The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [150]
Now I’m grounded. Also enraged at myself. Or not at myself – at this bad turn my body has done me. After having imposed itself on us like the egomaniac it is, clamouring about its own needs, foisting upon us its own sordid and perilous desires, the body’s final trick is simply to absent itself. Just when you need it, just when you could use an arm or a leg, suddenly the body has other things to do. It falters, it buckles under you; it melts away as if made of snow, leaving nothing much. Two lumps of coal, an old hat, a grin made of pebbles. The bones dry sticks, easily broken.
It’s an affront, all of that. Weak knees, arthritic knuckles, varicose veins, infirmities, indignities – they aren’t ours, we never wanted or claimed them. Inside our heads we carry ourselves perfected – ourselves at the best age, and in the best light as well: never caught awkwardly, one leg out of a car, one still in, or picking our teeth, or slouching, or scratching our noses or bums. If naked, seen gracefully reclining through a gauzy mist, which is where movie stars come in: they assume such poses for us. They are our younger selves as they recede from us, glow, turn mythical.
As a child, Laura would say: In Heaven, what age will I be?
Laura was standing on the front steps of Avilion, between the two stone urns where no flowers had been planted, waiting for us. Despite her tallness, she looked very young, very fragile and alone. Also peasant-like, pauperish. She was wearing a pale-blue housedress printed with faded mauve butterflies – mine, three summers before – and no shoes whatsoever. (Was this some new mortification of the flesh, or was it simple eccentricity, or had she simply forgotten?) Her hair was in a single braid, coming down over her shoulder, like the stone nymph’s at our lily pool.
God knows how long she’d been there. We hadn’t been able to say exactly when we’d arrive, because we’d come down by car, which was possible at that time of year: the roads were not flooded or axle-deep in mud, and some were even paved by then.
I say we, because Richard came with me. He said he wouldn’t think of sending me off to face such a thing alone, not at a time like this. He was more than solicitous.
He drove us himself, in his blue coupé – one of his newest toys. In the trunk behind us were our two suitcases, the small ones, just for overnight – his maroon leather, mine lemon-sherbet yellow. I was wearing an eggshell linen suit – frivolous to mention it, no doubt, but it was from Paris and I was very keen on it – and I knew it would be wrinkled at the back once we arrived. Linen shoes, with stiff fabric bows and peek-a-boo toes. My matching eggshell hat rode on my knees like a delicate gift box.
Richard was a jumpy driver. He didn’t like to be interrupted – he said it ruined his concentration – and so we made the trip in silence, more or less. The trip took over four hours, which now takes less than two. The sky was clear, and bright and depthless as metal; the sun poured down like lava. The heat wavered up off the asphalt; the small towns were closed against the sun, their curtains drawn. I remember their singed lawns and white-pillared porches, and the lone gas stations, the pumps like cylindrical one-armed robots, their glass tops like brim-less bowler hats, and the cemeteries that looked as if no one else would ever be buried in them. Once in a while we’d hit a lake, with a smell of dead minnows and warm waterweed coming off it.
As we drove up, Laura did not wave. She stood waiting while Richard brought the car to a stop and clambered out and walked around