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.Money that was advanced to her for her costumes.Her jewelry.How much money.Would I ask you such a question?I dont know.I guess I wouldnt be in a position to be asked.You think I am a whiteslaver.I didnt say that.That is what you think.What do you want me to tell him.What difference does it make?I guess it might make a difference to him.Your friend is in the grip of an irrational passion.Nothing you say to him will matter.He has in his head a certain story.Of how things will be.In this story he will be happy.What is wrong with this story?You tell me.What is wrong with this story is that it is not a true story.Men have in their minds a picture of how the world will be.How they will be in that world.The world may be many different ways for them but there is one world that will never be and that is the world they dream of.Do you believe that? Billy put his hat on.I thank you for your time, he said.You are welcome.He turned to go.You didnt answer my question, said Eduardo.He turned back.He looked at the pimp.His cigar in his gracefully cupped fingers, his expensive boots.The windowless room.The furniture in it that looked as if it had been brought in and set in place solely for the purpose of this scene.I dont know, he said.I guess probably I do.I just dont like to say it.Why is that?It seems like a betrayal of some kind.Can the truth be a betrayal?Maybe.Anyway, some men get what they want.No man.Or perhaps only briefly so as to lose it.Or perhaps only to prove to the dreamer that the world of his longing made real is no longer that world at all.Yeah.Do you believe that? I'll tell you what.Tell me.Let me sleep on it.The pimp nodded.Andale pues, he said.The door opened by no visible means or signal.Tiburcio stood waiting.Billy turned again and looked back.You didnt answer mine, he said.No? No.Ask it again.Let me ask you this instead.All right.He's in trouble, aint he?Eduardo smiled.He blew cigar smoke across the glass top of his desk.That is not a question, he said.IT WAS LATE When he got back but the light was still on in the kitchen.He sat in the truck for a minute, then he shut off the engine.He left the key in the ignition and got out and walked across the yard to the house.Socorro had gone to bed but there was cornbread in the warmer over the oven and a plate of beans and potatoes with two pieces of fried chicken.He carried the plates to the table and went back and got silver out of the dishdrainer and got down a cup and poured his coffee and set the pot back over the eye of the stove where there was still a dull red glow of coals and he took his coffee to the table and sat and ate.He ate slowly and methodically.When he'd finished he carried the dishes to the sink and opened the refrigerator and bent to scout the interior for anything in the way of dessert.He found a bowl of pudding and took it to the sideboard and got down a small dish and filled it and put the pudding back in the refrigerator and got more coffee and sat eating the pudding and reading Oren's newspaper.The clock ticked in the hallway.The cooling stove creaked.When John Grady came in he went on to the stove and got a cup of coffee and came to the table and sat down and pushed back his hat.You up for the day? said Billy.I hope not.What time is it?I dont know.Billy sipped his coffee.He reached in his pocket for his cigarettes.Did you just get in? John Grady said.Yep.I reckon the answer was no.You reckon right, little hoss.Well.It's about what you expected aint it?Yeah.Did you offer him the money?Oh we had a pretty good visit, take it all around.What did he say.Billy lit his cigarette and laid the lighter on top of the pack.He said she didnt want to leave there.Well that's a lie.Well that may be.But he says she aint leavin.Well she is.Billy blew smoke slowly across the table.John Grady watched him.You just think I'm crazy, dont you?You know what I think.Well.Why dont you take a good look at yourself.Look at what it's brung you to.Talkin about sellin your horse.It's just the old story all over again.Losin your head over a piece of tail.Cept in your case there aint nothin about it makes any sense.Nothin.In your eyes.In mine or any man's.He leaned forward and began to count off on the fingers of the hand that held the cigarette: She aint American.She aint a citizen.She dont speak english.She works in a whorehouse.No, hear me out.And last but not leasthe sat holding his thumbthere's a son of a bitch owns her outright that I guarangoddamntee you will kill you graveyard dead if you mess with him.Son, aint there no girls on this side of the damn river?Not like her.Well I'll bet that's the truth if you ever told it.He stubbed out the cigarette.Well.I've gone as far as I can go with you.I'm goin to bed.All right.He pushed back his chair and rose and stood.Do I think you're crazy? he said.No.I dont.You've rewrote the book for crazy.If all you are is crazy then all them poor bastards in the loonybin that they're feedin under the door need to be set loose in the street.He put the cigarettes and lighter in his shirtpocket and carried the cup and bowl to the sink.At the door he stopped again and looked back.I'll see you in the mornin, he said.Billy?Yeah.Thanks.I appreciate it.I'd say you're welcome but I'd be a liar.I know it.Thanks anyway.You aim to sell that stallion?I dont know.Yeah.Maybe Wolfenbarger will buy him.I thought about that.I expect you did.I'll see you in the mornin.John Grady watched him walk across the yard toward the barn.He leaned and wiped the beaded water from the window glass with his sleeve.Billy's shadow shortened across the yard until he passed under the yellow light over the barn door and then he stepped through into the dark of the barn and was lost to view.John Grady let the curtains fall back across the glass and turned and sat staring into the empty cup before him.There were grounds in the bottom of the cup and he swirled the cup and looked at them.Then he swirled them the other way as if he'd put them back the way they'd been.HE STOOD IN THE GROVE Of willows with his back to the river and watched the road and the vehicles that moved along the road.There was little traffic.The dust of the few cars hung in the dry air long after the cars were gone.He walked on down to the river and squatted and watched the passing water murky with clay.He threw in a rock.Then another.He turned and looked back toward the road.The cab when it came stopped at the turnoff and then backed and turned and came rocking and bumping down the rutted mud road and pulled up in the clearing.She got out on the far side and paid the driver and spoke briefly with him and the driver nodded and she stepped away.The driver put the cab in gear and put his arm across the seat and backed the cab and turned.He looked toward the river.Then he pulled away out to the road and went back toward town.He took her hand.Ten’a miedo que no vendr’as, he said.She didnt answer.She leaned against him.Her black hair falling about her shoulders.The smell of soap.The flesh and bone living under the cloth of her dress.Me amas? he said.S’.Te amo.He sat on a cottonwood log and watched her while she waded in the gravel shallows.She turned and smiled at him.Her dress gathered about her brown thighs.He tried to smile back but his throat caught and he looked away.She sat on the log beside him and he took her feet in his hands each in turn and dried them with his kerchief and fastened with his own fingers the small buckles of her shoes.She leaned and put her head on his shoulder and he kissed her and he touched her hair and her breasts and her face as a blind man might.Y mi respuesta? he said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]