"Thomas M. Disch M. - The Pressure of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

cooking dinner, but when she listened to music her face was pretty, or when there was a funny show on
the telly, and when she was like that you could talk to her and she was nicer than almost any other
glowr1-up. But not when her Iips were like that.

so she rested and then sister M"ry Margaret said, *Bmma, your cousin is here to take you home with her

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for a little while. You have to promise to be very good. Sister Augustine tells me you're one of her
best-behaved children,"

Emma looked down at the band-aid. "Did I do something then?"

"What do you mean, Ennma?"

o'something wrong—out there?"

"Oh, this is nothing to do with the polio shot. We can't hetp things like that. It's because your
grandfather—or rather your great-grandfather, I believe?"

"'Yesr" said Cousin Bridie.

"Your great-grandfather has finally passed. or, as we all must, and you're to stay with your cousin during
the wake. Only three or four days. We'll all have to say prayers for him to help him out of purgatory,
though I'm Sure he won't need many. He was a very good man."

"He was a patriot," Cousin Bridie said. She began to cry '

"Comfort yourself, Mrs. Anckers. I'm sure death came as a blessing. [Ie was an old rnan and he suffered
great pain. Pray to Our Lady. Think of the sorrow that must have been hers. We must all expect to lose
our fathers and mothers, but she lost a child, her only child, so that He might pay the price for our sins,"

Cousin Bridie stopped crying.

Now, if Emma is feeling well enough, I must be getting back to my class. Your family is in my prayers."
*


She touched a finger to Emma's ffiffi, close to the hurt, and smiled and left.

Bridie put the baby in the pram that was standing in a puddle outside the door. The wheels made snaky
tracks on the dty pavement. You could hear a classroom, inside, singing Old Black Jo". Emma loved
Music best, taking after her father in that. Her father was dead.

Cousin Bridie took her hand crossing the street, though she didn't need to. Emma was six going on seven
and walked home every duy by herself or sometimes with the Kramer boy.

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She asked, o'How old is GrannyP"