"Ian Watson - Stalin's Teardrops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

"Such as the viewpoint of the StateтАж ? Listen to me: if we inflate
certain areas, then we shrink others away to a vanishing point. These
places can still be found by the map-maker who knows the relation
between the false and the real; one who knows the routes. From here
to there; from now to then. Do you recognize this street, Grusha? Do
you know its name?"
"I can't see a signpostтАж"


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Stalin's Teardrops


"You still don't understand." I drew her towards a shop window,
under a street lamp which had now illuminated. "Look at yourself!"
She regarded her late-adolescent self. She pressed her face to the
plate glass as though a ghostly shop assistant might be lurking inside,
imitating her stance. Then she sprang back, not because she had
discovered somebody within but because she had found no one.
"These dead zones," she murmured. "You mean the gulags, the places
of internal exileтАж"
"No! I mean places such as this. I'm sure other people than me must
have found similar dead zones; and never breathed a word. These
places have their own inhabitants, who are recorded on no census."
"So you're a secret dissident, are you, Valentin?"
I shook my head. "Without the firm foundation of the State-as-it-
isтАФwithout the lie of the land, as Mirov innocently put itтАФhow
could such places continue to exist? That is why we must not destroy
the work of decades. This is magicalтАФmagical, Grusha! I am young
again. My mistress lives here."
She froze. "So your motives are entirely selfish."
"I am old, back at the Centre. I've given my life to the State. I
deserveтАж No, you're too ambitious, too eager for stupid troublesome
changes. It is you who are selfish at heart. The very best of
everything resides in the past. Why read modern mumbo-jumbo
when we can read immortal Turgenev or Gogol? I've sufferedтАж
terror. My Koshka and I are both honed in the fires of fear." How
could I explain that, despite all, those were the best days? The pure
days.
"Fear is finished," she declared. "Clarity is dawning."
I could have laughed till I cried.
"What we will lose because of it! How our consciousness will be
diminished, diluted, bastardised by foreign poisons. I'm a patriot,
Grusha."
"A red fascist," she sneered, and started to walk away.
"Where are you going?" I called.
"Back."
"Can't do that, girl. Not so easily. Don't know the way. You'll traipse

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