"Michael Flynn - Melodies of the Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Michael)

or another. Splints and bandages. Not much else. The residents were not
ill, only old and tired. First aid and mortuaries covered most of their
medical needs.
The second time I saw Mae Holloway was later that same day. The
knock on the door was so light and tentative that at first I was unsure I
had heard it. I paused, glanced at the door, then bent again over my
medical journal. A moment later, the knock came again. Loud! As if
someone had attacked the door with a hammer. I turned the journal
down, open to the page I had been reading, and called out an invitation.
The door opened and I waited patiently while she shuffled across the
room. Hobble, hobble, hobble. You would think old folks would move
faster. It wasn't as though they had a lot of time to waste.
When she had settled into the hard plastic seat opposite my desk, she
leaned forward, cupping both her hands over the knob of an old
blackthorn walking stick. Her face was as wrinkled as that East Tennessee
hill country she had once called home. "You know," she said—loudly, as the
slightly deaf often do, "you oughtn't leave your door shut like that. Folks
see it, they think you have someone in here, so they jes' mosey on."
That notion had been in the back of my mind, too. I had thought to use
this time to keep up with my professional reading. "What may I do for
you, Mrs. Holloway?" I said.
She looked away momentarily. "I think—" Her jaw worked. She took a
breath. "I think I am going insane."
I stared at her for a moment. Just my luck. A nut case right off the bat.
Then I nodded. "I see. And why do you say that?"
"I hear music. In my head."
"Music?"
"Yes. You know. Like this." And she hummed a few bars of a
nondescript tune.
"I see—"
"That was 'One O'Clock Jump!' " she said, nearly shouting now. "I used
to listen to Benny Goodman's band on 'Let's Dance!' Of course, I was
younger then!"
"I'm sure you were."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
"I SAID, 'I'M SURE YOU WERE'!" I shouted at her across the desk.
"Oh. Yes," she said in a slightly softer voice. "I'm sorry, but it's
sometimes hard for me to hear over the music. It grows loud, then soft."
The old woman puckered her face and her eyes drifted, becoming
distanced. "Right now, it's 'King Porter.' A few minutes ago it was—"
"Yes, I'm sure," I said. Old folks are slow and rambling and forgetful; a
trial to talk with. I rose, hooking my stethoscope into my ears, and circled
the desk. Might as well get it over with. Mrs. Holloway, recognizing the
routine, unfastened the top buttons of her gown.
Old folks have a certain smell to them, like babies; only not so pleasant.
It is a sour, dusty smell, like an attic in the summer heat. Their skin is dry,
spotted parchment, repulsive to the touch. When I placed the diaphragm
against her chest, she smiled nervously. "I don't think you'll hear my music
that way," she said.
"Of course not," I told her. "Did you think I would?"