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...
They discussed the article—which was about some kind of new antiviral that was being engineered out of a real virus whose genetics had somehow been altered—and then one of them said, very fast, “So, I thought Percy was cheating on me.”
“Really?” asked the other. “Why?”
“Well,” said the first, “he’d been acting really strange, you know? Late coming home from work, and really forgetful—he even forgot to meet me for my six-month checkup. And he started leaving the house really early in the morning, saying he had a lot of work and had to get it done, and then he started acting strangely around my father when we went over to my parents’ for Saturday lunch, kind of avoiding his gaze. So one day, after he left for work, I waited a few minutes, and then I followed him.”
“Belle! You didn’t!”
“I did! I was rehearsing what I was going to say to him, and what I’d say to my parents, and what I was going to do, when I realized that he was going into the Housing Development Unit. And I called out his name, and he was really surprised. But then he told me that he was trying to get us a better unit in a better part of the zone for when the baby comes, and that he and my father had been working on it together as a surprise.”
“Oh, Belle—that’s amazing!”
“I know. I felt so guilty for hating him, even if it was just a few weeks.”
She laughed, and so did her friend. “Well, Percy can take a little hatred if it’s from you,” said the second woman.
“Yes,” the first woman said, and laughed again. “He knows who’s in charge.”
They left the bathroom, and then I flushed and washed my hands and left too, and as I did, I passed the two women, still talking, but now in the hallway. They were both very pretty, and they both had shiny dark hair that they wore in neat buns at the base of their skulls, and little gold earrings shaped like planets. They were both wearing lab coats, of course, but beneath their hems I could see they were wearing colorful silk skirts and leather shoes with low heels. One of them, the prettier one, was pregnant; as she spoke to her friend, she rubbed her stomach in a slow circular movement.
I went back to my area, where I had a new batch of pinkies to move into individual petri dishes, which I had to fill with saline. As I worked, I thought of those notes my husband had kept. And then I thought of the woman in the bathroom, who had thought her husband might be seeing someone else, someone who wasn’t her. But her husband hadn’t been doing anything wrong after alclass="underline" He had only been trying to find her a bigger unit to live in, because she was pretty and educated and pregnant, and there would be no reason to find someone else, someone better, because there wouldn’t be someone better. I could tell by her hair that she must live in Zone Fourteen, and if she was a Ph.D., it meant that her parents probably lived in Zone Fourteen too, and had paid for her to go to school, and then paid more for her to live nearby. I found myself thinking of what they all ate for Saturday lunch—I had once heard that in Zone Fourteen there were stores where you could buy any kind of meat that you wanted, and as much as you wanted. You could have ice cream every day there, or chocolate or juice or even wine. You could buy candy or fruit or milk. You could go home and take a shower every day. I was thinking about this, and growing more and more agitated, when I dropped one of the pinkies. It was so tender that it turned into a smear of jelly upon impact, and I let out a cry: I was so careful. I never dropped pinkies. But now I had.
I thought about this woman who lived in Zone Fourteen throughout the weekend and Monday, and by the time it was Tuesday, and therefore my free night, I was thinking about her still. After dinner, I went straight to the bedroom instead of helping my husband with the dishes as I normally did just to use up some time. There I lay on the bed and rocked myself back and forth and talked to Grandfather, asking him what I should do. I imagined him saying, “It’s okay, little cat,” and “I love you, little cat,” but I couldn’t think of what else he might say. If Grandfather had been alive, he would have helped me figure out what I was upset about, and how to fix it. But Grandfather was not alive, and so I had to figure it out on my own.
Then I remembered what the woman in the bathroom had said, that she had followed her husband. Unlike her husband, my husband didn’t leave especially early in the morning. He didn’t come home late at night. I always knew where he was—except for Thursdays.
And that was when I decided that, on my husband’s next free night, I was going to follow him, too.
The next day, I realized that my plan had a flaw: My husband never came home from work on his free nights, so either I would have to find a way to follow him from the Farm or I would have to find a way to make him come home first. I decided the second option was more feasible. I thought and thought about what I was going to do, and then I came up with a solution.
That night, at dinner, I said, “I think there’s a leak in the showerhead.”
He didn’t look up from his plate. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said.
“But there’s some water pooled in the bottom of the tub,” I said.
He looked up then and pushed his chair back and went to the bathroom, where I had emptied half a cup of water into the tub; there would be just enough left to appear as if the spout had developed a leak. I heard him open the curtain and then turn the taps on and off, quickly.
As he did this, I remained in my seat, sitting straight, as Grandfather had taught me, waiting for him to return. When he did, he was frowning. “When did you notice this?” he asked me.
“Tonight, when I came home,” I said. He sighed. “I asked the zone super to tell someone from building management to come inspect it,” I said, and he looked at me. “But they can’t come until tomorrow at 19:00,” I continued, and he looked at the wall and sighed again, a big sigh, one that made his shoulders rise and fall. “I know it’s your free night,” I said, and I must have sounded scared, because my husband looked at me and gave me a small smile.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll come home first, to be with you, and I’ll go to my free night after.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.” Later, I would realize that he could have just said that he would take his free night on Friday instead. And then, later still, I would realize that the fact that he wanted to take his free night as usual meant that someone—the someone who’d sent those notes—was probably waiting for him on Thursdays, and that now he would have to find a way to tell this person that he would be late. But I knew that he would wait until the inspector came—our water consumption was monitored every month, and if you went over your allotment, you had to pay a penalty and it would be noted on your civilian records.
That Thursday, I told Dr. Morgan that I had a leak in my shower and I needed permission to go home early, which was granted. Then I took the 17:00 shuttle home, so by the time my husband got home—at 18:57, as he always does—I was making dinner. “Am I too late?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “he hasn’t come.”
I had made an extra nutria patty, just in case, and extra yams and spinach as well, but when I asked my husband if he wanted to eat something as we waited, he shook his head. “But you should eat it now, while it’s hot,” he said. Nutria meat congealed unless you ate it right off the stove.
So I did, sitting down at the table and moving the pieces around with my fork. My husband sat at the table, too, and opened his book. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?” I asked, but he shook his head again. “No, thank you,” he said.
We sat in silence for a while. He shifted in his seat. We never talked much over dinner, but at least we were doing an activity together when we sat down to eat. But now it was like we were in two glass boxes that had been placed next to each other, and although other people could see us, we couldn’t see or hear anything outside our own boxes, and had no idea of how close we were to each other.