The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [101]
The Mounties smiled, and stood up, and took their leave; they were decorous and reassuring. They may have seen the impropriety of pursuing this line of investigation. Although on the ropes, Father still had friends.
“All right,” I said to Laura, once they were gone. “I know you’ve got him in this house. You’d better tell me where.”
“I put him in the cold cellar,” said Laura, her bottom lip trembling.
“The cold cellar!” I said. “What a stupid place! Why there?”
“So he would have enough to eat, in an emergency,” said Laura, and burst into tears. I wrapped my arms around her, and she snuffled against my shoulder.
“Enough to eat?” I said. “Enough jam and jelly and pickles? Really Laura, you take the cake.” Then we both began to laugh, and after we had laughed and Laura had wiped her eyes, I said, “We’ve got to get him out of there. What if Reenie goes down for a jar of jam or something and comes across him by mistake? She’d have a heart attack.”
We laughed some more. We were very on edge. Then I said the attic would be better, because nobody ever went up there. I would arrange it all, I said. She’d better go up to bed: it was obvious that the strain was telling on her and she was all worn out. She sighed a little, like a tired child, then did as I’d suggested. She’d been living on her nerves, carrying around this immense weight of knowledge like some evil packsack, and now she’d handed it over to me she was free to sleep.
Was it my belief that I was doing this only to spare her – to help her, to take care of her, as I had always done?
Yes. That is what I did believe.
I waited until Reenie had cleared up in the kitchen and turned in for the night. Then I went down the cellar stairs, into the chill, the dimness, the smell of spidery dampness. I went past the door to the coal cellar, the locked wine cellar door. The door to the cold cellar closed with a latch. I knocked, lifted it, went in. There was a scuttling noise. It was dark, of course; just the light from the corridor. The top of the apple barrel held the remains of Laura’s dinner – the rabbit bones. It looked like some primitive altar.
I didn’t see him at first; he was behind the apple barrel. Then I could make him out. A knee, a foot. “It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s only me.”
“Ah,” he said in his normal voice. “The devoted sister.”
“Shh,” I said. The light switch was a chain hanging from the bulb. I pulled it, the light went on. Alex Thomas was unwinding himself, scrambling out from behind the barrel. He crouched, blinking, sheepish, like a man caught with his pants undone.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” I said.
“You’ve come to kick me out, or turn me over to the proper authorities, I assume,” he said with a smile.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I certainly wouldn’t want you to be discovered here. Father couldn’t stand the scandal.”
“Capitalist’s Daughter Aids Bolshevik Murderer?” he said. “Love Nest Among the Jelly Jars Revealed? That sort of scandal?”
I frowned at him. This was not a joking matter.
“Rest easy. Laura and I aren’t up to anything,” he said. “She’s a great kid, but she’s a saint in training, and I’m not a baby snatcher.” He’d stood up by now and was dusting himself off.
“Then why is she hiding you?” I asked.
“Matter of principle. Once I asked, she had to accept. I fall into the right category for her.”
“What category?”
“‘The least of these,’ I guess,” he said. “To quote Jesus.” I found that quite cynical. Then he said that bumping into Laura had been a sort of accident. He’d run into her in the conservatory. What had he been doing there? Hiding, obviously. He’d hoped also, he said, to be able to talk to me.
“Me?” I said. “Why on earth, me?”
“I thought you’d know what to do. You seem like the practical type. Your sister is less...”
“Laura seems to have managed well enough,” I said shortly. I didn’t like it when other people criticized Laura – her vagueness,