“From avarice” by Charles Baxter
Translator is Julia K
We come back to the house and this evening the capitalism theme continues at the evening dinner. I think, we are a family of revolutionaries. This time it comes from Jeremy, who before dinner come into the kitchen barefoot, taking his iPhone.

I’m drinking a cup of tea. He’s 16 or 17. I can’t remember how old he is. Usually, we talk about aliens and I dissemble that they exist to joke at him and at the end bring him to Jesus but tonight he is watching something else. He’s wearing the Rage Against the Machines and I remark that he’s growing a mustache and this time they are good.

“Oh, shit, I can’t believe it,”- he says to me. I’m not against his use of obscenity. Really, I don’t. It tickles me, I can’t say why. “Granny Dee, do you like elephants?”
“I like them very much,”- says I, “Though I have never known anyone of them”. We’re sitting at the kitchen table. Astrid is making dinner, Wesley’s in the garage making something, Corrinne’s upstairs cooing in front of television. I don’t know where Lucy is - perhaps, she’s reading somewhere at home.
“They are among the greatest of God’s creatures”, I say, “I understand that they mourn their dead.”
“So, look at this fucking thing,” he says and point at the little phone screen.
“It’s too small. I can’t see it.”
“Would you like I read it?”- he asks. What a handsome young man he is. I enjoy his company. It’s so easy to love my grandson, there is no effort for it. Besides, his face reminds me of my husband’s face a little.
“Sure.”- I say.
“So, you see, the thing is, it’s about the killing elephants and like that.
“And what about them?”-Astrid asks by the stove. “How does anybody kill?”
“OK, so, in Zimbabwe, I know where it is, because we’ve studied it in Geography, anyway what they say in this article, these people, these Zimbabweans, have been putting cyanide into the water, like, in the huge parks to kill elephants. And these fuckers have access to industrial cyanide that they use in the gold mining…”
“Jeremy, please, watch your language,” Astrid says humbly. She’s dicing tomatoes.
“And they ‘ve been, I mean, the poisoned water has been killing the baby animals, cheetahs and then the vultures that eat the cheetahs after their deaths, so, it’s like outdoor death-palace eatery but mostly the cyanide in the water killed the elephants.” He is sharing at me as if I’m guilty. I’m old. I see: elderly people are responsible for everything. “Which are harmless?”
“Why have they been doing that?” I ask him.
“Killing elephants? For their ivory. They have some like tusks.”
“How many elephants,”- I ask, - “Did they kill?”
“It writes here eighty,” Jeremy says to me. “80 poisoned by cyanide dead elephants. They lied in dead-elephant piles. Jesus, I hate people sometimes”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s a fair.”
“What do you think they do with that all ivory”- ask Astrid stirring the sauce.
“For carving,” I say. “They carve small Buddhas. They kill elephants and carve happy Buddha. Then they sell a happy Buddha to Americans. The little ivory Buddha is in the lighted shop window.”
“That’s so wrong,” Jeremy says. “People are so sick. These elephants are the hell more human than people”.
“It’s because of avarice,” I say.
“What is it?” ask him.
“It’s another word for greed. Go to ask Corinne,” I tell him. “She’s watching TV upstairs. She doesn’t like it, too. She sounds like you.”
“I still hate her,” he says. I can’t tell her yet. It’s my policy. She wasn’t - “
“I see, I see,” I say. “The policy is clear. At the end you’ll have to refuse it, darling.”
“You can’t tell me that it’s not important because it’s important. If that wasn’t a biggie, to leave my dad and you take care of me, nothing is important, did it?
“I get,” I say. “I see. At the moment.”