Crossroads
- Автор: Франзен Джонатан
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Crossroads». Краткое содержание книги:
Universally recognized as the leading novelist of his generation, Jonathan Franzen is often described as a teller of family stories. Only now, though, in *Crossroads* , has he given us a novel in which a family, in all the intricacy of its...
“My point is,” she said unsteadily, “he really needs you to play tonight.”
“Or wait. Wait.” The eyes behind the pink lenses narrowed. “Have you even had sex?”
“Have I—?”
“Oh my God. Of course you haven’t. No, please, no, the Bible says you shouldn’t touch me there.” Laura laughed. “Not that being a churchgoer ever stopped our boy. He’s quite the frisky Christian. You’d better be ready for that.”
The cold sweat of carsickness.
“Or, no, I hope you’re not ready. I hope the only thing you let him do with you is sing hymns. Serve him right.”
“Please,” Becky said. “We need to go right now. The agent is there, he came to hear you, and I just think—we should go.”
“I told you to get the fuck out of here.”
“Please, Laura.”
Laura sprang to her feet and came at Becky. Why Becky dropped to her knees, she couldn’t have said. Maybe she didn’t want to be so much taller, maybe it was a gesture of supplication. But, finding herself kneeling again, she bowed her head and pressed her palms together. Please help Laura, she prayed. Please forgive me.
Laura shrieked. “What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Becky kept her head bowed. From above her came a sputtering, and then a cold hand was in her hair, grabbing a fistful of it, violating her physical sanctity, trying to yank her to her feet. She could feel hairs tearing from their roots, but she refused to stand up. The hand let go. An instant later, she was walloped in the ear. The blow was vicious, there was wristbone in it, and sparks in her vision—stars. She saw stars. The blow that followed was neck-wrenching, brain-shaking. Worse than the pain was the sheer fact of violence. No one had ever hit her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to keep praying.
Now Laura was kneeling, too. Her fingertips brushed Becky’s ear, which felt skinless and hot. “Becky, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
Please, God. Please, God.
“I’m—shit. I’m no better than my old man.”
At the change in Laura’s voice, which might have been an answer to her prayer, something stirred in Becky’s core—the same opening-up that she’d experienced in the sanctuary. God was still there. She concentrated, not wanting to lose her connection to Him. But Laura spoke again.
“You know about that, right? Tanner told you?”
Becky shook her head.
“He didn’t tell you why I moved in with him? With his family?”
It was news to Becky that Laura had lived with the Evanses. Never mind the why of it.
“I know what it’s like to be hit,” Laura said. “I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“It’s all right. I did a bad thing to you, too.”
“That’s exactly how my old man made me feel. Like I deserved it.” Laura touched Becky’s shoulder. “Are you really all right?”
“Yes.”
“An open hand can do a lot of damage. Like, I’m partially deaf in one ear. It was Tanner’s mom who noticed. She was my piano teacher, and now she’s basically my mother. The other one—I can’t even be in the same room with her. He still hits her, and she still thinks she deserves it.”
Becky felt grateful—to God—that Laura was speaking more kindly, but beneath the gratitude were the beginnings of a grievance with Tanner. He hadn’t told her that Laura’s father had beaten her; that Laura had lived with his family; that she was practically his sister. If Becky had understood the depths of what she was stepping into, she would have been more careful. The harm she’d proceeded to cause was partly her fault, but it seemed to her that it was partly also Tanner’s.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“It’s just the left ear.”
“No, I mean, about everything. I’m sorry about everything. I’m thinking—maybe I should step aside. Leave the two of you alone.”
“Too late for that, sister. He’s in love with you.”
Again the carsick vista.
“I asked him point-blank,” Laura said. “That was his answer.”
“But it’s only because I threw myself at him. If I just went away…”
“That’s not how it works.”
“But I know he still has feelings for you. If I just—”
“Mess with his emotions and walk away? That truly would be a cunt move. Not that I can’t see you doing it.”
Loudly, or angrily, it seemed, a telephone rang. The phone was on the wall in the kitchenette. Laura gave it an uninterested glance.
“I’m the one who’s going to split,” she said. “I should have done it years ago.” She stood up and added, “I’m sorry I hit you.”
She returned to her backpack, and the phone continued its angry ringing. Becky, who came from a family where ignoring a phone was unthinkable, jumped up and answered. She heard the sound of a crowd and Tanner shouting over it.
“Becky? What are you doing? I’ve been—Gig’s here—we have to play. What are you doing?”
“Just one second, okay?” She pressed the receiver to her chest and walked it toward Laura. “It’s Tanner,” she said. “They need to start. Will you come with me? Please?”
The fact that Laura, after a moment, made a petulant, hand-flinging gesture of assent—the fact that she would never have done this if she hadn’t hit Becky, which wouldn’t have happened if Becky hadn’t fallen to her knees to pray, which wouldn’t have happened if the spirit of Christ hadn’t brought her to Laura’s apartment, which wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t found God in the sanctuary, which wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t smoked marijuana—seemed to Becky, as she followed Laura down the snowy stairs behind the drugstore, the most beautiful proof of God’s mysterious workings. She’d done bad things, she’d accepted her punishment, and now she had her reward. She could feel a whole new life, a life in faith, beginning.
“This is so stupid,” Laura said as they strode along the sidewalk. “I hope you understand what this is costing me.”
The cold air stung Becky’s battered ear. She didn’t dare speak, lest Laura change her mind.
The crowd in the function hall was restive, the stage dimly bathed in purple light. Laura went straight to the door that led backstage while Becky hung back near the vestibule. Seeing the food tables, which were now fully denuded, she understood how considerably stoned she’d still been when she thought she was over being stoned. She was also reminded unpleasantly of Clem.
Gig Benedetti came ambling over to her, smiling. “We meet again.”
“Yeah, hi.”
“I can’t say I’m loving the level of organization here. By which I mean it’s rather low.”
“Laura wasn’t feeling well.”
Was there a commandment in the Bible against lying? Maybe not, but the truth would come out anyway. She wondered if, having performed one amazing deed, she might perform another.
“So, actually, though,” she said. “Actually, here’s the thing. Laura’s quitting the band.”
Gig laughed. “Seriously?”
“Um, yeah.”
“The act I came to hear included a female vocalist.”
“I know. But I’ve heard them play without her, and it’s actually better. Tanner really takes over when he doesn’t have to share the stage. It’s his band, not hers.”
“Is it possible you’re not the most objective critic?”
By instinct, her hand went to her hair and lifted it out from her coat collar. She gave it a luxuriant shake, nothing God could disapprove of. It wasn’t her fault if Gig thought she was a good-looking girl.
“If you really want to know,” she said, “I’m the reason Laura’s quitting. I’m going to feel very shitty if you don’t sign them because of me.” Likewise instinctual was the note of hurt in her voice. She shook her hair again. “I know it sounds like I’m asking you a favor, but Tanner’s the one with ambition. Laura’s just an amateur.”