minutes before the program begins.”
“I should polish my shoes one more time,” said Stanley. The two brothers stood by the door, dressed alike in their black suits and dark ties, the coarse Wood hair brushed back from their foreheads.
“Your shoes are fine as they are,” Ross said, but he did not want to start a quarrel. He had quarreled with Papa the night he died, a circuitous quarrel about bonds and about the little Monet drawing—what should be done with it. It was just after the quarrel, in fact, that Papa had rushed out into the street and fallen in the path of the motorcyclist.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Stanley said. He found a soft cloth and rubbed at the toes of his black shoes. Then he pulled at his shirt cuffs and examined them. Elke must be proud of them tonight.
The air outside was spicy and cold, and the chilly white light of the moon coated the pavement and the tops of parked cars. Ross and Stanley fell into step, left-right, left-right. They were silent, guarding their thoughts and guarding at the same time, it seemed, Elke’s good luck. Stanley wondered if she were anxious, if the little nerves were jumping under the skin of her playing arm, if she were finding it painful to breathe, if her vision were blurred or her thoughts scattered.
Walking along dark streets always made Stanley think of how piteously men and women struggle to make themselves known to one another, how lonely they can be.
At least he wasn’t alone. He would never be alone. Thinking this, he stumbled slightly with happiness and bumped up against Ross. The two of them bounced lightly off each other as two eggs will do when boiled in a little pan.
Elke had persuaded Ross and Stanley to let her eat supper alone. She had eaten two peeled peaches and a bowl of corn flakes, and had drunk a small glass of Scotch. Now she was wandering the corridor beneath the stage.
There seemed an endless number of rooms: dressing rooms like her own, larger rooms filled with props and costumes, one tiny room with row after row of wigs, several rooms of mops and rags and buckets, then a little library whose shelves were weighted down with scripts and scores, next a delightful room full of instruments in need of repair, and still another room full of instruments beyond repair. This labyrinth of rooms had the surprising and inevitable logic of a dream.
She glanced at the watch given to her by Papa for her last birthday; the slim gold pointers had moved alarmingly fast. She had only a few minutes to get dressed. Before turning back to her room, where Ross’s clothes lay spread out on a divan waiting for her, Elke opened one last door.
Costumes, costumes. These must be the costumes for the Saturday matinee performances of fairy tales given to busloads of children; Rapunzel’s gown, Goldilocks’s frilled pinafore, Sleeping Beauty’s nightdress, Cinderella’s slippers, Red Riding Hood’s cape. The costumes were made to last for years of performances, and were lovely enough to enchant the most disenchanted of children. Rapunzel’s gold-green gown, with its square neck and high empire waist, was by far the most beautiful and, as it happened, fit Elke perfectly.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
