"Charles de Lint - Spirits in the Wires" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

“I don’t think so,” she says. “You’re real now.”
That makes me smile.
“As real as I am, anyway,” she adds.
My smile fades as I see the troubled look that comes over her. I forget that her own exotic
origins are no more than a dream to her most of the time—a dream that makes her
uncomfortable, uneasy in her skin. I wish I hadn’t reminded her of it, but she puts it away
and brings the conversation back to me.
“Why won’t you tell Christy your name?” she asks.

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/de%20Lint,%20Charles%20-%20Spirits%20in%20the%20Wires%20(v1.0).html (6 of 346)8-12-2006 23:50:50
SPIRITS IN THE WIRES by Charles de Lint


“Because that would let him put me in a box labeled ‘This is Christiana’ and I don’t want to
be locked into who he thinks I am. The way he writes about me is bad enough. If he had a
name to go with it he might be able to fix it so that I could never change and grow.”
“He does like his routines,” she says.
I nod. “His picture’s in the dictionary, right beside the word.”
We share a moment’s silence, then she cocks her a head, just a little.
“So your name’s Christiana?” she asks.
“I call myself Christiana Tree.”
That brings back a genuine smile.
“So that would make you Miss Tree,” she says.
I’m impressed at how quickly she got it as I offer her my hand.
“In the flesh,” I tell her. “Pleased to meet you.”
“But that’s only what you call yourself,” she says as she shakes my hand.
“We all have our secrets.”
“Or we wouldn’t be mysteries.”
“That, too.”
She’s been sitting on her haunches beside the easy chair I commandeered as soon as I’d
picked up my coffee and sticky-bun from the counter, leaning her arms on one of the chair’s
fat arms. There’s another chair nearby, occupied by a boy in his late teens with blue hair and
razor-thin features. He’s been listening to his Walkman loud enough for me to identify the
music as rap, though I can’t make out any words, and flipping through one of the café’s
freebie newspapers while he drinks his coffee. He gets up now and I give a vague wave to
the vacant chair with my hand.
“Why don’t you get more comfortable,” I say to Saskia.
She nods. “Just let me get my stuff.”
Some office drone in a tailored business suit, tie loose, top shirt button undone, approaches
the chair while Saskia collects her things. I put my scuffed brown leather work boots up on
its cushions and give him a sugar and icicle smile—you know, it looks sweet, but there’s a
chill in it. He’s like a cat as he casually steers himself off through the tables and takes a
hardback chair at one of the small counters that enclose the café’s various rustic wooden
support beams, making it look like that’s what he was aiming for all along.
Saskia returns. She drops her jacket on the back of the chair, puts her knapsack on the floor,
and settles down, tea in hand.
“So, what were you writing?” I ask.
She shrugs. “This and that. I just like playing with words. Sometimes they become something
—a journal entry, a poem. Sometimes I’m just following words to see where they go.”
“And where do they go?”