"Kim Wilkins - The Autumn Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkins Kim)

the man's gaze, trying to discourage him. He was pale and clean-shaven, had a South African accent, and
was clearly battling with his impulses. On the one hand, he was aware it was rudeтАФmaybe even
distressing for herтАФto keep asking about the accident; on the other hand, he was talking with a real-life
survivor of a famous and tragic legend. Christine was used to this four seconds of struggle: enthusiasm
versus compassion. Compassion never won.

"When was that again? 1988?" he asked.

"1989," Christine replied. "November."

"Yes, of course. My sister cried for days. She'd always had a crush on Finn."

"I think a lot of women did."

"He was a good-looking man, and your mother was beautiful too."

Christine smiled in spite of herself, wondering if the man was now pondering how such stunning parents
had managed to produce such an ordinary-looking child.

"One thing I've always wanted to know," he said, leaning forward.

Christine braced herself. Why couldn't she ever tell these people to leave her alone? Why had she never
developed that self-preserving streak of aggression that would shut down his questions, lock up her
memories. "Yes?"

"You were in a coma for eight weeks after the accident."

"Yes."

"The kid who ran you off the road didn't stop."

"No."

"And there were no witnesses."

"That's right."

"Then how did they find him and convict him?"

Yes, her back was definitely twinging now, a horrid legacy of the accident, the reason November 1989
was never really consigned to the past, to that cold night and that long tunnel. Her doctor back home
would tell her that these twinges were psychosomatic, triggered by the memory. She had no idea what
the word for "psychosomatic" was in German, and the doctor she had seen twice since her arrival in
Berlin two months ago was happy to prescribe painkillers without too much strained bilingual
conversation.
"I was conscious for about half a minute directly after the accident," she explained. "The kid who hit us
stopped a second, then took off. I got his license plate, I wrote it on the dash."

"Really?" He was excited now, privy to some new juicy fact about the thirteen-year-old story. Many
details had been withheld from the press because the driver of the other car was a juvenile. The law had