The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [104]
Tending Alex Thomas brought Laura and me closer together than we had been for a while. He was our guilty secret, and also our virtuous project – one we could finally share. We were two good little Samaritans, lifting out of the ditch the man fallen among thieves. We were Mary and Martha, ministering to – well, not Jesus, even Laura did not go that far, but it was obvious which of us she had cast in these roles. I was to be Martha, keeping busy with household chores in the background; she was to be Mary, laying pure devotion at Alex’s feet. (Which does a man prefer? Bacon and eggs, or worship? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending how hungry he is.)
Laura carried the food scraps up the attic stairs as if they were a temple offering. She carried the chamber pot down as if it were a reliquary, or a precious candle on the verge of flickering out.
At night, after Alex Thomas had been fed and watered, we would talk him over – how he’d looked that day, whether he was too thin, whether he’d coughed – we didn’t want him to get sick. What he might need, what we should try to steal for him the next day. Then we would climb into our respective beds. I don’t know about Laura, but I would picture him up there in the attic, directly above me. He too would be trying to sleep, tossing and turning in his bed of musty quilts. Then he would be sleeping. Then he would be dreaming, long dreams of war and fire, and of disintegrating villages, their fragments strewn about.
I don’t know at what point these dreams of his changed to dreams of pursuit and escape; I don’t know at what point I joined him in these dreams, fleeing with him hand in hand, at dusk, away from a burning building, across the furrowed December fields, the stubbled earth in which the frost was now beginning to set in, towards the dark line of the distant woods.
But it wasn’t his dream really, I did know that. It was my own. It was Avilion that was burning, its broken pieces that were scattered over the ground – the good china, the Sèvres bowl with rose petals, the silver cigarette box from the top of the piano. The piano itself, the stained-glass windows from the dining room – the blood-red cup, Iseult’s cracked harp – everything I’d been longing to get away from, true, but not through destruction. I’d wanted to leave home, but have it stay in place, waiting for me, unchanged, so I could step back into it at will.
One day, when Laura was out – it was no longer dangerous for her, the men in overcoats had gone away and the Mounties as well, the streets were orderly again – I decided to make a solo trip to the attic. I had an offering to make – a pocketful of currants and dried figs, snatched from the makings for the Christmas pudding. I scouted – Reenie was safely occupied with Mrs. Hillcoate, in the kitchen – then went to the attic door and knocked. We had a special knock by then, one knock followed by three more in quick succession. Then I tiptoed up the narrow attic stairs.
Alex Thomas was crouched beside the small oval window, trying to take advantage of what daylight there was. Evidently he hadn’t heard my knock: his back was turned towards me, and he had one of the quilts around his shoulders. He seemed to be writing. I could smell cigarette smoke – yes, he was smoking, there was his hand with the cigarette in it. I didn’t think he should be doing this so near a quilt.
I did not quite know how to announce my presence. “I’m here,” I said.
He jumped, and dropped the cigarette. It fell onto the quilt. I gasped, and dropped to my knees to put it out – I had the now-familiar vision of Avilion going up in flames. “It’s all right,” he said. He was kneeling too, both of us searching for any remaining sparks. Then the next thing I knew we were on the floor, and he had hold of me and was kissing me on the mouth.
I hadn’t expected this.
Had I expected this? Was it so sudden, or were there preliminaries: a touch, a gaze? Did I do anything to provoke him?