The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [202]
Richard shook his head. “Very sad,” he murmured, in the hushed and solemn tone of an undertaker: muffled, like a thick maroon carpet.
“The specialist – the mental specialist – said that Laura must be insanely jealous of you,” said Winifred. “Jealous of everything about you – she wants to be living your life, she wants to be you, and this is the form it’s taken. He said you ought to be kept out of harm’s way.” She took a tiny sip of her drink. “Haven’t you had your own suspicions?”
You can see what a clever woman she was.
Aimee was born in early April. In those days they used ether, and so I was not conscious during the birth. I breathed in and blacked out, and woke up to find myself weaker and flatter. The baby was not there. It was in the nursery, with the rest of them. It was a girl.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, is there?” I said. I was very anxious about this.
“Ten fingers, ten toes,” said the nurse briskly, “and no more of anything else than there ought to be.”
The baby was brought in later in the afternoon, wrapped in a pink blanket. I’d already named her, in my head. Aimee meant one who was loved, and I certainly hoped she would be loved, by someone. I had doubts about my own capacity to love her, or to love her as much as she’d need. I was spread too thin as it was: I did not think there would be enough of me left over.
Aimee looked like any newborn baby – she had that squashed face, as if she’d hit a wall at high speed. The hair on her head was long and dark. She squinted up at me through her almost-shut eyes, a distrustful squint. What a beating we take when we get born, I thought; what a bad surprise it must be, that first, harsh encounter with the outside air. I did feel sorry for the little creature; I vowed to do the best for her that I could.
While we were examining each other, Winifred and Richard arrived. The nurse at first mistook them for my parents. “No, this is the proud papa,” said Winifred, and they all had a laugh. The two of them were toting flowers, and an elaborate layette, all fancy crocheting and white satin bows.
“Adorable!” said Winifred. “But my goodness, we were expecting a blonde. She’s awfully dark. Look at that hair!”
“I’m sorry,” I said to Richard. “I know you wanted a boy.”
“Next time, darling,” said Richard. He did not seem at all perturbed.
“That’s only the birth hair,” said the nurse to Winifred. “A lot of them have that, sometimes it’s all down their back. It falls out and the real hair grows in. You can thank your stars she doesn’t have teeth or a tail, the way some of them do.”
“Grandfather Benjamin was dark,” I said, “before his hair turned white, and Grandmother Adelia as well, and Father, of course, though I don’t know about his two brothers. The blonde side of the family was my mother’s.” I said this in my usual conversational tone, and was relieved to see that Richard was paying no attention.
Was I grateful that Laura wasn’t there? That she was shut up somewhere far away, where I couldn’t reach her? Also where she couldn’t reach me; where she couldn’t stand beside my bed like the uninvited fairy at the christening, and say, What are you talking about?
She would have known, of course. She would have known right away.
Brightly shone the moon
Last night I watched a young woman set fire to herself: a slim young woman, dressed in gauzy flammable robes. She was doing it as a protest against some injustice or other; but why did she think this bonfire she was making of herself would solve anything? Oh, don’t do that, I wanted to say to her. Don’t burn up your life. Whatever it’s for, it’s not worth it. But it was worth it to her, obviously.
What possesses them, these young girls with a talent for self-immolation? Is it what they do to show that girls too have courage, that they can do more than weep and moan, that they too can face death with panache? And where does the urge come from? Does it begin with defiance, and if so, of what? Of the great leaden suffocating order of things, the