TO EAT YOUR OWN CHILDREN
To eat your own children is a barbarian act.
The Soviet regime printed this on posters during the Great Famine. Ildiko learned this while studying wartime Europe in the sixth grade. To her, Europe was a faraway land where either beautiful or horrible things happened, like the invention of chocolate fondue or her parents’ flight from Communist oppression.
The anti-cannibalism posters made the hair on Ildiko’s arms stand up. But she couldn’t stop thinking about them. Ildiko still remembered the first time she saw the painting called Saturn Devouring His Son. Her friend Eve showed it to her in a book about Greek mythology when they were seven years old.
The Satanic whites of Saturn’s eyes gave Ildiko nightmares. In her dreams, she ran from Saturn through a painted black void, only the whites of his eyes visible in the half-light.
