Mother for Dinner

by Shalom Auslander

  Mudd, Seventh said, please—let me call an ambulance.

  But Mudd refused.

  No, she said firmly. No cops.

  No cops, said Seventh. Not no ambulances.

  Where is Fifth? Mudd groaned. Is Fifth here?

  Fifth was standing in the corner beside her bathroom door, his face streaked with tears.

  I’m here, Mudd, he called. I’m here. Mudd, I’m so sorry . . .

  You have apologized enough, my son, she said. You have apologized when your brothers wouldn’t. And so to you, Fifth, I leave my heart, since you gave me yours.

  Mudd, don’t . . . , Fifth begged.

  Mudd, said Seventh, I’m calling an ambulance. This is ridiculous.

  But Mudd ignored him.

  Where is my Eighth? she moaned.

  Eighth stood at the foot of the bed, his tearful eyes fixed on the digital clock beside Mudd’s bed. Seventh knew that Eighth, ever the guardian of their laws and regulations, was watching to note the precise time of her death. Time of death was critical.

  For, y’know.

  That.

  I’m here, Mudd, Eighth said without taking his eyes from the clock. I’m here.

  Eighth, she said, you alone were my scholar. You alone studied the ways of our people. You alone committed our traditions to memory. And you alone will one day lead our people, the way your dear Unclish has. And so to you, my son, I leave my head, since it is with your head that you will redeem us.

  Tears ran down Eighth’s cheeks, but his eyes remained fixed on the clock.

  Mudd now turned to Tenth.

  Tenth, she said, her voice weak.

  Mudd, said Tenth, his lip trembling. You need to hydrate . . .

  My warrior, said Mudd. Our warrior. To you, my hero, I leave my hands, since it is with your fists that you shall protect us long after I have gone.

  At this, Third fell to pieces. He simply could not bear to hear the mention of his mother’s death. His shoulders hunched up around his ears, and his face grew red as he tried to hold back his grief, until he could withstand it no longer and he threw his head back and wailed. It pained them all to see Third cry—he was, in his innocence and guilelessness, the beating, unprotected heart of the family—and the others now, too, began to weep.

  To you, Third, Mudd said, to you who stood by me until my very last hour, to you who stayed with me when the others walked away, to you I leave my arms, since with your own mighty arms you always supported me.

  Mudd, said Seventh, enough of this. I’m calling for help.

  And now to you, my dear Seventh, she continued, who made it your mission since youth to hold this family together, to you, my son, I leave my skin, as it held me together. May you hold our people together ever more.

  She began to cough, wincing as pain tore through her.

  If we’re going to call a doctor, Ninth said to Seventh, it has to be now.

  You are a doctor, Seventh said.

  I’m a veterinarian, said Ninth.

  That seems appropriate, said First.

  Tenth glared at him.

  Watch it, he said.

  Blow me, said First.

  The sound of First’s voice seemed to pull Mudd back from death’s dark door. She lifted her head to lay her eyes on him, and whatever small flame was left in her was suddenly rekindled.

  And now, she said with renewed vigor and disgust, her gaze fixed upon him, for the rest of you. The deserters. The traitors. The melters. You who left me. Who left your people.

  She turned her head to Second.

  To you, Second, who married a Sherwood, I leave my feet, since you ran from your people to someone else’s.

  Married a Sherwood? thought Seventh. Second?

  Seventh felt a sudden surge of anger rise within him.

  Second had married a Jew?

  Why?

  And why, more importantly, did he care? He himself had left his people, why shouldn’t Second? And yet somehow—perhaps because Mudd was dying, perhaps because Third was crying, perhaps because Eighth wouldn’t take his eyes off that damned bedside clock—Seventh felt somehow betrayed.

  Betrayed?

  Yes, betrayed.

  Did he have to marry a Jew?

  And then, immediately, Seventh shuddered, hating himself for thinking it.

  Fetal Asshole Syndrome.

  Good, Seventh thought. Good for Second. Good for him. I’m happy for him, good.

  To Fourth, Mudd continued, the man of science (she said this word with the same contempt she had since their youth), the one who could have written books about our people but chose instead to write about others, to you I leave my tongue, since you used yours against us. To Ninth, the lover of men, who chose pleasure over preservation, to you I leave my legs, since you pulled mine out from under me. To Eleventh and Twelfth, who might have brought forth a new generation but chose to become women instead, I leave my genitals. Since you hate yours so much, maybe you’ll like mine. And to Zero, who gave me zero, I leave nothing.

  Pain tore through her once more, and she twisted, wracked with agony.

  The end was close. All that sustained her now was her rage.

  And lastly, she growled through her clenched and yellowed teeth, to my First. The first who left me, the first who betrayed me, the first who dove headfirst into the melting pot the great Julius so disdained, the first to be worse than Jack Nicholson—to you, First, I leave my ass.

  She winced again.

  So you can kiss it, she said.

  First smiled bitterly.

  Aw, Mudd, he said. You shouldn’t have.

  She closed her eyes, concentrating on her uneasy breath.

  Children, she said, you were born in this house, and now I will die in it. It has stood, while so many of you have fallen. I bought it for a pittance, many years ago, and now it is worth a fortune. And if you want your share of that fortune, you will honor this, my final request.

  Of course, said Eighth.

  Anything, wept Tenth.

  A fortune? First asked.

  Mudd, stop this, said Seventh. You’re not dying, for God’s sake. Let me call someone.

  He reached for his phone, but Mudd grabbed his wrist, locking it in place beside her, and she looked up at him, her eyes growing wide as her soul began to depart this world. With her great hand she pulled him close, and with her final breath, whispered the words he knew she would say, the words she’d been waiting her whole life to say, the words he couldn’t even think, let alone utter.

  Eat me, she said.

  She pulled him closer, her dying eyes burning into his:

  Eat me.

  And Seventh, despite every promise he’d made to himself over the years, wiped his tears and said what he had always known he would:

  Yes, Mudd, he said. Yes.

  And only then did Mudd release his arm, and her hand dropped back to the bed, and the pain disappeared from her face.

  And Mudd was dead.

  * * *

  • • •

  Three years ago, after learning that Mudd had been eating Whoppers, Seventh phoned Dr. Isaacson. This was some time after Seventh had stopped his treatment, but he was at a loss as to how to deal with the news and needed help. He felt himself spiraling, and couldn’t go to Carol for support.

  It’s my mother, he said to Dr. Isaacson. She’s trying to kill herself.

  Then call the police, Dr. Isaacson said.

  She’s eating Whoppers.

  The malted milk balls?

  The burgers, said Seventh. Double bacon, extra cheese, no lettuce.

  Then call a nutritionist, said Dr. Isaacson.

  It’s a tradition.

  Eating Whoppers is a tradition?

  Fattening yourself up is a tradition, said Seventh.
Before you die.

  A tradition for who? Dr. Isaacson asked.

  I told you, said Seventh. For . . . us.

  Your unique cultural heritage, said Dr. Isaacson.

  Seventh hesitated.

  Yes, he said.

  He could hear Dr. Isaacson sigh heavily.

  I don’t see any reason to resume your therapy, Mr. Seltzer, said Dr. Isaacson, if you’re not willing, at minimum, to tell me who you are.

  And Dr. Isaacson hung up.

  But that, thought Seventh, is precisely what I’m trying to figure out.

  * * *

  • • •

  It was following the death of his father that Montaigne locked himself away in his library to begin his project of writing about himself—his thoughts, his fears, his loves, his insecurities.

  Others form Man, he wrote. I give an account of Man and sketch a picture of a particular one of them who is very badly formed.

  Who am I? Montaigne essentially wondered five hundred years ago. What’s my story? And now Seventh, in the wake of the death of his mother, wondered the same thing. Because for all of Montaigne’s honesty and self-awareness, for all his humanity and insight, what most interested Seventh about him had always been this:

  His name wasn’t Montaigne.

  His name was Eyquem.

  Michel had given up the name of his ancestors.

  He had turned his back on his people.

  Did Michel de Montaigne, one of the most significant figures of the Enlightenment, the paragon of free thought and independence, the man who influenced everyone from Descartes to Emerson to Shakespeare—did Michel want to melt?

  I am not portraying being, Montaigne wrote, but becoming.

  Sounds like melting to me, thought Seventh.

  * * *

  • • •

  Father told his sons a very different version of the Julius-Coming-to-America story from the one Mudd had.

  The year was 1914, said Father, when Julius Seltzer, son of Samuel Seltzer, son of some other Seltzer, left the Old Country for the New World, mere days after his eighteenth birthday, with little more than the shirt on his back.

  What was the Old Country like? young Seventh had asked, wanting to hear again of the meadows and the hills and the oversize fruit.

  The Old Country, Father said, was a toilet, with dirt roads and open sewers and pestilence and misery. At last, Samuel decided it was time to leave.

  Because of the king? offered Seventh.

  What king?

  The new king.

  There was no king, said Father. The Old Country was governed by a loose alliance of tribal leaders organized around a powerless executive branch propped up over the years by various global superpowers.

  Oh, said Seventh.

  It was time to leave, Father said, because Samuel wanted a better life for his children than the Old Country could provide. And so one night, under the cover of darkness, he took Julius and his younger sister, Julia, to the dock, where he handed Julius a brown leather valise with a wooden handle and heavy golden clasps, inside which lay the ancient Knife of Redemption, with which the sacred Consumption rite had been performed throughout the ages.

  Take this with you, Samuel said to Julius.

  So that I never forget who I am or where I came from? asked Julius.

  No, said Samuel. Because it’s the only thing we have of any value. Take it with you, hock it for some cash, and move on with your life. Forget who you are, Julius, and forget where you came from.

  Julius resisted. He had been raised to love his traditions and his past, and his people defined who he was. He was not just Julius Seltzer. He was a proud Cannibal-Whatever-Country-They-Were-Inian, and he always would be.

  But Father, Julius begged, how can I just throw away all those years of history and ignore all that our people have been through?

  Samuel clopped him on the head with the back of his hand.

  Don’t be stupid, he said. The past is an anchor, my son, chained at one end to our ankles and buried in the mud of history at the other. It drags us down; it keeps us from moving forward. Darwin, who was Cannibal, said we come from monkeys. Should we then climb into trees and swing from vines because our ancestors did? Should we eat bugs, throw shit at each other, and fight over bananas? No—we move ahead. We progress. We leave the jungle behind. Now go! If you want to help your people, help all people, because all people are your people. Go. Go and go forward, Julius. The future awaits.

  How difficult it was for Julius to do as his father had commanded! He resisted, and spent the first days and nights on that ship clutching that brown valise to his chest, refusing to let it go. But soon, said Father, he did forget, and he did move on. Because what he discovered there on that old ship was something far more valuable than any ancient valise.

  You see, Father explained, Julius and Julia were not the only ones on that ship looking for something new. They were not the only ones looking to escape their past. All the passengers, they soon learned—from different pasts and different nations and different races and different religions—shared a common dream, a crazy dream, a beautiful dream, a dream that in all the history of mankind had never been dreamed of before: the dream of a shared future. While the rest of the world fixed their eyes on the past, the huddled immigrants were defiantly looking forward. Where they had come from individually was less important than where they were going together.

  Mad, they were, said Father. Insane, even. But all prophets are.

  And so, Father continued, eight harrowing weeks at sea later, as Julius and Julia stood on the deck of the SS Expedition and peered up at the Statue of Liberty, they wept, strangers hugging strangers, because the bleak, bestial world of difference and division was far behind them, and here in the New World, mankind would live as one. Without so much as a single question, the immigration official stamped their papers and welcomed them with a smile to the New World.

  Wherever you are from, he said, now you are home.

  And with that, Julius and Julia Seltzer took the family’s very first steps into America. Soon after, needing money, Julius remembered his father’s words, and he brought the old valise to a pawnshop to try to sell the Knife of Redemption as his father had commanded him. He lifted the valise onto the counter, and explained that what lay inside it was a cherished and antique family heirloom that it broke his heart to part with, but that his father had commanded him to sell.

  The shopkeeper offered him a nickel.

  A second shop offered him a dime.

  A third shop offered him a pair of shoes in trade, and threw in a straw hat, badly in need of blocking, for Julia.

  Julius couldn’t do it. To part with such an important piece of his unique cultural heritage for so little was more than he could bear.

  I would rather starve, he snapped at the shopkeeper.

  That’s always an option, the shopkeeper replied.

  The customer behind him, though, realizing Julius was in need of work, took him aside and told him that a man named Henry Ford was promising to pay his workers five dollars a day—a fortune in those times—in exchange for helping him build his cars. Julius couldn’t believe his good luck. He decided to keep the valise, and the very next day, he and Julia set out for Michigan.

  Julius’s experience at the Ford factory, said Father, was as inspiring as the one on the ship had been. There on the assembly line, Germans worked beside Japanese who worked beside Russians who worked beside Africans. None thought himself better than the rest, and all worked together to build their dream. And so when Julius was at last accepted into the Americanization program, he wept with joy. Americanization Day came, and when the ceremony was over, Julius held Julia in his arms and wept with joy, saying, America: was it not worth it?

  Hang on, Seventh asked.

  What?

  I thought he
said, America: it was not worth it.

  Father shook his head.

  No, said Father. He said, America: was it not worth it?

  Seventh was confused.

  But wasn’t this the most painful story in the most agonizing chapter of the entire heartbreaking history of Cannibal-Americans? he asked.

  No, said Father. It was the most uplifting story in the most miraculous chapter of the history of Cannibal-Americans.

  So uplifting was it, Father said, that ever since, it has been a tradition among Cannibal-Americans that young men, on the day of their eighteenth birthdays, go about in black suits and red ties, carrying brown leather valises with wooden handles and heavy golden clasps, to commemorate the wonderful day Julius finally became an American.

  Mudd and Father held fast to their particular versions of the story. In fact, Seventh would later learn, it wasn’t just his parents who disagreed about the Julius-Coming-to-America story, it was all Can-Ams; the conflicting narratives bitterly divided the Cannibal-American community, some holding by the It-Was version, some holding by the Was-It version, and both having nothing but contempt for those who held otherwise. The infighting might have eventually destroyed the community but for the fortunate happenstance that the commemorations of both versions were identical in practice—suits, ties, valises—so that nobody could say for certain who was commemorating what, or for what reason. Disaster was thus avoided, but the conflict between the two groups was never resolved and the enmity never waned, and so it was that the foundational story of the Cannibal-American people not only held them together, it also drove them apart.

  As Father finished his tale, his voice cracked with emotion.

  Your great-grandfather Julius was a great man, he said, wiping a tear from his cheek. In his entire life, he only made one mistake.

  What was that? asked Seventh.

  He never did sell the Knife of Redemption, Father said. He just couldn’t do it. He kept it, in that ancient valise, and took it with him wherever he went. That was his only failing, Seventh; even with all his courage, he still held on to the past. He should have thrown the damned thing overboard.

  Into the sea, Father said as he got to his feet.