"Kress, Nancy - Unto the Daughters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

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Unto the Daughters
by Nancy Kress
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Copyright (c)1995 Nancy Kress
First published in Sisters In Fantasy, Roc, 1995

Fictionwise Contemporary
Science Fiction and Fantasy


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THIS IS NOT THE WAY YOU HEARD THE STORY.
In the beginning, the tree was young. White blossoms scenting the air for a quarter mile. Shiny succulent fruit, bending the same boughs that held blossoms. Leaves of that delicate yellow-green that cannot, will not, last. Yet it did. He always did have gaudy taste. No restraint. Just look at the Himalayas. Or blowfish. I mean really!
The woman was young, too. Pink curling toes, breasts as barely budded as the apple blossoms. And the man! My dear, those long, firm flanks alone could make you ache inside for hours. He could run five miles and not even be winded. He could make love to the woman five times a day. And did.
The flowers were young. The animals, tumbling and cavorting on the grass, were young. The fucking beach sand was young, clean evenly shaped grains that only yesterday had been igneous rock. There was virgin rain.
Only I was old.
But it wasn't that. That was the first thing that came to your mind, wasn't it? Jealousy of glorious youth, revenge by the dried-up and jaded. Oh, you don't know, you sitting there so many centuries ahead. It wasn't that at all. I mean, I loved them both.
Looking at them, how could one not?
* * * *
"Go away," Eve says. "I'm not going to eat one."
She sits cross-legged, braiding flowers into a crown. The flowers are about what you'd expect from Him, garish scarlet petals and a vulva shaped pistil like a bad joke. Braiding them, her fingers are deft and competent. Some lion cubs tumble tiresomely on the grass.
"I want to give you a reason why you should eat one," I say, not gently.
"I've heard all your reasons."
"Not this one, Eve. This is a _new_ reason."
She isn't interested. She knots the crown of flowers, puts it on her head, giggles, tosses it at the lions. It settles lopsided over one cub's left ear. The cub looks up with comic surprise, and Eve explodes into laughter.
Really, sometimes I wonder why I bother. She's so stupid, compared to the man.
I bother because she's so stupid compared to the man.
"Listen, Eve. He withholds knowledge from you two because He's selfish. What else would you call it to keep knowledge to yourself when you could just as well share it?"
"I don't need knowledge," Eve says airily. "What do I need knowledge for? And anyway, that's not a new reason. You've said that before."
"A tree, Eve. A fucking tree. To invest knowledge in. Doesn't that strike you as just a teeny bit warped? Mathematics in xylem, morality in fruit pulp? Astronomy rotting on the ground every time an apple falls. Don't you wonder what kind of a mind would do that?"
She only stares at me blankly. Oh, she's dumb. I mean!
I shout, in the temper of perfect despair, "Without knowledge, nothing will change!"
"Are you here again?" Adam says. I hadn't heard him climb over the rock behind us. He has a very quiet footstep for someone whose toenails have never ever been cut. Also a quiet, penetrating voice. Eve jumps up as if she's been shot.
"I thought I told you not to talk to this ... thing ever again," Adam says. 'Didn't I tell you that?"
Eve hangs her pretty head. "Yes, Adam. You did. I forgot."
He looks at her and his face softens. That blooming skin, those sweet lips. Her hair falls forward, lustrous as night. I don't think my despair can go any deeper, but it does. She is so pretty. He will always forgive her. And she will always forget everything he says two minutes after he says it.
"Be gone! You don't belong here!" Adam shouts, and throws a rock at me. It hits just behind my head. It hurts like hell. One of the lion cubs happily fetches it back, wagging a golden tail. The other one is still wearing the lopsided crown of flowers.
As I slither away, half blind with pain, Eve calls after me. "I don't want anything to change! I really don't!"
The hell with her.
* * * *
"Just listen," I say. "Just put your entire tiny mind on one thing for once and listen to me."
Eve sits sewing leaves into a blanket. Not cross-legged anymore: She is six months pregnant. The leaves are wide and soft, with a sort of furry nap on their underside. They appeared in the garden right after she got pregnant, along with tough spider webs that make splendid thread. Why not a bush that grows little caps? Or tiny diapers with plastic fastening tabs? Really, He has such a banal imagination.
Eve hums as she sews. Beside her is the cradle Adam made. It's carved with moons and numbers and stars and other cabalistic signs: a lovely piece of work. Adam has imagination.
"You have to listen, Eve. Not just hear -- listen. Stop that humming. I know the future -- how could I know the future unless I am exactly what I say I am? I know everything that's going to happen. I told you when you'd conceive, didn't I? That alone should have convinced you. And now I'm telling you that your baby will be a boy, and you'll call him Cain, and he -- "