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:
“Yes, and that’s why we came down here, isn’t that right? For a change?”
“For a rest,” he corrected.
“To get away from everyone we know — and your work, isn’t that right?”
“I hate when you do that.”
“Do what, for God’s sake?”
“Repeat yourself.”
“Oh, I don’t care what you hate. We came down here to get away from all the pressures, and instead...”
“If there are any pressures here,” Michael said, “I’d like to know about them.”
“Boredom is a pressure.”
“Boredom, boredom! Has it ever occurred to you that it’s pretty boring to hear you talk about boredom all the time?”
“I’m sorry if I annoy you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It sounded like that to me.”
“All I said was... well, what I object to is the way you keep going on about the same things. Like your life-role, and your search for identity, and your meaning as a woman. Why don’t you just relax, Diane? The trouble with women today is...”
“I don’t want to hear your thesis on the mechanized kitchen again.”
He shrugged. “All right.”
“Because if you want to know the truth, you’re pretty damn boring yourself.”
“Me?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, you. The Madison Avenue mastermind with his new accounts and his new slogans and his new campaigns and his sales-up-fifty-percent. I’ve never met anyone in my life who was so concerned with making money.”
“I didn’t realize,” he said with cold hauteur, “that providing for one’s wife and family was being overly concerned with...”
“There’s a difference between...”
“... money. I suppose I’d be better off if I were a native chopping sugar cane in the goddamn jungle and earning ten cents a week!”
“They don’t chop sugar cane in the jungle.”
“On the plantations then. Wherever the hell they do it. Maybe you’d enjoy that?”
“Maybe I would. It might be real, at least.”
“Oh, here we go on the fake existence theme again. The glitter of New York, the tinsel whirl of...”
“Don’t you ever understand anything I’m saying?” she asked angrily. “I hate it here! And, damnit, I’m catching a cold!”
“How can anyone catch a cold in the tropics?”
“I don’t know how. By contact with a germ, I would imagine. I’m catching one, that’s all.”
“It must be psychosomatic.”
“Maybe it is. Michael, for the love of God, let’s move on.”
“I like Jamaica,” he said flatly.
“This is the Parade, sir,” the driver interrupted gently. “Did you want to get out here, sir?”
“Yes, thank you, Andrews,” Michael said. “We’ll only be an hour or so.”
“I’ll wait for you in front of Issa’s, sir.”
“Very well,” Michael said. He opened the door and stepped into the sunshine. He held his hand out to Diane and she followed him onto the curb.
“Why did you say ‘Very well’?” she asked.
“What should I have said?”
“ ‘Very well’ sounds so British. You never say that in New York.”
“Well, this isn’t New York. This is the British West Indies.”
“That’s no reason for you to put on airs. The driver must be laughing himself silly.”
“He isn’t laughing at all. He’s thinking he’ll get three dollars for the ride and a two-dollar tip, that’s what he’s doing.”
“Not everyone thinks the way you do, Michael,” she said. “God, it’s hot. Can’t we get over in the shade?”
They crossed the street and began walking under the narrow awnings lining the narrow sidewalk. The natives rushed past, carrying bananas to the wharf, carrying shopping baskets, intent on their personal affairs, their clothes bright and gaudy. Bicycles flashed in the sunshine, an ancient bus creaked around the circle near the straw market, a nighttime sign warned DIP YOUR LIGHTS.
“What did you mean by that?” he asked.
“By what?”
“By everyone not thinking the way I do.”
“About money. Everyone doesn’t think it’s that important. The driver may be thinking about other things.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Michael, like his family, or his wife, or... or... even taking a vacation in New York one day.”
“He could never afford a vacation in New York.”
“In Kingston then.”
“He’d never be able to afford that, either.”
“Well, that doesn’t make him any less a man.”
“What is it, Diane? Does my earning power annoy you? Must I constantly compete with my own wife in addition to the daily...”
“You’ve told me about the Madison Avenue ratrace, thanks. Please spare me.”
“I’m awfully sorry, but that’s the way things are. If you think...”
“Then change the way things are! Before it’s too late!”
“I’ll go out and buy a machete, would that suit you? And we’ll live in a lovely corrugated tin hut. And you can do wood carving while I’m out chopping sugar cane. Would that satisfy your need for self-expression?”
“It’s not a joke!” she said, her voice suddenly loud on the sun-hushed street.
“All right, let’s end it, Diane,” he said softly.
“End what?”
“The argument,” He paused, puzzled. “What did you think I meant?”
“I don’t know.”
They stopped stock still in the center of the street.
“The argument,” he said.
“Yes. I heard you.”
“Well, what did you think I meant? All I meant was the argument.”
“Yes.”
“Well...” He shrugged. “Well, let’s end it, all right?”
“All right.”
He nodded and tried a tentative smile. Their eyes met and held for an instant.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked.
“No. It’s too early.”
“Well, would you like to get out of the sun? These awnings don’t help at all. I’m hot. Aren’t you, Diane?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, let’s get out of the sun, all right?” He shaded his eyes and looked up the street. “There’s a place.” He turned to her. “Antiques. Want to give it a try?”
“If you like.”
They walked up the street in silence. The building was on the opposite side of the road, its front painted a bright tropical green. The sign Michael had seen hung from a rusted wrought-iron support.
An arrow pointed to a narrow flight of steps on the side of the building. The wall at the top of the steps was painted a shocking pink. The green of the building and the pink of the wall blended like the stem and bloom of a wild tropical flower, merged to give an impression of lush savagery stained with brilliant sunshine. The steps rose to the pink wall in golden fury, seemed to collide with the wall and a second painted red arrow indicating the door of the shop. They climbed the steps slowly, she moving with unconscious, femininity in the form-fitting white tapered slacks, he holding her elbow and moving gracelessly beside her, his expensive camera dangling from a leather strap around his neck. As they climbed the steps, he could not resist adding, “A man has to make a living, Diane,” and then they reached the landing and entered the shop and were immediately blinded.
Slowly, their eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room.
Two windows opened on the street outside and twin shafts of sunlight pierced the gloom, dust motes tirelessly climbing them to the low ceiling. The walls were hung with clocks, and clocks peered into the gloom from behind the dust-covered fronts of ancient cases. A mesh cage was at one side of the shop, enclosing a table covered with the intricate wheels and springs of a disemboweled watch, a jeweler’s loupe, a miniature screwdriver, a pair of tweezers. Dust seemed to cover everything. Dust and heat permeated the shop, became the shop’s lifeblood. Dust and heat seeped into every crack and corner until the shop seemed to possess a secret pulsing sound, the sound of silence and gloom and heat and dust commingled.