Free The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch Page B

huh?”
    “Don’t mind Denny, Miz Nemerov. He doesn’t mean to be
rude
. Do you, sweet?”
    “Eat it,” Alice said, scraping the cold sausage off onto the boy’s plate.
    Eat it and be damned!
she thought.

    Mae had just observed that they had been thirteen at the table. “… so if you believe the old superstitions, one of us will die before the year’s out,” she concluded with a gay little laugh, in which only her husband joined. “Well, I do believe it’s getting awfully cold here,” she added, raising her eyebrows to show that her words bore more than a single meaning. “Though what can you expect at the end of November?”
    Nobody seemed to expect anything.
    “Mr. Orville, tell me, are you native to Minnesota? I ask because of your accent. It sounds sort of English, if you know what I mean. Are you an American?”
    “Mae—really!” Lady scolded.
    “He does talk funny, you know. Denny noticed it too.”
    “Really?” Orville stared at Mae Stromberg intently, as though to count each frizzled red hair, and with the strangest smile. “That’s odd. I was raised all my life in Minneapolis. I suppose it’s just the difference between the city and the country.”
    “And you’re a city person at heart, just like our Buddy. I’ll bet you wish you were back there right now, eh? I know your kind.” She winked lewdly to indicate just what kind that was.
    “Mae, for heaven’s sake—”
    But Denny succeeded where Lady could not in bringing Mrs. Stromberg to a stop. He vomited all over the table. The heavings splashed onto the four women around him—Lady, Blossom, Alice, and his mother—and there was a great commotion as the women tried to escape the danger that was threatening anew on Denny’s face. Orville couldn’t help himself—he laughed. He was joined, fortunately, by Buddy and little Dora, whose mouth was filled with sausage. Even Anderson made a noise that might charitably have been interpreted as laughter.
    Buddy excused himself, and Orville rose only a moment later, with more compliments for the cook and a scarcely perceptible gesture in Blossom’s direction, which, however, Blossom perceived. Stromberg took his son off into the woods, but not far enough to prevent the rest of them from hearing the whipping.
    Neil was asleep on the ground.
    Maryann, Dora, and Anderson were left alone at the table. Maryann had been crying off and on all day. Now, since she too had had something to drink, she started to talk: “Oh, I can remember the time…”
    “Excuse me,” said Anderson, leaving the table, and taking the jug with him.
    “… in the old days,” Maryann went on. “And everything was so beautiful then—the turkey and the pumpkin pie—and everybody so happy…”

    Greta, after quitting the table, had gone roundaboutly to the church. Before vanishing into the dark vestibule, she and Buddy, who had watched her all the while, had exchanged a glance and Buddy had nodded yes. When the dinner broke up, he followed her there.
    “Hello there, stranger!” Apparently she had settled on this gambit permanently.
    “Hello, Greta. You were in high form today.”
    In the vestibule they were out of the line of sight from the picnic grounds. The floor was reassuringly solid. Greta took the nape of Buddy’s neck firmly in her two cold hands and pulled his lips to hers. Their teeth gnashed together, and their tongues renewed an old acquaintance.
    When he began to pull her closer, she drew back, laughing softly. Having gained what she wanted, she could afford to tease. Yes, that was the old Greta.
    “Wasn’t Neil drunk?” she whispered. “Wasn’t he just stinko?”
    The expression in her eyes was not exactly as he remembered it, and he could not tell, of the body beneath her winter clothes, whether it had changed likewise. It occurred to him to wonder how much he had changed, but the desire mounting within him overrode such irrelevancies. Now it was he who kissed her. Slowly, in an embrace, they