"Lisa Tuttle & Steven Utley - In the Hole" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuttle Lisa)

тАЬHeath, I want to make you happy.тАЭ

тАЬI know, and you do,тАЭ he told her, тАЬyou do make me happy,тАЭ and hated
himself for lying.

They said no more, only held each other, drifting into sleep. He awoke
in the unmoving depth of the night and looked for the little painted Swiss
clock that Cara always kept on her bedside table. Its glowing dial faced
away from him; he picked up the clock and turned it and held it to his ear. It
was silent, inert. He returned it to the bedside table and lay staring at the
pattern of shadow on the bedroom wall, listening to nothing, thinking about
the sleeping woman at his side, with her head cradled in the hollow of his
shoulder.

Then he found himself thinking about the other Cara, the one he had
known in the hole. How had her imagined touch aroused him so incredibly,
when the real woman, using her mouth and hands as he taught her, could
not? What was wrong with him? He lay awake almost until dawn, worrying
and wondering.

On the second day, he walked around the house, noting jobs that
needed doing. Then, without telling Cara or even thinking to tell her, he set
off for a long walk around the town and did not return until late afternoon. He
found her in the kitchen, preparing her fatherтАЩs dinner tray.

тАЬWhere have you been?тАЭ she demanded.

тАЬI went searching for old landmarks,тАЭ he told her. тАЬI didnтАЩt find many.
In fact, at one point I started wondering if IтАЩd ever actually lived in this place
before.тАЭ

тАЬThatтАЩs ridiculous. Of course you did.тАЭ

тАЬCara, more than half the houses I passed looked like nobody lives in
them. Many were uninhabitable. ThereтАЩs a house at the end of this street
with only half its roof. Its ceilingтАЩs caved in, too. I could see, through the
dirty windows, the shadow of rafters cast on an inside wall. Other houses I
saw had charred walls, broken, sagging roof beams, empty windows,
missing doors. And everything overgrown, vines, fallen limbs of trees.тАЭ He
hesitated, groped for words. тАЬDisappearing into wilderness. Here and there
I passed a lot covered in rubble, as if the house thatтАЩd been there just burst
apart under the impact of an immense fist. Further on, the same fist mustтАЩve
ploughed through the cemetery. I think some graves are broken open
thereтАФI couldnтАЩt bring myself to look too closely. And feral, starving cats,
prowling everywhere, skittering away when I looked at them. Cara, what
happened here?тАЭ

He saw emotions flowing across her face like a speeded-up history of
grief: flat denial gave way to fury at his lies, then she reluctantly conceded
that some of it might be so, yet haggling over the details, then sinking into