Child's Play

Начало книги

Death? Not much. Not then, not now. What is it? You here, I there: you stopping, I going on? Unimaginable! But I can imagine dying and the fear of it. The love of it too. I can imagine a corvette in heavy seas — a bathtub vessel in harbour, but let a gale come howling up the Tyrrhenian, then in the twinkling of a dog-star, its steel sides are changed to perilous cliffs and the dinghy far below bounces on the wild waters like a baby’s teething-ring.

I can hear what the wind sings! At home, a father’s anger and a mother’s tears; at school, nipping draughts and stumbling repetitions, dreadful doubts and tiny triumphs … the sum of the squares … Lars Porsena of Clusium … a spot on the nose … a place in the Eleven … how to mash a girl … arma virumque cano!

Now I seize the rope and feel its fibres burn my frozen palms. With what strange utterance the wind resounds against this metal cliff; arms and the man, it sings … you ‘orrible sprog! … move to the right in threes! … hands off cocks and on to socks! … squeeze it like a tit! … a pip on the shoulder … a place on a course … how to kill a man …

Читать дальше →