JК
Veronika decides to die :: Coelho Paulo
Страница: 97 из 115I wantto know about these visions of paradise, because I came very close to having one myself.”
“I need to look further, beyond the buildings of Villete,” he said.
“Go on, then.”
Eduard looked behind him, not at the walls of the wards or at the garden where the inmates were walking in silence, but at a street in another continent, in a land where it either rained in torrents or not at all.
Eduard could smell that land. It was the dry season; he could feel the dust in his nostrils, and the feeling gave him pleasure, because to smell the earth is to feel alive. He was riding an imported bicycle, he was seventeen, and had just left the American college in Brasília, where all the other diplomats’ children studied.
He hated Brasília, but he loved the Brazilians. His father had been appointed Yugoslavian ambassador two years before, at a time when no one even dreamed of the violent division of their country. Milosevic was still in power; men and women lived with their differences and tried to find a harmony beyond regional conflicts.
His father’s first posting was to Brazil. Eduard dreamed of beaches, carnival, soccer matches, and music, but they ended up in the Brazilian capital, far from the coast—a city created to provide shelter only to politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, and to their children, who didn’t quite know what to do, stuck in the middle of all that.
Eduard hated living there. He spent the day immersed in his studies, trying—but failing—to relate to his classmates, trying—but failing—to work up some interest in cars, the latest sneakers, and designer clothes, the only possible topics of conversation with the other young people.
Now and then, there would be a party, where the boys would get drunk on one side of the room, and the girls would feign indifference on the other. There were always drugs around, and Eduard had already experimented with almost all the possible varieties, not that he could get very excited about any of them; he either got too agitated or too sleepy and immediately lost interest in what was going on around him.
His family was concerned. They had to prepare him to follow in his father’s footsteps, and although Eduard had almost all the necessary talents, a desire to study, good artistic taste, a facility with languages, an interest in politics, he lacked one essential quality for a diplomat: He found it difficult to talk to other people.
His parents took him to parties, told him to invite his school friends home and gave him a generous allowance, but Eduard rarely turned up with anyone.
“I need to look further, beyond the buildings of Villete,” he said.
“Go on, then.”
Eduard looked behind him, not at the walls of the wards or at the garden where the inmates were walking in silence, but at a street in another continent, in a land where it either rained in torrents or not at all.
Eduard could smell that land. It was the dry season; he could feel the dust in his nostrils, and the feeling gave him pleasure, because to smell the earth is to feel alive. He was riding an imported bicycle, he was seventeen, and had just left the American college in Brasília, where all the other diplomats’ children studied.
He hated Brasília, but he loved the Brazilians. His father had been appointed Yugoslavian ambassador two years before, at a time when no one even dreamed of the violent division of their country. Milosevic was still in power; men and women lived with their differences and tried to find a harmony beyond regional conflicts.
His father’s first posting was to Brazil. Eduard dreamed of beaches, carnival, soccer matches, and music, but they ended up in the Brazilian capital, far from the coast—a city created to provide shelter only to politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats, and to their children, who didn’t quite know what to do, stuck in the middle of all that.
Eduard hated living there. He spent the day immersed in his studies, trying—but failing—to relate to his classmates, trying—but failing—to work up some interest in cars, the latest sneakers, and designer clothes, the only possible topics of conversation with the other young people.
Now and then, there would be a party, where the boys would get drunk on one side of the room, and the girls would feign indifference on the other. There were always drugs around, and Eduard had already experimented with almost all the possible varieties, not that he could get very excited about any of them; he either got too agitated or too sleepy and immediately lost interest in what was going on around him.
His family was concerned. They had to prepare him to follow in his father’s footsteps, and although Eduard had almost all the necessary talents, a desire to study, good artistic taste, a facility with languages, an interest in politics, he lacked one essential quality for a diplomat: He found it difficult to talk to other people.
His parents took him to parties, told him to invite his school friends home and gave him a generous allowance, but Eduard rarely turned up with anyone.