"Leiber,.Fritz.-.Conjure.Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

He grabbed her by the arm. "Listen, I've been patient with you about all this ignorant nonsense. But now you're going to show some sense and show it quick."
Her lips curled, nastily. "Oh, I see. It's been the velvet glove so far, but now it's going to be the iron hand. If I don't do just as you say, I get packed off to an asylum. Is that it?"
"Of course not! But you've just got to be sensible."
"Well, I tell you I won't!"
"Now, Tansy --"
_10:13:_ The folded comforter jounced as Tansy flopped on the bed. New tears had streaked and reddened her face and dried. "All right," she said, in a stuffy voice. "I'll do what you want. I'll burn all my things."
Norman felt light-headed. The thought came into his mind, "And to think I dared to tackle it without a psychiatrist!"
"There've been enough times when I've wanted to stop," she added. "Just like there've been times I've wanted to stop being a woman."
What followed struck Norman as weirdly anticlimactic. First the ransacking of Tansy's dressing room for hidden charms and paraphernalia. Norman found himself remembering those old two-reel comedies in which scores of people pile out of a taxicab -- it seemed impossible that a few shallow drawers and old shoe boxes could hold so many wastepaper baskets of junk. He tossed the dog-eared copy of "Parallelisms" on top of the last one, picked up Tansy's leather-bound diary. She shook her head reassuringly. After the barest hesitation he put it back unopened.
Then the rest of the house. Tansy moving faster and faster, darting from room to room, deftly recovering flannel-wrapped "hands" from the upholstery of the chairs, the under sides of table tops, the interior of vases, until Norman dizzily marveled that he had lived in the house for more than ten years without chancing on any.
"It's rather like a treasure hunt, isn't it?" she said with a rueful smile.
There were other charms outside -- under front and back doorsteps, in the garage, and in the car. With every handful thrown on the roaring fire he had built in the living room, Norman's sense of relief grew. Finally Tansy opened the seams of the pillows on his bed and carefully fished out two little matted shapes made of feathers bound with fine thread so that they blended with the fluffy contents of the pillow.
"See, one's a heart, the other an anchor. That's for security," she told him. "New Orleans feather magic. You haven't taken a step for years without being in the range of one of my protective charms."
The feather figures puffed into flame.
"There," she said. "Feel any reaction?"
"No," he said. "Any reason I should?"
She shook her head. "Except that those were the last ones. And so, if there _were_ any hostile forces that my charms were keeping at bay . . ." .
He laughed tolerantly. Then for a moment his voice grew hard. "You're sure they're all gone? Absolutely certain you haven't overlooked any?"
"Absolutely certain. There's not one left in the house or near it, Norm -- and I never planted any anywhere else because I was afraid of . . . well, interference. I've counted them all over in my mind a dozen times and they've all gone --" She looked at the fire, "-- pouf. And now," she said quietly, "I'm tired, really tired. I want to go straight to bed."
Suddenly she began to laugh. "Oh, but first I'll have to stitch up those pillows, or else there'll be feathers all over the place."
He put his arms around her. "Everything okay now?"
"Yes, darling. There's only one thing I want to ask you -- that we don't talk about this for a few days at least. Not even mention it. I don't think I could. . . . Will you promise me that, Norm?"
He pulled her closer. "Absolutely, dear. Absolutely."









3


Leaning forward from the worn leather edge of the old easy chair, Norman played with the remnants of the fire, tapped the fang of the poker against a glowing board until it collapsed into tinkling embers, over which swayed almost invisible blue flames.
From the floor beside him Totem watched the flames, head between outstretched paws.
Norman felt tired. He really ought to have followed Tansy to bed long ago, except he wanted time for his thoughts to unkink. Rather a bother, this professional need to assimilate each new situation, to pick over its details mentally, turning them this way and that, until they became quite shopworn. Whereas Tansy had turned out her thoughts like a light and plunged into sleep. How like Tansy! -- or perhaps it was just the more finely attuned, hyperthyroid female physiology.
In any case, she'd done the practical, sensible thing. And that was like Tansy, too. Always fair. Always willing, in the long run, to listen to logic (in a similar situation would he have dared try reasoned argument on any other woman?) Always . . . yes . . . empirical. Except that she had gotten off on a crazy sidetrack.
Hempnell was responsible for that, it was a breeding place for neurosis, and being a faculty wife put a woman in one of the worst spots. He ought to have realized years ago the strain she was under and taken steps. But she'd been too good an actor for him. And he was always forgetting just how deadly seriously women took faculty intrigues. They couldn't escape like their husbands into the cool, measured worlds of mathematics, microbiology or what have you.
Norman smiled. That had been an odd notion Tansy had let slip towards the end -- that Evelyn Sawtelle and Harold Gunnison's wife and old Mrs. Carr were practising magic too, of the venomous black variety. And not any too hard to believe, either, if you knew them! That was the sort of idea with which a clever satirical writer could do a lot. Just carry it a step farther -- picture most women as glamor-conscious witches, carrying on their savage warfare of deathspell and countercharm, while their reality-befuddled husbands went blithely about their business. Let's see, Barrie had written _What Every Woman Knows_ to show that men never realized how their wives were responsible for their successes. Being that blind, would men be any more apt to realize that their wives used witchcraft for the purpose?
Norm's smile changed to a wince. He had just remembered that it wasn't just an odd notion, but that Tansy had actually believed or half-believed, such things. He sucked his lips wryly. Doubtless he'd have more unpleasant moments like this, when memory would catch him up with a start. After tonight, it was inevitable.
Still, the worst was over.
He reached down to stroke Totem. who did not look away from the hypnotic embers.
"Time we got to bed, old cat. Must be about twelve. No -- quarter past one."
As he slipped the watch back into his pocket, the fingers of his left hand went to the locket at the other end of the chain.
He weighed in his palm the small golden heart, a gift from Tansy. Was it perhaps a trifle heavier than its metal shell could account for? He snapped up the cover with his thumbnail. There was no regular way of getting at the space behind Tansy's picture, so after a moment's hesitation, he carefully edged out the tiny photograph with a pencil point.
Behind the photograph was a tiny packet wrapped in the finest flannel.
Just like a woman -- that thought came with vicious swiftness -- to seem to give in completely, but to hold out on something.
Perhaps she had forgotten.