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...
In response, he began pulling things from his pockets, tossing them onto the bed: the caviar, a triangle of White Stilton cheese, a little wooden box containing shards of his favorite crystallized ginger, liqueur-filled bonbons, each wrapped in a scrap of gaily colored tissue—everything sweet, everything delicious, things meant only to delight, to enchant away the regret that surrounded him like a cloud. He had been in such a frenzy that he had purchased things in multiples: not one bar of chocolate stippled with gooseberries but two; not one cone of candied chestnuts but three; not one more fine wool blanket to match the one he’d already bought Edward but two more.
But this they only discovered, laughingly, after they had gorged themselves, and by the time they were able to come to their senses—unclothed yet perspiring even in the damp chill of the room, lying on the floor because the bed was covered with packages—they were both holding their stomachs and moaning, theatrically, from all of the sugar, the rich creamy fat, the smoked duck and pâté that they had just consumed.
“Oh, David,” said Edward, “will you not regret this?”
“Of course not,” he said, and he didn’t—he had never behaved like this in his life. His actions had been necessary, he felt—his fortune would never feel his own until he behaved as if it were.
“We shall not live like this in California,” Edward murmured, dreamily, and instead of answering, David stood and found his trousers—thrown to a far corner (such as it was) of the room—and reached inside its pocket.
“What is this?” Edward asked, taking the little leather case from him, and opening its hinged lid. “Oh,” he said.
It was a small porcelain dove, perfectly captured, its tiny beak open in song, its black eyes bright. “It is for you, because you are my little bird,” David explained, “and because I hope you will be forever after.”
Edward took the bird from its case and cupped it in his palm. “Are you asking me to marry you?” he asked, quietly.
“Yes,” David told him, “I am,” and Edward flung his arms around him. “I of course accept,” he said. “Of course I do!”
They would never be as happy again as they were that night. All around them, all within them, was pleasure. David especially felt himself born anew: In one day, he had lost an offer of marriage, and yet he had made his own. He felt, that night, invincible; every piece of happiness the room contained was because of him. Every sweet taste on their tongues, every soft cushion they lay their heads upon, every scent that perfumed the air: All of it was because of him. All of it he had provided. Running beneath these triumphs, though, like a dark and poisoned river, was his disgrace—the unconscionable things he’d said to Charles and, below that, the fact of his behavior, of how disrespectfully he had treated Charles, how he had used him out of restlessness and fearfulness and in desire of praise and attention. And beneath that was the specter of his grandfather, whom he had betrayed and to whom no apology would ever suffice. Whenever knowledge of these things bubbled up within him, he pushed them down again by slipping another bonbon into his or Edward’s mouth, or by making Edward turn him on his stomach.
Yet he knew that it would never be enough, that he had stained himself, and that the stain was irreversible. And so, the next morning, when the little maid tapped on the door, her eyes agoggle at the scene within the room, and presented him with a terse and inarguable note from his grandfather, he knew both that he had been found out at last and that there was nothing to do but return to Washington Square, where he would answer his shame—and declare his freedom.
XVII
Home! He had been away for only a little less than a week, and yet how strange it already seemed—how strange and yet how familiar, its fragrance of furniture wax and lilies, of Earl Grey tea and fire. And, of course, of his grandfather: his tobacco and orange-blossom cologne.
He had told himself he would not be nervous entering Washington Square—it was his house; it would be his house—and yet, when he reached the top of the flight of stairs, he hesitated: Normally, he would stride in, but for a moment he felt as if he should knock, and had the door not suddenly opened (Adams, showing Norris out), he might have remained there forever. Norris’s eyes perceptibly widened upon seeing him, but he quickly recovered himself and wished David a pleasant evening, adding that he hoped to see him again soon, and even Adams, who was much better trained than the loathsome Walden, involuntarily raised his eyebrows before quickly and severely lowering them into a scowl, as if punishing them for their disobedience.
“Mister David, you look very well. Welcome home. Your grandfather is in his drawing room.”
He thanked Adams, handing him his hat and allowing him to take his coat, and then up he went. Dinner was served early on Sundays, and so he too had arrived early, just past his grandfather’s lunchtime. Being away from Washington Square had made him realize how he had come to measure time by its metronome: Noon was not just noon, it was when he and his grandfather finished their weekend midday meal; five-thirty p.m. was not just five-thirty p.m., it was when they would sit again for dinner. Seven a.m. was when his grandfather would leave for the bank; five p.m. was when he would return. His clock, his days, were determined by his grandfather, and he had for all his years yielded unthinkingly to him. Even in exile, he could feel the old ache of those Sunday-night dinners, could see, as clearly as if it were a painting, his siblings and grandfather gathered around the mirrored shine of the dining-room table, could smell the rich fattiness of the roasted quail.
Outside his grandfather’s drawing room, he stopped again and paused, inhaling deeply, before finally tapping his knuckle against the door and, hearing his grandfather’s voice, entering. When he did, his grandfather rose, unusually for him, and the two stood in silence, each staring at the other as if he were someone he had seen once and then forgotten.
“David,” said his grandfather, blandly.
“Grandfather,” he said.
His grandfather came to him. “Let me look at you,” he said, and took David’s cheeks in his palms, turning his head slightly this way and that, as if the riddles of David’s current life might be writ on his face, before dropping his hands to his side again, his expression betraying nothing. “Sit,” he told David, and David did, in his usual chair.
For a period, they were silent, and then his grandfather began to speak. “I shall not begin where I might: by rebuking you, or questioning you, though I cannot promise I will be able to resist either for the entirety of our conversation. For now, though, I have two things I mean to show you.” He watched as his grandfather reached into a box on the table next to him and drew out a bundle of letters, dozens of them, tied with string, and upon receiving them, David saw that they were all from Edward, and looked up, outraged. “Do not,” his grandfather said, before he could speak. “You dare not.” And David, though furious, hurriedly untied the knot and tore at the first one in silence. Inside was the first of the letters he had written to Edward when Edward had left to see his sisters and, on a separate sheet, Edward’s reply. The second envelope, cut open and resealed, contained another of his letters, and another of Edward’s replies. So did the third, and the fourth, and the fifth—all the letters Edward had never replied to, finally answered. As he read, he could not stop himself from beaming, or his hands from trembling: at the romance of the gesture, from realizing how much he had needed these responses, from the cruelty of their being withheld from him, from relief that they had been left unopened for him to read, for him alone to see. Here too was the letter that Edward had referred to, the one he had had delivered two days before the museum show, when David had been lying in his bed, insensate and tormented, here it was, and many more besides. Here was proof of Edward’s love for him, his devotion in every word, in every sheet of onionskin—here was why he had not heard from Edward during his confinement: because Edward had been writing him these letters. He suddenly had a vision of himself, in bed and staring at the stain, and, west from here, Edward scribbling by candlelight, his hand stiff and sore, each of them unaware of the other’s discomfort, but both thinking only of each other.