Mother for Dinner

by Shalom Auslander

  Mudd smiled politely at the teachers.

  Such sweet children, she said, then leaned over and pinched Oscar’s cheek. Why, she said, looking him dead in the eye, I could just eat . . . you . . . up.

  And then she released his hand, turned, and headed for home.

  Seventh, still peering out the living room window, remembered standing in the front yard of the school, long after the bell for class rang, watching her lumber away. Passersby gawked. Dogs barked. Children pointed and laughed.

  He felt an arm around his shoulder.

  You okay? Zero asked.

  He shrugged. Okay, he said.

  She was a good mother, said Zero.

  He shrugged again. Okay, he said.

  Zero smiled.

  Well, she said, she was a mother. Let’s leave it at that.

  * * *

  • • •

  We need a novel, Mudd said to Seventh. He was fifteen years old.

  We need a novel, and you’re going to write it.

  Mudd primarily bore children so that they would in turn bear children of their own, but reproduction was not their only duty to their people. Each child had their own secondary mission, which Mudd assigned them based on their specific talents and abilities: those born with indomitable strength she expected to be their defenders; those possessing charisma she expected to become their leaders; those gifted with sensitivity she expected to get over it; and those with a facility with words she expected to tell their people’s story.

  Our people aren’t going to get an ounce of respect until we have a novel, she said. A great Cannibal novel. Sherwoods have novels, blacks have novels, Sumerians have novels, hell, even the gays have a novel or two.

  She assumed Fourth would write it, what with his early acumen and love of reading. Once he entered college, though, he decided to pursue anthropology instead of literature—or, as Mudd phrased it, to write about monkeys instead of his own people. Seventh was just beginning high school at the time, and she turned to him for the novel she believed would deliver them from the shadows.

  Write it, Seventh. For me. Full of romance and adventure, of war and heroes, of oppression and survival. Like that mick, what’s-his-name, James Michener.

  James Michener wasn’t Irish, Fourth corrected her. He was an orphan. It’s impossible to say where he was from.

  Well then he wasn’t not Irish, was he, Monkey Boy? said Mudd.

  Seventh was never good at saying no to Mudd, and so he said yes. He spent hours after school at the library, reading every family saga he could find. He studied their structures, he studied their character arcs, he studied their themes. In the end, though, they weren’t the inspiration he’d hoped for. In fact, they bored him. It may have just been adolescent cynicism, but he found their stories tediously alike and thus tediously unlikely, overly full of romance and adventure, of war and heroes, of oppression and survival, laden with self-aggrandizement and victimization, with hagiographic tales that beggared belief, and with the same bigotry by the heroes that the heroes decried being subjected to themselves.

  Mudd smiled to hear him describe them, and handed him a box of pre-sharpened pencils.

  It sounds good already, she said.

  A year later, Seventh completed his novel, which he titled, in honor of his mother, Out of the Shadows. He placed the manuscript in a box, and presented it to Mudd for her birthday. She read it that night, declaring it the next morning the finest novel she had ever read, and predicting it would do for Cannibal-Americans what One Hundred Years of Solitude had done for the Mexicans, who were taking over their bodegas.

  But it was not to be. Seventh’s novel was rejected by every publisher who bothered to read it, and many more who didn’t.

  If it’s fiction, it’s ludicrous, one editor said, summing up the feelings of most. If it’s nonfiction, it’s worse.

  Mudd blamed the publishers—the Jews, the Germans, the British, the Chinese.

  The Chinese? Seventh asked. They own publishing houses?

  They own everything, goddammit, said Mudd.

  * * *

  • • •

  Ah, yes—the old Antagonist-with-a-Heart-of-Gold.

  It was Seventh’s most despised narrative trick. Pure cliché. Give the antagonist a little depth, a little shading.

  The savage killer.

  Who saves the baby.

  The creepy pedophile.

  Who murders the even creepier pedophile.

  The narcissistic mother.

  Who once stood up for her son.

  The reader wonders, Well, maybe the mother was good? Maybe things aren’t so black-and-white?

  It was a sin he despised, and yet he had just committed it himself.

  She stood up for him. Once. And maybe not even once. Maybe she was just standing up for Cannibals.

  That was why he hated the device so much. It wasn’t about giving the antagonist depth. It wasn’t about creating a rounded character. It was about the writer patting himself on the back for his noble objectivity, for his boundless largesse, for his preternatural generosity of spirit.

  Bullshit, thought Seventh.

  Sometimes impartiality was just cowardice.

  Sometimes even-handedness was servility.

  And yet there she was in his mind’s eye, his mother, his antagonist, Mudd, moving slowly down the street, burdened by her own being, head hung low as people pointed at her from their cars and frightened children cowered behind their wary parents.

  Sad music.

  Fade to black.

  Scene.

  Dick.

  * * *

  • • •

  When Zero was a baby, First was eighteen. It was the time of his most vociferous battles with Mudd. Zero would cry to hear the yelling and fighting, the slamming doors, the shattering cups and vases. Seventh, a child himself at the time, would pull her from her high chair and rush her upstairs to his bedroom, where he would close the door tightly, lay her on the bed, and place his hands over her ears so that she couldn’t hear the war waging around her.

  They’re just playing, Zero-Hero, he would whisper softly to her, his own tears mixing with hers. It’s okay, Zero-Hero; they’re just playing . . .

  * * *

  • • •

  It was Father’s idea to send Seventh away to summer camp. Seventh didn’t want to go, but Father was adamant that he get out there and meet some people. People, he meant, from other communities and other backgrounds. Mudd was opposed, fearing the influence the other children and counselors might have on him, certain they would lure him away from his own community. But Father insisted, and Mudd, pregnant and tired, didn’t possess the strength to argue.

  Seventh hated camp. He felt isolated, different. He could find no common ground with the other campers, and lived in fear of being discovered, of the other children learning who he was and where he came from. While the other kids swam and played baseball, Seventh spent his days at the front office, begging to be sent home.

  Lots of children miss home, said the camp director.

  I don’t miss home, said Seventh. I just hate it here.

  At night, while the other kids roasted marshmallows and sang songs, Seventh went to bed, lay down, and tried to come up with a way to escape and return home. He thought about Julius, and about how long and difficult his own journey to freedom had been, and about how much courage it took for him to go forth on his own. And so, thus inspired, one night, Seventh left. He waited until his counselors were asleep, took a flashlight and what little money he had, snuck past the front office to the main road, and began to walk. He had no idea where he was going, whether he was getting farther from home or closer. But what did Julius know on that boat? What did he know when he set out for Detroit? The dark woods frightened him, but he refused to turn back. He managed to get three miles away before
being spotted by a gas station attendant. The police arrived and drove him back to camp, and the camp director, embarrassed and deeming Seventh an unacceptable insurance risk, sent him home. His parents were livid.

  But Julius went on a journey and you said he was a hero! Seventh cried.

  Mudd clopped him on the back of the head.

  How dare you compare yourself to Julius! she said, and grounded him for a month.

  The punishment didn’t bother Seventh in the least. He was ecstatic to be back in Brooklyn, and for the first time in weeks, he fell asleep without crying. Downstairs, though, Mudd and Father began to fight.

  You made him afraid of other people, Father shouted.

  He was smart to come back, Mudd replied. He knows where he belongs!

  You’d be happy if he never left!

  You’d be happy if he never returned!

  Tenth, just a baby at the time, began to cry.

  Seventh went to him, bent low over his crib, and covered his ears.

  It’s okay, Ten-Ten, he said. They’re just playing.

  And then Seventh went back to his bed, lay down, and tried to come up with a way to escape and return to camp.

  * * *

  • • •

  Montaigne was a liberal humanist, say the liberal humanists.

  Montaigne was a religious conservative, say the religious conservatives.

  Montaigne was Jewish, say the Jews.

  Montaigne was a firm Roman Catholic, say the Roman Catholics.

  Montaigne: When they asked Socrates where he came from he did not say From Athens, but From the world.

  * * *

  • • •

  Mudd hated the term Cannibal-American.

  You think it matters what you call yourself? she said. It’s what they call you that matters, and they’re calling you a savage. They’re calling you a headhunter.

  Montaigne again: Every moment it seems to me that I am running away from myself.

  That confession gave Seventh comfort. Everywhere around him, people were loudly proclaiming who they were. But Montaigne, dead four hundred years, was offering something different:

  Maybe you didn’t have to know who you were.

  Maybe that was no great achievement.

  Maybe it was enough—maybe it was the very beginning of wisdom itself—just to know who you weren’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  Julius was the pioneer, the brave forefather who left his own parents and the blessed Old Country behind and brought their people to the New World hoping for better lives. His fearlessness was an inspiration for all subsequent generations of Cannibal-Americans to never stop searching for a Cannibal homeland, and to never let fear hold them back. They knew him, one and all, as Julius the Brave.

  His wife-sister, Julia, though, was their people’s martyr, and Mudd took a special satisfaction in telling her story. No woman had ever suffered as much as Julia, said Mudd. She was slapped, kicked, chased, pummeled, and mauled; she suffered from the moment of her birth to the moment of her death, and it was said that there had been only a handful of days in all her seventy-two years when she wasn’t covered in blood. On one of those days, Mudd said, Julius himself didn’t recognize her. He shouted in fear to see a strange woman in his home, and the police came and, believing her to be black, beat her with their clubs until she bled. Only then did Julius realize it was Julia, and he begged the officers to cease.

  Crucifixion? Mudd said. Crucifixion was a cakewalk. Julia would have killed to be crucified.

  Her suffering was an inspiration for all subsequent generations of Cannibals: to never surrender, to never succumb, to never give in to oppression and hate. They knew her, one and all, as Julia the Anguished.

  In her youth, though, said Mudd, she was known as Julia the Beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman who ever lived, and when she and her brother, Julius, who was the most handsome man who ever lived, arrived in the New World, all the men of all the nations desired her, and some even desired Julius (Animals, Mudd said). But Julia’s heart belonged only to her people, and so she married her brother, as she desired Cannibal children and hoped that being betrothed would protect her from the lecherous desires of the men of the New World. But the covetous men of the other nations did not care that she was married, and when she would not give them what they desired, they either took it by force or destroyed it. If she wasn’t raped, she was beaten; her nose was broken, her teeth knocked out; she was racked, stretched, broken on the wheel, and hung in a cage in the town square, where passersby would mock her and pelt her with stones. But such was Julia’s beauty that even with half her comeliness, she was still more desirable than the most beautiful women of the other nations.

  And so, Mudd said, one morning, as he was going to work, Henry Ford saw Julia in her cage, and his heart filled with desire for her. Detroit was Ford’s town by then, and he immediately had Julia uncaged, and cared for by the city’s finest physicians, and from the steps of his palace he forbade anyone to ever cause her harm.

  Palace? Seventh asked.

  Practically, said Mudd.

  But the price to be paid for her rescue was steep: Ford declared Julia his own, a possession with no more freedoms or rights than one of his automobiles. If she didn’t submit to his dark desires, he warned her, or spoke of them to anyone, he would fire her husband and throw the both of them into the street. It was the early days of the Great Depression, and Julia knew they could not risk being without employment. Ford gave Julius longer hours on the line so he could have more time with Julia alone, and assigned him to the most dangerous machines, hoping he might be killed and Julia would be his forever.

  Here Mudd’s voice would fill with emotion as she told her children the story.

  Night after night he defiled her, she said. Not a single Model T rolled off the assembly line in those days that he hadn’t violated her in, not a single one.

  She would dab the corners of her eyes as if she had been crying.

  They produced nine thousand vehicles a day, Mudd, Fourth pointed out.

  Mudd nodded.

  That poor woman, she sort of wept.

  Such was Julia’s greatness that Unclish decided to honor her memory, and so he passed a law, from now until the end of time, that it was forbidden for any Cannibal to own a Ford ever again, or to lease one, or to even buy one secondhand.

  Whoever does so, he declared, is a traitor, an enemy of our people.

  And worse than Jack Nicholson.

  * * *

  • • •

  What about F-150s? the Elders asked. For they are not cars, but trucks.

  Ford trucks too, said the Elder Elders, are forbidden.

  What about Lincolns? the Elders asked.

  Lincolns are permitted, said the Elder Elders.

  But Lincoln is owned by Ford, said the Elders.

  Yes, said the Elder Elders, but nobody drives Lincolns anyway.

  I drive a Lincoln, said the Elders.

  Then you are a fool, said the Elder Elders.

  Ease up, Larry, said the Elders. We’re on the same team here.

  * * *

  • • •

  One Sunday when he was five, Seventh learned that he would live forever.

  It raised some difficult questions.

  He woke with a start that morning to the sound of a vacuum cleaner downstairs. He sat up, his young heart filling with joy.

  Do you hear that? he asked his brothers.

  Is that the vacuum? asked Fourth.

  It is, said Third. Vacuum!

  Guests! cheered Second.

  Thank fucking Christ, muttered First.

  Mudd did not keep a particularly tidy home, and so the unusual sound of vacuuming heralded something special. Vacuuming meant visitors were expected, and visitors meant Mudd wou
ld be on her best behavior—though she often insisted there was nothing wrong with her hitting and yelling (That’s part of being a family, she said), she never did either in front of guests or strangers.

  The boys hurried downstairs to the kitchen, where coffee was brewing—We have a coffee machine? asked First—and Mudd was busy arranging a plate of fancy pastries.

  Who’s coming? Seventh asked.

  Just get dressed, Mudd said.

  Why? asked Second.

  I said get dressed! she snapped, and would have clopped him then and there if there hadn’t come at just that moment a loud knocking on the front door. Mudd swore—Seventh, put away the vacuum! Put away the vacuum!—grabbed the plate of pastries, and hurried to the door, smoothing her dress and tucking a stray hair behind her ear as she went.

  Unclish! Mudd said to her esteemed brother-in-law as she opened the door. Goodness, I forgot you were coming!

  Any hope the boys had of a casual Sunday disappeared. Their uncle was a serious man, as humorless as he was intimidating; he had probably laughed once, long ago, but never since, and had Mudd mentioned earlier that he was coming, any of the brothers old enough to leave on their own would have done so hours ago.

  I am indeed worthy of forgetting, Unclish replied with his practiced humility. It is the important things we shall work today to remember.

  Mudd sighed at his wisdom and held a hand over her heaving bosom.

  (First once told Seventh he thought Mudd had a crush on Unclish.

  Oh please, said Seventh. She’s married to his brother.