В последней части я покривил душой, но не так чтобы очень сильно: хотя иногда я и пробую новые рецепты, но вкусы в еде у меня в общем-то вполне католические.
— Не представляю, что у меня получится, — засмеялась она. — Моя мать была наполовину китаянкой. Так что сегодня на ужин будет нечто беспородное.
Она подняла глаза и, увидев мое лицо, снова рассмеялась.
— Я забыла, что ты бывал в Азии. Не бойся, собачьего мяса я готовить не буду.
Единственное, что было совершенно невыносимо, это палочки. Я мучался с ними, сколько мог, потом отложил в сторону и взял вилку.
— Извини, — сказал я, — но мне это не под силу.
— Ты вполне прилично с ними управлялся.
— Было время научиться.
Каждое новое блюдо воспринималось мною как откровение: ничего подобного я в жизни не пробовал.[35]
— Ты меня боишься, Виктор?
— Поначалу боялся.
— Из-за моего лица?
— Просто обобщенная азиатофобия. Наверно, я все-таки расист. Против своей воли.
Она кивнула. Мы снова сидели в патио, хотя солнце уже давно скрылось за горизонтом.
Я не могу припомнить точно, о чем мы говорили прежде, но, во всяком случае, нам было интересно.[36]
— У вас, американцев, комплекс по поводу расизма. Как будто вы его изобрели, и никто другой, кроме, может быть, ЮАР и нацистов, не знают толком, что такое расизм на практике. Вы не в состоянии отличить одно желтое лицо от другого и считаете все желтые нации монолитным блоком. Хотя на самом деле у азиатов расовая ненависть ох как сильна.[37] — Она задумалась, потом добавила: — Как я ненавижу Камбоджу, ты бы знал! Я бежала туда из Сайгона и на два года попала в трудовые лагеря. Наверное, мне надо ненавидеть только этого подонка Пол Пота, но мы не всегда властны над своими чувствами…
На следующий день я зашел к ней около полудня. На улице похолодало, но в ее темной пещере еще держалось тепло.
Лиза рассказала мне кое-что о компьютерах, но когда она дала мне поработать с клавиатурой, я быстро запутался, и мы решили, что мне едва ли стоит планировать для себя карьеру программиста.
Одно из приспособлений, которое она мне показала, называлось «модем».[38] С его помощью Лиза могла связываться с любыми другими компьютерами практически во всем мире. Когда я пришел, она как раз общалась с кем-то в Станфорде, с человеком, которого она никогда не видела и знала только по его позывному «Бабл-Сортер».[39] С жуткой скоростью они перебрасывались своими компьютерными словечками. Под конец Бабл-Сортер напечатал: «Пока-П». В ответ Лиза напечатала: «И».[40]
— Что означает «И»? — спросил я.
— «Истина». В смысле «да», но обычное «да» для хакера слишком прямолинейно.
— А что такое «пока-П»?
— Это вопрос. Добавляешь к слову «П», и получается вопрос. «Пока-П» означает, что Бабл-Сортер спрашивает, закончен ли наш разговор.[41]
Я задумался и посмотрел на ее майку, потом — в глаза, серьезные и спокойные. Она ждала, сложив руки на коленях.
В+Л-П[42]
— Да, — сказал я. — Да.
Лиза положила очки на стол и стянула майку через голову.[43]
К вечеру мы решили, что Лизе следует перебраться в мой дом. Кое-какие операции ей необходимо было выполнять у Клюга, но остальное она вполне могла делать у меня с помощью переносного терминала и охапки дисков. Мы выбрали один из лучших компьютеров, дюжину периферийных устройств и установили все это хозяйство в одной из моих комнат.[44]
Конечно же, мы оба понимали, что этот переезд вряд ли спасет нас, если те, кто прикончил Клюга, решат заняться Лизой. Но все-таки я почувствовал себя спокойнее, и она, надеюсь, тоже.
На следующий день к дому подкатил грузовой фургон, и двое парней принялись выгружать оттуда здоровенную кровать.[45]
— Слушай, — сказал я, — ты случайно не воспользовалась компьютерами Клюга, чтобы…
Лиза расхохоталась.
— Успокойся. Как ты считаешь, отчего я могу позволить себе «Феррари»?
— Признаться, я задавал себе этот вопрос.
— Если человек действительно умеет писать хорошие программы, он может заработать очень много денег. У меня есть собственная компания, но ни один хакер не откажется от возможности познакомиться с каким-нибудь новым трюком. Кое-какие из приемов Клюга я когда-то применяла сама.
— А сейчас? Нет?
Лиза пожала плечами.
35
Пропущено: Toward the end, I broke down halfway.
«Does the V stand for victory?» I asked.
«Maybe.»
«Beethoven? Churchill? World War Two?»
She just smiled.
«Think of it as a challenge, Yank.»
36
Пропущено: «I have the same problem,» she said.
«Fear of Orientals?» I had meant it as a joke.
«Of Cambodians.» She let me take that in for a while, then went on. «When Saigon fell, I fled to Cambodia. It took me two years with stops when the Khmer Rouge put me in labor camps. I'm lucky to be alive, really.»
«I thought they called it Kampuchea now.»
She spat. I'm not even sure she was aware she had done it.
«It's the People's Republic of Syphilitic Dogs. The North Koreans treated you very badly, didn't they, Victor?»
«That's right.»
«Koreans are pus suckers.» I must have looked surprised, because she chuckled.
37
В оригинале: «When in fact Orientals are among the most racist peoples on the earth.»
Затем пропущено: «The Vietnamese have hated the Cambodians for a thousand years. The Chinese hate the Japanese. The Koreans hate everybody. And everybody hates the 'ethnic Chinese.' The Chinese are the Jews of the east.»
«I've heard that.»
41
Пропущено: «I thought that over.
„So how would you translate 'osculate posterior-p'?“
„'You wanna kiss my ass?' But remember, that was for Osborne.“»
43
Пропущено: We made love in Kluge's big waterbed.
I had a certain amount of performance anxiety-it had been a long, long time. After that, I was so caught up in the touch and smell and taste of her that I went a little crazy. She didn't seem to mind.
At last we were done, and bathed in sweat. She rolled over, stood, and went to the window. She opened it, and a breath of air blew over me. Then she put one knee on the bed, leaned over me, and got a pack of cigarettes from the bedside table. She lit one.
«I hope you're not allergic to smoke,» she said.
«No. My father smoked. But I didn't know you did.»
«Only afterwards,» she said, with a quick smile. She took a deep drag. «Everybody in Saigon smoked, I think.» She stretched out on her back beside me and we lay like that, soaking wet, holding hands. She opened her legs so one of her bare feet touched mine. It seemed enough contact. I watched the smoke rise from her right hand.
«I haven't felt warm in thirty years,» I said. «I've been hot, but I've never been warm. I feel warm now.»
«Tell me about it,» she said.
So I did, as much as I could, wondering if it would work this time. At thirty years remove, my story does not sound so horrible. We've seen so much in that time. There were people in jails at that very moment, enduring conditions as bad as any I encountered. The paraphernalia of oppression is still pretty much the same. Nothing physical happened to me that would account for thirty years lived as a recluse.
«I was badly injured,» I told her. «My skull was fractured, I still have… problems from that. Korea can get very cold, and I was never warm enough. But it was the other stuff. What they call brainwashing now.»
«We didn't know what it was. We couldn't understand that even after a man had told them all he knew they'd keep on at us. Keeping us awake. Disorienting us. Some guys signed confessions, made up all sorts of stuff, but even that wasn't enough. They'd just keep on at you.»
«I never did figure it out. I guess I couldn't understand an evil that big. But when they were sending us back and some of the prisoners wouldn't go… they really didn't want to go, they really believed…»
I had to pause there. Lisa sat up, moved quietly to the end of the bed, and began massaging my feet.
«We got a taste of what the Vietnam guys got, later. Only for us it was reversed. The GJ.'s were heroes, and the prisoners were…»
«You didn't break,» she said. It wasn't a question.
«No, I didn't.»
«That would be worse.»
I looked at her. She had my foot pressed against her flat belly, holding me by the heel while her other hand massaged my toes.
«The country was shocked,» I said. «They didn't understand what brainwashing was. I tried telling people how it was. I thought they were looking at me funny. After a while, I stopped talking about it. And I didn't have anything else to talk about.»
«A few years back the Army changed its policy. Now they don't expect you to withstand psychological conditioning. It's understood you can say anything or sign anything.»
She just looked at me, kept massaging my foot, and nodded slowly. Finally she spoke.
«Cambodia was hot,» she said. «I kept telling myself when I finally got to the U.S. I'd live in Maine or someplace, where it snowed. And I did go to Cambridge, but I found out I didn't like snow.»
She told me about it. The last I heard, a million people had died over there. It was a whole country frothing at the mouth and snapping at anything that moved. Or like one of those sharks you read about that, when its guts are ripped out, bends in a circle and starts devouring itself.
She told me about being forced to build a pyramid of severed heads. Twenty of them working all day in the hot sun finally got it ten feet high before it collapsed. If any of them stopped working, their own heads were added to the pile.
«It didn't mean anything to me. It was just another job. I was pretty crazy by then. I didn't start to come out of it until I got across the Thai border.»
That she had survived it at all seemed a miracle. She had gone through more horror than I could imagine. And she had come through it in much better shape. It made me feel small. When I was her age, I was well on my way to building the prison I have lived in ever since. I told her that.
«Part of it is preparation,» she said, wryly. «What you expect out of life, what your life has been so far. You said it yourself. Korea was new to you. I'm not saying I was ready for Cambodia, but my life up to that point hadn't been what you'd call sheltered. I hope you haven't been thinking I made a living in the streets by selling apples.»
She kept rubbing my feet, staring off into scenes I could not see.
«How old were you when your mother died?»
«She was killed during Tet, 1968. I was ten.»
«By the Viet Cong?»
«Who knows? Lot of bullets flying, lot of grenades being thrown.»
She sighed, dropped my foot, and sat there, a scrawny Buddha without a robe.
«You ready to do it again, Yank?»
«I don't think I can, Lisa. I'm an old man.»
She moved over me and lowered herself with her chin just below my sternum, settling her breasts in the most delicious place possible.
«We'll see,» she said, and giggled. «There's an alternative sex act I'm pretty good at, and I'm pretty sure it would make you a young man again. But I haven't been able to do it for about a year on account of these.» She tapped her braces. «It'd be sort of like sticking it in a buzz saw. So now I do this instead. I call it 'touring the silicone valley.'» She started moving her body up and down, just a few inches at a time. She blinked innocently a couple times, then laughed.
«At last, I can see you,» she said. «I'm awfully myopic.»
I let her do that for a while, then lifted my head.
«Did you say silicone?»
«Uh-huh. You didn't think they were real, did you?»
I confessed that I had.
«I don't think I've ever been so happy with anything I ever bought. Not even the car.»
«Why did you?»
«Does it bother you?»
It didn't, and I told her so. But I couldn't conceal my curiosity.
«Because it was safe to. In Saigon I was always angry that I never developed. I could have made a good living as a prostitute, but I was always too tall, too skinny, and too ugly. Then in Cambodia I was lucky. I managed to pass for a boy some of the time. If not for that I'd have been raped a lot more than I was. And in Thailand I knew I'd get to the West one way or another, and when I got there, I'd get the best car there was, eat anything I wanted any time I wanted to, and purchase the best tits money could buy. You can't imagine what the West looks like from the camps. A place where you can buy tits!»
She looked down between them, then back at my face.
«Looks like it was a good investment,» she said.
«They do seem to work okay,» I had to admit.