To Paradise
- Автор: Yanagihara Hanya
- Год: 2022
- Язык: английский
- Год: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «To Paradise». Краткое содержание книги:
In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him--and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances.
These three sections are joined in an enthralling and...
“No,” I admitted.
And out came the story. In brief: There’s a clique of boys—not athletic, not good-looking: these are kids of scientists, after all—who’re considered “popular” because they make robots. The baby wanted to join them, and had been trying to hang out with them at lunch. But they rebuffed him, multiple times (“Respectfully, I can assure you. We don’t tolerate bullying or unkindness here”), and then I guess the baby brought in the syringe and told the head of the pack that he was going to give him a virus if he didn’t let him join. The entire class witnessed this exchange.
Hearing this, I felt two competing sensations: First, I was horrified that my child was threatening another child, and not just threatening him but threatening him with what he claimed was a disease. And second, I was heartbroken for him. I have blamed and do blame the baby’s loneliness on his homesickness, but the truth is that, even in Hawai‘i, he never had many companions. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but once, when he was about three, I saw him go over to some other kids on the playground who were playing in the sandbox and ask if he could join them. They said yes, and he got in, but as he did, they all got up and ran over to the jungle gym and left him there alone. They didn’t say anything, they didn’t call him names, but how could he see their departure as anything other than what it was—a rejection?
But the worst thing is what happened after: He sat there in the sandbox, looking at them, and then he slowly began playing by himself. Every few seconds he’d look over at them, waiting for them to come back, but they never did. After five or so minutes, I couldn’t take it any longer, and I went and gathered him up and told him we could have ice cream but he wasn’t to tattle on me to Daddy.
That night, though, I didn’t tell Nathaniel what had happened in the sandbox. I felt ashamed, somehow, implicated in the baby’s sorrow. He had failed, and I had failed to help him. He had been rejected, and I was somehow responsible for that rejection, if only because I had seen it and been unable to repair it. The next day, when we were walking to the playground again, he pulled on my hand and asked if we had to go. I told him no, we didn’t, and instead we went to get another illicit ice cream. We never went back to that playground. But now I think we should have. I should have told him that those other children had been unkind, and that it had nothing to do with him, and that he would find other friends, people who really loved and appreciated him, and that anyone who didn’t wasn’t someone who deserved his attention anyway.
But I didn’t. Instead, we never spoke of it. And over the years, the baby has become more and more withdrawn. Not necessarily with Nathaniel, maybe, but—well, maybe even with him. I just don’t know if Nathaniel sees it. It’s not something I could even accurately describe. But I increasingly feel as if he’s not quite present, even when he is, as if he’s already detaching himself from us. He has a couple of friends here, quiet, earnest boys, but they rarely come over to our apartment, and he’s rarely invited to theirs. Nathaniel always says he’s mature for his age, which is one of those things worried parents say about their children when their children baffle them, but I think what he’s mature in is his loneliness. A child can be alone. But he shouldn’t be lonely. And our child is.
Eliza recommended handwritten letters of apology, a two-week suspension, weekly counseling, an organized sport or two—“to challenge him, let him burn off some resentment”—and “greater participation from both of his parents,” which was meant for me, because Nathaniel attends every school meeting, game, event, and play. “I know it’s hard for you, Dr. Griffith,” she said, and before I could protest or make some defensive remark, she continued, more gently, “I know it is. I don’t mean that sarcastically. We’re all proud of the work you’re doing, Charles.” Suddenly I could feel my eyes fill, stupidly, with tears, and mumbled, “I’ll bet you say that to all the virologists,” and left, grabbing the baby by his shoulder and steering him out.
The baby and I walked back to the apartment in silence, but once we were inside, I turned on him. “What the hell were you thinking, David?” I yelled. “You realize the school could’ve expelled you, could’ve had you arrested? We’re guests in this country—don’t you know you could’ve been taken from us, been sent to a state institution? You know kids have been sent away for less?” I was about to continue when I saw the baby was crying, and that made me stop, because the baby rarely cries. “I’m sorry,” he was saying, “I’m sorry.”
“David,” I groaned, and I sat down next to him and pulled him into my lap like I used to when he was in fact a baby, and rocked him, also as I had done when he was a baby. For a while we were silent.
“Nobody likes me,” he said, quietly, and I said the only thing I could, which was “Of course they do, David.” But really, what I should have said is “No one liked me when I was your age either, David. But then I grew up, and people did like me, and I found your daddy, and we had you, and now I’m the luckiest person I know.”
We sat there a while longer. It had been a long, long time—years—since I had held the baby like this. Finally, he spoke. “Don’t tell him,” he said.
“Daddy?” I asked. “I have to tell him, David, you know that.”
He seemed resigned to this, and stood up to leave. But one thing had been troubling me. “David,” I said, “where did you get the syringe?”
I thought I might get some evasive answer, like “some kids” or “I dunno” or “I found it.” But instead he said, “I ordered it.”
“Show me,” I said.
And so he walked me over to the study, where I watched him log on to my computer—bypassing the retinal scan by tapping in my password with a deftness that proved this wasn’t the first time he’d done so—and then onto a site so illegal that I would be forced to file a report explaining what had happened and requesting a new laptop. He stood back from my chair and dropped his hand by his side, and for a while we both stared at the screen, on which a graphic of an atom whirred. Every few revolutions, the atom would halt, and a new category of offerings would appear above it: “Viral Agents.” “Needles and Syringes.” “Antibodies.” “Toxins and Antitoxins.”
You can imagine how I felt. But my first questions were practical ones: How had he known about such a site? How had he breached the security walls in order to access it? How had he known what to order? Who had given him the idea?
Was this normal for a child his age?
Was there something wrong with him?
Who was my child?
I looked at him. “David,” I began, though I had no idea what I was going to say next.
He wouldn’t look up, not even when I repeated his name. “David,” I said, for a third time, “I’m not angry”—which wasn’t exactly true, but what I was, I couldn’t identify—“I just need you to look at me,” and when he finally did, I saw from his face that he was scared.
And then—I don’t know why, I don’t—I hit him: with the flat of my palm, across his face. He yelped and fell backward, and I jerked him upright and hit him again, this time on his left cheek, and he burst into tears. It relieved me, somehow, that he was still capable of being frightened, of being frightened by me; it reminded me that he was still a child after all, that there was hope for him, that he wasn’t wrong or bad or evil. But I would only be able to articulate this to myself later—in that moment, I was only scared: scared for him, and also scared of him. I was about to hit him again when, suddenly, there was Nathaniel, pulling me off of him and shouting. “What the fuck are you doing, Charles?” he yelled at me. “You fucking asshole, you psycho, what the fuck are you doing?” He pushed me, hard, and I fell and hit my face on the floor, and then he took the baby, now sobbing, into his arms, consoling him. “Shh,” he murmured. “It’s okay, David, it’s okay, sweetheart, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”