[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Mose came to a stop in front of one shack, of a size that would have made an
ample children's play-hut back in twentieth-century suburban Illinois. The
youth took a quick look around then tapped on the unpainted wall beside the
heavy curtain that did duty as a front door. A moment later he stuck his head
inside, and Jerry heard words exchanged. A moment after that, he was bidden to
enter.
The interior was a single dirt-floored room with a back doorway that opened
onto a shallow closet or shed. The only light entered through a single small
translucent window of what Jerry supposed
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...paar/Fred%20Saberhagen%
20-%20After%20the%20Fact.html (218 of 258)22-2-2006 0:47:58
Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact might be oiled paper. Two or three small
children were underfoot;
at the potbellied stove in one corner a black woman of indeterminate age,
shabby and barefoot, her hair tied up in a kerchief like that of Scarlett
O'Hara's Mammy, turned to the visitor a face stoic in its wrinkles.
Mose and the woman Jerry could not tell if she was his mother, or
what conversed briefly. Jerry thought he could catch an English word at
intervals, but most of the dialogue, at least to his perception, was truly in
some other language.
Presently Mose turned back to him. "You can stay here, Mistah
Lockwood. For a few hours anyway. I shall be back when it gets dark, if not
before."
"Thanks. If you see Colleen well, she will be safer if she does not know where
I am."
Mose looked troubled, but he nodded.
"Thank you for your help, Mose. This will be a very great help to me indeed."
The youth, turned suddenly inarticulate, nodded again. Then he was gone.
Jerry retreated into the hut, and sat down on one end of the only bed; he
couldn't see anything else to sit on, except a small table that was fully
occupied at the moment, with pots and pans that looked as if they might have
been salvaged from a scrap pile. He smiled tentatively at the woman, and tried
to speak to her, but she remained deadpan silent.
Time passed. Eventually slow footsteps were heard outside the
Page 104
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...paar/Fred%20Saberhagen%
20-%20After%20the%20Fact.html (219 of 258)22-2-2006 0:47:58
Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact curtain, which was pushed back. The woman
hurried to greet the new arrival, a graying man as ageless as herself who was
carrying a rusty shovel. The new arrival was not as poker-faced as she, and
his expression on seeing Jerry went through a whole actor's repertory of
responses.
The two held conversation in what sounded to Jerry like the same dialect used
by the woman and Mose. At length the graying man put down his shovel and went
out. He returned in a few minutes, bringing water in a battered bucket, and
offered Jerry a dipperful.
"Thank you." Jerry reached for the dipper, while his host and hostess smiled
and nodded welcome. Jerry was thirsty, and the water tasted good though the
look of the pail and dipper suggested the possibility of typhoid. That,
thought Jerry, would probably be among the least of his problems, even if he
caught it. Meanwhile the man had produced a chair from somewhere and invited
the guest to sit in it. There seemed to be a general reluctance on the part of
the householders to speak to him at all; it was hard for Jerry to believe they
could not manage something close to white folks' English if they tried. But
now that he was here, and his presence had been acknowledged by the offering
of water, they seemed to prefer to ignore him. Not a bad attitude, Jerry
realized on second thought, to take with regard to a guest who must be somehow
involved in intelligence work. Only the tiny children, grandchildren here
probably, two of them entirely naked except for shirts that had once been
cloth bags, interrupted their play now and then to stare at him with frank
curiosity. At last he had to smile at them; and felt in his pockets, only to
be reminded that his only money was the small
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...paar/Fred%20Saberhagen%
20-%20After%20the%20Fact.html (220 of 258)22-2-2006 0:47:58
Saberhagen, Fred - After the Fact amount remaining from what Colleen had given
him. Only a little more than two dollars, and he might encounter some
unforeseen expense in the five hours remaining before show time. Still he
decided that he could spare a penny for each child.
Whatever the reason for the shy silence of the adults, he was willing to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]