The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [131]
Dancing went briskly forward as well in the two adjacent garden-bowers, each loaded with blossom, while a jazz orchestra in each ballroom kept up the “symphony and song.” We did not hear any “ancestral voices prophesying war,” as all was sweet accord, thanks to the firmly-guiding hand of Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior, the Ball’s convenor, ravishing in scarlet and gold as a Princess from Rajistan. Also on the reception committee were Mrs. Richard Chase Griffen, an Abyssinian maid in green and silver, Mrs. Oliver MacDonnell, in Chinese red, and Mrs. Hugh N. Hillert, imposing as a Sultaness in magenta.
The Blind Assassin: Alien on Ice
He’s in another place now, a room he’s rented out near the Junction. It’s above a hardware store. In its window is a sparse display of wrenches and hinges. It isn’t doing too well; nothing around here is doing too well. Grit blows through the air, crumpled paper along the ground; the sidewalks are treacherous with ice, from packed snow nobody’s shovelled.
In the middle distance trains mourn and shunt, their whistles trailing into the distance. Never hello, always goodbye. He could hop one, but it’s a chance: they’re patrolled, though you never know when. Anyway he’s nailed in place right now – let’s face it – because of her; although, like the trains, she’s never on time and always departing.
The room is two flights up, back stairs with rubber treads, the rubber worn patchy, but at least it’s a separate entrance. Unless you count the young couple with a baby on the other side of the wall. They use the same stairs, but he rarely sees them, they get up too early. He can hear them at midnight though, when he’s trying to work; they go at it as if there’s no tomorrow, their bed squeaking like rats. It drives him crazy. You’d think with one yelling brat they’d have called it quits, but no, on they gallop. At least they’re quick about it.
Sometimes he sets his ear against the wall to listen. Any porthole in a storm, he thinks. In the night all cows are cows.
He’s crossed paths with the woman a couple of times, padded and kerchiefed like a Russian granny, labouring with parcels and baby buggy. They stash that thing on the downstairs landing, where it waits like some alien death trap, its black mouth gaping. He helped her with it once and she smiled at him, a stealthy smile, her little teeth bluish around the edges, like skim milk. Does my typewriter bother you at night? he’d ventured – hinting that he’s awake then, that he overhears. No, not at all. Blank stare, dumb as a heifer. Dark circles under her eyes, downward lines etched from nose to mouth corners. He doubts the evening doings are her idea. Too fast, for one thing – the guy’s in and out like a bank robber. She has drudge written all over her; she probably stares at the ceiling, thinks about mopping the floor.
His room has been created by dividing a larger room in two, which accounts for the flimsiness of the wall. The space is narrow and cold: there’s a breeze around the window frame, the radiator clanks and drips but gives no heat. A toilet stashed in one chilly corner, old piss and iron staining the bowl a toxic orange, and a shower stall made of zinc, with a rubber curtain grimy with age. The shower is a black hose running up one wall, with a round head of perforated metal. The dribble of water that comes out of it is cold as a witch’s tit. A Murphy bed, inexpertly installed so that he has to bust a gut prying it down; a plywood counter stuck together with furniture nails, painted yellow some time ago. A one-ring burner. Dinginess blankets everything like soot.
Compared to where he might be, it’s a palace.
He’s ditched his pals. Skipped out on them, left no address. It shouldn’t have taken this long to arrange