The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [13]
Therefore it became the practice to cut out the tongues of the girls three months before they were due to be sacrificed. This was not a mutilation, said the priests, but an improvement – what could be more fitting for the servants of the Goddess of Silence?
Thus, tongueless, and swollen with words she could never again pronounce, each girl would be led in procession to the sound of solemn music, wrapped in veils and garlanded with flowers, up the winding steps to the city’s ninth door. Nowadays you might say she looked like a pampered society bride.
She sits up. That’s really uncalled for, she says. You want to get at me. You just love the idea of killing off those poor girls in their bridal veils. I bet they were blondes.
Not at you, he says. Not as such. Anyway I’m not inventing all of this, it has a firm foundation in history. The Hittites...
I’m sure, but you’re licking your lips over it all the same. You’re vengeful – no, you’re jealous, though God knows why. I don’t care about the Hittites, and history and all of that – it’s just an excuse.
Hold on a minute. You agreed to the sacrificial virgins, you put them on the menu. I’m only following orders. What’s your objection – the wardrobe? Too much tulle?
Let’s not fight, she says. She feels she’s about to cry, clenches her hands to stop.
I didn’t mean to upset you. Come on now.
She pushes away his arm. You did mean to upset me. You like to know you can.
I thought it amused you. Listening to me perform. Juggling the adjectives. Playing the zany for you.
She tugs her skirt down, tucks in her blouse. Dead girls in bridal veils, why would that amuse me? With their tongues cut out. You must think I’m a brute.
I’ll take it back. I’ll change it. I’ll rewrite history for you. How’s that?
You can’t, she says. The word has gone forth. You can’t cancel half a line of it. I’m leaving. She’s on her knees now, ready to stand up.
There’s lots of time. Lie down. He takes hold of her wrist.
No. Let go. Look where the sun is. They’ll be coming back. I could be in trouble, though I guess for you it’s not trouble at all, that kind: it doesn’t count. You don’t care – all you want is a quick, a quick –
Come on, spit it out.
You know what I mean, she says in a tired voice.
It’s not true. I’m sorry. I’m the brute, I got carried away. Anyway it’s only a story.
She rests her forehead against her knees. After a minute she says, What am I going to do? After – when you’re not here any more?
You’ll get over it, he says. You’ll live. Here, I’ll brush you off.
It doesn’t come off, not with just brushing.
Let’s do up your buttons, he says. Don’t be sad.
The Colonel Henry Parkman High School Home and School and Alumni Association Bulletin, Port Ticonderoga, May 1998
LAURA CHASE MEMORIAL PRIZE
TO BE PRESENTED
BY MYRA STURGESS, VICE-PRESIDENT,
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Colonel Henry Parkman High has been endowed with a valuable new prize by the generous bequest of the late Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior of Toronto, whose noted brother Richard E. Griffen, will be remembered, as he often vacationed here in Port Ticonderoga and enjoyed sailing on our river. The prize is the Laura Chase Memorial Prize in Creative Writing, of a value of two hundred dollars, to be awarded to a student in the graduating year for the best short story, to be judged by three Alumni Association members, with literary and also moral values considered. Our Principal Mr. Eph Evans, states: “We are grateful to Mrs. Prior for remembering us along with her many other benefactions.”
Named in honour