The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [164]
The clothes on your back come off somebody else’s, he’d said to her once. Yes, she’d replied lightly, but I look better in them. Then added with some anger, What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? Do you seriously think I have any power?
She stops at a greengrocer’s, buys three apples. Not very good apples, last season’s, their skins softly wrinkling, but she feels she needs a peace offering of some kind. The woman takes one of the apples away from her, points out a punky brown spot, substitutes a better apple. All this without speaking. Meaningful nods and gap-toothed smiles.
Men in long black coats, wide black hats, small quick-eyed women. Shawls, long skirts. Broken verbs. They don’t look directly at you but they don’t miss much. She’s conspicuous, a giantess. Her legs right out in the open.
Here’s the button store, just where he said. She stops a moment to look in the window. Fancy buttons, satin ribbons, braid, rickrack, sequins – raw material for the dreamland adjectives of fashion copy. Someone’s fingers, right around here, must have sewn the ermine trim on her white chiffon evening cape. The contrast of fragile veil and rank animal pelt, that’s what appeals to the gentlemen. Delicate flesh, then the shrubbery.
His new room is above a baker’s. Around to the side, up the stairs, in a haze of a smell she likes. But dense, overpowering – yeast fermenting, going straight to her head like warm helium. She hasn’t seen him for too long. Why has she kept away?
He’s there, he opens the door.
I brought you some apples, she says.
After a while the objects of this world take shape around her once more. There’s his typewriter, precarious on the tiny washstand. The blue suitcase is beside it, topped with the displaced washbasin. Shirt crumpled on the floor. Why is it that tumbled cloth always signifies desire? With its wrenched, impetuous forms. The flames in paintings look like that – like orange fabric, hurled and flung.
They lie in the bed, an enormous carved mahogany structure that almost fills the room. Wedding furniture once, from far away, meant to last a lifetime. Lifetime, what a stupid word it seems right now; durability, how useless. She cuts an apple up with his pocket knife, feeds him segments.
If I didn’t know better I’d think you were trying to seduce me.
No – I’m just keeping you alive. I’m fattening you up to eat later.
That’s a perverse thought, young lady.
Yes. It’s yours. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the dead women with azure hair and eyes like snake-filled pits? They’d have you for breakfast.
Only if permitted. He reaches for her again. Where have you been keeping yourself? It’s been weeks.
Yes. Wait. I need to tell you something.
Is it urgent? he says.
Yes. Not really. No.
The sun declines, the shadows of the curtains move across the bed. Voices on the street outside, unknown languages. I will always remember this, she tells herself. Then: Why am I thinking about memory? It’s not then yet, it’s now. It’s not over.
I’ve thought out the story, she says. I’ve thought out the next part of it.
Oh? You’ve got your own ideas?
I’ve always had my own ideas.
Okay. Let’s hear them, he says, grinning.
All right, she says. The last we knew, the girl and the blind man were being taken off to see the Servant of Rejoicing, leader of the barbarian invaders called the People of Desolation, because the two of them were suspected of being divine messengers. Correct me if I’m wrong.
You really pay attention to this stuff? he says wonderingly. You really remember it?
Of course I do. I remember every word you say. They arrive at the barbarian camp, and the blind assassin tells the Servant of Rejoicing he has a message for him from the Invincible One, only it must be delivered in private, with just the girl there. That