"Gene Wolfe - Bea and Her Bird Brother" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

"But, Dad...."

"You won't ever understand why I stayed, because you won't ever see it. Flowers bigger than I am, and
smell so sweet it got you drunk. Cold springs to drink of, and hot springs. Some so hot you had to walk
a mile down to wash. Trees up to the sky, and people with wings living in them."

"Bird people, Dad? Is that what you meant?"

"I could climb those trees, Bea, or some of them. The ones with rough bark, you know. Climb way high
up. Only I didn't have wings. I'd watch, every day. At night, when I'd found a little hollow or something
way high up, I'd dream about it--how I'd wake up with wings and go flying from tree to tree and
sometimes way up to the tops of the tallest, up where the air was thin and cold. I'd wake up, and for a
minute or two I'd think it was real and feel for my wings and try to move 'em." The old man in the bed
chuckled, a ringing of wooden chimes very far away. "I'd cry then, sometimes, Bea. Bawl like a baby.
You'd have been shamed of me."

"I'd never be ashamed of you, Dad."

"I said the day would never come when I decided to go back, only I was wrong. I got to missing certain
things and forgetting certain others, and decided I'd had enough. I'd learned the language, you see, or bits
of it, only I'd never be one of them. And I knew it. I told myself they weren't my kind--which was the
truth--and it would be better for me to get back to my own people. Which wasn't."

"Are we so bad?"

"Not you, Bea. Off I went. It was slow, you see. If I'd had wings, I could have done it in an hour. Only I
didn't, and that was the whole trouble. I had to walk, and ground was the most dangerous place. The
higher you got, the safer you were. How it always was there. So I'd go from limb to limb when I could.
Sometimes they touched, and I could step over. Sometimes I had to jump, and that was risky.
Sometimes there was nothing close enough. I'd have to go down to the ground, a long climb down and a
long climb back up. Scared, too. Scared every minute I was on the ground, and every minute when I was
just down low."

Bea smoothed her skirt over her knees, as she always did when she was thoughtful. "There are things ...
certain things I recall from childhood, Dad. The dog that mauled Benjy when we were little.... You were
never scared, never scared of anything or anybody, and everybody knew it. All the kids. All the
neighbors."

Dry and remote, the chuckle returned. "After being there? No. No, I wasn't. I'd got away from things
that would've eaten that little doggie for a snack. You hid, too, once. Remember that?"

"When I was little, Dad?" For the first time, Bea really saw the hospital room, all taupe and pastel green,
save for the bouquet she had sent from the office. "Sure. Lots of times. Behind the couch, mostly. Under
the dining room table. Even in the clothes hamper."

"Further back."

She smoothed her skirt again. "Well, it was--"