Always before when they smoked he would tell her Јunny things he heard in Confession, or about his brother the lawyer, what he did to get money for people who were iniured. Or he'd tell iokes she never understood but would laugh because he always laughed at his jokes.

This evening, though, he wasn't saying funny things.

He was serious this evening in a strange way.

He said he had never seen so fucking many bugs in his life. He used that word when he was drinking too much. The fucking bugs, the fucking rain. He said sometimes he would turn on a light in the house and it would look like the fucking walls were moving, wallpaper changing its pattern. She said, "There is no wallpaper in the house."

He said he knew there wasn't any wallpaper, he was talking about the bugs. There were so many they looked like a wallpaper design. Then with the light on they'd start moving.

She was patient with him. This evening there were lulls, Chantelle waiting through minutes of silence.

Now he surprised her, coming out of nowhere with "Some were mutilated before they were killed, weren't they? Purposely mutilated."

Lately he had begun to talk about the genocide again.

She said, "Yes, they would do it on purpose."

He said, "They chopped off the feet at the ankles."

"And took the shoes," Chantelle said, "if the person was wearing shoes." She believed he was talking about the time they came in the church, an experience of the genocide he had not spoken of in a long time.

He said, "I don't recall them hacking the feet off with one whack."

It sounded to her so cold. "Sometime they did."

He said, "This was your observation?"

She didn't like it when he spoke in this formal manner. It didn't sound like him and was another sign, along with that word, he had been drinking too much. She said, "Some they did with one blow. But I think the blades became dull, or were not honed to begin with. The one who iniured me-I raised my arm to protect myself as he struck.