"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 01 - The Ninja" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

'And Royston and Eng. What were they like?'
'Oh, Royston was okay, I suppose. Rather stuffy in the beginning but-he thawed a
bit later on. But Eng' - he shook his head - 'Eng was a bastard all right. He
had made up his mind about me before we had-even been introduced. The three of
us happened to he in the lounge one afternoon. "So you were born in Singapore,"
he said. Just like that. Standing over me, peering down at me through his round
wire-rimmed spectacles. That's what they must have been; they were far too
old-fashioned to be called glasses. He had a curious manner of speech, his words
emerging clipped, almost frozen, so that you could imagine them hanging in
mid-air like icicles. "A disgusting city, if you will pardon my saying so. Built
by the British, who had no more regard for the Chinese than they did for the
Indians."'
'What did you say?'
'Frankly, I was too stunned to say much of anything,' he said gloomily. 'The
bastard had hardly said two words to me all semester. He took me quite by
surprise.'
'You had no snappy rejoinder.'
'Only that he was wrong. I was conceived there.' He put down his glass. 'I asked
Dean Whoolson about it subsequently but he merely brushed it off. "Eng's a
-genius," was how he put it. "And you know how that sort is sometimes. I must
tell you, we are damn lucky to have him here. He almost went to Harvard but we
snared him at the last moment. Convinced him of the superiority of our research
facilities." He patted me on the back as if I were the department mascot. "Who
ever knows with Eng?" he said. "Perhaps he thought you were Malay. We all must
make allowances, Mr Linnear."'
'I don't understand that,' Justine said. 'You're not Malay, are you?'
'No, but if Eng thought I was, he might have reason to dislike me. The Chinese
and the Malays were constantly at each other's throats in the Singapore area. No
love lost there.'
'What are you?' She seemed abruptly quite close to him, her eyes enormous and
very luminous. 'There's an Asian hint in your face, I think. In your eyes
perhaps, or in the height of your cheekbones.'
'My father was English,' he said. 'A Jew who was forced to change his name so
that he could get ahead in business and then, during the war, in the Army. He
was a colonel.'
'What was his name? Before he changed it, I mean.'
'I don't know. He wouldn't tell me. "Nicholas," he said to me one day, "what's
in a name? The man who tells you that there is some significance in his name is
a bare-faced liar." '
'But weren't you ever curious about it?'
'Oh yes. For a time. But after a while I gave up looking.'
'And your mother?'
'Ah. That would depend on whom you spoke to. She always maintained that she was
pureblood. Chinese.'
'But,' Justine prompted.
'But in all likelihood she was only half Chinese. The other half was probably
Japanese.' He shrugged. 'Not that I was ever certain. It's just that she seemed
always to think like a Japanese.' He smiled. 'Anyway, I am a romantic and it's
far more exciting to think of her as a mixture. An unusual mixture given the
mutual animosity historically between the two peoples. More mysterious.'