The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [44]
“Let’s go downstairs,” I said. The doctor was still in the room, we could hear his footsteps. I didn’t want him to catch us, because I knew this creature was forbidden to us; I knew we shouldn’t have seen it. Especially not Laura – it was the kind of sight, like a squashed animal, that as a rule would make her scream, and then I would get blamed.
“It’s a baby,” said Laura. “It’s not finished.” She was surprisingly calm. “The poor thing. It didn’t want to get itself born.”
In the late afternoon Reenie took us in to see Mother. She was lying in bed with her head propped up on two pillows; her thin arms were outside the sheet; her whitening hair was transparent. Her wedding ring glinted on her left hand, her fists bunched the sheet at her sides. Her mouth was pulled tight as if she was considering something; it was the look she had when she was making lists. Her eyes were closed. With the curved eyelids rolled down over them, her eyes looked even bigger than they did when they were open. Her glasses were sitting on the night table beside the water jug, each round eye of them shining and empty.
“She’s asleep,” Reenie whispered. “Don’t touch her.”
Mother’s eyes slid open. Her mouth flickered; the fingers of her near hand unfolded. “You can give her a hug,” said Reenie, “but not too hard.” I did as I was told. Laura burrowed her head fiercely against Mother’s side, underneath her arm. There was the starchy pale-blue lavender smell of the sheets, the soap smell of Mother, and underneath that a hot smell of rust, mixed with the sweetly acid scent of damp but smouldering leaves.
Mother died five days later. She died of a fever; also of being weak, because she could not manage to get her strength back, said Reenie. During this time the doctor came and went, and a succession of crisp, brittle nurses occupied the easy chair in the bedroom. Reenie hurried up and down the stairs with basins, with towels, with cups of broth. Father shuttled restlessly back and forth to the factory, and appeared at the dinner table haggard as a beggar. Where had he been, that afternoon when he could not be found? Nobody said.
Laura crouched in the upstairs hallway. I was told to play with her in order to keep her out of harm’s way, but she didn’t want that. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees and her chin on them, and a thoughtful, secret expression, as if she were sucking on a candy. We weren’t allowed to have candies. But when I made her show me, it was only a round white stone.
During this last week I was allowed to see Mother every morning, but only for a few minutes. I wasn’t allowed to talk to her, because (said Reenie) she was rambling. That meant she thought she was somewhere else. Each day there was less of her. Her cheekbones were prominent; she smelled of milk, and of something raw, something rancid, like the brown paper meat came wrapped in.
I was sulky during these visits. I could see how ill she was, and I resented her for it. I felt she was in some way betraying me – that she was shirking her duties, that she’d abdicated. It didn’t occur to me that she might die. I’d been afraid of this possibility earlier, but now I was so terrified that I’d put it out of my mind.
On the last morning, which I did not know would be the last, Mother seemed more like herself. She was frailer, but at the same time more packed together – more dense. She looked at me as if she saw me. “It’s so bright in here,” she whispered. “Could you just pull the curtains?” I did as I was told, then went back to stand by her bedside, twisting the handkerchief Reenie had given me in case I cried. My mother took hold of my hand; her own was hot and dry, the fingers like soft wire.
“Be a good girl,” she said. “I hope you’ll be a good sister to Laura. I know you try to be.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. I felt I was the victim of an injustice: why was it always me who was supposed to be a good sister to Laura, instead of the other way around? Surely my mother loved Laura more than she loved me.
Perhaps she didn’t; perhaps