Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin

Imagine the monarch Agha Mohammed Khan, who orders the entire population of the city of Kerman murdered or blinded no exceptions. His praetorians set energetically to work. They line up the inhabitants, slice off the heads of the adults, gouge out the eyes of the children. Later, processions of blinded children leave the city. Some, wandering around in the countryside, lose their way in the desert and die of thirst. Other groups reach inhabited settlementssinging songs about the extermination of the citizens of Kerman.

RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI

I swam, the sea was boundless, I saw no shore.

Tanit was merciless, my prayers were answered.

O you who drown in love, remember me.

INSCRIPTION ON A CARTHAGINIAN FUNERARY URN

The word is a flame burning in a dark glass.

Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens.

I was informed of the accident by a policeman: the car was mine, and theyd traced the licence. His tone was respectful: no doubt he recognized Richards name. He said the tires may have caught on a streetcar track or the brakes may have failed, but he also felt bound to inform me that two witnessesa retired lawyer and a bank teller, dependable peoplehad claimed to have seen the whole thing. Theyd said Laura had turned the car sharply and deliberately, and had plunged off the bridge with no more fuss than stepping off a curb. Theyd noticed her hands on the wheel because of the white gloves shed been wearing.

It wasnt the brakes, I thought. She had her reasons. Not that they were ever the same as anybody elses reasons. She was completely ruthless in that way.

I suppose you want someone to identify her, I said. Ill come down as soon as I can. I could hear the calmness of my own voice, as if from a distance. In reality I could barely get the words out; my mouth was numb, my entire face was rigid with pain. I felt as if Id been to the dentist. I was furious with Laura for what shed done, but also with the policeman for implying that shed done it. A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.

Im afraid there will be an inquest, Mrs. Griffen, he said.

Naturally, I said. But it was an accident. My sister was never a good driver.

I could picture the smooth oval of Lauras face, her neatly pinned chignon, the dress she would have been wearing: a shirtwaist with a small rounded collar, in a sober colournavy blue or steel grey or hospital-corridor green. Penitential coloursless like something shed chosen to put on than like something shed been locked up in. Her solemn half-smile; the amazed lift of her eyebrows, as if she were admiring the view.

The white gloves: a Pontius Pilate gesture. She was washing her hands of me. Of all of us.

What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, theft hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain. Or of the stack of cheap school exercise books that she must have hidden that very morning, in the bureau drawer where I kept my stockings, knowing I would be the one to find them.

When the policeman had gone I went upstairs to change. To visit the morgue I would need gloves, and a hat with a veil. Something to cover the eyes. There might be reporters. I would have to call a taxi. Also I ought to warn Richard, at his office: he would wish to have a statement of grief prepared. I went into my dressing room: I would need black, and a handkerchief.

I opened the drawer, I saw the notebooks. I undid the crisscross of kitchen string that tied them together. I noticed that my teeth were chattering, and that I was cold all over. I must be in shock, I decided.

What I remembered then was Reenie, from when we were little. It was Reenie whod done the bandaging, of scrapes and cuts and minor injuries: Mother might be resting, or doing good deeds elsewhere, but Reenie was always there. Shed scoop us up and sit us on the white enamel kitchen table, alongside the pie dough she was rolling out or the chicken she was cutting up or the fish she was gutting, and give us a lump of brown sugar to get us to close our mouths.Tell me where it hurts, shed say.Stop howling. Just calm down and show me where.

But some people cant tell where it hurts. They cant calm down. They cant ever stop howling.

Questions Raised in City Death

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

A coroners inquest has returned a verdict of accidental death in last weeks St. Clair Ave. fatality. Miss Laura Chase, 25, was travelling west on the afternoon of May 18 when her car swerved through the barriers protecting a repair site on the bridge and crashed into the ravine below, catching fire. Miss Chase was killed instantly. Her sister, Mrs. Richard E. Griffen, wife of the prominent manufacturer, gave evidence that Miss Chase suffered from severe headaches affecting her vision. In reply to questioning, she denied any possibility of intoxication as Miss Chase did not drink.

It was the police view that a tire caught in an exposed streetcar track was a contributing factor. Questions were raised as to the adequacy of safety precautions taken by the City, but after expert testimony by City engineer Gordon Perkins these were dismissed.

The accident has occasioned renewed protests over the state of the streetcar tracks on this stretch of roadway. Mr. Herb T. Jolliffe, representing local ratepayers, toldStar reporters that this was not the first mishap caused by neglected tracks. City Council should take note.

She has a single photograph of him. She tucked it into a brown envelope on which shed writtenclippings, and hid the envelope between the pages ofPerennials for the Rock Garden, where no one else would ever look.

Shes preserved this photo carefully, because its almost all she has left of him. Its black and white, taken by one of those boxy, cumbersome flash cameras from before the war, with their accordion-pleat nozzles and their well-made leather cases that looked like muzzles, with straps and intricate buckles. The photo is of the two of them together, her and this man, on a picnic.Picnic is written on the back, in pencilnot his name or hers, justpicnic. She knows the names, she doesnt need to write them down.

Theyre sitting under a tree; it might have been an apple tree; she didnt notice the tree much at the time. Shes wearing a white blouse with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and a wide skirt tucked around her knees. There must have been a breeze, because of the way the shirt is blowing up against her; or perhaps it wasnt blowing, perhaps it was clinging; perhaps it was hot. It was hot. Holding her hand over the picture, she can still feel the heat coming up from it, like the heat from a sun-warmed stone at midnight.