Роберт Джеймс Уоллер
The Bridges of Madison County / Мосты округа Мэдисон

© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2018

© ООО «Издательство «Антология», 2018

For the peregrines

The Beginning

In late afternoon, in the autumn of 1989, I'm at my desk, looking at a blinking cursor on the computer screen before me, and the telephone rings.

On the other end of the wire is a former Iowan[1] named Michael Johnson. He lives in Florida now. A friend from Iowa has sent him one of my books. Michael Johnson has read it; his sister, Carolyn, has read it; and they have a story in which they think I might be interested. He is careful, refusing to say anything about the story, except that he and Carolyn are willing to travel to Iowa to talk with me about it.

So I agree to meet with them in Des Moines[2] the following week. At a Holiday Inn[3] near the airport, the introductions are made, and the two of them sit across from me, evening coming down outside, light snow falling.

They insist on a promise: If I decide not to write the story, I must agree never to mention what happened in Madison County[4], Iowa, in 1965 or other events that followed over the next twenty-four years. All right, that's reasonable. After all, it's their story, not mine.

So I listen. I listen hard, and I ask hard questions. And they talk. On and on they talk.[5] Carolyn cries openly at times, Michael struggles not to. They show me documents and magazine clippings and a set of journals written by their mother, Francesca.

Room service[6] comes and goes. Extra coffee is ordered. As they talk, I begin to see the images. First you must have the images, then come the words. And I begin to hear the words, begin to see them on pages of writing. Sometime just after midnight, I agree to write the story – or at least attempt it.

Their decision to make this information public was a difficult one for them. The circumstances are delicate, involving their mother and touching upon their father. Michael and Carolyn recognized that the story going public might result in dirty gossip and affect good memories people have of Richard and Francesca Johnson.

Yet in a world where personal commitment[7] in all of its forms seems to be destroyed and love has become a matter of convenience, they both felt this remarkable tale was worth the telling. I believed then, and I believe even more strongly now, they were correct making this decision.

In the course of my research and writing, I asked to meet with Michael and Carolyn three more times. On each occasion, and without complaint, they traveled to Iowa. Such was their eagerness to make sure the story was told accurately. Sometimes we merely talked; sometimes we slowly drove the roads of Madison County while they pointed out places having a significant role in the story.

In addition to the help provided by Michael and Carolyn, the story as I tell it here is based on information contained in the journals of Francesca Johnson; research carried out in Madison County, Iowa; information obtained from the photographic essays of Robert Kincaid; and long discussions with several wonderful elderly people in Ohio, who remembered Kincaid from his boyhood days.

In spite of the effort, gaps remain. I have added a little of my own imagination in some instances, but only when I felt I had gained the intimate familiarity with Francesca Johnson and Robert Kincaid through my research. I am confident that I have come very close to what actually happened.

One major gap involves the exact details of a trip made across the northern United States by Kincaid. We knew he made this journey, based on a number of photographs published, a brief mention of it by Francesca Johnson in her journals, and handwritten notes he left with a magazine editor. Using these sources as my guide, I retraced what I believe was the path he took from Bellingham[8] to Madison County in August of 1965. Driving toward Madison County at the end of my travels, I felt I had, in many ways, become Robert Kincaid.

Still, trying to truly understand Kincaid was the most challenging part of my research and writing. He is an elusive figure. At times he seems rather ordinary. At other times ethereal. In his work he was a consummate professional[9]. Yet he saw himself as a peculiar kind of male animal becoming obsolete in a world given over to increasing amounts of organization[10].

Two other intriguing questions are still unanswered. First, we have been unable to know what became of Kincaid's photographic files. Given the nature of his work[11], there must have been thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of photographs. These never have been found. Our best guess[12] – and this would be logical to the way he saw himself and his place in the world – is that he destroyed them before his death.

The second question deals with his life from 1975 to 1982. Very little information is available. We know he earned a sparse living[13] as a portrait photographer in Seattle for several years and continued to photograph the Puget Sound[14] area. Other than that, we have nothing.[15]

Preparing and writing this book has altered my world view, transformed the way I think, and, most of all, reduced my level of cynicism about what is possible in the arena of human relationships. Coming to know Francesca Johnson and Robert Kincaid, I find the boundaries of such relationships can be extended farther than I previously thought[16]. Perhaps you will have the same experience in reading this story.

That will not be easy. In an increasingly callous world[17], I'm not sure where great passion leaves off and mawkishness begins. But our tendency to laugh at the possibility of deep feelings makes it difficult to enter the realm of gentleness[18] to understand the story of Francesca Johnson and Robert Kincaid. I know I had to overcome that tendency initially before I could begin writing.

If, however, you manage to suspend your disbelief[19], as Coleridge[20] put it, I am confident you will experience what I have experienced. And deep in your heart, you may even find, as Francesca Johnson did, room to dance again.

Summer 1991

The Bridges of Madison County

Robert Kincaid

On the morning ofAugust 8, 1965, Robert Kincaid locked the door to his small two-room apartment on the third floor of a house in Bellingham, Washington. He carried a knapsack full ofphotography equipment and a suitcase down wooden stairs and through a hallway to the back, where his old Chevrolet pickup truck[21] was parked in a space reserved for residents of the building.

Another knapsack, a medium-size ice chest[22], two tripods, cartons of Camel cigarettes[23], a Thermos, and a bag of fruit were already inside. In the truck box was a guitar case. Kincaid arranged the knapsacks on the seat and put the cooler and tripods on the floor. He climbed into the truck box, stepped in behind the wheel, lit a Camel, and went through his mental checklist[24]: two hundred rolls of film; tripods; cooler; three cameras and five lenses; jeans and khaki slacks; shirts. Okay. Anything else he could buy on the road if he had forgotten it.

Kincaid wore faded Levi's, well-used field boots, a khaki shirt, and orange suspenders. On his wide leather belt was fastened a Swiss Army knife[25] in its own case.

He looked at his watch: eight-seventeen. The truck started on the second try, and he backed out, shifted gears[26], and moved slowly down the alley under hazy sun. Through the streets of Bellingham he went, heading south on Washington 11[27], running along the coast of Puget Sound for a few miles, then following the highway before meeting U.S. Route 20.

Turning into the sun, he began the long, winding drive[28] through the Cascades[29]. He liked this country and felt impressed, stopping now and then to make notes about interesting possibilities for future expeditions or to shoot what he called “memory snapshots.” The purpose of these photographs was to remind him of places he might want to visit again and approach more seriously.

He wished for the thousandth time in his life that he had a dog, a golden retriever, maybe, for travels like this and to keep him company at home. But he was frequently away, overseas much of the time, and it would not be fair to the animal. Still, he thought about it anyway. In a few years he would be getting too old for the hard fieldwork. “I might get a dog then,” he said to the coniferous green rolling by his truck window[30].

Drives like this always put him into a taking-stock mood.[31] The dog was part of it. Robert Kincaid was as alone as it's possible to be – an only child, parents both dead, distant relatives who had lost track of him[32] and he of them, no close friends.

He knew the names of the man who owned the corner market in Bellingham and the proprietor of the photographic store where he bought his supplies. He also had formal, professional relationships with several magazine editors. Other than that, he knew scarcely anyone well, nor they him. Gypsies make difficult friends for ordinary people[33], and he was something of a gypsy.

He thought about Marian. She had left him nine years ago after five years of marriage. He was fifty-two now; that would make her just under forty. Marian had dreams of becoming a musician, a folksinger. She knew all of the Weavers[34]' songs and sang them pretty well in the coffeehouses of Seattle[35]. When he was home in the old days, he drove her to gigs and sat in the audience while she sang.

His long absences – two or three months sometimes – were hard on the marriage. He knew that. She was aware of what he did when they decided to get married, and each of them had a vague sense that it could all be handled somehow. It couldn't. When he came home from photographing a story in Iceland, she was gone. The note read: “Robert, it didn't work out. I left you the Harmony guitar. Stay in touch.”[36]

He didn't stay in touch. Neither did she. He signed the divorce papers when they arrived a year later and caught a plane[37] for Australia the next day. She had asked for nothing except her freedom.

At Montana[38], he stopped for the night, late. The Cozy Inn looked inexpensive, and was. He carried his gear into a room

containing two table lamps, one of which had a burned-out bulb. Lying in bed, he was reading The Green Hills of Africa[39] and drinking a beer. In the morning he jogged for forty minutes, did fifty push-ups, and used his cameras as small hand weights to complete the routine.

Across the top of Montana he drove, into North Dakota[40] and the spare, flat country he found as fascinating as the mountains or the sea. There was a kind of austere beauty to this place, and he stopped several times, set up a tripod, and shot some black-and-whites of old farm buildings. This landscape appealed to his minimalist leanings.[41] The Indian reservations were depressing, for all of the reasons everybody knows and ignores. Those kinds of settlements were no better in northwestern Washington, though, or anywhere else he had seen them.

On the morning of August 14, he sliced[42] northeast and took a back road up to Hibbing and the iron mines. Red dust floated in the air, and there were big machines and trains specially designed to carry the ore to Lake Superior[43]. He spent an afternoon looking around Hibbing and found it not to his liking, even if Bob Dylan[44] was from there originally.

The only song of Dylan's he had ever really cared for was “Girl from the North Country.” He could play and sing that one, and he hummed the words to himself as he left behind the place with giant red holes in the earth. Marian had shown him some chords and how to handle basic arpeggios to accompany himself. “She left me with more than I left her,” he said once to a boozy riverboat pilot. And it was true.

The Superior National Forest[45] was nice, real nice. Voyageur[46] country. When he was young, he'd wished the old voyageur days were not over so he could become one. He drove by meadows, saw three moose, a red fox, and lots of deer. At a pond he stopped and shot some reflections on the water made by an odd-shaped tree branch. When he finished he sat on the board of his truck[47], drinking coffee, smoking a Camel, and listening to the wind in the birch trees.

“It would be good to have someone, a woman,” he thought, watching the smoke from his cigarette blow out over the pond. “Getting older puts you in that frame of mind[48].” But with him gone so much, it would be tough on the one left at home.[49] He'd already learned that.

When he was home in Bellingham, he occasionally dated the creative director[50] for a Seattle advertising agency. He had met her while doing a corporate job. She was forty-two, bright, and a nice person, but he didn't love her, would never love her.

Sometimes they both got a little lonely, though, and would spend an evening together, going to a movie, having a few beers, and making pretty decent love later on. She'd been around[51] – two marriages, worked as a waitress in several bars while attending college. Every time, after they'd completed their lovemaking and were lying together, she'd tell him, “You're the best, Robert, no competition, nobody even close.”

He supposed that was a good thing for a man to hear, but he was not all that experienced and had no way of knowing whether or not she was telling the truth anyway. But she did say something one time that haunted him: “Robert, there's a creature inside of you that I'm not good enough to bring out, not strong enough to reach[52]. I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've lived in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about. You frighten me, even though you're gentle with me.”

He knew in an obscure way what she was talking about. But he couldn't get his hands on it himself.[53] He'd had these kinds of thoughts, a sense of the tragic combined with intense physical and intellectual power, even as a young boy growing up in a small Ohio town. When other kids were singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat[54],” he was learning the melody and English words to a French cabaret song.

He liked words and images. “Blue” was one of his favorite words. He liked the feeling it made on his lips and tongue when he said it. Words have physical feeling, not just meaning, he remembered thinking when he was young. He liked other words, such as “distant,” “wood-smoke,” “highway,” “ancient,” “passage,” “voyageur,” and “India” for how they sounded, how they tasted, and what they conjured up in his mind. He kept lists of words he liked posted in his room.[55]

Then he joined the words into phrases and posted those as well:

Too close to the fire.

I came from the East with a small band of travelers.

The constant chirping of those who would save me and those who would sell me.

Talisman, Talisman, show me your secrets. Helmsman, Helmsman, turn me for home.

Lying naked where blue whales swim.

Before I became a man, I was an arrow – long time ago.

Then there were the places whose names he liked: the Somali Current[56], the Big Hatchet Mountains[57], the Malacca Strait[58], and a long list of others. The sheets of paper with words and phrases and places eventually covered the walls of his room.

Even his mother noticed something different about him. He never spoke a word until he was three, then began talking in complete sentences, and he could read extremely well by five. In school he was an indifferent student, frustrating the teachers.

They looked at his IQ[59] scores and talked to him about achievement, about doing what he was capable of doing, that he could become anything he wanted to become. One of his high school teachers wrote the following in an evaluation of him: “He believes that 'IQ tests are a poor way to judge people's abilities'. I suggest a conference with his parents.”

His mother met with several teachers. When the teachers talked about Robert's stubborn behavior, she said, “Robert lives in a world of his own making. I know he's my son, but I sometimes have the feeling that he came not from my husband and me, but from another place to which he's trying to return. I appreciate your interest in him, and I'll try once more to encourage him to do better in school.”

But he had been content to read all the adventure and travel books in the local library and kept to himself otherwise[60], spending days along the river that ran through the edge of town, ignoring proms[61] and football games and other things that bored him. He fished and swam and walked and lay in long grass listening to distant voices he fancied only he could hear. “There are wizards out there,” he used to say to himself. “If you're quiet and open enough to hear them, they're out there.” And he wished he had a dog to share these moments.

There was no money for college. And no desire for it, either. His father worked hard and was good to his mother and him, but the job in a factory didn't leave much for other things, including the care of a dog. He was eighteen when his father died, so with the Great Depression bearing down hard[62], he enlisted in the army[63] as a way of supporting his mother and himself. He stayed there four years, but those four years changed his life.

He was assigned to a job as photographer's assistant, though he had no idea of even how to load a camera. But in that work, he discovered his profession. The technical details were easy for him. Within a month he was not only doing the darkroom work for two of the staff photographers, but also was allowed to shoot simple projects himself.

Robert Kincaid checked out photo books and art books from the town library[64] and studied them. Early on, he particularly liked the French impressionists and Rembrandt's use of light.

Eventually he began to see that light was what he photographed, not objects. The objects merely were the vehicles for reflecting the light. If the light was good, you could always find something to photograph. The 35–millimeter camera was beginning to emerge then, and he purchased a used Leica[65] at a local camera store. He took it down to New Jersey[66], and spent a week of his leave there photographing life along the shore.

He began keeping notes of his camera settings[67] and places he wanted to visit again. When he came out of the army at twenty-two, he was a pretty decent shooter and found work in New York assisting a well-known fashion photographer.

The female models were beautiful; he dated a few and fell partially in love with one before she moved to Paris and they drifted apart[68]. She had said to him: “Robert, I don't know who or what you are for sure, but please come visit me in Paris.” He told her he would, meant it[69] when he said it, but never got there. Years later when he was doing a story on the beaches of Normandy, he found her name in the Paris book, called, and they had coffee at an outdoor cafe. She was married to a cinema director[70] and had three children.

He couldn't get very keen on the idea of fashion.[71] People threw away perfectly good clothes or hastily had them made over[72] according to the instructions of European fashion dictators.

It seemed dumb to him, and he felt lessened doing the photography.[73] “You are what you produce,” he said as he left this work.

His mother died during his second year in New York. He went back to Ohio, buried her, and sat before a lawyer, listening to the reading of the will. There wasn't much. He didn't expect there would be anything. But he was surprised to find his parents had accumulated a little fortune[74] in the tiny house where they had lived all their married lives. He sold the house and bought first-class equipment with the money. As he paid the camera salesman, he thought of the years his father had worked for those dollars and the plain life his parents had led.

Some of his work began to appear in small magazines. Then National Geographic called. They had seen a calendar shot he had taken out in Maine. He talked with them, got a minor assignment[75], executed it professionally, and was on his way[76].

The military asked him back in 1943. He went with the marines and slogged his way[77] up South Pacific beaches, cameras swinging from his shoulders, lying on his back, photographing the men coming off amphibious landing craft[78]. He saw the terror on their faces, felt it himself. Saw them cut in two by machine-gun fire[79], saw them plead to God and their mothers for help. He got it all, survived, and never got drawn by glory and romance of war photography.

Coming out of the service in 1945, he called National Geographic. They were ready for him, anytime. He bought a motorcycle in San Francisco, then turned north to explore Washington. He liked it there and decided to make it his base.

Now, at fifty-two, he was still watching the light. He had been to most of the places posted on his boyhood walls and felt happy when he visited them.

The Lake Superior shore was as nice as he'd heard it was. He marked down several locations for future reference, took some shots to jog his memory later on[80], and headed south along the Mississippi River toward Iowa. He'd never been to Iowa but was taken with the hills[81] of the northeast part along the big river.

Cutting over to U.S. Route 65, he went through Des Moines early on a Monday morning, August 16, 1965, turned west at Iowa 92, and headed for Madison County and the covered bridges that were supposed to be there, according to National Geographic. They were there all right, the man in the Texaco station[82] said so and gave him directions to all seven.

The first six were easy to find as he mapped out his strategy for photographing them. The seventh, a place called Roseman Bridge, eluded him. It was hot, he was hot, Harry – his truck – was hot, and he was wandering around on gravel roads that seemed to lead nowhere except to the next gravel road.

In foreign countries, his rule of thumb was[83], “Ask three times.” He had discovered that three responses, even if they all were wrong, gradually vectored you in to where you wanted to go. Maybe twice would be enough here.

A mailbox was coming up, sitting at the end of a lane about one hundred yards long. The name on the box read “Richard Johnson, RR 2.” He slowed down and turned up the lane, looking for guidance.

When he drove into the yard, a woman was sitting on the front porch. It looked cool there, and she was drinking something that looked even cooler. She came off the porch toward him. He stepped from the truck and looked at her, looked closer, and then closer still. She was lovely, or had been at one time, or could be again. And immediately he began to feel the old clumsiness he always suffered around women to whom he was attracted.

Francesca

Deep autumn was birthday time for Francesca, and cold rain beat against her house in the south Iowa countryside. She watched the rain, thinking of Richard. He had died on a day like this, eight years ago, from something with a name she would rather not remember. But Francesca thought of him now and his kindness, his steady ways[84], and the life he had given her.

The children had called. Neither of them could come home again this year for her birthday, though it was her sixty-seventh. She understood, as she always did. Always had. Always would. They were both in midcareer, running hard[85], managing a hospital, teaching students, Michael starting his second marriage, Carolyn struggling with her first. Secretly she was glad they never seemed to arrange a visit on her birthday; she had her own ceremonies reserved for that day.

This morning her friends from Winterset[86] had stopped by with a birthday cake. Francesca made coffee, while the talk ran to grandchildren and the town, to Thanksgiving[87] and what to get for Christmas for whom. The quiet laughter and the rise and fall of conversation from the living room were comforting and reminded Francesca of one small reason why she had stayed here after Richard's death.

Michael had touted Florida, Carolyn New England. But she had remained in the hills of south Iowa, on the land, keeping her old address for a special reason, and she was glad she had done that.

Francesca had watched her friends leave at lunchtime. They drove their Buicks and Fords[88] down the lane, turned onto the paved county road, and headed toward Winterset, wiper blades[89] pushing aside the rain. They were good friends, though they would never understand what lay inside of her, would not understand even if she told them.

Her husband had said she would find good friends, when he brought her here after the war, from Naples[90]. He said, “Iowans have their faults, but one of them is not lack of caring[91].” And that was true, is true.

She had been twenty-five when they met – out of the university for three years, teaching at a private school for girls, wondering about her life. Most of the young Italian men were dead or injured or in POW[92] camps. Her affair with Niccolo, a professor of art at the university, who painted all day and took her on wild, reckless tours of the underside of Naples at night, had been over for a year, by the strong disapproval of her traditional parents.

She wore ribbons in her black hair and had her sweet dreams. But no handsome sailors were looking for her, no voices came up to her window from the streets below. Finally, she recognized that her choices were limited. Richard offered a reasonable alternative: kindness and the sweet promise of America.

She had studied him in his soldier's uniform as they sat in a cafe in the Mediterranean sunlight, saw him looking earnestly at her in his way, and came to Iowa with him. Came to have his children, to watch Michael play football on cold October nights, to take Carolyn to Des Moines for her prom dresses. She exchanged letters with her sister in Naples several times each year and had returned there twice, when each of her parents had died. But Madison County was home now, and she had no wish to go back again.

The rain stopped in mid-afternoon, then resumed its ways just before evening. In the twilight, Francesca poured a small glass of brandy and opened the bottom drawer of Richard's desk. She took out a manila envelope[93] and brushed her hand across it slowly, as she did each year on this day.

The postmark read “Seattle, WA[94], Sep 12 '65.” She always looked at the postmark first. That was part of the ritual. Then to the address written in longhand[95]: “Francesca Johnson, RR 2, Winterset, Iowa.” Next the return address, carelessly scrabbled in the upper left: “Box 642, Bellingham, Washington.” She sat in a chair by the window, looked at the addresses which contained the movement of his hands, and she wanted to bring back the feel of those hands on her twenty-two years ago.

When she could feel his hands touching her, she opened the envelope, carefully removed three letters, two photographs, and a complete issue of National Geographic along with clippings from other issues of the magazine. There, in gray light, she sipped her brandy, looking over the rim of her glass to the handwritten note clipped on one of the letters. The letter was on his stationery, that said only “Robert Kincaid, Writer-Photographer” at the top.

September 10, 1965

Dear Francesca,

Enclosed are two photographs. One is the shot I took of you in the pasture at sunrise. I hope you like it as much as I do. The other is of Roseman Bridge before I removed your note tacked to it.

I sit here recalling every detail, every moment, of our time together. I ask myself over and over, “ What happened to me in Madison County, Iowa?” And I struggle to bring it together.

I look down the barrel of a lens[96], and you're at the end of it. I begin work on an article, and I'm writing about you. I'm not even sure how I got back herefrom Iowa. Somehow the old truck brought me home, yet I barely remember the miles going by.

A few weeks ago, I felt self-contained[97], reasonably content. Maybe not really happy, maybe a little lonely, but at least content. All of that has changed.

It's clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty[98] that we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another.

The road is a strange place. Driving along, I looked up and you were there walking across the grass toward my truck on an August day. In retrospect, it seems inevitable – it could not have been any other way – a case of what I call the high probability of the improbable[99].

So here I am walking around with another person inside of me. And I am stalked now by that other entity[100].

Somehow, we must see each other again. Anyplace, anytime[101].

Call me if you ever need anything or simply want to see me. I'll be there, pronto[102]. Let me know if you can come out here sometime – anytime. I can arrange plane fare, if that's a problem. I'm off to southeast India next week, but I'll be back in late October.

I Love You,

Robert

P. S. The photo project in Madison County turned out fine. Look for it in NG[103] next year. Or tell me if you want me to send a copy of the issue when it's published.

Francesca Johnson set her brandy glass on the wide oak windowsill and stared at an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph of herself. Sometimes it was hard for her to remember how she had looked then, twenty-two years ago. In tight fadedjeans, sandals, and a white T-shirt, her hair blowing in the morning wind as she leaned against a fence post[104].

Through the rain, from her place by the window, she could see the post where the old fence still went around the pasture. When she rented out the land, after Richard died, she insisted that the pasture must be kept intact, left untouched, even though it was empty now and had turned to meadow grass.

The first serious lines were just beginning to show on her face in the photograph. His camera had found them. Still, she was pleased with what she saw. Her hair was black, and her body was full and warm, filling out the jeans just about right. Yet it was her face at which she stared. It was the face of a woman in love with the man taking the picture.

She could see him clearly also, down the flow of her memory. Each year she ran all of the images through her mind, remembering everything, forgetting nothing. He was tall and thin and hard, and he moved like the grass itself, without effort, gracefully. His silver-gray hair hung well below his ears and nearly always looked disheveled, as if he had just come in from a long sea voyage through a stiff wind and had tried to brush it into place with his hands.

His narrow face, high cheekbones, and hair falling over his forehead set off light blue eyes that seemed never to stop looking for the next photograph. He had smiled at her, saying how fine and warm she looked in early light, asked her to lean against the post, and then moved around her in a wide arc, shooting from knee level, then standing, then lying on his back with the camera pointed up at her.

She had been slightly embarrassed at the amount of film he used but pleased by the amount of attention he paid to her. She hoped none of the neighbors were out early on their tractors. Though on that particular morning she hadn't cared too much about neighbors and what they thought.

He shot, loaded film, changed lenses, changed cameras, shot some more, and talked quietly to her as he worked, always telling her how good she looked to him and how much he loved her. “Francesca, you're incredibly beautiful.” Sometimes he stopped and just stared at her, through her, around her, inside of her.

Her nipples were clearly outlined where they pressed against the cotton T-shirt. She had been strangely unconcerned about that, about being naked under the shirt. More, she was glad of it and was warmed knowing that he could see her breasts so clearly down his lenses. Never would she have dressed this way around Richard. He would not have approved.

Robert had asked her to arch her back ever so slightly, and he had whispered then, “Yes, yes, that's it, stay there.” That was when he had taken the photograph at which she now stared. The light was perfect, that's what he had said – “cloudy bright” was his name for it – and the shutter clicked steadily as he moved around her.

He was lithe; that was the word she had thought of while watching him. At fifty-two his body was all lean muscle, muscle that moved with the kind of intensity and power that comes only to men who work hard and take care of themselves.

She looked at the picture again, studied it. “I did look good,” she thought, smiling to herself at the mild self-admiration. “I never looked that good before or after. It was him.” And she took another sip of brandy while the rain went on.

Robert Kincaid was a magician of sorts, who lived within himself. Francesca had sensed as much immediately on a hot, dry Monday in August 1965, when he stepped out of his truck onto her driveway. Richard and the children were at the Illinois State Fair[105], exhibiting the prize steer[106] that received more attention than she did, and she had the week to herself.

She had been sitting on the front porch swing[107], drinking iced tea, watching the dust from under a pickup coming down the county road. The truck was moving slowly, as if the driver were looking for something, stopped just short of her lane, then turned up it toward the house. Oh, God, she had thought. Who's this?

She was barefoot, wearing jeans and a faded blue work-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, shirttail out[108]. Her long black hair was fastened up by a tortoiseshell comb her father had given her when she left the old country. The truck rolled up the lane and stopped near the gate to the wire fence[109] surrounding the house.

Francesca stepped off the porch and walked unhurriedly through the grass toward the gate. And out of the pickup came Robert Kincaid, looking like some vision from a never-written book called An Illustrated History of Shamans.

His military-style shirt was tacked down to his back with perspiration; there were wide, dark circles of it under his arms. The top three buttons were undone, and she could see tight chest muscles just below the plain silver chain around his neck. Over his shoulders were wide orange suspenders, the kind worn by people who spent a lot of time in wilderness areas.

He smiled. “I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for a covered bridge out this way[110], and I can't find it. I think I'm lost.” He wiped his forehead and smiled again.

His eyes looked directly at her, and she felt something jump inside. The eyes, the voice, the face, the silver hair, the easy way he moved his body, disturbing ways, ways that draw you in. Ways that whisper to you in the final moment before sleep comes, when the barriers have fallen. Ways that rearrange the molecular space between male and female.

The ways are simple; we have made them seem complicated. Francesca sensed this without knowing she was sensing it, sensed it at the level of her cells. And there began the thing that would change her forever.

A car went past on the road, trailing dust behind it, and honked. Francesca waved back at Floyd Clark's brown arm sticking out of his Chevy[111] and turned back to the stranger. “You're pretty close. The bridge is only about two miles from here.” Then, after twenty years of living the close life, a life demanded by a rural culture, Francesca Johnson surprised herself by saying, “I'll be glad to show it to you, if you want.”

Why she did that, she never had been sure. A young girl's feelings rising like a bubble through water and bursting out, maybe, after all these years. She was not shy, but not forward, either. The only thing she could ever conclude was that Robert Kincaid had drawn her in somehow, after only a few seconds of looking at him.

He was obviously taken aback, slightly, by her offer. But he recovered quickly and with a serious look on his face said he'd appreciate that. She picked up the cowboy boots she wore for farm chores and walked out to his truck, following him around to the passenger side.

“Just take me a minute to make room for you; lots of gear 'n'[112] stuff in here[113].” He mumbled mostly to himself as he worked, and she could tell he was a little flustered, and a little shy about the whole affair.

He was rearranging canvas bags and tripods, a Thermos bottle and paper sacks. In the back of the pickup were an old brown suitcase and a guitar case, both dusty and battered, both tied to a spare tire with a piece of clothesline rope.

He mumbled and sorted and stuffed paper coffee cups and banana peels into a brown grocery bag that he tossed into

“Okay, I think you can squeeze in there now.” He held the door, closed it behind her, then went around to the driver's side and with a peculiar, animal-like grace stepped in behind the wheel. He looked at her, just a quick glance, smiled slightly, and said, “Which way?”

“Right.” She motioned with her hand. He turned the key, and the engine started. Bouncing, the truck moved along the lane toward the road.

He leaned over and reached into the glove compartment[114], his forearm accidentally brushing across her lower thigh. Looking half out the windshield and half into the compartment, he took out a business card and handed it to her. “Robert Kincaid, Writer-Photographer.” His address was printed there, along with a phone number.

“I'm out here on assignment for National Geographic,” he said. “You familiar with the magazine?”

“Yes.” Francesca nodded, thinking, Isn't everybody?

“They're doing a piece on covered bridges, and Madison County, Iowa, apparently has some interesting ones. I've located six of them, but I guess there's at least one more, and it's supposed to be out in this direction.”

“It's called Roseman Bridge,” said Francesca over the noise of the wind and tires and engine. Her voice sounded strange, as if it belonged to someone else, to a teenage girl leaning out of a window in Naples, looking far down city streets toward the trains or out at the harbor and thinking of distant lovers yet to come. As she spoke, she watched the muscles in his forearm flex when he shifted gears[115].

Two knapsacks were beside her. The flap of one was closed, but the other was folded back, and she could see the silver-colored top and black back of a camera sticking out. Behind her feet were two tripods. They were badly scratched, but she could read part of the worn label on one: “Gitzo[116].” When he had opened the glove box, she noticed it was crammed with notebooks, maps, pens, loose change, and a carton of Camel cigarettes.

“Turn right at the next corner,” she said. That gave her an excuse to glance at the profile of Robert Kincaid. His skin was tanned and smooth and shiny with sweat. He had nice lips; for some reason she had noticed that right away. And his nose was like that she had seen on Indian men during a vacation the family had taken out west when the children were young.

He wasn't handsome, not in any conventional sense. Nor was he homely. Those words didn't seem to apply to him. But there was something, something about him. Something very old, something slightly battered by the years, not in his appearance, but in his eyes.

On his left wrist was a complicated-looking watch with a brown, sweat-stained leather band. A silver bracelet with some intricate scrollwork[117] clung to his right wrist. It needed a good rubbing with silver polish, she thought.

Robert Kincaid pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, shook one halfway out, and offered it to her. For the second time in five minutes, she surprised herself and took the cigarette. What am I doing? she thought. She had smoked years ago but gave it up under the steady criticism from Richard. He shook out another one, put it between his lips, and flicked a gold lighter into flame, holding it toward her while he kept his eyes on the road.

She cupped her hands around the lighter to hold the wind and touched his hand to steady it against the bouncing of the truck. It took only an instant for her to light the cigarette, but that was long enough to feel the warmth of his hand and the tiny hairs along the back of it.

Francesca Johnson, farmer's wife, rested against the dusty truck seat, smoked the cigarette, and pointed. “There it is, just around the curve.” The old bridge, red in color, tilting slightly from all the years, sat across a small stream.

Robert Kincaid had smiled then. He quickly looked at her and said, “It's great. A sunrise shot.” He stopped a hundred feet from the bridge and got out, taking the open knapsack with him. “I'm going to look around for a few minutes, do you mind?” She shook her head and smiled back.

Francesca watched him walk up the country road, taking a camera from the knapsack and then slinging the bag over his left shoulder. He had done that thousands of times, that exact movement. As he walked, his head never stopped moving, looking from side to side, then at the bridge, then at the trees behind the bridge. Once he turned and looked back at her, his face serious.

In contrast with the local folks, who fed on gravy and potatoes and red meat, three times a day for some of them, Robert Kincaid looked as if he ate nothing but fruit and nuts and vegetables. Hard, she thought. He looks hard, physically.

It was quiet. A redwing blackbird[118] sat on fence wire and looked in at her. A meadowlark[119] called from the roadside grass. Nothing else moved in the white sun of August.

Just short of the bridge[120], Robert Kincaid stopped. He stood there for a moment, then squatted down, looking through the camera. He walked to the other side of the road and did the same thing. Then he moved into the cover of the bridge and studied the beams and floor planks, looked at the stream below through a hole in the side.

Francesca put out her cigarette, opened the door, and put her boots on the gravel. She glanced around to make sure none of her neighbors' cars were coming and walked toward the bridge. The sun was very hot in late afternoon, and it looked cooler inside the bridge. She could see his silhouette at the other end until he went down toward the stream.

Inside, she could hear pigeons burbling softly in their nests and put the palm of her hand on the side planking, feeling the warmth. Graffiti was scrawled on some of the planks: “Jimbo-Denison, Iowa.” “Sherry + Dubby.” The pigeons kept on burbling softly.

Francesca looked through a crack between two of the side planks, down toward the stream where Robert Kincaid had gone. He was standing on a rock in the middle of the little river, looking toward the bridge, and she was startled to see him wave. He jumped back to the bank and moved easily up the steep bank.

“It's real nice, real pretty here,” he said, his voice reverberating inside the covered bridge.

Francesca nodded. “Yes, it is. We take these old bridges for granted around here and don't think much about them.”

He walked to her and held out a small bouquet of wildflowers. “Thanks for the guided tour.” He smiled softly. “I'll come back at dawn one of these days[121] and get my shots.” She felt something inside ofher again. Flowers. Nobody gave her flowers, even on special occasions.

“I don't know your name,” he said. She realized then that she had not told him and felt dumb about that. When she did, he nodded and said, “I caught the smallest trace of an accent. Italian?”

“Yes. A long time ago.”

The green truck again. Along the gravel roads with the sun lowering itself. Twice they met cars, but it was nobody Francesca knew. In the four minutes it took to reach the farm, she felt that she wanted more of Robert Kincaid, writer-photographer, that's what. She wanted to know more and clutched the flowers on her lap, held them straight up, like a schoolgirl coming back from an outing.

The blood was in her face[122]. She could feel it. She hadn't done anything or said anything, but she felt as if she had.

He turned the truck up the lane. “Richard is your husband?” He had seen the mailbox.

“Yes,” said Francesca, slightly short ofbreath. “It's pretty hot. Would you like an ice tea?”

He looked over at her. “If it's all right, I sure would.”

“It's all right,” she said.

She directed him – casually, she hoped – to park the pickup around behind the house. What she didn't need was for Richard to come home and have one of the neighbor men say, “Hey, Dick; havin' some work done at the place[123]? Saw a green pickup there last week. Knew Frannie was home so I did'n bother to check on it.”

Up broken cement steps to the back porch door[124]. He held the door for her, carrying his camera knapsacks. “Awful hot to leave the equipment in the truck,” he had said when he pulled them out.

A little cooler in the kitchen, but still hot. The collie snuffled around Kincaid's boots, then went out on the back porch and flopped down while Francesca removed ice from metal trays and poured sun tea from a glass jug. She knew he was watching her as he sat at the kitchen table, long legs stretched in front of him, brushing his hair with both hands.

“Lemon?”

“Yes, please.”

“Sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

The lemon juice ran slowly down the side of a glass, and he saw that, too. Robert Kincaid missed little.

Francesca set the glass before him. Put her own on the other side of the Formica-topped table[125] and her bouquet in water. Leaning against the counter, she balanced on one leg, bent over, and took off a boot, then the other one.

He took a small drink of tea and watched her. She was about five feet six, fortyish or a little older, pretty face, and a fine, warm body. But there were pretty women everywhere he traveled. Such physical matters were nice, yet, to him, intelligence and passion, the ability to move and be moved by subtleties of the mind and spirit, were what really counted[126]. That's why he found most young women unattractive, regardless of their exterior beauty. They had not lived long enough or hard enough to possess those qualities that interested him.

But there was something in Francesca Johnson that did interest him. There was intelligence; he could sense that. And there was passion, though he couldn't quite grasp what that passion was directed toward or if it was directed at all.

Later, he would tell her that watching her take off her boots that day was one of the most sensual moments he could remember. Why was not important. That was not the way he approached his life. “Analysis destroys wholes. Some things, magic things, are meant to stay whole. If you look at their pieces, they go away.” That's what he had said.

She sat at the table, one leg curled under her, and pulled back strands of hair that had fallen over her face. Then, remembering, she rose and went to the cupboard, took down an ashtray, and set it on the table where he could reach it.

With that silent permission, he pulled out a pack of Camels and held it toward her. She took one and noticed it was slightly wet from his heavy perspiring. Same routine. He held the gold lighter, she touched his hand to steady it, felt his skin with her fingertips, and sat back. The cigarette tasted wonderful, and she smiled.

“What is it you do, exactly – I mean with the photography?”

He looked at his cigarette and spoke quietly. “I'm a contract shooter – uh, photographer – for National Geographic, part of the time. I get ideas, sell them to the magazine, and do the shoot. Or they have something they want done and contact me. Not a lot of room for artistic expression[127]; it's a pretty conservative publication. But the pay is decent. Not great, but decent, and steady. The rest of the time I write and photograph on my own hook[128] and send pieces to other magazines. If things get tough, I do corporate work, though I find that awfully confining.[129]

“Sometimes I write poetry, just for myself. Now and then[130] I try to write a little fiction, but I don't seem to have a feeling for it. I live north of Seattle and work around that area quite a bit. I like shooting the fishing boats and Indian settlements and landscapes.

“The Geographic work[131] often keeps me at a location for a couple of months, particularly for a major piece on something like part of the Amazon or the North African desert. Ordinarily I fly to an assignment like this and rent a car. But I felt like driving through some places and chose them for future reference. I came down along Lake Superior; I'll go back through the Black Hills. How about you?”

Francesca hadn't expected him to ask. She stammered for a moment. “Oh, gosh, nothing like you do. I got my degree in comparative literature[132]. Winterset was having trouble finding teachers when I arrived here in 1946, and the fact that I was married to a local man who was a veteran made me acceptable. So I picked up a teaching certificate and taught high school English for a few years. But Richard didn't like the idea of me working. He said he could support us, and there was no need for it, particularly when our two children were growing. So I stopped and became a farm wife full-time. That's it.”

She noticed his iced tea was almost gone and poured him some more from the jug.

“Thanks. How do you like it here in Iowa?”

There was a moment of truth in this. She knew it. The standard reply was, “Just fine. It's quiet. The people are real nice.”

She didn't answer immediately. “Could I have another cigarette?” Again the pack of Camels, again the lighter, again touching his hand, lightly. Sunlight walked across the back porch floor and onto the dog, who got up and moved out of sight. Francesca, for the first time, looked into the eyes of Robert Kincaid.

“I'm supposed to say, 'Just fine. It's quiet. The people are real nice.' All of that's true, mostly. It is quiet. And the people are nice, in certain ways. We all help each other out. If someone gets sick or hurt, the neighbors do whatever needs to be done. In town, you can leave your car unlocked and let your children run without worrying about them. There are a lot of good things about the people here, and I respect them for those qualities.

“But” – she hesitated, smoked, looked across the table at Robert Kincaid – “it's not what I dreamed about as a girl.” The confession, at last. The words had been there for years, and she had never said them. She had said them now to a man with a green pickup truck from Bellingham, Washington.

He said nothing for a moment. Then: “I wrote something in my notebook the other day for future use, just had the idea while driving along; that happens a lot. It goes like this: 'The old dreams were good dreams; they didn't work out, but I'm glad I had them.' I'm not sure what that means, but I'll use it somewhere. So I think I kind of know how you feel.”

Francesca smiled at him then. For the first time, she smiled warm and deep. And the gambler's instincts took over. “Would you like to stay for supper? My family's away, so I don't have too much on hand, but I can figure out something[133].”

“Well, I get pretty tired of grocery stores and restaurants. That's for sure. So if it's not too much bother, I'd like that.”

“You like pork chops? I could fix that with some vegetables from the garden.”

“Just the vegetables would be fine for me. I don't eat meat. Haven't for years. No big deal[134], I just feel better that way.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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Примечания

1

бывший житель штата Айова

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2

город в штате Айова

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3

сетевой отель

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4

округ Мэдисон

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5

Они всё говорят и говорят.

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6

служба доставки еды в номер отеля

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7

личное обязательство

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8

крупнейший город штата Вашингтон

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непревзойдённый профессионал

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10

В этом заорганизованном мире

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11

Учитывая его род занятий

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12

Мы склонны думать

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13

он жил на скудные заработки

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14

Пьюджет-Саунд, залив на Тихоокеанском побережье США

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15

Другой информации, кроме этой, у нас нет.

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16

я понял, что границы таких отношений могут простираться дальше, чем я раньше думал

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17

В этом всё более бездушном мире

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трудно погрузиться в царство доброты

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воздержаться от недоверия

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Сэмюэл Тэйлор Кольридж (1772–1834) – английский поэт-романтик, выдающийся представитель Озёрной школы

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21

пикап «Шевроле»

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ледник, портативный холодильник

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блоки сигарет «Кэмел»

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мысленно всё пересчитал

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складной армейский нож

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переключил передачу

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номер дороги

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извилистая дорога

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Каскадные горы, горный массив на северо-западе Северной Америки

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хвойным деревьям, проносящимся за окном пикапа

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31

Такие поездки всегда настраивали его на подведение итогов прожитой жизни.

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32

потеряли с ним связь

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33

Цыгане, как свободные люди, трудно ладят с обычными людьми

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34

американская фолк-группа, образованная в 1948 году

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столица штата Вашингтон

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36

Роберт, у нас ничего не вышло. Оставляю тебе гитару Хармони. Не пропадай.

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37

полетел самолётом

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североамериканский штат

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«Зелёные холмы Африки», роман Э. Хэмингуэя

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североамериканский штат

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Этот пейзаж отвечал его склонностям к минимализму.

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срезал путь

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43

Верхнее озеро, одно из Великих озёр

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Боб Дилан, американский автор-исполнитель, художник, писатель и киноактёр

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Национальный парк Верхнего озера

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лодочный перевозчик товаров и пассажиров

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подножка пикапа

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48

Надвигающаяся старость заставляет об этом задуматься

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49

Но его длительное отсутствие трудно переносить остающемуся дома.

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творческий директор

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51

Она немало повидала на своём веку

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Роберт, внутри тебя живёт существо, до которого я не могу докопаться

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53

Он сам не мог в себе разобраться

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популярная детская песня

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55

В своей комнате он развесил списки любимых слов.

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Сомалийский ток

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гора Большой Томагавк, горный хребет в США

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Малаккский пролив, соединяет Индийский океан с Южно-Китайским морем

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коэффициент интеллекта

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держался о собняком

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(зд.) вечеринки

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с наступлением Великой депрессии

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он пошёл служить в армию

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брал фотоальбомы и книги по искусству в городской библиотеке

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«Лейка», немецкая марка фотоаппаратов

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Нью-Джерси, северо-восточный американский штат

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настройки камеры

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они р асстались

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был настроен это сделать

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кинорежиссёр

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71

Мода его не увлекала.

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или поспешно их переделывали

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73

Ему это казалось глупым, и он чувствовал, что, занимаясь такой фотографией, мельчает.

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74

его родители нажили небольшое состояние

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получил небольшой заказ

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и пошёл по этому пути

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с трудом прокладывал себе путь

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десантные катера на воздушной подушке

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пулемётный огонь

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чтобы потом о них не забыть

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очарован холмами

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заправочная станция

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(зд.) по опыту он знал

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уравновешенность

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Оба делали карьеру, испытывая большие нагрузки

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город в округе Мэдисон, штат Айова

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День благодарения

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марки автомобилей

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дворники автомобиля

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Неаполь, Италия

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один из них – неравнодушие

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военнопленный (POW, Prisoner of War)

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большой конверт из обёрточной бумаги

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почтовое сокращение названия штата Вашингтон

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написанный от руки

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Я смотрю в объектив

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Пару недель назад я пришёл в себя

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неосознаваемая уверенность

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высокая степень вероятности невозможного

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И теперь это существо меня не покидает

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Где хочешь, когда хочешь

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102

тут же, немедленно (итал.)

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сокращённое название журнала “National Geographic”

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она опёрлась на столб ограды

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Ярмарка штата Иллинойс

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бычок-рекордсмен

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качели на крыльце

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с незаправленным подолом рубашки

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проволочная ограда

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где-то здесь, в этих краях

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«Шевроле», марка автомобиля

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and

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113

здесь полно всякого барахла the truck box when he was finished. Finally he removed a blue-and-white ice chest and put that in the back as well. In faded red paint on the green truck door was printed “Kincaid Photography, Bellingham, Washington.”

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114

бардачок автомобиля

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115

когда он переключал передачу

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116

известная фирма, производитель штативов

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причудливый орнамент в виде завитков

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118

краснокрылый чёрный дрозд

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луговой жаворонок

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почти у самого моста

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121

на днях

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122

Она раскраснелась.

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123

Делаешь ремонт?

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124

Поднялись по разбитым ступеням заднего крыльца.

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столешница

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126

и всё же для него важнее были ум и страсть, способность взволновать и откликнуться на тонкости разума и духа

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небольшой простор для творчества

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128

на свой страх и риск

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129

Если дела идут плохо, устраиваюсь на работу, хотя сидячая работа не для меня.

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временами

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работа по заказу журнала

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132

сравнительное литературоведение

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133

еды особой нет, но я что-нибудь придумаю

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134

Особой причины нет

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