The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [120]
It isn’t a story though. It can’t be a story unless the aliens invade and lay waste, and some dame bursts out of her jumpsuit. But an invasion would violate the premise. If the crystal beings think the planet has no life, why would they bother to land on it? For archeological reasons, perhaps. To take samples. All of a sudden thousands of windows are sucked from the skyscrapers of New York by an extraterrestrial vacuum. Thousands of bank presidents are sucked out as well, and fall screaming to their deaths. That would be fine.
No. Still not a story. He needs to write something that will sell. It’s back to the never-fail dead women, slavering for blood. This time he’ll give them purple hair, set them in motion beneath the poisonous orchid beams of the twelve moons of Arn. The best thing is to picture the cover illustration the boys will likely come up with, and then go on from there.
He’s tired of them, these women. He’s tired of their fangs, their litheness, their firm but ripe half-a-grapefruit breasts, their gluttony. He’s tired of their red talons, their viperish eyes. He’s tired of bashing in their heads. He’s tired of the heroes, whose names are Will or Burt or Ned, names of one syllable; he’s tired of their ray guns, their metallic skin-tight clothing. Ten cents a thrill. Still, it’s a living, if he can keep up the speed, and beggars can hardly be choosers.
He’s running out of cash again. He hopes she’ll bring a cheque, from one of the P.O. boxes not in his name. He’ll endorse it, she’ll cash it for him; with her name, at her bank, she’ll have no problems. He hopes she’ll bring some postage stamps. He hopes she’ll bring more cigarettes. He’s only got three left.
He paces. The floor creaks. Hardwood, but stained where the radiator’s leaked. This block of flats was put up before the war, for single business people of good character. Things were more hopeful then. Steam heat, never-ending hot water, tiled corridors – the latest of everything. Now it’s seen better days. A few years ago when he was young, he’d known a girl who’d had a place here. A nurse, as he recalls: French letters in the night-table drawer. She’d had a two-ring burner, she’d cooked breakfast for him sometimes – bacon and eggs, buttery pancakes with maple syrup, he’d sucked it off her fingers. There was a stuffed and mounted deer’s head, left over from the previous tenants; she’d dried her stockings by hanging them on the antlers.
They’d spend Saturday afternoons, Tuesday evenings, whenever she had off, drinking – scotch, gin, vodka, whatever there was. She liked to be quite drunk first. She didn’t want to go to the movies, or out dancing; she didn’t seem to want romance or any pretense of it, which was just as well. All she’d required of him was stamina. She liked to haul a blanket onto the bathroom floor; she liked the hardness of the tiles under her back. It was hell on his knees and elbows, not that he’d noticed at the time, his attention being elsewhere. She’d moan as if in a spotlight, tossing her head, rolling her eyes. Once he’d had her standing up, in her walk-in closet. A knee-trembler, smelling of mothballs, in among the Sunday crepes, the lambswool twin sets. She’d wept with pleasure. After dumping him she’d married a lawyer. A canny match, a white wedding; he’d read about it in