"Waldrop, Howard - Man Mountain Gentian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

"Barely," said Melissa.
"Would you like to see Kudzu House?" he asked.
For an architect, it was like being asked to one of Frank Lloyd Wright's vacation homes or one of the birdlike buildings designed by Eero Saarinen in the later twentieth century. Melissa considered.
"I should call home first," she said after a moment.
"I think your husband will still be at the Nue Vue Club, whooping it up with the money men."
"You're probably right. I'll call him later. I'd love to see your house."
The old man lay dying on his bed.
"I see you finally heard," he said. His voice was tired.
Man-Mountain Gentian had not seen him in seven years. He had always been old, but he had never looked this old, this weak.
Dr. Wu had been his mentor. He had started him on the path toward Zen-sumo (though he did not know it at the time). Dr. Wu had not been one of those cryptic koan-spouting quiet men. He had been boisterous, laughing, playing with his pupils, yelling at them, whatever was needed to get them to see.
There had been the occasional letter from him. Now, for the first time, there was a call in the middle of the night.
"I'm sorry," said Man-Mountain Gentian. "It's snowing outside."
"At your house, too?" asked Dr. Wu.
Wu's attendant was dressed in Buddhist robes and seemingly paid no attention to either of them.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Man Mountain Gentian.
"Physically, no. This is nothing a pain shift can help. Emotionally, there is."
"What?"
"You can win tomorrow, though I won't be around to share it."
Man-Mountain Gentian was quiet a moment. "I'm not sure I can promise you that."
"1 didn't think so. You are forgetting the kitten and the bowl of milk."
"No. Not at all. I think I've finally come up against something new and strong in the world. I will either win or lose. Either way, I will retire."
"If it did not mean anything to you, you could have lost by now," said Dr. Wu.
Man-Mountain Gentian was quiet again.
Wu shifted uneasily on his pillows. "Well, there is not much time. Lean close. Listen carefully to what I have to say.
"The novice Itsu went to the Master and asked him, `Master, what is the key to all enlightenment?'
" `You must teach yourself never to think of the white horse,' said the Master.
"Itsu applied himself with all his being. One day while raking gravel, he achieved insight.
" `Master! Master!' yelled Itsu, running to the Master's quarters. `Master, I have made myself not think about the white horse!'
" `Quick!' said the Master. `When you were not thinking of the horse, where was Itsu?'
"The novice could make no answer.
"The Master dealt Itsu a smart blow with his staff.
"At this, Itsu was enlightened."
Then Dr. Wu let his head back down on his bed.
"Good-bye," he said.
In his bed in the lamasery in Tibet, Dr. Wu let out a ragged breath and died.
Man-Mountain Gentian, standing in his bedroom in Tokyo, began to cry.
Kudzu House took up a city block in the middle of Toyko. The taxes alone must have been enormous.
Through the decreasing snow, Melissa saw the lights. Their beams stabbed up into the night. All that she could see from a block away was the tangled kudzu.
Kudzu was a vine, originally transplanted from China, raised in Japan for centuries. Its crushed root was used as a starch base in cooking; its leaves were used for teas and medicines; its fibers, to make cloth and paper.
What kudzu was most famous for was its ability to grow over and cover anything that didn't move out of its way.
In the Depression Thirties of the last century, it had been planted on road cuts in the southeastern United States to stop erosion. Kudzu had almost stopped progress there. In those ideal conditions it grew runners more than twenty meters long in a single summer, several to a root. Its vines climbed utility poles, hills, trees. It completely covered other vegetation, cutting off its sunlight.
Many places in the American south were covered three kilometers wide to each side of the highways with kudzu vines. The Great Kudzu Forest of central Georgia was a U.S. national park.
In the bleaker conditions of Japan the weed could be kept under control. Except that this owner didn't want it to. The lights playing into the snowy sky were part of the heating and watering system that kept vines growing year-round. All this Melissa had read. Seeing it was something again. The entire block was a green tangle of vines and lights.
"Do you ever trim it?" she asked.
"The traffic keeps it back," said Killer Kudzu, and he laughed. "I have gardeners who come in and fight it once a week. They're losing."
They went into the green tunnel of a driveway. Melissa saw the edge of the house, cast concrete, as they dropped into the sunken vehicle area.
There were three boats, four road vehicles, a Hovercraft, and a small sport flyer parked there.
Lights shone up into a dense green roof from which hundreds of vines grew downward toward the light sources.
"We have to move the spotlights every week," he said.
A butler met them at the door. "Just a tour, Mord," said Killer Kudzu. "We'll have drinks in the sitting room in thirty minutes."