The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [4]
Over to one side – you wouldn’t see it at first – there’s a hand, cut by the margin, scissored off at the wrist, resting on the grass as if discarded. Left to its own devices.
The trace of blown cloud in the brilliant sky, like ice cream smudged on chrome. His smoke-stained fingers. The distant glint of water. All drowned now.
Drowned, but shining.
II
The Blind Assassin: The hard-boiled egg
What will it be, then? he says. Dinner jackets and romance, or shipwrecks on a barren coast? You can have your pick: jungles, tropical islands, mountains. Or another dimension of space – that’s what I’m best at.
Another dimension of space? Oh really!
Don’t scoff, it’s a useful address. Anything you like can happen there. Spaceships and skin-tight uniforms, ray guns, Martians with the bodies of giant squids, that sort of thing.
You choose, she says. You’re the professional. How about a desert? I’ve always wanted to visit one. With an oasis, of course. Some date palms might be nice. She’s tearing the crust off her sandwich. She doesn’t like the crusts.
Not much scope, with deserts. Not many features, unless you add some tombs. Then you could have a pack of nude women who’ve been dead for three thousand years, with lithe, curvaceous figures, ruby-red lips, azure hair in a foam of tumbled curls, and eyes like snake-filled pits. But I don’t think I could fob those off on you. Lurid isn’t your style.
You never know. I might like them.
I doubt it. They’re for the huddled masses. Popular on the covers though – they’ll writhe all over a fellow, they have to be beaten off with rifle butts.
Could I have another dimension of space, and also the tombs and the dead women, please?
That’s a tall order, but I’ll see what I can do. I could throw in some sacrificial virgins as well, with metal breastplates and silver ankle chains and diaphanous vestments. And a pack of ravening wolves, extra.
I can see you’ll stop at nothing.
You want the dinner jackets instead? Cruise ships, white linen, wrist-kissing and hypocritical slop?
No. All right. Do what you think is best.
Cigarette?
She shakes her head for no. He lights his own, striking the match on his thumbnail.
You’ll set fire to yourself, she says.
I never have yet.
She looks at his rolled-up shirt sleeve, white or a pale blue, then his wrist, the browner skin of his hand. He throws out radiance, it must be reflected sun. Why isn’t everyone staring? Still, he’s too noticeable to be out here – out in the open. There are other people around, sitting on the grass or lying on it, propped on one elbow – other picnickers, in their pale summer clothing. It’s all very proper. Nevertheless she feels that the two of them are alone; as if the apple tree they’re sitting under is not a tree but a tent; as if there’s a line drawn around them with chalk. Inside this line, they’re invisible.
Space it is, then, he says. With tombs and virgins and wolves – but on the instalment plan. Agreed?
The instalment plan?
You know, like furniture.
She laughs.
No, I’m serious. You can’t skimp, it might take days. We’ll have to meet again.
She hesitates. All right, she says. If I can. If I can arrange it.
Good, he says. Now I have to think. He keeps his voice casual. Too much urgency might put her off.
On the Planet of – let’s see. Not Saturn, it’s too close. On the Planet Zycron, located in another dimension of space, there’s a rubble-strewn plain. To the north is the ocean, which is violet in colour. To the west is a range of mountains, said to be roamed after sunset by the voracious undead female inhabitants of the crumbling tombs located there. You see, I’ve put the tombs in right off the bat.
That’s very conscientious of you, she says.
I stick to