Pagan Babies Read Online Free PDF Page B

bar, even when he was single. Terry said, "You never tried or you never made it?" Fran told him he'd never tried. Why didn't he have the same confidence in a bar he had in a courtroom? Terry said that time, "You're too buttoned up. Lose some weight and quit getting your hair cut for a while."
    Terry's answer to any problem was based on the serenity prayer. If you can handle it, do it. If you can't, fuck it.

    Chapter 5.
    AT NIGHT CHANTELLE KEPT HER pistol close by, a Russian Tokarev semiautomatic she bought in the market with money Terry had given her. There were hand grenades for sale, too, but they frightened her.
    This evening she brought the pistol outside with her and laid it on the table where he was twisting a joint he called a yobie. She had told him that here marijuana was sometimes called emiyobya bwenje, "the stuff that makes your head hot." From that he had made up the word yobie. They had smoked one before supper--goat stew left over from last night, Terry complaining always about the fine bones--and now they would smoke another one with their brandy and coffee, the mugs, the decanter, and a citronella candle on the table.
    Always before when they smoked he would tell her funny things he heard in Confession, or about his brother the lawyer, what he did to get money for people who were injured. Or he'd tell jokes she never understood but would laugh because he always laughed at his jokes. This evening, though, he wasn't saying funny things.
    He was serious this evening in a strange way.
    He said he had never seen so fucking many bugs in his life. He used that word when he was drinking too much. The fucking bugs, the fucking rain. He said sometimes he would turn on a light in the house and it would look like the fucking walls were moving, wallpaper changing its pattern. She said, "There is no wallpaper in the house." He said he knew there wasn't any wallpaper, he was talking about the bugs. There were so many they looked like a wallpaper design. Then with the light on they'd start moving.
    She was patient with him. This evening there were lulls, Chantelle waiting through minutes of silence.
    Now he surprised her, coming out of nowhere with "Some were mutilated before they were killed, weren't they? Purposely mutilated."
    Lately he had begun to talk about the genocide again.
    She said, "Yes, they would do it on purpose."
    He said, "They chopped off the feet at the ankles."
    "And took the shoes," Chantelle said, "if the person was wearing shoes." She believed he was talking about the time they came in the church, an experience of the genocide he had not spoken of in a long time.
    He said, "I don't recall them hacking the feet off with one whack."
    It sounded to her so cold. "Sometime they did."
    He said, "This was your observation?"
    She didn't like it when he spoke in this formal manner. It didn't sound like him and was another sign, along with that word, he had been drinking too much. She said, "Some they did with one blow. But I think the blades became dull, or were not honed to begin with. The one who injured me--I raised my arm to protect myself as he struck. He then took hold of my hand as I tried to pull away and he struck again, this time severing the arm. I saw him holding it by the hand, looking at it. I remember he seemed surprised. Then his face changed to a look--I want to say horror, or disgust. But was he sickened only by what he saw or what he did to me?"
    "What if you run into him again?"
    "I hope I never see him."
    "You could have him arrested and tried."
    "Yes? Would I get my arm back?"
    Terry smoked in the light of the candle. After a moment he said, "The ones they murdered in the church stood waiting, crowded together, holding each other. The Hutus would drag them into the aisle and some of them called to me. I never told you that, how they called to me, 'Fatha, please . . . ' "
    She didn't want him to talk about himself, what he was doing or not doing that time. "You know," she said, "all over