"Avram Davidson - Knox's 'Nga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

KNOX'S 'NGA
Avram Davidson
Belle Abernathy was not Grandmother Welles's favorite grandchild, in fact, GW
had said semi-publicly more than once that Belle looked "like a plucked chicken,"
and that, although perhaps Belle could not help being skinny, she needn't show it off
like that. These criticisms were heard no more after the skinny chickenny Belle had
whispered in Grand's ear the Dreadful News; another grandchild, Lou Anne, who
had married Robert Owens in A Lovely Church Wedding following upon a mere
Civil Ceremony of vague circumstance, and was now expecting a child? Well, Belle
hated to have to say it, but the birth was a mere five months after the church
wedding, and as for the civil wedding, there had been no civil wedding.
"They were just shacked up, that's all," Belle said brutally.
Well, figure it out. Although in her very heart of hearts Grand would have been
able to forgive, had they come to her and confessed—had they? No. Tried to pull
the wool over her eyes. Country going to damnation. Her own grandchild. Hippies.
Probably smoked hish-hash, or whatever it was called.
So, to the Quarterly Dinner at the old Welles house, who were not invited?
Well, well: what to do. Bob Owens didn't care. Lou didn't care much. Lou's
mother cared. Lots.
"Only one thing to do," Lou said. "Baby must be named 'Philander Knox'."
"'Must'?" asked Bob. "Is 'Must' a word to be used to fathers?" Just the sort of
thing he would have said. Dry sense of humor. Quiet man, and, well, small. To tell
the truth. Shacking up hadn't really been his idea. Like more than a mere few men of
nowadays he had come home one day to find that the lady who held the extra key
had moved in, and that they were now, well, no, not shacking up, did one shack
down? But certainly, a fact: living together. "Why, 'Philander Knox'?"
The women exchanged looks. "An ancestor," they said.
"Well, yes, understandable. But surely there are others. Why not, ah, Welles'?
Welles Owens, sounds classy. No like? Too many sibilants?" They shook their
heads. "Oh, Zz not a sibilant? Oh—"
His wife now pronounced his name in a manner which gave it a sound of having
several syllables and a warning to shut his mouth.
"Welles, well, Welles is my mother-in-law's married name. Just as it's mine. But
Philander Knox was a cabinet member, oh, TR and Taft—"
"Ancestors?"
Getting near the knuckle, Owens. Want a knuckle sandwich, Owens? Want to be
accused of implicit misogyny, Owens? Whose enormous phallus rapted and rupted
this virginal little girl, three inches your taller and three years your elder? Owens. Shut
the funk up and lissen.
Philander Knox had held cabinet positions. He was a distant cousin of
Grandmother Welles's grandmother. True, there had been a Welles who'd been in
Lincoln's cabinet but those were different Welleses. Spelled the same? Philander
Chase Knox, Secretary of the Whatever It Was. Nobody anymore knew who he
was. But Grand thought they did! And if The Baby were to be named Philander
Knox Owens, people were bound to ask How, Come? Enter Ye Dowager Mrs.
Welles, with a muscle in her bustle, and Able to Explain.
Well, there are those who say that God is a Woman and this might explain why
the baby was a boy, was named Philander Knox, did reduce Old
Great-Grand-mother to a puddle of pink flesh and Instant Reconciliation.
Belle Abernathy shrank even further into her plucked chickenanity and was never