The Genocides (7 page)

“And Neil? Is he the same way?’

“What do you mean? Neil’s my brother.”

“He was the one who put the questions to me that night. And to other people that I knew. Is he another one like your father?”

“I wouldn’t know about that night. I wasn’t there. You’ve got to rest now. Think about what I told you. And Mr. Orville—try and forget about that night.”

There was growing in him a desire and will to survive, but unlike any desire he had known till then, this was a cancerous growth, and the strength it lent his body was the strength of hatred. Passionately, he desired not life but revenge: for Jackie’s death, for his own torture, for that whole horrible night.

He had never before felt much sympathy for avengers. The basic premises of blood vengeance had always struck him as rather improbable, like the plot of
Il Trovatore
, so that at first he was surprised to find himself dwelling so exclusively on one theme: Anderson’s death, Anderson’s agony, Anderson’s humiliation.

Initially his imagination was content simply to devise deaths for the old man; then, as his strength grew, these deaths were elaborated with tortures, which finally displaced death entirely. Tortures could be protracted, while death was an end.

But Orville, having himself tasted the bitterest gall, knew that there was a limit beyond which pain cannot be heightened. He desired Anderson to endure the sufferings of Job. He wanted to grind ashes into the man’s gray hair, to crush his spirit, to ruin him. Only then would he allow Anderson to know that it had been he, Jeremiah Orville, who had been the agent of his humbling.

So that when Blossom told him the story of how the old man had carried on over Jimmie Lee, he realized what he had to do. Why, it had been staring him in the face!

They had walked all the way to the cornfield together, Blossom and Orville. The leg had mended, but he would probably always have the limp. Now, at least, he could limp on his own—without any other crutch than Blossom.

“And that’s the corn that’s going to feed us all this winter?” he asked.

“It’s more than we really need. A lot of it was meant for the cows.”

“I suppose you’d be out there harvesting with the rest of them if it weren’t for me.” It was the custom, during harvest, for the old women and the younger girls to take over the village duties while the stronger women went out into the fields with the men.

“No, I’m not old enough.”

“Oh, come now. You’re fifteen, if you’re a day.”

Blossom giggled. “You’re just saying that. I’m thirteen. I won’t be fourteen till January 31.”

“You could have fooled me. You’re very well developed for thirteen.”

She blushed. “How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty-five.” It was a lie, but he knew he could get away with it. Seven years ago, when he had been thirty-five, he had looked older than he did now.

“I’m young enough to be your daughter, Mr. Orville.”

“On the other hand, Miss Anderson, you’re
almost
old enough to be my wife.”

She blushed more violently this time and would have left him except that he needed her for support. This was the farthest he’d walked on his own. They stopped for him to rest.

Except for the harvesting, it was hard to recognize this as September. The Plants did not change color with the seasons: they just folded their leaves like umbrellas to let the snow pass to the ground. Nor was there any hint of autumn spiciness in the air. The cold of the mornings was a characterless cold.

“It’s beautiful out here in the country,” Orville said.

“Oh yes. I think so too.”

“Have you lived here all your life?”

“Yes, here or in the old town.” She darted a sideways look at him. “You’re feeling better now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, it’s great to be alive.”

“I’m glad. I’m glad you’re well again.” Impulsively she caught hold of his hand. He answered with a squeeze. She giggled with delight.

They began to run.

This, then, seemed to be the final stage of his years-long reversion to the primitive. Orville could not imagine a more unseemly action than the one he intended, and its baseness only heightened the bloody passion that continued to grow in him. His revenge now demanded more than Anderson, more than the man’s entire family. It demanded the whole community. And time to savor their annihilation. He must wring every drop of agony from them, from each of them; he must take them, gradually, to the limit of their capacity for suffering and only then push them over the edge.

Blossom turned in her sleep and her hands clutched at the pillow of corn husks. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, and beads of sweat broke out on her brow and in the dainty hollow between her breasts. There was a weight on her chest, as though someone were pressing her into the earth with his heavy boots. He was going to kiss her. When his mouth opened, she could see the screw turning within. Shreds of ground meat tumbled forth. The screw made a dreary rasping sound.

Gray clouds were massing overhead. The ground was dry, bare, gray; no grass, no trees, only the Plants, folded for the winter like parasols, grew here. The dull, autumnal light would thicken at times, and a breeze would pass through the park, picking up the dust. Sitting at the concrete picnic tables on the cold benches, a person could see his own breath. Bare hands grew numb and stiff in the cold. All through the park, people exercised their freezing toes inside their shoes and wished that Anderson would finish saying grace.

Across from the park stood what remained of the Congregationalist Church. Anderson had not let his own people cannibalize the wood from the church, but last winter marauders had stripped off the doors for firewood and broken the windows for fun. The winds had filled the church with snow and dust, and in the spring the oak floor had been covered with a lush green carpet of young Plants. Fortunately it had been discovered in time (for the which they were to be thankful), but even so the floor would probably soon collapse of its own weight.

Buddy, wearing his single surviving suit, shivered as the prayer dragged out its slow length. Anderson, standing at the head of the table, was also wearing a suit for the occasion, but Neil, sitting on his father’s left hand and facing Buddy, had never owned a suit. He was bundled in woolen shirts and a denim jacket, enviably snug.

It was the custom of the townspeople, like expatriates who return home on brief visits to establish their legal residence, to celebrate all festive occasions except Christmas here in the old town park. Like so many of the unpleasant and disheartening things they had to do, it was necessary for their morale.

Anderson, having at length established the principle that God Almighty was responsible for their manifold blessings, began to enumerate them. The most salient of these blessings was never directly referred to—that, after seven and a half years, they were all still alive (all of them that were), while so many others, the great majority, were dead. Anderson, however, dwelt on more peripheral blessings, local to that year: the abundance of the harvest, Gracie’s continued health in her tenth month with calf (not referring to associated losses), the two recent litters of pigs, and such game as the hunters had come home with. Unfortunately, this had been little (one deer and several rabbits), and a surly, scolding note crept into the prayer. Anderson soon rallied and came to a graceful close, thanking his Creator of the wealth of his great Creation and his Savior for the promise of Salvation.

Orville was the first to respond. His
amen
was reverent and at the same time manly. Neil mumbled something with the rest of them and reached for the jug of whiskey (they called it whiskey), which was still three-quarters full.

Lady and Blossom, who sat together at the end of the table nearest the brick barbecue, began serving the soup. It was faintly reminiscent of rabbit and poorly seasoned with weeds from the lake.

“Dig in!” she said cheerily. “There’s plenty more coming.”

What else could you say on Thanksgiving?

Since it was an important holiday, the whole family, on both sides, was together. Besides the seven Andersons, there was Mae, Lady’s younger sister, and her husband Joel Stromberg, formerly of Stromberg’s Lakeside Resort Cabins, and the two little Strombergs, Denny, age ten, and Dora, eight. There were, moreover, the Andersons’ special guests (still on probation), Alice Nemerov, R.N., and Jeremiah Orville.

Lady could not help but regret the presence of the Strombergs, for she was certain that Denny and Dora would only remind her husband more forcibly of him who was absent from the table. Then, too, the years had not dealt kindly with her dear sister. Mae had been admired as a beauty in her youth (though probably not to the degree Lady had been), but at forty-five she was a frump and a troublemaker. Admittedly, she still had her flame-red hair, but that only pointed up the decay of what else remained. The only virtue that remained to her was that she was a solicitous mother. Too much so, Lady thought.

Lady had always hated the brassy reverence of the holidays. Now, when there was not even the ritual gluttony of a turkey dinner to alleviate the gloom that underlay the holiday cheer, one’s only hope was to be out of it as quickly as possible. She was grateful, at least, to be occupied with the serving. If she were carefully inefficient, she might get out of eating altogether.

“Neil,” Greta whispered. “You’re drinking too much. You’d better stop.”

“Huh?” Neil replied, peering up at his wife (he had the habit, when he ate, of bending down over his food, especially if it was soup).

“You’re
drinking
too much.”

“I wasn’t drinking at all, for gosh sakes!” he said, for the whole table to hear. “I was eating my soup!”

Greta cast up her eyes to heaven, a martyr to truth. Buddy smiled at the transparency of her purpose, and she caught his smile. There was a flicker of eyelashes, no more.

“In any case, it ain’t any business of yours
how
much I drink or don’t drink. I’ll drink just as much as I want.” To demonstrate this, he poured himself some more of the liquor distilled from the pulpy leaves of the Plant.

It didn’t taste like Jim Beam, but Orville had testified to its purity from his own experience of it in Duluth. It was the first use, as food, that Anderson had been able to find for the Plants, and since he was by no means a teetotaler himself, he’d given the project his blessing. Anderson wanted to frown at the way Neil was swilling it down, but he said nothing, not wanting it to look as though he were taking Greta’s side. Anderson was a firm believer in male supremacy.

“Anyone want more soup?” Blossom asked.

“I do,” said Maryann, who was sitting between her husband and Orville. She ate all she could get now, for the baby’s sake. For her little Buddy.

“And I do,” said Orville, with that special smile of his.

“I do, too,” said Denny and Dora, whose parents had told them to eat all they could at the dinner, which Anderson was providing.

“Anybody else?”

Everybody else had returned to the whiskey, which tasted unpleasantly like licorice.

Joel Stromberg was describing the progress of his disease to Alice Nemerov, R.N. “And it doesn’t really hurt—that’s the funny thing. It’s just that whenever I want to use my hands they start to shaking. And now my head’s the same way. Something’s got to be done.”

“But I’m afraid, Mr. Stromberg, that nothing can be. There used to be some drugs, but even they didn’t work very well. Six months, and the symptoms would reappear. Fortunately, as you say, it doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re a nurse, aren’t you?”

He was going to be one of
those!
Very carefully, she began to explain everything she knew about Parkinson’s disease, and a few things she didn’t. If only she could involve someone else in the conversation! The only other soul within speaking distance was the greedy Stromberg boy, who was snitching drinks from the glass of that foul liquor (one taste had been enough for Alice) sitting before Lady’s empty plate. If only Lady or Blossom would stop serving food and sit down for a minute, she could escape from the intolerable hypochondriac. “Tell me,” she said, “when did it all start?”

The fish were all eaten, and Blossom began gathering the bones. The moment everyone had been waiting for—the dreadful moment of the main course—could be put off no longer. While Blossom brought round the bowl of steaming polenta into which were stirred a few shreds of chicken and garden vegetables, Lady herself distributed the sausages. A hush fell over the table.

Each of them had a single sausage. Each sausage was about nine inches long and three-quarter inch in diameter. They had been crisped over the fire and came to the table still sizzling.

There is some pork in them
, Alice reassured herself.
I probably won’t be able to tell the difference
.

Everyone’s attention turned to the head of the table. Anderson lifted his knife and fork. Then, fully aware of the solemnity of the moment, he sliced off a piece of hot sausage, put it in his mouth, and began to chew. After what seemed a full minute, he swallowed it.

There, but for the grace of God….
Alice thought.

Blossom had turned quite pale, and under the table Alice reached for her hand to lend her strength, though Alice didn’t feel an excess of it just then.

“What’s everyone waiting for?” Anderson demanded. “There’s food on the table.”

Alice’s attention drifted toward Orville, who was sitting there with knife and fork in hand, and that strange smile of his. He caught Alice’s look—and winked at her. Of all things! Or was it at
her?

Orville cut off a piece of the sausage and chewed it consideringly. He smiled beamishly, like a man in a toothpaste ad. “Mrs. Anderson,” he announced, “you are a
marvelous
cook. How do you do it? I haven’t had a Thanksgiving dinner like this since God knows when.”

Alice felt Blossom’s fingers relax and pull out of hers.
She’s feeling better, now that the worst is over
, Alice thought.