"Kate Wilhelm - Funeral" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

gown that ended just above her knees. She turned and smiled, holding out both hands, flashing jeweled
fingers, long, gleaming nails that came to points. Then she reached up and took off her hair.

Carla felt that she would faint when the golden hair came off in the Lady's hands, leaving short, straight
brown hair. She placed the gold hair on a ball, and then, one by one, stripped off the long gleaming nails,
leaving her hands just hands, bony and ugly. The Lady peeled off her eyelashes and brows, and then
patted a brown, thick coating of something on her face, and, with its removal, revealed pale skin with
wrinkles about her eyes, with hard, deep lines beside her nose down to her mouth that had also
changed, had become small and mean. Carla wanted to shut her eyes, turn away, and go back to her
cubicle, but she didn't dare move. She could feel Madam Trudeau's stare, and the gaze seemed to burn.

The Lady took off the swirling gown, and under it was a garment Carla never had seen before that
covered her from her breasts to her thighs. The stubby fingers worked at fasteners, and finally got the
garment off, and there was her stomach, bigger, bulging, with cruel red lines where the garment had
pinched and squeezed her. Her breasts drooped almost to her waist. Carla couldn't stop her eyes,
couldn't make them not see, couldn't make herself not look at the rest of the repulsive body.

Madam Trudeau stood up and went to her door. "Show Carla the other two films." She looked at Carla
then and said, "I order you to watch. I shall quiz you on the contents." She left the room.

The other two films showed the same Lady at work. First with a protтАЪgтАЪe, then with a male citizen.
When they were over Carla stumbled back to her cubicle and vomited repeatedly until she was
exhausted. She had nightmares that night.

├║├║├║├║├║

How many days, she wondered, have I been here now? She no longer trembled, but became detached
almost as soon as she took her place between two of the tall windows. She didn't try to catch a whiff of
the fragrance of the Ladies, or try to get a glimpse of the Males. She had chosen one particular spot in
the floor on which to concentrate, and she didn't shift her gaze from it.

They were old and full of hate, and they said, let us remake them in our image, and they did.

Madam Trudeau hated her, despised her. Old and full of hate.

"Why were you not chosen to become a Woman to bear young?"

"I am not fit, Madam. I am weak and timid."

"Look at your hips, thin, like a Males' hips. And your breasts, small and hard." Madam Trudeau turned
away in disgust. "Why were you not chosen to become a Professional, a Doctor, or a Technician?"

"I am not intelligent enough, Madam. I require many hours of study to grasp the mathematics."

"So. Weak, frail, not too bright. Why do you weep?"

"I don't know, Madam. I am sorry."
"Go to your cubicle. You disgust me."

Staring at a flaw in the floor, a place where an indentation distorted the light, creating one very small oval