"Kim Stanley Robinson - Forty Signs of Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

his innocence.

“Hi Asta.”

“Hello Charlie.”

He even began to doubt it himself. Asta was one of those lively European women of twenty or so who
gave the impression of being a decade ahead of their American contemporaries in terms of adult
experiences—not easy, given the way American teens were these days. Charlie felt a little surge of
protest: It’s not me who goes after the babes, he wanted to shout, it’s my son! My son the hyperactive
girl-chasing mugger! But of course he couldn’t do that, and now even Asta regarded him warily, perhaps
because the first time they had chatted over their kids he had made some remark complimenting her on
her child’s nice hair. He felt himself begin to blush again, remembering the look of amused surprise she
had given him as she corrected him.

Sing-along saved him from the moment. It was designed to calm the kids down a bit before the session
ended and they had to be lassoed back into their car seats for the ride home. Joe took Ally’s
announcement as his cue to dive into the depths of the tube structure, where it was impossible to follow
him or to coax him out. He would only emerge when Ally started singing “Ring Around the Rosie,” which
he enjoyed. Round in circles they all went, Charlie avoiding anyone’s eye but Joe’s. Ally, who was from
New Jersey, belted out the lead, and so all the kids and moms joined her loudly in the final chorus:

“Eshes, eshes, we all, fall, DOWN!”

And down they all fell.



Then it was off to the park.

Their park was a small one, located just west of Wisconsin Avenue, a few blocks south of their home. A
narrow grassy area held a square sandpit, which contained play structures for young kids. Tennis courts
lined the south edge of the park. Against Wisconsin stood a fire station, and to the west a field extended
out to one of the many little creeks that still cut through the grid of streets.

Midday the sandpit and the benches flanking it were almost always occupied by a few infants and
toddlers, moms and nannies. Many more nannies than moms here, most of them West Indian, to judge by
their appearance and voices. They sat on the benches together, resting in the steamy heat, talking. The
kids wandered on their own, absorbed or bored.

Joe kept Charlie on his toes. Nick had been content to sit in one spot for long periods of time, and when
playing he had been pathologically cautious; on a low wooden bouncy bridge his little fists had gone white
on the chain railing. Joe however had quickly located the spot on the bridge that would launch him the
highest—not the middle, but about halfway down to it. He would stand right there and jump up and
down in time to the wooden oscillation until he was catching big air, his unhappy expression utterly
different from Nick’s, in that it was caused by his dissatisfaction that he could not get higher. This was
part of his general habit of using his body as an experimental object, including walking in front of kids on
swings, etc. Countless times Charlie had been forced to jerk him out of dangerous situations, and they
had become less frequent only because Joe didn’t like how loud Charlie yelled afterward. “Give me a
break!” Charlie would shout. “What do you think, you’re made of steel?”