The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [161]
If that sounds brutal, it was. But it wasn’t out of the ordinary.
Winifred had to keep me busy during daylight hours: she didn’t want me loopy with boredom, she didn’t want me going off the deep end. She put a good deal of thought into cooking up meaningless tasks for me, then rearranging my time and space so I would be at liberty to perform them. These tasks were never too exacting, because she made no secret of her opinion that I was a bit of a dumb bunny. I in my turn did nothing to discourage this view.
Thus the Downtown Foundlings’ Crèche charity ball, of which she was the convenor. She put me on the list of organizers, not only to keep me hopping but because it would reflect well on Richard. “Organizers” was a joke, she didn’t think I was capable of organizing my own shoelaces, so what cinder-sweeping chore could I be given? Envelope-addressing, she decided. She was right, I could do that. I was even good at it. I didn’t have to think about it, and could spend the mental time elsewhere. (“Thank the Lord she has one talent,” I could hear her telling the Billies and Charlies, at bridge. “Oh, I forgot – two!” Gales of laughter.)
The Downtown Foundlings’ Crèche, in aid of slum children, was Winifred’s best thing, or at least the charity ball was. It was a costume ball – such functions mostly were, because people at that time liked costumes. They liked them almost as much as they liked uniforms. Both served the same end: to avoid being who you were, you could pretend to be someone else. You could become bigger and more powerful, or more alluring and mysterious, just by putting on exotic clothes. Well, there was something to it.
Winifred had a committee for the ball, but everyone knew she made all the big decisions herself. She held the hoops, others jumped through them. It was she who’d picked the theme for 1936 – “Xanadu.” The rival Beaux Arts Ball had recently done “Tamurlane in Samarkand,” and it had been a great success. Eastern themes couldn’t miss, and surely everyone had been made to memorize “Kubla Khan” at school, so even lawyers – even doctors – even bankers would know what Xanadu was. Their wives would know as a matter of course.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Winifred had the entire poem typed out and mimeographed and distributed to our committee – to get the ideas percolating, she said – and any suggestions from us were more than welcome, though we knew she had the entire thing mapped out in her head already. The poem would appear on the engraved invitation as well – gold lettering, with a gold-and-cerulean border of Arabic writing. Did anyone understand such writing? No, but it looked just lovely.
These functions were by invitation only. You were invited and then you paid through the nose, but the circle was very tight. Who was on the list became a matter of anxious anticipation, though only for those in doubt about their status. To expect an invitation and then not to receive one was a foretaste of Purgatory. I expect many tears were shed over such things, but in secret – in that world, you could never let it appear that you cared.
The beauty of Xanadu was (said Winifred, after she had read out the poem in her whisky voice – read it excellently, I’ll give her that) – the beauty of it was that with such a theme you could be as revealing or concealing as you might wish. The corpulent could swathe themselves in rich brocades, the svelte could come as slave girls or Persian dancers and show off everything but the kitchen sink. Gauzy skirts, bangles, tinkling ankle chains – the scope was practically infinite, and of course men loved to dress up as pashas and pretend they had harems. Though she doubted that she could talk anyone into playing the eunuchs, she added, to appreciative tittering.
Laura was too young for this ball. Winifred was planning a début for her, a rite of passage that had not yet taken place, and until it did she was not considered