We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [32]
“Nnoo,” I said. “Garabet Khatchadourian. Has more of a ring.”
“It has the ring of a kid who’s not related to me.”
“Funny, that’s exactly how Peter Plaskett sounds to me.”
We were at the Beach House, that charming little bar around the corner on Beach Street, no longer extant I’m afraid, and rather wasted on my orange juice straight up, though they did serve a mean bowl of chili.
You drummed your fingers. “Can we at least nix Plaskett-Khatchadourian ? Because once the hyphenated start marrying each other, kids’ll be going by whole phone books. And since somebody’s gotta lose, it simplest to stick with tradition.”
“According to tradition, women couldn’t own property until, in some states, the 1970s. Traditionally in the Middle East we walk around in a black sack and traditionally in Africa we get our clitorises carved out like a hunk of gristle—”
You stuffed my mouth with cornbread. “Enough of the lecture, babe. We’re not talking about female circumcision but our kid’s last name.”
“Men have always gotten to name children after themselves, while not doing any of the work.” Cornbread crumbs were sailing from my mouth. “Time to turn the tables.”
“Why turn them on me? Jesus, you’d think American men were pussy-whipped enough. You’re the one who complains they’re all quicheeating faggots who go to crying workshops.”
I folded my arms and brought out the heavy artillery. “My father was born in Dier-ez-Zor concentration camp. The camps were riddled with disease and the Armenians had hardly any food or even water—it’s amazing the baby survived, because his three brothers didn’t. His father, Selim, was shot. Two-thirds of my mother’s extended family, the Serafians, was so neatly obliterated that not even their stories have survived. I’m sorry to pull rank. But Anglo-Saxons are hardly an endangered species. My forebears were systematically exterminated, and no one ever even talks about it, Franklin!”
“A million and a half people!” you chimed in, gesticulating wildly. “Do you realize it was what the Young Turks did to the Armenians in 1915 that gave Hitler the idea for the Holocaust?”
I glared.
“Eva, your brother’s got two kids. There are a million Armenians in the U.S. alone. Nobody’s about to disappear.”
“But you care about your last name just because it’s yours. I care about mine—well, it seems more important.”
“My parents would have a cow. They’d think I was denying them. Or that I was under your thumb. They’d think I was an asshole.”
“I should get varicose veins for a Plaskett? It’s a gross name!”
You looked stung. “You never said you didn’t like my name.”
“That wide A, it’s kind of blaring and crass—”
“Crass!”
“It’s just so awfully American. It reminds me of fat nasal tourists in Nice whose kids all want ice cream. Who shout, Honey, look at that ‘Pla-a-askett’ when it’s French and the word’s really pronounced plah-skay.”
“It’s not Plah-skay, you anti-American prig! It’s Plaskett, a small but old and respectable Scottish family, and a name I’d be proud to hand on to my kids! Now I know why you didn’t take it when we got married. You hated my name!”
“I’m sorry! Obviously I love your name in a way, if only because it’s your name—”
“Tell you what,” you proposed; in this country, the injured party enjoyed a big advantage. “If it’s a boy, it’s a Plaskett. A girl, and you can have your Khatchadourian.”
I pushed the bread basket aside and jabbed your chest. “So a girl doesn’t matter to you. If you were Iranian, she’d be kept home from school. If you were Indian, she’d be sold to a stranger for a cow. If you were Chinese, she’d be starved to death and buried in the backyard—”
You