IriskaP: переводы

→It takes me a second to realize that she’s one conversation back, but I catch up and say, “They’ve got to have GPS in Alaska. With all that wide-open wilderness and . . . tundra, or whatever they have there.”

→She doesn’t look at me but stares straight out the window and then down at the speedometer, looking anxious. I step on the gas and she relaxes slightly. “Alaska,” she replies.

→Joy. I pull the car out onto the pavement and begin driving south. “I guess that means you can’t jump-start my iPhone,” I prod after a few minutes.

→“No time to talk,” she says. “Take that road. I’ll explain on the way.”

→I pick one. “Global Positioning System,” I explain. She shakes her head. I can tell by this tiny muscle that clenches in her jaw that it’s costing her to admit she doesn’t know what something is. “Where are you from that doesn’t have GPS?” I ask, hoping she’ll say something about Alaska, or tell me more about who she is.

→“Jump-start. iPhone. GPS,” she responds.

→“Well, if you can jump-start my iPhone, I could use the GPS to find the way,” I say. She stares at me like I’m speaking Chinese. I remember the L.A. mix-up and ask, “What part of what I just said did you not understand?”

→“This road runs north-south,” she says. “Do you think there’s a way for us to get onto something heading southeast?”

→“So where to?” I ask in what I hope is a calm tone as we pull up to the paved road. She has me trained now. I watch her check the position of the sun and glance up and down the road in both directions.

→My brain starts hurting again. I stare at the bird incredulously. It just eyes me for a second and then casually begins picking something out of its wing. I look back at Juneau, and the star-decorated contact lens makes me shudder from its weirdness. I don’t think she even took it out last night.

→My eyes widen in disbelief, and I try to control my voice, reminding myself that she’s the crazy one, not me. “And why, may I ask, is the raven coming with us?”

→“What’s that?” I ask, gesturing at the bird as Juneau pulls her door shut.

→Juneau throws the tent bag in the back and jumps in beside me. With a squawk, the bird flies in too and settles on the backseat and stares at me, daring me to react.

→And for one second I am actually enjoying myself, even though my back is paralyzed from sleeping on the hard ground and I am standing in the middle of an illegal campsite, grinning at a paranoid schizophrenic. She actually seems halfway normal. Nice, even. The thought rockets through my mind and ricochets around once or twice before I catch it and twist the life out of it. This girl is a means to an end, I tell myself. All that should matter to you is getting her to California. And forcing the smile off my face, I start the car.

→She looks up and gives me this quirky little lips-pressed-together smile, and I can’t help but smile back, which makes her laugh through her nose.

→“No,” I admit as I shove the final rod into its bag. “Does it show?”

→“Yeah, I was about to do that,” I mutter, and pull out the blowup camping pillows and paper-thin thermal blankets. By the time I’ve figured out how to take the folding rods apart, she has everything packed and in the car and comes around to help me. “Have you ever camped before?” she asks, but not in the mean way I was expecting.

→“You might want to take the bedding out first,” she says.

→“You can take the tent down if you want to help,” she states simply. And although I really couldn’t be bothered to join in as a willing partner of her paranoia, the way that she says it—like it’s a challenge she doesn’t think I’m up to—makes me turn around and start yanking tent pins out of the ground.