Out on Cavanaugh Street, Donna Moradanyan had outdone herself. Her own house—the new town house she and Russ had renovated last summer—looked like it had been turned to silk. Red and white silk ribbons covered every inch of the facade, dotted here and there with metallic glittered hearts. In fact, metallic glittered hearts seemed to be what she was most committed to, this particular holiday season. There were a dozen or more on the front of Holy Trinity Church, and even more than that around Lida Arkmanian’s front door. Gregor’s own house had been decorated weeks ago. Donna always did this one first, because it was where she had started to do them in the first place, all those years ago, when they had all just met.
Bennis was not only out, she was at a local writers’ conference, teaching a seminar on How to Make Fantasy Reality. Her notes were taped all over her refrigerator, which seemed to exist for no other reason than to hold notes. Lord only knew there was never any food in it, and when there was it tended to have grown green mold and taken on a life of its own. They should do something about the apartments, like knock them together and put a staircase between them, but everything he could think of to do seemed to have implications that would lead to repercussions on Cavanaugh Street. Of course everybody knew that they were sleeping together, and most people were relieved, since they’d gone on for years in a kind of relationship limbo where neither of them knew what was happening between them. Still, unmarried people didn’t move into apartments together in neighborhoods like this, unless they wanted to spend most of their time explaining themselves to the Very Old Ladies.
He was procrastinating. He hated going out to shop. He also hated being in Bennis’s apartment rather than his own, because he couldn’t get to any of his things, and she filled her life with bits and pieces that made no sense to him at all. She had sachet in her underwear drawers. She had silk flowers all over the windowsill in the living room. If he went down to his own apartment, the phone might ring, and it might be Garry or Lou, and then he would be stuck. He picked up his coat where he had left it on Bennis’s couch and went out instead and down the stairs.
He couldn’t visit old George Tekemanian, because old George was having lunch in the city with his nephew Martin. Martin was always taking old George to restaurants where they set things on fire, and old George was always ready to order something that would be set on fire. Gregor went out on the street and looked up and down. Hannah Krekorian and Sheila Kashinian were standing together a few blocks up in front of Hannah’s house, looking at something in what seemed to be a magazine.
Gregor went up a block and a half and turned in at Holy Trinity Church. He went down the alley at the side and around the back to Tibor’s apartment. The front door was unlocked. No matter how often or how loudly Gregor lectured people on Cavanaugh Street about the importance of keeping their doors locked, nobody listened to him.
“Tibor?” he called out.
“In the kitchen,” Tibor called back.
Gregor went into the kitchen, where Tibor’s computer was set up at a small table set against one wall. There was also a big table in the middle of the room, with enough chairs to accommodate an old-fashioned family of eight. Tibor’s computer screen was the largest Gregor had ever seen, and the brightest. Bennis had bought it for him for Christmas.
“What are you doing?” Gregor asked.
“I am reading a newsgroup,” Tibor said. “I have become a subscriber to several newsgroups. Also to several e-mail discussion lists. The discussion lists are easier than the newsgroups, but the newsgroups have a more interesting mix of people.”
“A newsgroup is what?” Gregor asked. “The same thing as a chat room?”
“No, no,” Tibor said. “Krekor, you really have to learn the Internet. Your ignorance is embarrassing. Chat rooms are not worth the trouble. They’re full of people making bad sex jokes, and then it turns out that half of them are FBI agents looking for sexual predators. Back in Armenia, Krekor, I would not have believed that so many men could be pedophiles.”
“Ah,” Gregor said.
“Well, it makes no sense, Krekor. What does a man want with a child? By the time I was twenty-six, I couldn’t look at a woman much younger than thirty.”
“You’re an unusual human being,” Gregor said. “What do you talk about on this newsgroup?”
“It’s called alt.atheism. We are supposed to talk about atheism. Most of the time, there will be someone from a Christian church who comes to try to convert, and the atheists will swear at him. We have flame wars. Do you know about flame wars?”