"Connie Willis - The Last of the Winnebagos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

state we were in was Nevada."
Up this close it was easy to see where he had painted out the name of
the original RV and covered it with the bar of red. The paint had the dull
look of unauthenticity. He had covered up the "Open Road" with a
burnt-wood plaque that read, "The Amblin' Amblers."
He pointed at a bumper sticker next to the door that said, "I got lucky
in Vegas at Caesar's Palace," and had a picture of a naked showgirl. "We
couldn't find a decal for Nevada. I don't think they make them anymore.
And you know something else you can't find? Steering wheel covers. You
know the kind. That keep the wheel from burning your hands when it gets
hot?"
"Do you do all the driving?" I asked.
He hesitated before answering, and I wondered if one of them didn't
have a license. I'd have to look it up in the lifeline. "Mrs. Ambler spells me
sometimes, but I do most of it. Mrs. Ambler reads the map. Damn maps
nowadays are so hard to read. Half the time you can't tell what kind of
road it is. They don't make them like they used to."
We talked for a while more about all the things you couldn't find a
decent one of anymore and the sad state things had gotten in generally,
and then I announced I wanted to talk to Mrs. Ambler, got the vidcam and
the eisenstadt out of the car, and went inside the Winnebago. She still had
the dishtowel in her hand, even though there couldn't possibly be space for
that many dishes in the tiny RV. The inside was even smaller than I had
thought it would be, low enough that I had to duck and so narrow I had to
hold the Nikon close to my body to keep from hitting the lens on the
passenger seat, It felt like an oven inside, and it was only nine o'clock in
the morning.
I set the eisenstadt down on the kitchen counter, making sure its
concealed lens was facing out. If it would work anywhere, it would be here.
There was basically nowhere for Mrs. Ambler to go that she could get out
of range. There was nowhere I could go either, and sorry, Ramirez, there
are just some things a live photographer can do better than a
preprogrammed one, like stay out of the picture.
"This is the galley," Mrs. Ambler said, folding her dish-towel and
hanging it from a plastic ring on the cupboard below the sink with the
cross-stitch design showing. It wasn't a rooster after all. It was a poodle
wearing a sunbonnet and carrying a basket. "Shop on Wednesday," the
motto underneath said.
"As you can see, we have a double sink with a hand-pump faucet. The
refrigerator is LP-electric and holds four cubic feet. Back here is the
dinette area. The table folds up into the rear wall, and we have our bed.
And this is our bathroom."
She was as bad as her husband. "How long have you had the
Winnebago?" I said to stop the spiel. Sometimes, if you can get people
talking about something besides what they intended to talk about, you can
disarm them into something like a natural expression.
"Nineteen years," she said, lifting up the lid of the chemical toilet. "We
bought it in 1989. I didn't want to buy itтАФI didn't like the idea of selling
our house and going gallivanting off like a couple of hippies, but Jake went
ahead and bought it, and now I wouldn't trade it for anything. The shower