Читать книгу The Brother - Rein Raud - Страница 8

People differ. There are those who do harm to others, and those to whom harm is done; some of the latter are the kind it would seem fair to attack because they have enough strength for retaliation, and then there are others, who in their vileness outright provoke confrontation, as the harm done to them is nothing more than revenge that restores the great balance.

Laila was none of these, for although she attracted injustice like bees to heather, all who did her wrong were nevertheless secretly embarrassed. The lawyer, whom she had asked to handle the inheritance affairs after her mother’s death, had looked away as he placed paper after paper of complicated legal wording on the desk for Laila to sign, and the notary, who read the long and incoherent documentation aloud to her, occasionally felt a lump rise to his throat when he thought about what would become of that pale young woman following the successful execution of the transaction. Even the bailiff, who came to evict Laila from the Villa and record her assets, spoke more politely with her than with anyone else, and unprecedentedly, both the moving truck and the movers, who removed their hats when they greeted Laila, were provided at the company’s expense. Her current landlord was no different either—he frequently cursed himself for asking that kind of rent for the tiny attic-room with a ceiling that leaked a little in one corner (with the extra obligation of Laila doing his family’s laundry for free); and even the goateed antiquarian, at whose shop Laila had finally gotten a job, constantly caught himself thinking that he was paying her shamelessly little, which of course caused him to ruminate on human nature and shake his head, but resulted in nothing else. Or else he would eat an éclair with his afternoon coffee, which was, in reality, bad for his health.

Laila herself had grown accustomed to her bad luck, just as children who manage to comprehend the world will grow accustom to their own mortality, and in truth, she didn’t even particularly hope that anything might ever be different.

Until the knock at the door.