don't wish to seem overbearing, but that probably saved your harmless life, my friend. I repeat Jorge's
adviceтАФstay away from that Spanish of yours unless you are absolutely sure of being understood."

"I know it's ghastly."

"That's not actually the problem. The problem is that it isn't ghastly enough. Your pronunciation is quite
fair, and you've mastered some good idioms, so people who don't know you think you speak more
fluently than you do. In this case the trouble came from your damned rolled rrrs. Would you mind saying
the words for 'but' and 'dog'?"

"PeroтАж perro. Why?"

"The difference between a rolled and a single r, particularly in Maya Spanish, is very slight. The upshot of
it was that you not only insulted his boat in various ways, but you ended by referring to his mother as a
dogтАж He was going to take you out beyond the Dead Reef and leave you there."

"What?"

"Yes. And if it hadn't been I who askedтАФhe knows I know the storyтАФyou'd never have understood a
thing. Until you turned up as a statistic."