Nat was piling mounds of kimchi on her haembeogeo, her hands soaked chili red, her mild palate accepting the heat of her idol’s favorite food. Karen and Masha knew that one of them would have to deal with her cranky stomach later, and both now selfishly hoped the other caregiver would soothe their child. Ed and Vinod were leaning toward each other, quietly discussing aspects of lovemaking with the ardor of senior collegians who had lost their virginity only as of late. Senderovsky, drunk on one of the forty-eight bottles of retsina Ed had just ordered to commemorate a public joy, was singing, to himself and his wife, a boisterous Russian song about a locomotive hurtling toward socialism. Karen was coaching Dee on the use of teleconferencing technology for her classes in the fall, perhaps trying to make up for all that her own technology had done to her, while Nat put her head on her emo’s naked, chlorinated shoulder and commenced a volley of perfectly timed kimchi farts. The mysterious bird wearing yellow shoulder pads had come out with her family for a makeshift worm picnic in the monumental forest just behind the porch. Two hatchlings, dazed by the sunlight, happy because they had not yet experienced the full cold of this continent, pecked at each other while their dad sat on a high branch singing about the journey that had brought all of them here; not a love song, exactly, but a rendering of his life and worth, as a beast of this earth, as a parent, as a lover, as a migrant, as a bird. And if we are to suspend our secular beliefs, even for half a paragraph, we can imagine the migrated souls of all the human ancestors presently at table, looking over their bloodline progeny gathered together over the familiarity of cabbage and fried rice and the unfamiliarity of a meat disk between two circular pieces of bread, happy as parents in a playground when all of the children assembled play together quietly and at peace, and no one’s young feelings are hurt, and everyone will go home still innocent.
Of course, by the logic of fiction, we are at a high point now. This respite, this happy family, these four new lovers, this child slowly losing her shyness, all of this must be slated for destruction, no? Because if we were to simply leave them feasting and ecstatic, even as the less fortunate of the world fell deeper into despair, even as hundreds of thousands perished for lack of luck, lack of sympathy, lack of rupees, would we be just in our distribution of happiness? And so we sigh, cross ourselves, mumble the Kaddish, perform our pujas and wudu, all in preparation for the inevitable, which, in this case, comes with the crunch of gravel down the driveway.
3
They heard the crunch of gravel down the driveway. It was Saturday, and they were not expecting workmen. Senderovsky had collected more household money from Ed and Karen （and a pittance from Dee）， and now the elaborate machinery of the estate functioned perfectly and in tandem. Hot water flowed out of new noncopper pipes, hedges were trimmed by the now-cheerful handyman （he had used a state subsidy to help fund a new motorbike）， and painful carpenter ants were slaughtered en masse by workers from a company across the river （motto: We kill with skill）。 Most important, the cable company sent a representative to install routers in the bungalows so that the colonists could resume their work lives. Senderovsky took that as a sign that they might stay indefinitely, the prospect of which gladdened him, though he knew he would run out of money before the first snow.
As the diners heard the crunch of gravel, those facing away from the driveway were loath to have to turn around and inspect the newcomer, to have their magnificent peace destroyed as it sometimes was by the orgiastic cry of the distant train lumbering up to the state’s capital. What now, they thought. Company? Guests? And on such a pretty day? Well, who needs them! Or, in Senderovsky-speak, to the devil with them! Masha reached for her purse and its treasure trove of masks.
They fixed their fading visions on the vehicle graveling toward them, its noisy advance initially shaded by the ghost of a long-dead apple tree. Eagle-eyed Nat was the first to understand what was happening. “What the heck?” she shouted, the last word recently taking pride of place in her innocent vocabulary. Dee, a champion at the optometrist’s chart, next recognized the car’s familiar irregular shape and blanched. Senderovsky sprang up from his chair and covered his breasts, as ashamed as Adam after his first helping of pie. And Ed laughed so sadly Vinod had to reach over and slap his back in commiseration. The colonists looked to one another, as if for the last time.
* * *
—
“May I speak to Dee?” The question was directed at Senderovsky, as if he was her father and this was a different century. The Actor stood at the door of the covered porch. It was clear to all that he was experiencing technical difficulties: His hair had been cut professionally, but it flamed above him like a torch at a failed Olympics, and his eyes had the dimmed luster of dead coral clothed in a mist of algae. Sweat slicked across his forehead as if it had been moved to and fro by a windshield wiper, and his car, whose engine he had forgotten to turn off, sputtered and whirred behind him like a stinkbug at the end of summer.