"Charles de Lint - Forests Of The Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

people, distant kin to the desert Indios whose blood Bettina and Adelita shared—very distant, for the memory
of sea spray and a rich, damp green lay under the skin of their thoughts. This was not their homeland; their
spirits spread a tangle of roots just below the surface of the soil, no deeper.
But like her uncles, they were handsome men, dark-skinned and hard-eyed, dressed in collarless white shirts
and suits of black broadcloth. Barefoot, calluses hard as boot leather, and the cold didn’t seem to affect
them. Long black hair tied back, or twisted into braided ropes. They were silent, smoking hand-rolled
cigarettes as they watched the house. Bettina could smell the burning tobacco from inside where she sat,
smell the smoke, and under it, a feral, musky scent.
Their presence in the yard resonated like a vibration deep in her bones. She knew they lived like wolves, up in
the hills north of the city, perhaps, running wild and alone except for times such as this. She had never
spoken to them, never asked what brought them. Her abuela had warned her a long time ago not to ask
questions of la brujería when it came so directly into one’s life. It was always better to let such a mystery
make its needs known in its own time.
“And of course, Mama wants to know when you’re coming home,” Adelita was saying.
Usually they didn’t continue this old conversation themselves. Their mother was too good at keeping it alive
by herself.
“I am home,” Bettina said. “She knows that.”
“But she doesn’t believe it.”
“This is true. She was asking me the same thing when I talked to her last night. And then, of course, she
wanted to know if I’d found a church yet, if the priest was a good speaker, had I been to confession ...”
Adelita laughed. “¡Por supuesto! At least she can’t check up on you. Chuy’s now threatening to move us to
New Mexico.”
“Why New Mexico?”
“Because of Lalo’s band. With the money they made on that last tour, they had enough to put a down
payment on this big place outside of Albuquerque. But it needs a lot of work and he wants to hire Chuy to do
it. Lalo says there’s plenty of room for all of us.”
“Los lobos.”
“That’s right. You should have come to one of the shows.”
But Bettina hadn’t been speaking of the band from East L.A. Those lobos had given Lalo’s band their big
break by bringing them along on tour as their support act last year. The wolves she’d been referring to were
out in the cold night that lay beyond the kitchen’s windows.
She hadn’t even meant to speak aloud. The words had been pulled out of her by a stirring outside, an echoing
whisper deep in her bones. For a moment she’d thought the tall, dark men were coming into the house, that
an explanation would finally accompany their enigmatic presence. But they were only leaving, slipping away
among the trees.
“Bettina?” her sister asked. “¿Estás ahi?”
“I’m here.”
Bettina let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. She didn’t need to look out the window to know that
the yard was now empty. It took her a moment to regain the thread of their conversation.
“I was just distracted for a moment,” she said, then added, “What about the gallery? I can’t imagine you
selling it.”
Adelita laughed. “Oh, we’re not really going. It’s bad enough that Lalo’s moving so far away. Chuy’s family
would be heartbroken if we went as well. How would they be able to spoil Janette as much as they do now?
And Mama ...”
“Would never forgive you.”
“De veras.”
Bettina went back to sorting through her milagros, fingering the votive offerings as they gossiped about the
family and neighbors Bettina had left behind. Adelita always had funny stories about the tourists who came
into the gallery and Bettina never tired of hearing about her niece Janette. She missed the neighborhood and
its people, her family and friends. And she missed the desert, desperately. But something had called to her