"Robert Charles Wilson - Julian- A Christmas Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Charles)

closely. The words seemed strange. He was speaking in a guttural language, not English. Perhaps he
wasn't alone. It was too late to back away, however, so I decided to brazen it out. I opened the door
entirely and stepped inside, saying, "Sam! It's me, Adam. I have a message from JulianтАФ"

I stopped short, alarmed by what I saw. Sam GodwinтАФthe same gruff but familiar Sam who had
taught me the rudiments of history and geographyтАФwas practicing black magic, or some other form of
witchcraft: on Christmas Eve! He wore a striped cowl about his shoulders, and leather lacings on his
arm, and a boxlike implement strapped to his forehead; and his hands were upraised over an
arrangement of nine candles mounted in a brass holder that appeared to have been scavenged from some
ancient Tip. The invocation he had been murmuring seemed to echo through the room: Bah-rook-a-tah
-atten-eye-hello-hey-noo . . .

My jaw dropped.

"Adam!" Sam said, almost as startled as I was, and he quickly pulled the shawl from his back and
began to unlace his various unholy riggings.

This was so irregular I could barely comprehend it.

Then I was afraid I did comprehend it. Often enough in Dominion school I had heard Ben Kreel
speak about the vices and wickedness of the Secular Era, some of which still lingered, he said, in the
cities of the EastтАФirreverence, irreligiosity, skepticism, occultism, depravity. And I thought of the ideas I
had so casually imbibed from Julian and (indirectly) from Sam, some of which I had even begun to
believe: Einsteinism, Darwinism, space travel . . . had I been seduced by the outrunners of some New
Yorkish paganism? Had I been duped by Philosophy?

"A message," Sam said, concealing his heathenish gear, "what message? Where is Julian?"

But I could not stay. I fled the room.

Sam barreled out of the house after me. I was fast, but he was long-legged and conditioned by his
military career, strong for all his forty-odd years, and he caught me in the winter gardensтАФtackled me
from behind. I kicked and tried to pull away, but he pinned my shoulders.

"Adam, for God's sake, settle down!" cried he. That was impudent, I thought, invoking God, him
тАФbut then he said, "Don't you understand what you saw? I am a Jew!"

A Jew!

Of course, I had heard of Jews. They lived in the Bible, and in New York City. Their equivocal
relationship with Our Savior had won them opprobrium down the ages, and they were not approved of
by the Dominion. But I had never seen a living Jew in the fleshтАФto my knowledgeтАФand I was
astonished by the idea that Sam had been one all along: invisibly, so to speak.

"You deceived everyone, then!" I said.

"I never claimed to be a Christian! I never spoke of it at all. But what does it matter? You said you
had a message from JulianтАФgive it to me, damn you! Where is he?"

I wondered what I should say, or who I might betray if I said it. The world had turned upside-down.