"S. P. Somtow - Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile.." - читать интересную книгу автора (Somtow S. P)

incredibly unreachable, like the stars. “Umm?” I found myself
saying in a banal voice. I knew what she was going to say; I knew
what I was going to do. But whatever it was dealt only with
appearances. In my thoughts I was free, as though I were somehow
outside the whole thing, experiencing my own past as a recording. I
wondered at my own detachment.
“John, I’m leaving you.”
Anger rose in me. I got up, knocking over the coffee mug and
shouting, “What for, who with?” like an idiot before going off into
incoherent cursing.
“Francis FitzHenry has asked me to stay with him—in his
suite at the Plaza!”
The anger welled up again. Blindly, I slapped her face. She
went white, then red, and then she said quietly, dangerously:
“You’re too petty, John. That’s why you’re going to be a
Guildenstern for the rest of your life.” That hurt.
 Then she walked out of my life.
I shaved and walked slowly over to the theater. We played to a
full house. The aliens came. Sir Francis seemed considerably
distressed that he had been so easily upstaged. I walked home,
casually noting the two overturned Yellow cabs and the old Chevy
stuck in a store window, past the overgrown parking meters, to my
efficiency above an Indian grocery store, and threw myself fully
clothed on the bed. I fell asleep.
I woke up around 11 o’clock, Gail stirred uneasily. We made
love mechanically, and I knew that the two people who were lying
there together had become totally divorced from themselves, and
were going through preordained motions that bore no relationship
whatsoever to what was in their minds. And there was no way of
communicating.
We ate breakfast. She wore her ominous dishevelled look, and
I desperately wanted to apologize to her, but when I tried to speak
my facial muscles were frozen and the buzzing seemed to get
louder, drowning my thoughts. Was the buzzing an external sound,
or was it some mental monitor to enforce the status quo?
“I’m leaving you.”
Anger rose in me. I quenched it at once, but it made no
difference either to my posture or to my words.
“Francis FitzHenry has asked me to stay with him—in his
suite at the Plaza!”
I slapped her face. Suddenly the veils of light came, caressing
the musty stale air of my apartment, touching the dust and making
it sparkle, like a golden snow between the two of us. They faded.
We had been watched; we were trapped in a galactic Peyton Place.
“You’re too petty, John. That’s why you’re going to be a
Guildenstern for the rest of your life.” And walked out of my life.
It hurt me more every time. I was doomed to be a Guildenstern in
this play too, a Guildenstern for the old ladies and a Guildenstern
for the veils of light. It was hell.
I shaved and walked slowly over to the theater. We played to a