"Nancy Kress - Maximum Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Nathan and Joe and Belissa on staff, and Melita, our business manager. And of course Mr. C, artistic
director and choreographer, who's famous all over the world. Forty-two, in all. Everyone in the whole
world.
Who else lived in those deleted memories? You will ask yourself a thousand thousand times.
"Left side," Rebecca calls. "And one and two . . ."
I've missed warm-up, and my muscles are cold. I take the barre exercises in half-time until my muscles
warm. The main practice room at Aldani House is long and narrow, lined with barres and mirrors on both
sides. On the shorter south wall, open windows overlook the front gardens. Delicious fragrances drift inside:
roses and lilac and other flowers that would be wonderful to gaze on if Rebecca ever gave us a second to
look at them. She doesn't.
"Battement tondu . . . good, good . . . now into the adage . . . Sarah, don't distort your hip line, keep
the turn-out. . . Joaquim, higher. Higher.'"
I have been away for two months, back for one. That's what they told me. You can't be away from
dancing for three months without losing some technique. But I am flexible and strong, and the technique is
returning. I can feel it.
I am twenty-two years old. My name is Cameron Atuli. What could I have done, or been done to, that I
would elect memory deletion? And that Aldani House, perpetually stretching its endowed budget, would pay
for it?
My body gives me no clues, except. . . but I don't want to think about that. And anyway I don't really
want to know why my memory was wiped. I can still dance. Nothing else matters.


The first dream comes a few days later, early in the morning just before I wake. I am running, pumping my
legs, as fast as I can, so scared I can't see straight. Something is chasing me. I can feel it draw closer,
closer. I stumble, and turn around, arms thrown up to shield my face. I can hear myself screaming. And
what leaps on me is . . . a cat. A pet kitty, licking my arm and purring while I cower and scream. I wake in
terror.
Is this a memory? Did I have a pet cat, once? But memories from before the operation aren't supposed
to be able to get through to me, none of them. And why would I be so afraid of a memory of a pet cat?
I lie in bed alone, shivering. And why am I in bed alone, anyway? Did I have a lover, before? Who?
I speak three languages. English, French, some Cajun. How do I know these languages? The
answer—all the personal answers from before my operation—are blocked forever from my conscious
access. All "autobiographical memory retrieval" is coordinated by something called the Gereon node, in the
right temporal cortex. My Gereon node has been "deactivated."
I remember factual knowledge (Two plus two is four; Gerard Michael Combes is president; Aldani
House is named for its founder and endower, a billionaire who loved ballet). Skills, too, are all there. I can
speak, read, dance, because apparently those things are stored in a different way in my brain. What we
have given you, the doctors said, is an induced retrograde amnesia—a sort of Alzheimer's in reverse. I don't
know what Alzheimer's is but I don't really care. I can still dance, and perhaps one of the boys in the
company will become my lover.
The dream can't hurt me.
I spring out of bed and stretch. It feels good, it feels wonderful. Today I'll do an extra barre. We're
rehearsing Prodigal Son; I'm dancing the lead. I'll do my barre next to Rob, who is quiet and gentle, with
marvelously expressive arm movements. He also has beautiful blue eyes.
I pull on my practice clothes and go down to the kitchen for coffee.


We are doing grands battements at the barre when I smile at Rob. Rebecca is not in a very good mood
this morning, and she snaps out the combinations: front, back side, plié. Repeat. Turn. During the turn
Rob smiles back at me, a little uncertain, very appealing. Playfully, I touch my extended leg to his ass.