"Gene Wolfe - The Waif" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

GENE WOLFE

THE WAIF
One of the modern masters of fantastic literature, Gene Wolfe has been challenging and
rewarding readers for thirty-odd years with his well-crafted, subtle tales. His last such gift to
us was "In Glory Like Their Star" in our October issue; now he brings us a poignant gem of a
story.

THE SOFT SIGH OF BREATH might have come from a puppy, and Bin hoped it did.
Quietly, hoping that it was a sleeping puppy and not a piglet (though he would very willingly
have petted a piglet), he went to see, the heavy stick forgotten in his hands.

It was a boy, sound asleep on straw, and covered with more straw and feed sacks. The
boy's face was white, and so delicate it might almost have been a girl's; his hair was as
black as a crow's wing. Bin stood watching him for a long time, feeling something he could
put no name to. He had never had a friend. Fil and Gid were not really his friends, but he had
not known that. At length he turned over a bucket and sat on it. That was the way you got the
rats to come out, you just waited, real still, not hardly breathing, till they thought you had
gone; but the other boy's breath made faint plumes of steam, and Bin's big, greasy coat with
the wool on the inside did not keep him warm enough. He found an old shingle and a bent
nail, and printed: IF YOU HUNGRY COME MY HOUSE LATE WHISTLE BY WINDOW. On
the other side: LITTLE ONE WEST NO ROAD.

Propping up the shingle near the sleeping boy, where he would be sure to see it, Bin tiptoed
to the door. Niman Corin was nowhere in sight, and that was good. Niman Joel's
punishments for trespassing had been light; but they had burned Niman Joel, and who could
say what Niman Corin might do? It was better not to be whacked at all.

Supper had been bread and soup, as it nearly always was. Bin lay in bed listening to Gam's
wheezing inhalations and speculating on the difficulties of giving the other boy soup. The
bowl and spoon would have to be returned. There could be no getting around that. Could he
trust the other boy to do it? Everyone had trusted Niman Joel, even the grownups.

He should have gone to see the reverend, after, like Gam said. He had not, had lied about it.
Gam had put his finger on the stove, not for lying but just so he would know how burning felt.
He had been punished for the lie, even if Gain had believed him. That was something to
remember.

To remember always.

Outside a saw-whet called, probably from the big pine at the edge of the woods.

It would have been better to have gone to the reverend. The reverend would have said what
Fil had said, that Niman Joel had been punished on Earth and was in heaven now and all
that. But it would have been better to have gone. One lie, and you have to watch everything
you say forever.

But Gid had not been lying when he said he had killed that rat. He had showed it, almost as
big as a cat. Or he had been, because somebody else had killed it, maybe. It had been
poisoned or something.