"Jack Dann - Kaddish" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

God.
He piloted the glossy green bullet through the intercoastals, motoring
slowly, for police patrolled the quiet canals in search of offenders
who would dare to churn the oily, mirrored waters into foam and
froth. Yachts and sailboats gently tilted and rolled in their marinas, a
gas station attendant with a red scarf around his neck leaned against
an Esso gas pump that abutted a wide-planked dock where petroleum
drippings shivered like rainbows caught in the wood, and the
waterside pools and sun decks of the pastel-painted, expensive homes
were empty.
Nathan smelled the bacon and coffee and gasoline, but could hear and
feel only the thrumming of the twin engines of the speedboat. The
bow reminded him of the hood of an old Lincoln he had loved:
expansive and curved and storeroom shiny.
As Nathan turned out of the intercoastal and into the terrifying
turquoise abyss of the open sea, he felt that he had escaped the
bondage that had been his life.
The calm rolling surface of the sea had become time itself. Time was
no longer insubstantial and ineffable; it was a surface that could be
navigated. And Nathan could steer this roaring twin-engined
speedboat forward toward destiny and death, or he could return to the
past... to any or all of the events of his life that floated atop the
flowing surface of his life like plankton.
Nathan was finally the engine of his soul.
He opened the throttle, and the "cigarette" seemed to lift out of the
water, which slid past underneath like oil, sparkling green and blue in
the brilliance of morning.
Dressed in a herringbone blue suit of continental cut, starched white
shirt with rounded French cuffs, and maroon striped tie worked into a
Windsor knot, he sat straight as a die before the enamel control
console of tachometers, clutches, oil-pressure and fuel gauges,
compass, wheel, and throttles.
He felt a quiet, almost patrician joy. He had conquered time and space
and pain and fear.
He didn't care about fuel.
His only direction was the eternal horizon ahead.
It all changed when the engines gave out, coughing and sputtering
into a final silence like bad lungs taking a last glottal breath. Nathan
felt the constriction of the tight collar of his silk shirt; he was wet with
perspiration. The sun burned into his face and eyes, blinding him with
white light turned red behind closed eyelids, and wrenching him
awake. It was as if he had been dreaming, sleepwalking through all
the aching, guilt-ridden days since the death of his family three
months ago today.
He loosened his tie, tore open his collar. He felt short of breath. It was
blisteringly hot, and there was no protection from the sun in the
cigarette speedboat. He pulled off his jacket. He was breathing hard,
hyperventilating, thinking that he must somehow get back to shore.
What have I done? he asked himself, incredulous. He felt feverish, hot
then cold, and his teeth were chattering.