Festival of Deaths(32)

“Help! He’s killing me,” the old woman said chirpily. “Women who say their husbands have penises that are just too big to handle. Next, on The Lotte Goldman Show.”

“Penises,” Hannah Krekorian said thoughtfully. “Do you think that’s possible? That one could be too big?”

“I’ve heard of women being too big,” Lida Arkmanian said. “But maybe that’s more of that chauvinism they’re always talking about. I mean, that you hear the bad things about women but you never hear the bad things about men.”

“If that’s chauvinism, there was none of it in my mother’s house,” Sheila Kashinian said. “You should have heard her and my aunts go at it.”

“We did,” Lida Arkmanian said. “We used to hide under the table and listen to all the old ladies talk.”

“Those old ladies were younger than we are now,” Hannah Krekorian said.

“Oh, do you remember the story about the woman who took a lover and then when she went to bed with her husband her husband could see her lover’s image in her eyes?” Sheila Kashinian was practically squealing. “And first he killed her and then he killed her lover and it was a big mess but it was in Armenia—”

“I think your Aunt Helena used to make those stories up,” Lida said.

“Maybe she did,” Sheila said. “But they were good.”

“I remember the story about the woman who had sex with her donkey,” Hannah Krekorian said.

Gregor didn’t want to hear the story about the woman who had had sex with her donkey. He didn’t want to watch the commercial for designer perfume that was now flashing across the screen. He moved farther into the room and asked them, “What is it you think you’re doing here? What is that thing?”

Bennis Hannaford stood up. “It’s The Lotte Goldman Show. You know, the one you’re supposed to be on next week.”

“I can’t be on a show about—about—”

“Well, you won’t be, will you?” Donna Moradanyan asked him. “You’ll be on one about serial killers.”

“What’s a show like this going to say about serial killers?” Gregor demanded. “Ted Bundy’s ten favorite sexual fantasies? Richard Speck’s—”

“That’s the phone,” Bennis said, jumping up. She raced into the kitchen, picked up, and pulled the cord as tight as it would go, so that she could stand in the doorway to the living room and watch what was happening on the television screen. The commercial was over and The Lotte Goldman Show had come back. The chirpy older woman was sitting in an artfully arranged crowd of middle-aged people, not one of whom looked to Gregor like he or she could manage to get excited enough to produce a heartbeat, never mind a sex life.

“We’ve got it on right now,” Bennis said into the phone. “The production values are marvelous. I had no idea it was such a class act.”

“Today, we are going to investigate one of the most explosive secret sexual dysfunctions of our, or any other, age,” Lotte Goldman said. “We’re going to look into the trials and tribulations of men who have been just too well endowed by nature, and the trials and tribulations of their wives and lovers. I want to warn you right now that some of the things you are going to hear on this program will be painful to listen to. I want to warn you as well that some of the language will be explicit. This program is not for the squeamish. And that said, I would like to introduce you now to our guests, who have each and every one of them courageously agreed to come here today and discuss this problem publicly, to bring it out of the dark closet in which it had been hiding and expose it to the light of day.”

“I wonder if they’ll have pictures,” Sheila Kashinian said.

Bennis Hannaford waved the phone receiver in the air. “Lida, come here, it’s for you. It’s Rebekkah Goldman.”

“She wants the address of the place with the kosher filo,” Lida said, standing up. “I’ll be right there. I don’t want to miss any of this.”

“You won’t have to, Bekkah has it on too.”

Lida stepped over Donna Moradanyan’s shoulder and reached for the phone. “We are out of kimionov keufteh,” she said. “There’s another bowl I left in your refrigerator. Put them in the microwave and heat them up.”

“I was a virgin when I was married,” one of the women on television was saying. “I never saw one before I saw his. But when I did see his I had sense enough to be terrified.”

Bennis disappeared into the kitchen.