The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [68]
“I did hear about that,” said Mrs. Hillcoate. “I thought it was only gossip. It sounded far-fetched.”
“She’s a gold-digger,” said Reenie. “She only wants to get her hooks into him, then clean him out.”
“What’s a gold-digger? What are hooks?” said Laura.
Flapper made me think of limp, wet washing on the line, in the wind. Callista Fitzsimmons was nothing like that.
There was a squabble over the War Memorial, and not only because of the rumours about Father and Callista Fitzsimmons. Some people in town thought the Weary Soldier statue was too dejected-looking, and also too slovenly: they objected to the unbuttoned shirt. They wanted something more triumphant, like the Goddess of Victory on the memorial two towns over, which had angel’s wings and wind-swept robes and was holding a three-pronged implement that looked like a toasting fork. They also wanted “For Those Who Willingly Made the Supreme Sacrifice” to be written on the front.
Father refused to back down on the sculpture, saying they could consider themselves lucky the Weary Soldier had two arms and two legs, not to mention a head, and that if they didn’t watch out he’d go in for bare-naked realism all the way and the statue would be made of rotting body fragments, of which he had stepped on a good many in his day. As for the inscription, there was nothing willing about the sacrifice, as it had not been the intention of the dead to get themselves blown to Kingdom come. He himself favoured “Lest We Forget,” which put the onus where it should be: on our own forgetfulness. He said a damn sight too many people had been a damn sight too forgetful. He rarely swore in public, so it made an impression. He got his way, of course, since he was paying.
The Chamber of Commerce stumped up for the four bronze plaques, with the honour rolls of the fallen and the names of the battles. They wanted their own name printed at the bottom, but Father shamed them out of it. The War Memorial was for the dead, he told them – not for those who’d remained alive, much less reaped the benefits. This kind of talk got him resented by some.
The memorial was unveiled in the November of 1928, on Remembrance Day. There was a large crowd, despite the chill drizzle. The Weary Soldier had been mounted on a four-sided pyramid of rounded river stones, like the stones of Avilion, and the bronze plaques were bordered with lilies and poppies, intertwined with maple leaves. There had been some argument about this too. Callie Fitzsimmons said the design was old-fashioned and banal, with all those droopy flowers and leaves – Victorian, the artists’ worst insult in those days. She wanted something starker, more modern. But the people in town liked it, and Father said you had to compromise sometimes.
At the ceremony, bagpipes were played. (“Better outdoors than in,” said Reenie.) Then there was the main sermon, by the Presbyterian minister, who talked about those who had willingly made the Supreme Sacrifice – the town’s dig at Father, to show he couldn’t hog the proceedings and money couldn’t buy everything, and they’d got that phrase in despite him. Then more speeches were made, and prayers were said – many speeches and many prayers, because the ministers of every kind of church in town had to be represented. Though there were no Catholics on the organizing committee, even the Catholic priest was allowed to say a piece. My father pushed for this, on the grounds that a dead Catholic soldier was just as dead as a dead Protestant one.
Reenie said that was one way of looking at it.
“What is the other way?” said Laura.
My father laid the first wreath. Laura and I watched, hand in hand; Reenie cried. The Royal Canadian Regiment had sent a delegation, all the way from Wolseley Barracks in London, and Major M. K. Greene laid a wreath. Wreaths were then laid by just about everyone you could think of – the Legion, followed by the