"It's warmer in here."
Mrs. Friedlander shivered, although she stood near the stove. "It's still cold. I hope it's warm where Freddie is."
He slapped her and was glad when she cried, then sorry, then glad again when she came into his arms, sobbing. They would make funeral arrangements in the morning.
After supper a man from the Karadi newspaper visited them. He wore a new overcoat and shining plastic overshoes and a bright scarf of red wool around his neck. His face was plump, his cheeks rosy, his well-groomed hair smelling of some expensive perfume when he removed hat and earlaps.
"Mr. and Mrs. Friedlander," he said, his voice like the dimly remembered taste of pure maple syrup, "I bring you the heartfelt sympathies of the Karadi Newspaper. If it is any consolation, know that your son, Freddie Friedlander, Jr., died a hero's death against the barbarians of the mountains." His nose was running with the cold; he padded it daintily with a pale blue silk handkerchief. He offered Mr. Friedlander a small, dry-crackling cigar, took one himself and touched flame to them with a monogramed lighter. Mr. Friedlander inhaled gratefully, allowing the unfamiliar smoke to sear his lungs painfully before he exhaled a long blue plume at the ceiling. For Mrs. Friedlander the man from the Karadi Newspaper had a small box of candy, the chocolate frozen over with powdery white but, by the expression on Mrs. Friedlander's face, succulent nevertheless.
"At times like this," the man from the Karadi Newspaper said after he had politely refused what was left of the yellow turnip mash, "it is customary to place an ad in the newspaper in memory of the departed. The cost, in such cases, is quite reasonable—benevolent, you might say. Seven days of overtime for Mr. Friedlander."
"But," said Mrs. Friedlander, "if we place the announcement in the Karadi Newspaper, don't you see? We are admitting Freddie is dead."
The man from the Karadi Newspaper cocked an eyebrow in practiced surprise. "He is quite dead, Mrs. Friedlander."
"What my wife means is that, well, we didn't see him die."
"Then you don't believe the Karadi?"