The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [200]
“When may we expect the blessed event?” she asked, and I could see I was in for a prolonged dose of coy language from her. It would now be the new arrival and a present from the stork and the little stranger, nonstop. Winifred could get quite elfish and finicky about subjects that made her nervous.
“In April, I think,” I said. “Or March. I haven’t seen a doctor yet.”
“But you must know,” she said, arching her eyebrows.
“It’s not as if I’ve done this before,” I said crossly. “It’s not as if I was expecting it. I wasn’t paying attention.”
I went to Laura’s room one evening to tell her the same news. I knocked at the door; when she didn’t answer, I opened it softly, thinking she might be asleep. She wasn’t though. She was kneeling beside her bed, in her blue nightgown, with her head down and her hair spreading as if blown by an unmoving wind, her arms flung out as if she’d been thrown there. At first I thought she must be praying, but she wasn’t, or not that I could hear. When she noticed me at last, she got up, as matter-of-factly as if she’d been dusting, and sat on the frilled bench of her vanity table.
As usual, I was struck by the relationship between her surroundings, the surroundings Winifred had chosen for her – the dainty prints, the ribbon rosebuds, the organdies, the flounces – and Laura herself. A photograph would have revealed only harmony. Yet to me the incongruity was intense, almost surreal. Laura was flint in a nest of thistledown.
I say flint, not stone: a flint has a heart of fire.
“Laura, I wanted to tell you,” I said. “I’m going to have a baby.”
She turned towards me, her face smooth and white as a porcelain plate, the expression sealed inside it. But she didn’t seem surprised. Nor did she congratulate me. Instead she said, “Remember the kitten?”
“What kitten?” I said.
“The kitten Mother had. The one that killed her.”
“Laura, it wasn’t a kitten.”
“I know,” said Laura.
Beautiful view
Reenie is back. She’s none too pleased with me. Well, young lady. What do you have to say for yourself? What did you do to Laura? Don’t you ever learn?
There is no answer to such questions. The answers are so entangled with the questions, so knotted and many-stranded, that they aren’t really answers at all.
I’m on trial here. I know it. I know what you’ll soon be thinking. It will be much the same as what I myself am thinking: Should I have behaved differently? You’ll no doubt believe so, but did I have any other choices? I’d have such choices now, but now is not then.
Should I have been able to read Laura’s mind? Should I have known what was going on? Should I have seen what was coming next? Was I my sister’s keeper?
Should is a futile word. It’s about what didn’t happen. It belongs in a parallel universe. It belongs in another dimension of space.
On a Wednesday in February, I made my way downstairs after my mid-afternoon nap. I was napping a lot by then: I was seven months’ pregnant, and having trouble sleeping through the night. There was some concern too about my blood pressure; my ankles were puffy, and I’d been told to lie with my feet up for as much as I could. I felt like a huge grape, swollen to bursting with sugar and purple juice; I felt ugly and cumbersome.
It was snowing that day, I remember, great soft wet flakes: I’d looked out the window after I’d levered myself to my feet, and seen the chestnut tree, all white, like a giant coral.
Winifred was there, in the cloud-coloured living room. That wasn’t unheard of – she came and went as if she owned the place – but Richard was there too. Usually at that time of day he was at his office. Each of them had a drink in hand. Each looked morose.
“What is it?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“Sit down,