"Janet Kagan - The Nutcracker Coup" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kagan Janet)

“Oh, no!” said Marianne. “Do you really mean it, Nick? You’re not going to open it until
Christmas Day?”
 Nick laughed again. “I’m teasing.” To Tatep, he said, “It’s traditional in my family to wait-but
it’s also traditional to find some rationalization to open a gift the minute you lay hands on it. Marianne
wants to see my expression; I think that takes precedence in this case.”
His long fingers found a cranny in the paper wrapping and began to worry it ever so slightly.
“Besides, our respective homeworlds can’t agree on a date for Christmas.... On some world today must
be Christmas, right?”
“Good rationalizing,” said Marianne, with a sigh and a smile of relief. “Right!”
“Right,” said Tatep, catching on. He leaned precariously from his perch to watch as Nick ripped
open the wrapping paper.
“Tchaikovsky made me think of it,” Marianne said. “Although, to be honest, Tchaikovsky’s
nutcracker wasn’t particularly traditional. This one is: take a close look.”
He did. He held up the brightly painted figure, took in its green weskit, its striped silver tights, its
flamboyant mustache. Four metal loops jangled at its carved belt and Nick laughed aloud.
With a barely suppressed smile, Marianne handed him a “walnut” of the local variety.
Nick stopped laughing long enough to say, “You mean, this is a genuine, honest-to-god, working
nutcracker?”
“Well, of course it is! My family’s been making them for years.” She made a motion with her
hands to demonstrate. “Go ahead-crack that nut!”
Nick put the nut between the cracker’s prominent jaws and, after a moment’s hesitation, closed
his eyes and went ahead. The nut gave with an audible and very satisfying craaack! and Nick began to
laugh all over again.
“Share the joke,” said Tatep.
“Gladly,” said Marianne. “The Christmas nutcracker, of which that is a prime example, is
traditionally carved to resemble an authority figure-particularly one nobody much likes. It’s a way of
getting back at the fraudulent, the pompous. Through the years they’ve poked fun at everybody from
princes to policemen to”-Marianne waved a gracious hand at her own carved figure-”well, surely you
recognize him.”
“Oh, my,” said Tatep, his eyes widening. “Clarence Doggett, is it not?” When Marianne
nodded, Tatep said, “Are you about to get your head shaved again?”
Marianne laughed enormously. “If I do, Tatep, this time I’ll paint my scalp red and
green-traditional Christmas colors-and hang one of Killim’s glass ornaments from my ear. Not likely,
though,” she added to be fair. “Clarence doesn’t go in for head shaving.” To Nick, who had clearly
taken in Tatep’s “again,” she said, “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”@
Nick nodded and stuck another nut between Clarence’s jaws. This time he watched as the nut
gave way with a explosive bang. Still laughing, he handed the nutmeat to Tatep, who ate it and rattled his
quills in laughter of his own. Marianne was doubly glad she’d invited Tatep to share the occasion-now
she knew exactly what to make him for Christmas.
###
Christmas Eve found Marianne at a loss-something was missing from her holiday and she hadn’t
been able to put her finger on precisely what that something was.
It wasn’t the color of the tree Tatep had helped her choose. The tree was the perfect Christmas
tree shape, and if its foliage was a red so deep it approached black, that didn’t matter a bit. “Next year
we’ll have Killim make some green ornaments,” Marianne said to Tatep, “for the proper contrast.”
Tinsel-silver thread she’d bought from one of the Rejoicer weavers and cut to length-flew in all
directions. All seven of the kids who’d come to Rejoicing with their ethnologist parents were showing
the Rejoicers the “proper” way to hang tinsel, which meant more tinsel was making it onto the kids and
the Rejoicers than onto the tree.
Just as well. She’d have to clean the tinsel off the tree before she passed it on to Hapet and