Levkas Man

Начало книги

It was Sunday, the street empty, the canal black under a louring sky. My footsteps sounded solitary on the cobbles and the years rolled back to childhood, every detail clear-etched on the retina of memory-the house barges moored by the bridge, the flowers set out in pots on the pavement, the newsvendor on the corner. And then the house itself, shabbier than when I had seen it last. That had been two years ago when my ship had put into Rotterdam and some strange urge-a desire for reconciliation-had brought me here. The front door and all the windows had been freshly painted then, green like the linden trees. It had been summer; now it was March and the trees were bare.

My footsteps slowed as I neared the door, a reluctance, a sense of dread almost. Last time I had had a shipboard world behind me, a job and the companionship of men I knew. Now it was different. I could feel myself beginning to tremble as I felt once again the pull of the old man's personality. There

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