"Spider Robinson and Jeanne - Stardance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

was too good for those around her. She did not belong in that eager crew
of awkward, half-trained apprentices. It was like listening to the late
Stephen Wonder trying to work with a pickup band in a Montreal bar.
But that wasn’t what hurt.


Le Maintenant was shabby, but the food was good and the house brand
of grass was excellent. Show a Diner’s Club card in there and they’d show
you a galley full of dirty dishes. It’s gone now. Norrey and Shara declined a
toke, but in my line of work it helps. Besides, I needed a few hits. How to
tell a lovely lady her dearest dream is hopeless?
I didn’t need to ask Shara to know that her dearest dream was to dance.
More: to dance professionally. I have often speculated on the motives of
the professional artist. Some seek the narcissistic assurance that others
will actually pay cash to watch or hear them. Some are so incompetent or
disorganized that they can support themselves in no other way. Some have
a message which they feel needs expressing. I suppose most artists
combine elements of all three. This is no complaint—what they do for us is
necessary. We should be grateful that there are motives.
But Shara was one of the rare ones. She danced because she needed to.
She needed to say things which could be said in no other way, and she
needed to take her meaning and her living from the saying of them.
Anything else would have demeaned and devalued the essential statement
of her dance. I know this, from watching that one dance.
Between toking up and keeping my mouth full and then toking again (a
mild amount to offset the slight down that eating brings), it was over half
an hour before I was required to say anything, beyond an occasional
grunted response to the luncheon chatter of the ladies. As the coffee
arrived, Shara looked me square in the eye and said, “Do you talk,
Charlie?”
She was Norrey’s sister, all right.
“Only inanities.”
“No such thing. Inane people, maybe.”
“Do you enjoy dancing, Miss Drummond?”
She answered seriously. “Define ‘enjoy.’ ”
I opened my mouth and closed it, perhaps three times. You try it.
 “And for God’s sake tell me why you’re so intent on not talking to me.
You’ve got me worried.”
“Shara!” Norrey looked dismayed.
“Hush. I want to know.”
I took a crack at it. “Shara, before he died I had the privilege of meeting
Bertram Ross. I had just seen him dance. A producer who knew and liked
me took me backstage, the way you take a kid to see Santa Claus. I had
expected him to look even older off stage, at rest. He looked younger, as if
that incredible motion of his was barely in check. He talked to me. After a
while I stopped opening my mouth, because nothing ever came out.”
She waited, expecting more. Only gradually did she comprehend the
compliment and its dimension. I had assumed it would be obvious. Most
artists expect to be complimented. When she did twig, she did not blush
or simper. She did not cock her head and say “Oh, come on.” She did not