Mother for Dinner

by Shalom Auslander

  That optimism’s gonna bite you in the ass one day, little girl, Mudd said.

  Zero laughed. You’re the biggest optimist I know, Mudd. What could be more optimistic than bigotry? Than believing that only black people are criminals, that only Jews are greedy, that only Muslims are violent. No, I’m a pessimist, Mudd. I believe we’re all criminals, we’re all greedy, we’re all violent, none less so than any other.

  Not Cannibals, said Mudd, wagging her enormous finger in Zero’s face. We’re different.

  But Zero was not Humphrey, and Mudd did not frighten her. She slapped Mudd’s hand away.

  Spare me, she said. I love this notion that defending your people is somehow noble. Tribal superiority is easy, Mudd; we’re wired for it. It’s like a stone taking credit for falling down a hill. It would be something for a stone to roll up a hill; for that they could be praised. I’m trying to roll up the hill, Mudd; you’re just rolling down.

  Now it was Mudd’s turn to laugh.

  And even a rock, she said to Zero, would say you’re a damned fool.

  * * *

  • • •

  It was getting dark when they returned to the University. The main hall was cold and gray, and the Seltzers sat around the room, shivering, checking their phones, trying not to look at Mudd’s corpse, whose shadow now fell long across the lobby floor. It was a ghoulish scene, but somehow Seventh felt a sense of relief as he entered the main hall and pulled the heavy door shut behind him.

  I’m home, he thought.

  Unclish, said Seventh, we need to talk.

  He explained that the hardware store had been closed, and though the gas station had some basic supplies, they weren’t sufficient. The fact was, without a grill or anywhere to buy one, and without being permitted to build a fire, they would not be able to cook the meat at the University. He suggested they Purge Mudd now, and then, using the Knife of Redemption—and perhaps a little more elbow grease than usual—Partition her. They could then pack the meat in the cooler, head back to Brooklyn, and cook it—her—there.

  Seventh’s motives weren’t entirely selfless; if they left the University immediately, and traffic into the city wasn’t too terrible, he might still make Reese’s show.

  Let’s get going, he said.

  I agree, said First.

  Unclish shook his head.

  Impossible, he said.

  Unclish, we have no choice, said Seventh.

  She’s already Draining, Unclish pointed out.

  So?

  So Two to Drain, Twenty-four to Purge, said Unclish. We can’t Purge her until tomorrow.

  Two to Drain, Twenty-four to Consume, Seventh corrected him.

  Twenty-four to Consume? asked Unclish. That’s preposterous. How could you Consume in just twenty-four hours? You need to Drain for twenty-four hours. Then you Purge. Then, following that, you Partition and Consume.

  First stepped forward, incredulous.

  You expect us to stay here for twenty-four hours while that fat bitch drip-dries? he said.

  That’s not what you taught us, Unclish, Eighth insisted. You taught us Two to Drain, Twenty-four to Consume.

  Don’t tell me what I taught you, Unclish snapped.

  I’m not hanging out here for twenty-four hours, said Second. No way.

  Unclish, said Seventh, we can’t stay here overnight—

  Why not?

  My daughter . . . , said Seventh, and he immediately regretted it.

  What about her?

  She . . . she has a school performance . . .

  Seventh knew what was coming.

  Oh, a school performance! Unclish said. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Does she play the viola? Does she do a little song and dance? Well, then, by all means, let’s violate thousands of years of tradition! Let’s interrupt the Victuals of a saint, on Remembrance Day, so you can go watch your fool daughter do a handstand!

  She doesn’t do handstands, Seventh said.

  She folds herself in half, he thought.

  She ties herself in knots.

  She forces herself into boxes.

  She’s her father’s daughter.

  This is ridiculous, said First. I’m not going to stay in this hellhole overnight because Uncle Dementia here can’t remember the goddamned rules. Who died and made this decrepit asshole boss, anyway?

  Your mother, said Unclish.

  Our mother what, old man? asked First.

  Your mother, said Unclish, made me the executor of her will. And a sizable will it is. She sold her house, two months ago, in case you didn’t know, with the specific direction that until I am satisfied that the Victuals have been completed in the correct and traditional manner, no monies from the sale of the house will be released to anyone.

  She sold the house? Seventh asked.

  Unclish nodded.

  When? asked Seventh.

  How much? asked First.

  Sale conditional upon her demise, of course, Unclish continued, a condition that has obviously been met.

  She sold it? asked Seventh. Why?

  Because she knew some of you would only perform the Victuals if there was money to be had, Unclish explained. I told her she was wrong; I told her you were good children, that you knew this might be our people’s last Consumption, and that you wouldn’t need to be bribed to perform our most sacred tradition. Clearly, I was mistaken.

  I’ve got no shame about doing this for the money, said First. I’d be a lot more ashamed if I was doing it out of love.

  She knew you would say that, said Unclish. She also knew that you would want to cut corners—throw her ass on the fire, as you in fact suggested. I disagreed, fool that I am. I said that given this could very well be the last Consumption ever, surely her children would desire to perform it in the strictest manner possible. I was wrong about that too. In fact, First, she predicted it would be you, specifically, who would chafe at the particulars. And so yes, children, your mother made me, as your eldest brother has phrased it, boss. Consume her in the proper manner, and you will receive your monies. She will Drain overnight. In the morning, you will return to the hardware store for supplies, and then we will Purge and Partition her. In the evening, we will have the Consumption. That is all. Now let’s get some sleep; tomorrow will be a busy day.

  The Seltzers were dumbstruck, and for a moment nobody spoke.

  What’d she get for it? First at last demanded.

  For what? Unclish asked.

  The house.

  For God’s sake, First, said Tenth, have you no shame? The woman is dead, her body is hanging not five feet away—

  I want to know, demanded First, his voice reverberating through the main hall.

  I want to know too, said Ninth. I’m in this for the money; most of us are. If she sold it for nothing, I think we should know.

  Why would she sell it for nothing? Tenth asked. Just to screw us?

  Yes, said Second. Just to screw us. To make us eat her, and then discover that she sold it for a dollar. That doesn’t sound like Mudd to you?

  Sounds like Mudd to me, said Fifth.

  You people are hideous, said Tenth. The woman whose corpse hangs before you happens to be your—

  Five two, Unclish said.

  The brothers paused their bickering.

  What? asked Second.

  Five two? asked First.

  Five two, said Unclish.

  Five two what? asked Fourth.

  Five million two hundred thousand, said Unclish.

  Five million? asked Second.

  Unclish nodded. Two hundred thousand, he said.

  Bullshit, First scoffed. He’s lying, trying to get us to do his bidding. Who’d pay five million for that Whopper-grease-covered shithole?

  A holding company of some kind, said Unclish. They
bought the houses on either side too. Knocking all three down, ironically enough, to put up a Whole Foods. Organic meat, no antibiotics, that sort of thing. I assume by the looks on your faces that we are agreed, then: We stay the night and finish tomorrow. Either that, or we leave our fortunes, along with your mother and our history, and go watch Seventh’s daughter play the clarinet.

  First pulled his phone from his pocket.

  Hey Siri, he demanded. What’s five million two hundred thousand divided by twelve?

  Never have a dozen people focused so intently on an iPhone.

  I have found what you’re looking for, said Siri. Five million two hundred thousand divided by twelve is four hundred thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three.

  First looked up from his phone.

  That’s nearly half of a fucking million, he said.

  Apiece, said Second.

  First smiled and nodded. Apiece, he said.

  Now the others began to smile too.

  Some laughed, in relief, or disbelief, or both. Second hugged First, Eleventh hugged Twelfth, and Third hugged Fifth, simply because everyone else was hugging, which made the others laugh and cheer.

  I take it we’re staying, said Unclish.

  We’re staying, said First. We’re staying, we’re staying, we’re motherfucking staying.

  Your enthusiasm, said Unclish as he walked away, is heartwarming.

  * * *

  • • •

  Gonna be a late one, Seventh texted Carol. Rosenbloom meeting. Not sure I’m going to make the show.

  Reese would be hurt, no doubt, and experience more anxiety about performing without him there, but it was half a million dollars, for God’s sake. That would be far more important for her in the long run than her father being at a talent show.

  He watched the dots on his screen, waiting for the response he knew was coming.

  It wasn’t going to be pretty.

  Why don’t you be a man for once? she was going to say. Why do you always let him push you around? You gotta stand up for yourself, Seventh! He’s not going to respect you until you do. I would be like, no, uh-uh, sorry, Mister Rosenfuck. I’m going to my daughter’s show. He leaves early Friday for his Sabbath shit, Seventh, why can’t you take off for your daughter’s talent show? It’s bullshit, Seventh. You need to stand up to him. You need to be a man.

  He loved Carol, but he was beginning to tire of her macho Latina Oh-no-you-di-int bullshit. He wondered what life might have been like with a Can-Am woman. There would be struggles, sure, but at least they would understand each other, at least they would relate.

  Of course, his Can-Am wife would text back. Reese will be disappointed, but she’ll get over it.

  It’s a lot of money, he would respond.

  It isn’t about the money, she would send back. This is about our people. This is about our unique cultural heritage.

  The dots stopped.

  No response from Carol. No anger, no condemnation. Just silence. The most dreaded response of all.

  Fuck, thought Seventh.

  He was really getting tired of her Latina bullshit.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mudd reveled in her children’s failures, and she would phone Seventh to gleefully report their bad news. Their defeats proved she had been correct—correct when she said they should never have left, correct when she said they would be sorry. And so Seventh already knew why his siblings needed money. He knew that First’s business had failed, even if he hadn’t known what the business was or why it had closed, and he knew that Second hated his marketing job and would love to quit, but was at the same time afraid he was going to be fired.

  He ran from our Consumptions, Mudd had chortled, and now all day he bows to consumers. That’s the Spirit of the Ancients at work.

  He knew Fourth’s teaching job relied on the publication of his books, and he knew Mudd thought it ironic that Fourth’s books on the history of mankind were not read by any significant portion of mankind.

  Maybe he should have written about our people instead of their people, she said.

  He knew Fifth’s psychiatric practice was struggling, and he knew Mudd had told Fifth that it would.

  People don’t want to be fixed, she said. They want other people to be fixed, to be turned into them.

  She never spoke of Eighth’s failures, nor of Tenth’s, since these were the sons who hadn’t left her; rather, she crowed about their successes, about Eighth’s finishing law school and Tenth’s finishing the New York City Marathon. Ninth successfully completed his veterinary training, but even that Mudd found a way to scorn. Veterinary medicine doesn’t pay what human medicine does, and Ninth was having a difficult time making ends meet. This Mudd attributed, like everything else, to his traitorous homosexuality.

  Maybe if he wasn’t an animal himself, she said, he wouldn’t have to work on them.

  And though she never mentioned Eleventh and Twelfth by name, Seventh knew that they had long desired to transition, and he knew that they couldn’t afford it, and he knew it was to them Mudd was referring when she wept into the phone about how at least in the Old Country, men used to be men.

  It’s the government, she said. The deep state. They’re putting estrogens in the water, did you know that? In the bottled water. To weaken us, Seventh, to subdue our people. They’re running around drinking girl juice; it’s no wonder they want to wear panties.

  Her rejection of Eleventh and Twelfth infuriated Seventh, perhaps because he, too, felt trapped like they were in a box not of his choosing. At least the twins knew who they wanted to become; Seventh didn’t even know that much.

  What about me, Mudd? he asked. I edit other people’s books all day when I really want to write my own. Is my failure as sweet to you as the others’?

  But you tried, Seventh, she said. You wrote a book about us. About our people.

  An unpublished book, said Seventh.

  It’s not your fault, she comforted him. The Cannibal market’s too small for the Jews to make a profit.

  I thought it was the Chinese, said Seventh.

  It’s everyone, goddammit, said Mudd.

  * * *

  • • •

  Unclish liked to compare the history of their people to a movie. An epic, he said, with a running time of ten thousand years. Each of us walks on screen, stays the briefest of moments, then leaves.

  And you dare to say you know what the movie is about? he scoffed. To say, moreover, that the movie is about you? That you, in your split-second scene, are the protagonist of a millennia-long narrative filled with tens of thousands of characters in dozens of nations?

  Remember, said Unclish: the only reason you matter at all is because of all who came before you, and all who will come after.

  This, many years later, was what Dr. Isaacson would refer to as the Temptation of Grand Narrative. We are born, he said to Seventh, we stay the briefest of moments, and we leave. Faced with such staggering insignificance, we seek to attach ourselves to some larger story—our people, our nation, our religion. We call this pride, said Dr. Isaacson, but it is really just a form of low self-esteem. The ultimate effect, in fact, is to make ourselves less important, our purpose, goals, and dreams smaller and more irrelevant.

  We are enough, said Dr. Isaacson. You are enough. Live your life, free of earlier chapters. Your own chapter—nasty, brutish, and short—is as grand and glorious a narrative as any thousand-year epic that came before you.

  With night beginning to fall, Unclish sent Seventh and Second to look for beds. The east wing, he said, was where the dormitories were located; there might be some old mattresses there they could use.

  The University—what had been built or what was left of it—was laid out in the shape of a T, the main hall being the stem off of which branched the arms of the east and we
st wings. Seventh led the way down the trash-strewn hallways of the east wing, pausing to peer now and then into the dark dorm rooms as one might pass through a graveyard, wondering about the students who might have lived there.

  What if they come back? asked Second.

  Who?

  Whoever was here, said Second. Whoever left those needles, those condoms. They could be gang members, Seventh; they could be crack whores. They could be dangerous.

  Crack whores aren’t dangerous.

  How do you know?

  Because they’re on crack.

  They could be gang members, Seventh. This isn’t a joke. I have kids; you have kids.

  This is ours, said Seventh.

  So?

  So we’ll defend it.

  Bullshit, said Second. If they come back, I’m out of here, I’m just telling you that. You want to catch a bullet over a derelict building, you go ahead. It’s not my building.

  It is your building, Seventh snapped. It’s all of our building.

  Not mine.

  Because you’re Jewish?

  No, Seventh, because I’m not an asshole. I fight with Miriam all the time about this. Our son Josh turns eighteen next year, you know what she wants him to do? She wants him to join the Israeli army. The Israeli fucking army. Said she wants him to fight for his country. I said, His country? We’re from Westchester. The Northeast, not the Middle East.

  It’s her homeland, said Seventh. She wants to defend it.

  That’s what she says, said Second. She says Israel is our homeland. She says we have to defend our country. I’m like, Country? What is this country shit? Are we still playing this game? Haven’t we as a species moved on from that yet? What is a country? Tell me, Seventh. What is a homeland? It’s fiction, brother, dangerous fiction. Country is a line in the sand, made by a terrified monkey who had the bad luck to develop an awareness of his own mortality. So Og thinks, Fuck me, this is scary, this whole existence thing. I could die! Now, maybe it is scary, maybe it isn’t. But what does he do? He makes it worse. You know how? The little fuck makes a country. Asshole. He thinks, If I have a country, I’ll be safe. And so Og grabs a stick and he draws that line in the sand, and he says, This is my country, from that birch tree to that big outcropping, to the bluff beside the meadow. That’s my country. And guess what? He feels safer. He has a country, goddammit. If only he had some fireworks to celebrate. But here’s the thing—he’s not actually any safer. In fact, he’s less safe, Seventh. Because a second monkey, Zog, just down the road, he’s developed an awareness of his own mortality too. It’s a virus, this awareness. It’s spreading, like herpes. So Zog sees Og’s country, and thinks, Hey, I need a country too. This is bullshit. And so he grabs a stick and he draws a line in the sand. He says, This is my country, from that oak tree to that stream, to that field of sunflowers at the edge of the valley. Og sees this and he says, Hey, man, what gives? I want the field of sunflowers. And Zog says, Yeah, well, who the fuck said you could have the birch tree? Now they’re fighting. Now they’re using those sticks to bash each other over their little monkey heads. Do you see how it works, Seventh? Because they were afraid of getting bashed over their heads, they’re now getting bashed over their heads. Assholes. Now they have to defend their countries, like Miriam wants Josh to defend Israel, and you want me to defend this derelict crack house. Sorry, brother. Not gonna happen.