The Blind Assassin Read online

  Not at you, he says. Not as such. Anyway I'm not inventing all of this, it has a firm foundation in history. The Hittites...

  I'm sure, but you're licking your lips over it all the same. You're vengeful - no, you're jealous, though God knows why. I don't care about the Hittites, and history and all of that - it's just an excuse.

  Hold on a minute. You agreed to the sacrificial virgins, you put them on the menu. I'm only following orders. What's your objection - the wardrobe? Too much tulle?

  Let's not fight, she says. She feels she's about to cry, clenches her hands to stop.

  I didn't mean to upset you. Come on now.

  She pushes away his arm. You did mean to upset me. You like to know you can.

  I thought it amused you. Listening to me perform. Juggling the adjectives. Playing the zany for you.

  She tugs her skirt down, tucks in her blouse. Dead girls in bridal veils, why would that amuse me? With their tongues cut out. You must think I'm a brute.

  I'll take it back. I'll change it. I'll rewrite history for you. How's that?

  You can't, she says. The word has gone forth. You can't cancel half a line of it. I'm leaving. She's on her knees now, ready to stand up.

  There's lots of time. Lie down. He takes hold of her wrist.

  No. Let go. Look where the sun is. They'll be coming back. I could be in trouble, though I guess for you it's not trouble at all, that kind: it doesn't count. You don't care - all you want is a quick, a quick -

  Come on, spit it out.

  You know what I mean, she says in a tired voice.

  It's not true. I'm sorry. I'm the brute, I got carried away. Anyway it's only a story.

  She rests her forehead against her knees. After a minute she says, What am I going to do? After - when you're not here any more?

  You'll get over it, he says. You'll live. Here, I'll brush you off.

  It doesn't come off, not with just brushing.

  Let's do up your buttons, he says. Don't be sad.

  The Colonel Henry Parkman High School Home and School and Alumni Association Bulletin, Port Ticonderoga, May 1998

  LAURA CHASE MEMORIAL PRIZE

  TO BE PRESENTED

  BY MYRA STURGESS, VICE-PRESIDENT,

  ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

  Colonel Henry Parkman High has been endowed with a valuable new prize by the generous bequest of the late Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior of Toronto, whose noted brother Richard E. Griffen, will be remembered, as he often vacationed here in Port Ticonderoga and enjoyed sailing on our river. The prize is the Laura Chase Memorial Prize in Creative Writing, of a value of two hundred dollars, to be awarded to a student in the graduating year for the best short story, to be judged by three Alumni Association members, with literary and also moral values considered. Our Principal Mr. Eph Evans, states: "We are grateful to Mrs. Prior for remembering us along with her many other benefactions."

  Named in honour of famed local authoress Laura Chase, the first Prize will be presented at Graduation in June. Her sister Mrs. Iris Griffen of the Chase family which contributed so much to our town in earlier days, has graciously consented to present the Prize to the lucky winner, and there's a few weeks left to go, so tell your kids to roll up their creativity sleeves and get cracking!

  The Alumni Association will sponsor a Tea in the Gymnasium immediately after the Graduation, tickets available from Myra Sturgess at the Gingerbread House, all proceeds towards new football uniforms which are certainly needed! Donation of baked goods welcome, with nut ingredients clearly marked please.

  III

  The presentation

  This morning I woke with a feeling of dread. I was unable at first to place it, but then I remembered. Today was the day of the ceremony.

  The sun was up, the room already too warm. Light filtered in through the net curtains, hanging suspended in the air, sediment in a pond. My head felt like a sack of pulp. Still in my nightgown, damp from some fright I'd pushed aside like foliage, I pulled myself up and out of my tangled bed, then forced myself through the usual dawn rituals - the ceremonies we perform to make ourselves look sane and acceptable to other people. The hair must be smoothed down after whatever apparitions have made it stand on end during the night, the expression of staring disbelief washed from the eyes. The teeth brushed, such as they are. God knows what bones I'd been gnawing in my sleep.

  Then I stepped into the shower, holding on to the grip bar Myra's bullied me into, careful not to drop the soap: I'm apprehensive of slipping. Still, the body must be hosed down, to get the smell of nocturnal darkness off the skin. I suspect myself of having an odour I myself can no longer detect - a stink of stale flesh and clouded, aging pee.

  Dried, lotioned and powdered, sprayed like mildew, I was in some sense of the word restored. Only there was still the sensation of weightlessness, or rather of being about to step off a cliff. Each time I put a foot out I set it down provisionally, as if the floor might give way underneath me. Nothing but surface tension holding me in place.

  Getting my clothes on helped. I am not at my best without scaffolding. (Yet what has become of my real clothes? Surely these shapeless pastels and orthopedic shoes belong on someone else. But they're mine; worse, they suit me now.)

  Next came the stairs. I have a horror of tumbling down them - of breaking my neck, lying sprawled with undergarments on display, then melting into a festering puddle before anyone thinks of coming to find me. It would be such an ungainly way to die. I tackled each step at a time, hugging the banister; then along the hall to the kitchen, the fingers of my left hand brushing the wall like a cat's whiskers. (I can still see, mostly. I can still walk. Be thankful for small mercies, Reenie would say. Why should we be? said Laura. Why are they so small ?)

  I didn't want any breakfast. I drank a glass of water, and passed the time in fidgeting. At half past nine Walter came by to collect me. "Hot enough for you?" he said, his standard opening. In winter it's cold enough. Wet and dry are for spring and fall.

  "How are you today, Walter?" I asked him, as I always do.

  "Keeping out of mischief," he said, as he always does.

  "That's the best that can be expected for any of us," I said. He gave his version of a smile - a thin crack in his face, like mud drying - opened the car door for me, and installed me in the passenger seat. "Big day today, eh?" he said. "Buckle up, or I might get arrested." He said buckle up as if it was a joke; he's old enough to remember earlier, more carefree days. He'd have been the kind of youth to drive with one elbow out the window, a hand on his girlfriend's knee. Astounding to reflect that this girlfriend was in fact Myra.

  He eased the car delicately away from the curb and we moved off in silence. He's a large man, Walter - square-edged, like a plinth, with a neck that is not so much a neck as an extra shoulder; he exudes a not unpleasant scent of worn leather boots and gasoline. From his checked shirt and baseball cap I gathered he wasn't planning to attend the graduation ceremony. He doesn't read books, which makes both of us more comfortable: as far as he's concerned Laura is my sister and it's a shame she's dead, and that's all.

  I should have married someone like Walter. Good with his hands.

  No: I shouldn't have married anyone. That would have saved a lot of trouble.

  Walter stopped the car in front of the high school. It's postwar modern, fifty years old but still new to me: I can't get used to the flatness, the blandness. It looks like a packing crate. Young people and their parents were rippling over the sidewalk and the lawn and in through the front doors, their clothes in every summer colour. Myra was waiting for us, yoo-hooing from the steps, in a white dress covered with huge red roses. Women with such big bums should not wear large floral prints. There's something to be said for girdles, not that I'd wish them back. She'd had her hair done, all tight grey cooked-looking curls like an English barrister's wig.

  "You're late," she said to Walter.

  "Nope, I'm not," said Walter. "If I am, everyone else is early, is all. No reason
she should have to sit around cooling her heels." They're in the habit of speaking of me in the third person, as if I'm a child or pet.

  Walter handed my arm over into Myra's custody and we went up the front steps together like a three-legged race. I felt what Myra's hand must have felt: a brittle radius covered slackly with porridge and string. I should have brought my cane, but I couldn't see carting it out onto the stage with me. Someone would be bound to trip over it.

  Myra took me backstage and asked me if I'd like to use the Ladies' - she's good about remembering that - then sat me down in the dressing room. "You just stay put now," she said. Then she hurried off, bum lolloping, to make sure all was in order.

  The lights around the dressing-room mirror were small round bulbs, as in theatres; they cast a flattering light, but I was not flattered: I looked sick, my skin leached of blood, like meat soaked in water. Was it fear, or true illness? Certainly I did not feel a hundred percent.

  I found my comb, made a perfunctory stab at the top of my head. Myra keeps threatening to take me to "her girl," at what she still refers to as the Beauty Parlour - The Hair Port is its official name, with Unisex as an added incentive - but I keep resisting. At least I can still call my hair my own, though it frizzes upwards as if I've been electrocuted. Beneath it there are glimpses of scalp, the greyish pink of mice feet. If I ever get caught in a high wind my hair will all blow off like dandelion fluff, leaving only a tiny pockmarked nubbin of bald head.

  Myra had left me one of her special brownies, whipped up for the Alumni Tea - a slab of putty, covered in chocolate sludge - and a plastic screw-top jug of her very own battery-acid coffee. I could neither drink nor eat, but why did God make toilets? I left a few brown crumbs, for authenticity.

  Then Myra bustled in and scooped me up and led me forth, and I was having my hand shaken by the principal, and told how good it was of me to have come; then I was passed on to the vice-principal, the president of the Alumni Association, the head of the English department - a woman in a trouser suit - the representative from the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and finally the local member of Parliament, loath as such are to miss a trick. I hadn't seen so many polished teeth on display since Richard's political days.

  Myra accompanied me as far as my chair, then whispered, "I'll be right in the wings." The school orchestra struck up with squeaks and flats, and we sang "O Canada!,"the words to which I can never remember because they keep changing them. Nowadays they do some of it in French, which once would have been unheard of. We sat down, having affirmed our collective pride in something we can't pronounce.

  Then the school chaplain offered a prayer, lecturing God on the many unprecedented challenges that face today's young people. God must have heard this sort of thing before, he's probably as bored with it as the rest of us. The others gave voice in turn: end of the twentieth century, toss out the old, ring in the new, citizens of the future, to you from failing hands and so forth. I allowed my mind to drift; I knew enough to know that the only thing expected of me was that I not disgrace myself. I could have been back again beside the podium, or at some interminable dinner, sitting next to Richard, keeping my mouth shut. If asked, which was seldom, I used to say that my hobby was gardening. A half-truth at best, though tedious enough to pass muster.

  Next it was time for the graduates to receive their diplomas. Up they trooped, solemn and radiant, in many sizes, all beautiful as only the young can be beautiful. Even the ugly ones were beautiful, even the surly ones, the fat ones, even the spotty ones. None of them understands this - how beautiful they are. But nevertheless they're irritating, the young. Their posture is appalling as a rule, and judging from their songs they snivel and wallow, grin and bear it having gone the way of the foxtrot. They don't understand their own luck.

  They barely glanced at me. To them I must have seemed quaint, but I suppose it's everyone's fate to be reduced to quaintness by those younger than themselves. Unless there's blood on the floor, of course. War, pestilence, murder, any kind of ordeal or violence, that's what they respect. Blood means we were serious.

  Next came the prizes - Computer Science, Physics, mumble, Business Skills, English Literature, something I didn't catch. Then the Alumni Association man cleared his throat and gave out with a pious spiel about Winifred Griffen Prior, saint on earth. How everyone fibs when it's a question of money! I suppose the old bitch pictured the whole thing when she made her bequest, stingy as it is. She knew my presence would be requested; she wanted me writhing in the town's harsh gaze while her own munificence was lauded. Spend this in remembrance of me. I hated to give her the satisfaction, but I couldn't shirk it without seeming frightened or guilty, or else indifferent. Worse: forgetful.

  It was Laura's turn next. The politician took it upon himself to do the honours: tact was called for here. Something was said about Laura's local origins, her courage, her "dedication to a chosen goal," whatever that might mean. Nothing about the manner of her death, which everyone in this town believes - despite the verdict at the inquest - was as close to suicide as damn is to swearing. And nothing at all about the book, which most of them surely thought would be best forgotten. Although it isn't, not here: even after fifty years it retains its aura of brimstone and taboo. Hard to fathom, in my opinion: as carnality goes it's old hat, the foul language nothing you can't hear any day on the street corners, the sex as decorous as fan dancers - whimsical almost, like garter belts.

  Then of course it was a different story. What people remember isn't the book itself, so much as the furor: ministers in church denounced it as obscene, not only here; the public library was forced to remove it from the shelves, the one bookstore in town refused to stock it. There was word of censoring it. People snuck off to Stratford or London or Toronto even, and obtained their copies on the sly, as was the custom then with condoms. Back at home they drew the curtains and read, with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee - even the ones who'd never thought of opening a novel before. There's nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage literacy.

  (There were doubtless a few kind sentiments expressed. I couldn't get through it - not enough of a story for me. But the poor thing was so young. Maybe she'd have done better with some other book, if she'd not been taken. That would have been the best they could say about it.)

  What did they want from it? Lechery, smut, confirmation of their worst suspicions. But perhaps some of them wanted, despite themselves, to be seduced. Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp.

  But also they wanted to finger the real people in it - apart from Laura, that is: her actuality was taken for granted. They wanted real bodies, to fit onto the bodies conjured up for them by words. They wanted real lust. Above all they wanted to know: who was the man? In bed with the young woman, the lovely, dead young woman; in bed with Laura. Some of them thought they knew, of course. There had been gossip. For those who could put two and two together, it all added up. Acted like she was pure as the driven. Butter wouldn't melt. Just goes to show you can't tell a book by its cover.

  But Laura had been out of reach by then. I was the one they could get at. The anonymous letters began. Why had I arranged for this piece of filth to be published? And in New York at that - the Great Sodom. Such muck! Had I no shame? I'd allowed my family - so well respected! - to be dishonoured, and along with them the entire town. Laura had never been right in the head, everyone always suspected that, and the book proved it. I should have protected her memory. I should have put a match to the manuscript. Looking at the blur of heads, down there in the audience - the older heads - I could imagine a miasma of old spite, old envy, old condemnation, rising up from them as if from a cooling swamp.

  As for the book itself, it remained unmentionable - pushed back out of sight, as if it were some shoddy, disgraceful relative. Such a thin book,
so helpless. The uninvited guest at this odd feast, it fluttered at the edges of the stage like an ineffectual moth.

  While I was daydreaming my arm was grasped, I was hoisted up, the cheque in its gold-ribboned envelope was thrust into my hand. The winner was announced. I didn't catch her name.

  She walked towards me, heels clicking across the stage. She was tall; they're all very tall these days, young girls, it must be something in the food. She had on a black dress, severe among the summer colours; there were silver threads in it, or beading - some sort of glitter. Her hair was long and dark. An oval face, a mouth done in cerise lipstick; a slight frown, focused, intent. Skin with a pale-yellow or brown undertint - could she be Indian, or Arabian, or Chinese? Even in Port Ticonderoga such a thing was possible: everyone is everywhere nowadays.

  My heart lurched: yearning ran through me like a cramp. Perhaps my granddaughter - perhaps Sabrina looks like that now, I thought. Perhaps, perhaps not, how would I know? I might not even recognize her. She's been kept away from me so long; she's kept away. What can be done?

  "Mrs. Griffen," hissed the politician.

  I teetered, regained my balance. Now what had I been intending to say?

  "My sister Laura would be so pleased," I gasped into the microphone. My voice was reedy; I thought I might faint. "She liked to help people." This was true, I'd vowed not to say anything untrue. "She was so fond of reading and books." Also true, up to a point. "She would have wished you the very best for your future." True as well.

  I managed to hand over the envelope; the girl had to bend down. I whispered into her ear, or meant to whisper - Bless you. Be careful. Anyone intending to meddle with words needs such blessing, such warning. Had I actually spoken, or had I simply opened and closed my mouth like a fish?

  She smiled, and tiny brilliant sequins flashed and sparkled all over her face and hair. It was a trick of my eyes, and of the stage lights, which were too bright. I should have worn my tinted glasses. I stood there blinking. Then she did something unexpected: she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Through her lips I could feel the texture of my own skin: soft as kid-glove leather, crinkled, powdery, ancient.