The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [223]
He had the wherewithal for grand gestures, for acts of significant generosity, but he made none. He had become like a statue of himself: huge, public, imposing, hollow.
It wasn’t that he was too big for his boots: he wasn’t big enough for them. That’s it in a nutshell.
At the outbreak of the war, Richard was in a tight spot. He’d been too cozy with the Germans in his business dealings, too admiring of them in his speeches. Like many of his peers, he’d turned too blind an eye to their brutal violations of democracy; a democracy that many of our leaders had been decrying as unworkable, but that they were now keen to defend.
Richard also stood to lose a lot of money, since he could no longer trade with those who had overnight become the enemy. He had to do some scrambling, some kowtowing; it didn’t sit well with him, but he did it. He managed to salvage his position, and to scramble back into favour – well, he wasn’t the only one with dirty hands, so it was best for the others not to point their own tainted fingers at him – and soon his factories were blasting away, full steam ahead for the war effort, and no one was more patriotic than he. Thus it wasn’t counted against him when Russia came in on the side of the Allies, and Joseph Stalin was suddenly everybody’s loveable uncle. True, Richard had said much against the Communists, but that was once upon a time. It was all swept under the carpet now, because weren’t your enemy’s enemies your friends?
Meanwhile I trudged through the days, not as usual – the usual had altered – but as best I could. Dogged is the word I’d use now, to describe myself then. Or stupefied, that would do as well. There were no more garden parties to contend with, no more silk stockings except through the black market. Meat was rationed, and butter, and sugar: if you wanted more of those things, more than other people got, it became important to establish certain contacts. No more transatlantic voyages on luxury liners – the Queen Mary became a troop ship. The radio stopped being a portable bandshell and became a frenetic oracle; every evening I turned it on to hear the news, which at first was always bad.
The war went on and on, a relentless motor. It wore people down – the constant, dreary tension. It was like listening to someone grinding his teeth, in the dusk before dawn, while you lie sleepless night after night after night.
There were some benefits to be had, however. Mr. Murgatroyd left us, to join the army. It was then I learned to drive. I took over one of the cars, the Bentley I think it was, and Richard had it registered to me – that gave us more gasoline. (Gasoline was rationed, of course, though less so for people like Richard.) It also gave me more freedom, although it was not a freedom that had much use for me any more.
I caught a cold, which turned to bronchitis – everyone had a cold that winter. It took me months to get rid of it. I spent a lot of time in bed, feeling sad. I coughed and coughed. I no longer went to the newsreels – the speeches, the battles, the bombings and the devastation, the victories, even the invasions. Stirring times, or so we were told, but I’d lost interest.
The end of the war approached. It got nearer and nearer. Then it occurred. I remembered the silence after the last war had ended, and then the ringing of the bells. It had been November, then, with ice on the puddles, and now it was spring. There were parades. There were proclamations. Trumpets were blown.
It wasn’t so easy, though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and settle slowly.
Diana Sweets
Today I walked as far as the Jubilee Bridge, then along to the doughnut shop, where I ate almost a third