The Blind Assassin

by Margaret Atwood

  Richard kept up appearances. So did I. We attended cocktail parties and dinners, we made entrances and exits together, his hand on my elbow. We made a point of a drink or two before dinner, or three; I was becoming a little too fond of gin, in this combination or that, but I wasn't too close to the edge as long as I could feel my toes and hold my tongue. We were still skating on the surface of things - on the thin ice of good manners, which hides the dark tarn beneath: once it melts, you're sunk.

  Half a life is better than none.

  I've failed to convey Richard, in any rounded sense. He remains a cardboard cutout. I know that. I can't truly describe him, I can't get a precise focus: he's blurred, like the face in some wet, discarded newspaper. Even at the time he appeared to me smaller than life, although larger than life as well. It came from his having too much money, too much presence in the world - you were tempted to expect more from him than was there, and so what was average in him seemed like deficiency. He was ruthless, but not like a lion; more like a sort of large rodent. He tunnelled underground; he killed things by chewing off their roots.

  He had the wherewithal for grand gestures, for acts of significant generosity, but he made none. He had become like a statue of himself: huge, public, imposing, hollow.

  It wasn't that he was too big for his boots: he wasn't big enough for them. That's it in a nutshell.

  At the outbreak of the war, Richard was in a tight spot. He'd been too cozy with the Germans in his business dealings, too admiring of them in his speeches. Like many of his peers, he'd turned too blind an eye to their brutal violations of democracy; a democracy that many of our leaders had been decrying as unworkable, but that they were now keen to defend.

  Richard also stood to lose a lot of money, since he could no longer trade with those who had overnight become the enemy. He had to do some scrambling, some kowtowing; it didn't sit well with him, but he did it. He managed to salvage his position, and to scramble back into favour - well, he wasn't the only one with dirty hands, so it was best for the others not to point their own tainted fingers at him - and soon his factories were blasting away, full steam ahead for the war effort, and no one was more patriotic than he. Thus it wasn't counted against him when Russia came in on the side of the Allies, and Joseph Stalin was suddenly everybody's loveable uncle. True, Richard had said much against the Communists, but that was once upon a time. It was all swept under the carpet now, because weren't your enemy's enemies your friends?

  Meanwhile I trudged through the days, not as usual - the usual had altered - but as best I could. Dogged is the word I'd use now, to describe myself then. Or stupefied, that would do as well. There were no more garden parties to contend with, no more silk stockings except through the black market. Meat was rationed, and butter, and sugar: if you wanted more of those things, more than other people got, it became important to establish certain contacts. No more transatlantic voyages on luxury liners - the Queen Mary became a troop ship. The radio stopped being a portable bandshell and became a frenetic oracle; every evening I turned it on to hear the news, which at first was always bad.

  The war went on and on, a relentless motor. It wore people down - the constant, dreary tension. It was like listening to someone grinding his teeth, in the dusk before dawn, while you lie sleepless night after night after night.

  There were some benefits to be had, however. Mr. Murgatroyd left us, to join the army. It was then I learned to drive. I took over one of the cars, the Bentley I think it was, and Richard had it registered to me - that gave us more gasoline. (Gasoline was rationed, of course, though less so for people like Richard.) It also gave me more freedom, although it was not a freedom that had much use for me any more.

  I caught a cold, which turned to bronchitis - everyone had a cold that winter. It took me months to get rid of it. I spent a lot of time in bed, feeling sad. I coughed and coughed. I no longer went to the newsreels - the speeches, the battles, the bombings and the devastation, the victories, even the invasions. Stirring times, or so we were told, but I'd lost interest.

  The end of the war approached. It got nearer and nearer. Then it occurred. I remembered the silence after the last war had ended, and then the ringing of the bells. It had been November, then, with ice on the puddles, and now it was spring. There were parades. There were proclamations. Trumpets were blown.

  It wasn't so easy, though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and settle slowly.

  Diana Sweets

  Today I walked as far as the Jubilee Bridge, then along to the doughnut shop, where I ate almost a third of an orange cruller. A great wodge of flour and fat, spreading out through my arteries like silt.

  Then I went off to the washroom. Someone was in the middle cubicle, so I waited, avoiding the mirror. Age thins your skin; you can see the veins, the tendons. Also it thickens you. It's hard to get back to what you were before, when you were skinless.

  At last the door opened and a girl came out - a darkish girl, in sullen clothing, her eyes ringed with soot. She gave a little shriek, then a laugh. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't see you there, you creeped me out." Her accent was foreign, but she belonged here: she was of the nationality of the young. It's I who am the stranger now.

  The newest message was in gold marker: You can't get to Heaven without Jesus. Already the annotators had been at work: Jesus had been crossed out, and Death written above it, in black.

  And below that, in green: Heaven is in a grain of sand. Blake.

  And below that, in orange: Heaven is on the Planet Xenor. Laura Chase.

  Another misquote.

  The war ended officially in the first week of May - the war in Europe, that is. Which was the only part of it that would have concerned Laura.

  A week later she telephoned. She placed the call in the morning, an hour after breakfast, when she must have known Richard would not be at home. I didn't recognize her voice, I'd given up expecting her. I thought at first that she was the woman from my dressmaker's.

  "It's me," she said.

  "Where are you?" I said carefully. You must recall that she was by this time an unknown quantity to me - perhaps of questionable stability.

  "I'm here," she said. "In the city." She wouldn't tell me where she was staying, but she named a street corner where I could pick her up, later that afternoon. In that case we could have tea, I said. Diana Sweets was where I intended to take her. It was safe, it was secluded, it catered mostly to women; they knew me there. I said I would bring my car.

  "Oh, do you have a car now?"

  "More or less." I described it.

  "It sounds like quite a chariot," she said lightly.

  Laura was standing on the corner of King and Spadina, right where she said she'd be. It wasn't the most savoury district, but she didn't seem perturbed by that. I honked, and she waved and then came over and climbed in. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Immediately I felt treacherous.

  "I can't believe you're really here," I said to her.

  "But here I am."

  I was close to tears all of a sudden; she seemed unconcerned. Her cheek had been very cool, though. Cool and thin.

  "I hope you didn't mention anything to Richard, though," she said. "About me being here. Or Winifred," she added, "because it's the same thing."

  "I wouldn't do that," I said. She said nothing.

  Because I was driving, I could not look at her directly. For that I had to wait until I'd parked the car, then until we'd walked to Diana Sweets, and then until we were seated across from each other. At last I could see all of her, full on.

  She was and was not the Laura I remembered. Older, of course - we both were - but more than that. She was neatly, even austerely dressed, in a dull-blue shirtwaist dress with a pleated bodice and small buttons down the front; her hair was pulled back into a severe chignon. She appeared shrunken, fallen in on herself, leached of colour, but at the same time translucent - as if little spikes of light were being nailed out through her s
kin from the inside, as if thorns of light were shooting out from her in a prickly haze, like a thistle held up to the sun. It's a hard effect to describe. (Nor should you set much store by it: my eyes were already warping, I already needed glasses, though I didn't yet know it. The fuzzy light around Laura may have been simply an optical flaw.)

  We ordered. She wanted coffee rather than tea. It would be bad coffee, I warned her - you couldn't get good coffee in a place like this, because of the war. But she said, "I'm used to bad coffee."

  There was a silence. I hardly knew where to begin. I wasn't yet ready to ask her what she was doing back in Toronto. Where had she been all this time? I asked. What had she been doing?

  "I was in Avilion, at first," she said.

  "But it was all closed up!" It had been, all through the war. We hadn't been back for years. "How did you get in?"

  "Oh, you know," she said. "We could always get in when we wanted to."

  I remembered the coal chute, the dubious lock on one of the cellar doors. But that had been repaired, long ago. "Did you break a window?"

  "I didn't have to. Reenie kept a key," she said. "But don't tell."

  "The furnace can't have been on. There couldn't have been any heat," I said.

  "There wasn't," she said. "But there were a lot of mice."

  Our coffee arrived. It tasted of burned toast crumbs and roasted chicory, not surprising since that's what they put into it. "Do you want some cake or something?" I said. "It's not bad cake here." She was so thin, I felt she could use some cake.

  "No, thanks."

  "Then what did you do?"

  "Then I turned twenty-one, so I had a little money, from Father. So I went to Halifax."

  "Halifax? Why Halifax?"

  "It was where the ships came in."

  I didn't pursue this. There was a reason behind it, there always was with Laura; it was a reason I shied away from hearing. "But what were you doing?"

  "This and that," she said. "I made myself useful." Which was all she would say on that score. I supposed it would have been a soup kitchen of some kind, or the equivalent. Cleaning toilets in a hospital, that sort of thing. "Didn't you get my letters? From BellaVista? Reenie said you didn't."

  "No," I said. "I never got any letters."

  "I expect they stole them. And they wouldn't let you call, or come to see me?"

  "They said it would be bad for you."

  She laughed a little. "It would have been bad for you," she said. "You really shouldn't stay there, in that house. You shouldn't stay with him. He's very evil."

  "I know you've always felt that, but what else can I do?" I said. "He'd never give me a divorce. And I don't have any money."

  "That's no excuse."

  "Maybe not for you. You've got your trust fund, from Father, but I have no such thing. And what about Aimee?"

  "You could take her with you."

  "Easier said than done. She might not want to come. She's pretty stuck on Richard, at the moment, if you must know."

  "Why would she be?" said Laura.

  "He butters her up. He gives her things."

  "I wrote you from Halifax," said Laura, changing the subject.

  "I never got those letters either."

  "I expect Richard reads your mail," said Laura.

  "I expect he does," I said. The conversation was taking a turn I hadn't expected. I'd assumed I'd be consoling Laura, commiserating with her, hearing a sad tale, but instead she was lecturing me. How easily we slid back into our old roles.

  "What did he tell you about me?" she said now. "About putting me into that place?"

  There it was, then, right out on the table. This was the crossroads: either Laura had been mad, or Richard had been lying. I couldn't believe both. "He told me a story," I said evasively.

  "What sort of a story? Don't worry, I won't get upset. I just want to know."

  "He said you were - well, mentally disturbed."

  "Naturally. He would say that. What else did he say?"

  "He said you thought you were pregnant, but it was just a delusion."

  "I was pregnant," said Laura. "That was the whole point - that was why they whisked me out of sight in such a hurry. Him and Winifred - they were scared stiff. The disgrace, the scandal - you can imagine what they'd think it would do to his big fat chances."

  "Yes. I can see that." I could see it, too - the hush-hush call from the doctor, the panic, the hasty conference between the two of them, the spur-of-the-moment plan. Then the other version of events, the false one, concocted just for me. I was docile enough as a rule, but they must have known there was a line somewhere. They must have been afraid of what I might do, once they'd crossed it.

  "Anyway, I didn't have the baby. That's one of the things they do, at BellaVista."

  "One of the things?" I was feeling quite stupid.

  "Besides the mumbo-jumbo, I mean, and the pills and machines. They do extractions," she said. "They conk you out with ether, like the dentist. Then they take out the babies. Then they tell you you've made the whole thing up. Then when you accuse them of it, they say you're a danger to yourself and others."

  She was so calm, so plausible. "Laura," I said, "are you sure? About the baby, I mean. Are you sure there really was one?"

  "Of course I'm sure," she said. "Why would I make such a thing up?"

  There was still room for doubt, but this time I believed Laura. "How did it happen?" I whispered. "Who was the father?" Such a thing called for whispering.

  "If you don't already know, I don't think I can tell you," said Laura.

  I supposed it must have been Alex Thomas. Alex was the only man Laura had ever shown any interest in - besides Father, that is, and God. I hated to acknowledge such a possibility, but really there was no other choice. They must have met during those days when she'd been playing hookey, from her first school in Toronto, and then later, when she was no longer going to school at all; when she was supposed to be cheering up decrepit old paupers in the hospital, dressed in her prissy, sanctimonious little pinafore, and lying her head off the whole time. No doubt he'd got a cheap thrill out of the pinafore, it was the sort of outre touch that would have appealed to him. Perhaps that was why she'd dropped out - to meet Alex. She'd been how old - fifteen, sixteen? How could he have done such a thing?

  "Were you in love with him?" I said.

  "In love?" said Laura. "Who with?"

  "With - you know," I couldn't say it.

  "Oh no," said Laura, "not at all. It was horrible, but I had to do it. I had to make the sacrifice. I had to take the pain and suffering onto myself. That's what I promised God. I knew if I did that, it would save Alex."

  "What on earth do you mean?" My newfound reliance on Laura's sanity was crumbling: we were back in the realm of her loony metaphysics. "Save Alex from what?"

  "From being caught. They would have shot him. Callie Fitzsimmons knew where he was, and she told. She told Richard."

  "I can't believe that."

  "Callie was a snitch," said Laura. "That's what Richard said - he said Callie kept him informed. Remember when she was in jail, and Richard got her out? That's why he did it. He owed it to her."

  I found this construction of events quite breathtaking. Also monstrous, though there was a slight, a very slight possibility, that it might be true. But if so, Callie must have been lying. How would she have known where Alex was? He'd moved so often.

  He might have kept in touch with Callie, though. He might have done. She was one of the people he might have trusted.

  "I kept my end of the bargain," said Laura, "and it worked. God doesn't cheat. But then Alex went off to the war. After he got back from Spain, I mean. That's what Callie said - she told me."

  I couldn't make sense of this. I was feeling quite dizzy. "Laura," I said, "why did you come here?"

  "Because the war's over," said Laura patiently, "and Alex will be back soon. If I wasn't here, he wouldn't know where to find me. He wouldn't know about BellaVista, he wou
ldn't know I went to Halifax. The only address he'll have for me is yours. He'll get a message through to me somehow." She had the infuriating iron-clad confidence of the true believer.

  I wanted to shake her. I closed my eyes for a moment. I saw the pool at Avilion, the stone nymph dipping her toes; I saw the too-hot sun glinting on the rubbery green leaves, that day after Mother's funeral. I felt sick to my stomach, from too much cake and sugar. Laura was sitting on the ledge beside me, humming to herself complacently, secure in the conviction that everything was all right really and the angels were on her side, because she'd made some secret, dotty pact with God.

  My fingers itched with spite. I knew what had happened next. I'd pushed her off.

  Now I'm coming to the part that still haunts me. Now I should have bitten my tongue, now I should have kept my mouth shut. Out of love, I should have lied, or said anything else: anything but the truth. Never interrupt a sleepwalker, Reenie used to say. The shock can kill them.

  "Laura, I hate to tell you this," I said, "but whatever it was you did, it didn't save Alex. Alex is dead. He was killed in the war, six months ago. In Holland."

  The light around her faded. She went very white. It was like watching wax cool.

  "How do you know?"

  "I got the telegram," I said. "They sent it to me. He listed me as next of kin." Even then I could have changed course; I could have said, There must have been a mistake, it must have been meant for you. But I didn't say that. Instead I said, "It was very indiscreet of him. He shouldn't have done that, considering Richard. But he didn't have any family, and we'd been lovers, you see - in secret, for quite a long time - and who else did he have?"

  Laura said nothing. She only looked at me. She looked right through me. Lord knows what she saw. A sinking ship, a city in flames, a knife in the back. I recognized the look, however: it was the look she'd had that day she'd almost drowned in the Louveteau River, just as she was going under - terrified, cold, rapturous. Gleaming like steel.

  After a moment she stood up, reached across the table, and picked up my purse, quickly and almost delicately, as if it contained something fragile. Then she turned and walked out of the restaurant. I didn't move to stop her. I was taken by surprise, and by the time I myself was out of my chair, Laura was gone.

  There was some confusion about paying the bill - I had no money other than what had been in the purse, which my sister - I explained - had taken by mistake. I promised reimbursement the next day. After I'd got that settled, I almost ran to where I'd parked the car. It was gone. The car keys too had been in my purse. I hadn't been aware that Laura had learned how to drive.