Downstairs in the dining room, the molecular gastronomist has outdone himself. Every course is freeze-dried, liquefied, aerated, cubed, sphered, crystallized, cold-smoked, or on fire. Familiar flavors haunt alien textures like déjà vu: wasabi pop rocks, beet dust, salmon thread, marrow foam, bourbon ice. It’s erudite, mocking food, food that laughs at one’s attempts to understand it. Swanny savors it. It seems only right that in this place, every form of nourishment is a parody of itself.
“Of course, the long-term effects of the mutiny remain to be seen,” says Humphrey. “It hasn’t even been a fiscal year since the walkouts. Some of the literature I’ve been reading suggests that this is the time to invest in private-sector emergency service providers. But that raises the question, without the Metropolitan Fire Department functioning, how is anyone going to keep living in the city at all?”
“I don’t understand how these mutineers think they can simply abandon their civic responsibility,” Pippi opines. “If they don’t want to be conscripted, they should pay for their exemptions like everyone else. And honestly, what are they planning to do instead? They have no prospects. It isn’t as though their educations are going to waste. This city is all they know, and yet they want to let it burn.”
“Too bad they shut that shit down, I’d’ve made a pretty great fireman,” Ripple puts in. “The main thing is, no fear. I don’t even know what fear is.”
“Duncan, the next time this mongrel begs at the table, I’ll be feeding him cyanide tablets from the panic room,” grumbles Osmond, forcefully shoving a black furry creature away from his wheelchair. “Begone, you barnyard abomination.”
“My God,” says Pippi, “does that dog have hands?”
“Katya got him a hybrid. Damned if I know why.” Humphrey helps himself to another ladleful of liquid foie. “The apehound’s since been discontinued, incidentally.”
“Dunky had no brother.” Katya slides into her seat. “He needed a playmate.”
“It seems he has no shortage of those,” Swanny murmurs, patting her lips with a napkin. Osmond snorts.
“Low disease resistance, engineering defects, you name it.” Humphrey mops his plate with a roll. “It’s incredible that thing has lived as long as it has. It takes more heart medications than I do.”
“He can’t throw for shit, but he can catch a Whamball pretty good.” Ripple feeds Hooligan a nugget of Hollandaise, and the dog slaps him a high-five. The fingers are stubby and monkeyish, but with an opposable thumb. “And he’s a hella tackle.”
“Pets do teach one such life lessons. I remember, when I was a child, I had a newt, can you imagine?”
“Funny, Mother, I never had a pet.”
“You were out there in the countryside, darling.” Pippi sinks her knife into a sweetbread. “Don’t you remember when we had raccoons under the veranda?”
“Baroness, we’re all quite impressed with your musical talents,” Humphrey says. “Maybe we could persuade you to perform a few airs after the wedding. We have a klangflugel in the upstairs parlor, just collecting dust.”
Osmond begins lifting bourbon cubes from the steaming dry-ice tureen and dropping them directly into his mouth with the tongs.
“Perhaps there’s a reason for that.” Swanny drains her glass. “I’d think we’d be better off with recordings.”
“Nonsense. It can be a delightful instrument in the right hands.”
Swanny’s in the 98th percentile for note accuracy, with marks of distinction in dynamics and tempo control, but she’s in no humor to make her mother proud. “I make it sound like a tuned typewriter.”
Pippi flashes a warning: “Darling, you’re being absurd.”
“Perhaps I am. Ours isn’t always so well tuned.”
“She plays like an angel.”
“Mother, you’re too kind.”
“Dunky plays drums,” Katya offers.
“The tintinnabulation of a child’s pots and pans. As if any of us could forget.” Half-melted cubes roll like marbles in Osmond’s mouth. “I credit your son entirely with the ontogenesis of my Exploding Head Syndrome.”
The waiter clears Swanny’s spotless plate. She leans around him for a better look. “Your head appears intact enough.”
“But my mind, mon cygne, my cherished mind: that’s been rent asunder.”
“A pity. You might have made a splendid conversationalist.”
“I would have made a splendid lover.” Osmond is visibly drooling. He wipes his mouth with a swath of his caftan. “Perhaps like you, I would have been sent for by a faraway kingdom and married to the throne.”
“Wonland is hardly ‘faraway.’ It’s less than an hour by flying machine. Though that isn’t my preferred form of transportation,” Swanny adds darkly.
“They do say it’s exhilarating to fly.” Pippi lifts her dripping talons from the fingerbowl. “I worked on that campaign, you know. ‘The Sky Is Yours.’?”
“Rise above,” Ripple agrees.
“You’ll never get me up in one of those things,” counters Swanny. Only this morning, she longed to be swept up and away. But that desire, along with so many others, is foreign to her now. Her arms feel enormous tonight. “All that bumping and jostling, up and down, up and down. The very thought gives me the most terrible nausea.”
Osmond lifts his glass unsteadily. “I’d like to propose a toast.”
“Osmond-you’re-drunk.” Humphrey says it so automatically it comes out as one word.
“To love, marriage, and virgin sacrifice. To this saintly girl, this woman, whose virtue we hold in our thrall.” Osmond folds his hands around the wine stem, saying grace. “Our baroness, who art in Wonland, forgive us for our vampirism, as our ruined family consumes you, forever and ever, amen.”
“Baroness, let me apologize for my brother. He can be quite cruel.”
“The cruelty is yours, mon frère. Perhaps she should marry me instead of your wretched son.”
“Fuck yeah! You guys would be perfect!” Ripple blasts out a laugh.
Pippi swiftly joins him: “What a charming sense of humor, Duncan. Like the old comedians: ‘Take my wife, please!’ But I’m dating myself. Humphrey, who did the sponge-painting in here? It’s exquisite.”
“I’d sooner see this maiden play the harlot to a den of Torchtown brigands than carry his slavering imbecility forward another generation.” Osmond sloshes in Ripple’s general direction. “And I would wager, so would she.”
A heat radiates from Swanny’s heart outward, a feeling like rage but not as unpleasant. She stares at Osmond, who shatters his now-empty glass on the floor and lunges for the nearest decanter. Impossible. In this house, she never would have expected it: he’s outraged on her behalf.
Pippi snaps her fingers. “Wheel him away, waiter,” she says, as if he’s the dessert cart.
Humphrey nods. “What she said.”