We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [180]
I frowned. “Something about that arrow—the focus—its purposiveness, or sense of direction. Maybe he envies it. There’s a ferocity about Kevin at target practice. Otherwise, he can seem rather aimless.”
“Ms. Khatchadourian, I don’t want to put you on the spot. But has anything happened in your family that I should know about? I was hoping you could help explain why your son seems so angry.”
“That’s odd. Most of his teachers have described Kevin as placid, even lethargic.”
“It’s a front,” she said confidently.
“I do think of him as a little rebellious—”
“And he rebels by doing everything he’s supposed to. It’s very clever. But I look in his eyes, and he’s raging. Why?”
“Well, he wasn’t too happy when his sister was born ... But that was over seven years ago, and he wasn’t too happy before she was born, either.” My delivery had grown morose. “We’re pretty well off—you know, we have a big house . . . ” I introduced an air of embarrassment. “We try not to spoil him, but he lacks for nothing. Kevin’s father adores him, almost—too much. His sister did have an—accident last winter in which Kevin was—involved, but he didn’t seem very bothered by it. Not bothered enough, in fact. Otherwise, I can’t tell you any terrible trauma he’s been through or deprivation he’s suffered. We lead the good life, don’t we?”
“Maybe that’s what he’s angry about.”
“Why would affluence make him mad?”
“Maybe he’s mad that this is as good as it gets. Your big house. His good school. I think it’s very difficult for kids these days, in a way. The country’s very prosperity has become a burden, a dead end. Everything works, doesn’t it? At least if you’re white and middle class. So it must often seem to young people that they’re not needed. In a sense, it’s as if there’s nothing more to do.”
“Except tear it apart.”
“Yes. And you see the same cycles in history. It’s not only children.”
“You know, I’ve tried to tell my kids about the hardships of life in countries like Bangladesh or Sierra Leone. But it’s not their hardship, and I can’t exactly tuck them in on a bed of nails every night so they’ll appreciate the miracle of comfort.”
“You said your husband ‘adores’ Kevin. How do you get along with him?”
I folded my arms. “He’s a teenager.”
Wisely, she dropped the subject. “Your son is anything but a hopeless case. That’s what I most wanted to tell you. He’s sharp as a tack. Some of his papers—did you read the one on the SUV? It was worthy of Swift. And I’ve noticed that he asks challenging questions merely to catch me out—to humiliate me in front of the class. In fact, he knows the answer beforehand. So I’ve been playing along. I call on him, and he asks what logomachy means. I gladly admit I don’t know, and bingo, he’s learned a new word—because he had to find it in the dictionary to ask the question. It’s a game we play. He spurns learning through regular channels. But if you get at him through the back door, your young man has spark.”
I was jealous. “Generally when I knock at the door, it’s locked.”
“Please don’t despair. I assume that with you, just as in school, he’s inaccessible and sarcastic. As you said, he’s a teenager. But he’s also inhaling information at a ferocious rate, if only because he’s determined that nobody get the better of him.”
I glanced at my watch; I’d run overtime. “These high school massacres,” I said offhandedly, collecting my purse. “Do you worry that something like that could happen here?”
“Of course it could happen here. Among a big enough group of people, of any age, somebody’s going to have a screw loose. But honestly, my turning violent poetry into the office only makes my students mad. In fact, it should make them mad. Madder, even. So many kids take all this censorship, these locker searches—”
“Flagrantly illegal,” I noted.
“—Flagrantly illegal searches.” She nodded. “Well, so many of them take it lying down like sheep. They’re told it’s for ‘their own protection,’ and for the most part they just—buy it. When I was their age we’d have staged sit-ins and marched around with placards—.” She stopped herself