Happy New Year, Herbie and other stories
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Год: 1963
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon and Schuster
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Happy New Year, Herbie and other stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“Bribed?” Beth supplied.
“Well...”
“You are,” she said. “I’m twenty-eight years old, Matt, and I’m tired of necking by the river. Yes or no?”
“If I say no?”
“Is that your answer?” She rose and brushed off her skirt.
“Wait!”
“Yes or no, Matt?”
“How do you know I love you?” he said.
“I didn’t ask,” Beth answered.
He hesitated for a long while. Then, committing himself for the first time since Clyde’s death, he said, “Yes, all right,” and knew instantly who would vanish this time, knew instantly who would be blasted into oblivion.
They were married in the First Episcopal Church on top of the hill. Her family made all the arrangements, and he always looked back on it later as Beth’s wedding, not his own. The house they moved into was chosen by Beth, a high-gabled house in the middle of a dense woods. Later, because the house was in the middle of the woods, Beth insisted that they buy a gun. Apparently she had already forgotten that she herself had chosen the house and its location. That didn’t matter. She was afraid of being alone in the woods, she said, now that they had children to care for. By that time he was so used to saying “Yes” that he’d protested only weakly before agreeing and then went downtown with her to pick out the Savage. He hadn’t liked the gun from the start. The gun reminded him of the .22 he’d been firing that night at the carnival when the enchanted girl — he always thought of her as enchanted, magical — had walked soundlessly into his life on silent, sneakered feet. The gun reminded him of the five-inch cannons on the Fancher and the answering fire of the Japanese ships, and the death of Clyde Morrow.
But more than that, the gun — securely locked in a rack, out of reach of the children — was a constant and visible reminder of what he had become, or perhaps what he had always been. Yes, yes, yes, I will marry you, yes I like the house with the gables in the middle of the woods, yes we should have children, yes we need a gun, yes, yes!
This afternoon he had said “Yes” for the last time.
He picked up the shotgun he had not wanted and thought, You goddamn gun, I didn’t want you!
I didn’t want Beth, or this endless silent house, or the children, or the job with her father where Alan can come in to ask me to do something meaningless and I can say, “Yes, sure, fine, yes, yes!”
I would like to say “No” sometime, he thought. I would like to stand with my head and shoulders back. I would like to take a deep breath and then yell with all my strength, “No! I don’t want to, you bastards!”
He looked at the shotgun. He sighed gently and then put the barrel into his mouth and hooked his thumb around the trigger.
I don’t want to do this, he thought.
And fired.
The Innocent One
It was the next poor bastard who got it.
You must understand, first, that the sun was very hot on that day and Miguel had been working in it from just after dawn. He had eaten a hearty breakfast, and then had taken to the fields early, remembering what had to be done and wanting to do it quickly.
There were many rocks among the beans that day, and perhaps that is what started it all. When Miguel discovered the first rock, he reached down gingerly and tossed it over his shoulder to the rear of his neat rows of beans. The sun was still not high in the sky and the earth had not yet begun to bake, and so a smile worked its way over his brown features as he heard the rock thud to the soft earth behind. He started hoeing again, thinking of Maria and the night before.
He would never regret having married Maria. Jesus, she was a one! There was the passion of the tigress in her, and the energy of the rabbit. He thought again of her, straightening up abruptly, and feeling the ache in his back muscles.
That was when he saw the second rock.
He shrugged, thinking, Dios, another one!
He lifted it, threw it over his shoulder, and began hoeing again. He was surprised when he came across more rocks. At first he thought someone had played a joke on him, and he pulled his black brows together, wondering who it could have been. Juan, that pig? Felipe, that animal with the slobbering lips? Pablo?
Then he remembered that it had rained the night before, and he realized that the waters had washed the soil clean, exposing the rocks, bringing them to the surface.
He cursed himself for not having thought to protect the beans in some way. Then he cursed the rocks. And since the sun was beginning to climb in the sky, he cursed that too, and got to work.
The rocks were not heavy. They were, in fact, rather small.
It was that there were very many of them. He picked them up painstakingly, tossing them over his shoulders. How could a man hoe his beans when the rows were full of rocks? He started to count them, stopping at ten because that was as far as he knew how to count, and then starting with one all over again.
The sun was very hot now. The hoe lay on the ground, the rich earth staining its long handle. He kept picking up the rocks, not looking up now, swearing softly, the sweat pouring down his neck and back. When a long shadow fell over the land before him, he almost didn’t notice it.
Then a voice joined the shadow and Miguel straightened his back and rubbed his earth-stained fingers on his white trousers.
“You are busy, Miguel?” the voice asked. The voice came through the speaker’s nose rather than his mouth. It whined like the voice of the lamb. It was Felipe.
“No, I am not busy,” Miguel said. “I was, at this very moment, lying on my back and counting the stars in the sky.”
“But it is morning...” Felipe started. Miguel’s subtle humor struck him then, and he slapped his thigh and guffawed like the jackass he was. “Counting the stars!” he bellowed. “Counting the stars!”
Miguel was not amused. “You were perhaps on your way somewhere, amigo. If so, don’t let me detain you.”
“I was going nowhere, Miguel,” Felipe said.
Miguel grunted and began picking up rocks again. He forgot how many rocks he had counted thus far, so he started all over again.
“You are picking up rocks, Miguel?”
Miguel did not answer.
“I say you are picking up...”
“Yes!” Miguel said. “Yes, I am picking up rocks.” He stood up and kneaded the small of his back, and Felipe grinned knowingly.
“The back, it hurts, eh?”
“Yes,” Miguel said. He looked at Felipe. “Why do you nod?”
“Me? Nod? Who, me?”
“Yes, you. Why do you stand here and nod your head like the wise snake who has swallowed the young chicken?”
Felipe grinned and nodded his head. “You must be mistaken, Miguel. I do not nod.”
“I am not blind, amigo,” Miguel said testily. “I say my back hurts, and you begin to nod your head. Why is it funny that my back hurts? Is it funny that there are rocks and stones among my beans?”
“No, Miguel. It is not funny.”
“Then why do you nod?”
Felipe grinned. “Maria, eh?”
Miguel clenched his fists. “What about Maria, amigo? Maria who is my wife.”
Felipe opened his eyes innocently. “Nothing, Miguel. Just... Maria.”
“You refer to my back?”
“Sí!”
“And you connect this somehow with Maria?”
“Sí.”
“How?”
“This Maria... your wife, God bless her... she is a strong one, eh, Miguel?”
Miguel was beginning to get a little angry. He was not used to discussing his wife among the beans. “So? What do you mean she is a strong one?”