"Oh (о)." He could tell that that struck home (он мог сказать, что это попало в цель: «ударило домой»; to strike — бить, ударять; попадать). He said, "Don't you think it was odd they were all there (не думаете ли вы, что это было странно, что они все там были)—at the death (при смерти /Гарри/)? Everybody knew Harry (все знали Гарри). Even the driver, the doctor (даже водитель, доктор)..."
She said with hopeless calm (она сказала с безнадежным спокойствием), "I've thought that too (я думала об этом тоже), though I didn't know about Kurtz (хотя я не знала о Куртце). I wondered whether they'd murdered him (я задавалась вопросом, убили ли они его), but what's the use of wondering (но какая польза от любопытства)?"
"I'm going to get those bastards (я доберусь до этих ублюдков; to get — получить; схватить)," Rollo Martins said.
chamber ['tSeImbq], construct [kqn'strAkt], irrationally [I'rxS(q)n(q)lI], scene ['si:n], evidence ['evIdqns], exonerate [Ig'zOn(q)reIt], attitude ['xtItju:d], calm [kRm], bastard ['bxstqd]
"That's what I tell myself all the time."
"Did you see the doctor?"
"Once. Harry sent me to him. He was Harry's own doctor. He lived nearby, you see."
Martins suddenly saw in that odd chamber of the mind that constructs such pictures, instantaneously, irrationally, a desert place, a body on the ground, a group of birds gathered. Perhaps it was a scene from one of his own books, not yet written, forming at the gate of consciousness. Immediately it faded, he thought how odd that they were all there, just at that moment, all Harry's friends—Kurtz, the doctor, this man Cooler; only the two people who loved him seemed to have been missing. He said, "And the driver? Did you hear his evidence?"
"He was upset, scared. But Cooler's evidence exonerated him, and Kurtz's. No, it wasn't his fault, poor man. I've often heard Harry say what a careful driver he was."
"He knew Harry too?" Another bird flapped down and joined the others round the silent figure on the sand who lay face down. Now he could tell that it was Harry, by the clothes, by the attitude like that of a boy asleep in the grass at a playing field's edge, on a hot summer afternoon.
Somebody called outside the window, "Fräulein Schmidt."
She said, "They don't like one to stay too long. It uses up their electricity."
He had given up the idea of sparing her anything. He told her, "The police say they were going to arrest Harry. They'd pinned some racket on him."
She took the news in much the same way as Kurtz. "Everybody's in a racket."