A Time to Die - Smith Wilbur (читать книги полные .txt) 📗

"General China sent this for you," Joyful explained, and set cans of South African beer on the crowded table.

"Joyful, you are a paragon." le at each They ate in dedicated silence, smiling across the tab other between mouthfuls. At last Claudia groaned softly.

"I think I can just waddle as far as the bed, but definitely no further.

"Suits me fine," he said, and reached across to take her hand.

The mosquito net was a tent over them, creating an intimate and secret temple for their loving. The light from the lantern was soft and golden. It washed subtle tones and shadings across the planes of her face and the rounds and hollows of her body. The texture of her skin fascinated him. It was so fine-pored as to seem glossed like warm wax. He stroked her shoulders and arms and belly, marveling at the feel of her.

She rasped her fingernails through his short crisp beard and her face into the springing curls that covered his chest.

pressed "You're as hairy and hard as a wild animal," she whispered. "And as dangerous. I should be terrified of you."

I "Aren't you? "A little, yes. That's what makes it such fun."

She was starved to the point where her ribs showed clearly through her pale skin. Her limbs were slender and childlike, and the marks of her suffering upon them threatened to break his heart.

Even her breasts seemed smaller, but it was as though their diminution had merely emphasized the sweet and tender shape. She watched him take the nipple of one between his bps, and she stroked the thick curls at the back of his neck.

"That feels so good," she whispered. "But there are two." And she took a handful of his hair to direct his mouth across to the other side.

Once while she sat astride him, he looked up at her, reached high to stroke the soft skin of her throat and shoulders, and said, "In this light, you look like a little girl."

"And me trying so hard to prove to you what a big girl I am," she pouted down at him, then leaned forward to kiss his mouth.

They slept so intricately entwined that their hearts beat against each other and their breath mingled and they woke to find that they had begun again while they still slept.

"He's so clever," she murmured drowsily. "Already he can find his way all on his own."

"Do you want to go back to sleep?"

"Do I, hell!"

Much later she asked him, "Do you think we could make this last forever?"

"We can try."

But at last the dawn sent orange-gold fingers of light through the slats above them, and Claudia cried softly. "No. I don't want it to end. I want to keep you inside me for ever and ever."

When Joyful brought their tea to their bedside, on the tray with the mugs was an invitation from General China to dine in the mess that evening.

For Claudia and Sean General China's mess night was less than an unqualified success, despite the general's continued efforts to charm them.

The buffalo meat he served was tough and rank, and the beer made the officers of the general's staff loud and argumentative.

The weather had changed and was close and sweltering even after dark, and the bunker the4t served as a mess was thick with the smoke of cheap native tobacco and the odor of masculine sweat.

General China drank none of the beer. He sat at the head of the table, ignoring the shouted conversation and hearty eating habits of his staff. Instead he played the gallant to Claudia, engaging her in a discussion that at first she attempted to evade.

Claudia was unaccustomed to the table manners of Africa. She watched with an awful fascination as the stiff maize porridge was scooped from the communal pot in the center of the table by many hands, molded into balls between the fingers and then dipped into buffalo-meat gravy. Greasy gravy ran down the diners" chins, and no attempt was made to moderate the conversation during mastication, so that small particles of food were sprayed across the table when one of them laughed or exclaimed loudly.

Despite the fact that she was still half starved, Claudia had no appetite for the meal, and it took an effort to concentrate on General China's dissertation.

"We have divided the entire country into three war zones," he explained. "General Takawira Dos Alves is the commander of the north. He commands the provinces of Niassa and Cabo Delgado.

In the south the commander is General Tippoo Tip, and of course I command the army of the central provinces of Monica and Sofala. Between us we control almost fifty percent of the total ground area of Mozambique, and another forty percent of the country is a destruction zone over which we are forced to maintain a scorched-earth policy to prevent Frelinio growing either food for their troops or cash crops to finance their war effort against us."

"So the reports of atrocities we have received in the United States are true then." He had engaged Claudia's interest at last.

Her tone was sharp as she accused, "Your troops are attacking and wiping out the civilian population in those destruction zones."

"No, Miss Monterro." China's smile was icy. "The fact that we have moved the civilian population out of many of those destruction areas is unavoidably true, but all the atrocities, all the massacres and tortures, have been committed by Frelimo themselves."

"They are the government of Mozambique. Why would they massacre their own people?" Claudia protested.