The Blind Assassin

I got a candle from the stash of them in the kitchen, on hand for power blackouts, and lit it, and led Alex Thomas out of the cellar and through the kitchen and up the back stairs, then up the narrower stairs to the attic, where I installed him behind the three empty trunks. There were some old quilts stored in a cedar chest up there, and I hauled them out for bedding.

  "No one will come," I said. "If they do, get underneath the quilts. Don't walk around, they might hear the footsteps. Don't turn on the light." (There was a single bulb with a pull chain in the attic, just as in the cold cellar.) "We'll bring you something to eat in the morning," I added, not knowing how I would make good on this promise.

  I went downstairs, then came back up again with a chamber pot, which I set down without a word. It was a detail that had always worried me, in Reenie's stories about kidnappers - what about the facilities? It would be one thing to be locked into a crypt, quite another to be reduced to squatting in a corner with your skirt hauled up.

  Alex Thomas nodded, and said, "Good girl. You're a pal. I knew you were practical."

  In the morning Laura and I held a whispered conference in her bedroom. The subjects discussed were the procuring of food and drink, the need for watchfulness, and the emptying of the chamber pot. One of us - pretending to be reading - would stand guard in my room, with the door open: we could see the door to the attic stairs from there. The other would fetch and carry. We agreed to take these tasks in rotation. The big hurdle would be Reenie, who was sure to smell a rat if we acted too furtive.

  We hadn't worked out any plan for what we would do if we were found out. We never did work out such a plan. It was all improvisation.

  Alex Thomas's first breakfast was our toast crusts. As a rule, we did not eat our crusts until nagged - it was still Reenie's habit to say Remember the starving Armenians - but this time, when Reenie looked, the crusts were gone. They were actually in Laura's navy-blue skirt pocket.

  "Alex Thomas must be the starving Armenians," I whispered, as we hurried up the stairs. But Laura didn't think this was funny. She thought it was accurate.

  Mornings and evenings were the times of our visits. We raided the pantry, salvaged the leftovers. We smuggled up raw carrots, bacon rinds, half-eaten boiled eggs, pieces of bread folded over, with butter and jam inside. Once a leg of fricasseed chicken - a daring coup. Also glasses of water, cups of milk, cold coffee. We carted away the empty dishes, stashed them under our beds until the coast was clear, then washed them in our bathroom sink before replacing them in the kitchen cupboard. (I did this: Laura was too clumsy.) We didn't use the good china. What if something got broken? Even an everyday plate might have been noticed: Reenie kept track. So we were very cautious with the tableware.

  Was Reenie suspicious of us? I expect so. She could usually tell when we were up to something. But she could also tell when it was more politic not to know exactly what that something might be. I expect she was preparing herself to say she'd had no idea, in case we were caught. She did tell us, once, not to go filching the raisins; she said we were acting like bottomless pits, and where did we get such hollow legs all of a sudden? And she was annoyed about the quarter of a pumpkin pie that went missing. Laura said she'd eaten it; she'd had a sudden fit of hunger, she said.

  "Crust and all?" said Reenie sharply. Laura never ate the pie crusts from Reenie's pies. Nobody did. Nor did Alex Thomas.

  "I fed it to the birds," said Laura. True enough: that's what she had done, afterwards.

  Alex Thomas was at first appreciative of our efforts. He said we were good pals, and that without us his goose would have been cooked. Then he wanted cigarettes - he was dying for a smoke. We brought him some from the silver box on the piano, but warned him to limit himself to one a day - the fumes might be detected. (He ignored this stricture.)

  Then he said the worst thing about the attic was not being able to keep clean. He said his mouth felt like a drain. We stole the old toothbrush Reenie used for cleaning the silver, and scrubbed it off for him as best we could; he said it was better than nothing. One day we brought him a wash basin and a towel, and a jug with warm water. Afterwards he waited till nobody was underneath and threw the dirty water out the attic window. It had been raining, so the ground was wet anyway and the splash was not noticed. A little later, when the coast seemed clear, we allowed him down the attic stairs and shut him up in the bathroom the two of us shared, so he could have a proper wash. (We'd told Reenie we'd help out by taking over the cleaning of this bathroom, on which her comment was: Wonders never cease.)

  While Alex Thomas's washing-up was going forward Laura sat in her bedroom, I sat in mine, each guarding a bathroom door. I tried not to think about what was going on in there. The image of him with all his clothes off was painful to me, in some way that did not bear contemplating.

  Alex Thomas was featured in newspaper editorials, not only in our own paper. He was an arsonist and murderer, it was said, and of the worst kind - one who killed from cold-blooded fanaticism. He had come to Port Ticonderoga to infiltrate the working force, and to sow seeds of dissension, in which he had succeeded, as witness the general strike and the rioting. He was an example of the evils of a university education - a smart boy, too smart for his own good, whose wits had been turned through bad company and worse books. His adoptive father, a Presbyterian minister, was quoted as saying that he prayed every night for Alex's soul, but that this was a generation of vipers. His rescue of Alex as a child from the horrors of war was not passed over: Alex was a brand snatched from the burning, he said, but it was always a risk to take a stranger into your home. The implication was that such brands were better left unsnatched.

  In addition to all of that, the police had printed a Wanted poster of Alex, and had stuck it up in the post office, and in other public places as well. Luckily it wasn't a very clear picture: Alex had his hand in front of him, which partly obscured his face. It was the photo from the newspaper, the one Elwood Murray had taken of the three of us, at the button factory picnic. (Laura and I were cut off at the sides, naturally.) Elwood Murray had let it be known that he could have printed a better picture from the negative, but when he went to look, the negative was gone. Well, that was no surprise: a number of things had been destroyed when the newspaper office was wrecked.

  We brought Alex the newspaper clippings, and one of the Wanted posters too - Laura had purloined it from a telephone pole. He read about himself with rueful dismay. "They want my head on a platter," was what he said.

  After a few days, he asked if we could bring him some paper - writing paper. There was a stack of school exercise books left over from Mr. Erskine: we brought him those, and a pencil as well.

  "What do you think he's writing?" Laura asked. We couldn't decide. A prisoner's journal, a vindication of himself? Perhaps a letter, to someone who might rescue him. But he didn't ask us to mail anything, so it couldn't have been a letter.

  Tending Alex Thomas brought Laura and me closer together than we had been for a while. He was our guilty secret, and also our virtuous project - one we could finally share. We were two good little Samaritans, lifting out of the ditch the man fallen among thieves. We were Mary and Martha, ministering to - well, not Jesus, even Laura did not go that far, but it was obvious which of us she had cast in these roles. I was to be Martha, keeping busy with household chores in the background; she was to be Mary, laying pure devotion at Alex's feet. (Which does a man prefer? Bacon and eggs, or worship? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending how hungry he is.)

  Laura carried the food scraps up the attic stairs as if they were a temple offering. She carried the chamber pot down as if it were a reliquary, or a precious candle on the verge of flickering out.

  At night, after Alex Thomas had been fed and watered, we would talk him over - how he'd looked that day, whether he was too thin, whether he'd coughed - we didn't want him to get sick. What he might need, what we should try to steal for him the next day. Then we would climb into our respective beds. I don't know abo
ut Laura, but I would picture him up there in the attic, directly above me. He too would be trying to sleep, tossing and turning in his bed of musty quilts. Then he would be sleeping. Then he would be dreaming, long dreams of war and fire, and of disintegrating villages, their fragments strewn about.

  I don't know at what point these dreams of his changed to dreams of pursuit and escape; I don't know at what point I joined him in these dreams, fleeing with him hand in hand, at dusk, away from a burning building, across the furrowed December fields, the stubbled earth in which the frost was now beginning to set in, towards the dark line of the distant woods.

  But it wasn't his dream really, I did know that. It was my own. It was Avilion that was burning, its broken pieces that were scattered over the ground - the good china, the Sevres bowl with rose petals, the silver cigarette box from the top of the piano. The piano itself, the stained-glass windows from the dining room - the blood-red cup, Iseult's cracked harp - everything I'd been longing to get away from, true, but not through destruction. I'd wanted to leave home, but have it stay in place, waiting for me, unchanged, so I could step back into it at will.

  One day, when Laura was out - it was no longer dangerous for her, the men in overcoats had gone away and the Mounties as well, the streets were orderly again - I decided to make a solo trip to the attic. I had an offering to make - a pocketful of currants and dried figs, snatched from the makings for the Christmas pudding. I scouted - Reenie was safely occupied with Mrs. Hillcoate, in the kitchen - then went to the attic door and knocked. We had a special knock by then, one knock followed by three more in quick succession. Then I tiptoed up the narrow attic stairs.

  Alex Thomas was crouched beside the small oval window, trying to take advantage of what daylight there was. Evidently he hadn't heard my knock: his back was turned towards me, and he had one of the quilts around his shoulders. He seemed to be writing. I could smell cigarette smoke - yes, he was smoking, there was his hand with the cigarette in it. I didn't think he should be doing this so near a quilt.

  I did not quite know how to announce my presence. "I'm here," I said.

  He jumped, and dropped the cigarette. It fell onto the quilt. I gasped, and dropped to my knees to put it out - I had the now-familiar vision of Avilion going up in flames. "It's all right," he said. He was kneeling too, both of us searching for any remaining sparks. Then the next thing I knew we were on the floor, and he had hold of me and was kissing me on the mouth.

  I hadn't expected this.

  Had I expected this? Was it so sudden, or were there preliminaries: a touch, a gaze? Did I do anything to provoke him? Nothing I can recall, but is what I remember the same thing as what actually happened?

  It is now: I am the only survivor.

  In any case, it was just as Reenie had said, about the men in movie theatres, except that what I felt was not outrage. But the rest of it was true enough: I was transfixed, I could not move, I had no recourse. My bones had turned to melting wax. He got almost all of my buttons undone before I was able to rouse myself, to pull myself away, to flee.

  I did this wordlessly. As I scrambled down the attic stairs, pushing back my hair, tucking in my blouse, I had the impression that - behind my back - he was laughing at me.

  I didn't know exactly what might occur if I let such a thing happen again, but whatever it was would be dangerous, at least for me. I would be asking for it, I would get what was coming to me, I would be an accident waiting to happen. I couldn't afford to be alone in the attic with Alex Thomas again, nor could I confide in Laura the reason why. It would be too hurtful to her: she would never be able to understand it. (There was another possibility - he might have been doing a similar kind of thing with Laura. But no, I couldn't believe that. She never would have allowed it. Would she?)

  "We have to get him out of town," I said to Laura. "We can't keep this up. They're sure to notice."

  "Not yet," said Laura. "They're still watching the train tracks." She was in a position to know this, as she was still doing her work with the church soup kitchen.

  "Well, somewhere else in town then," I said.

  "Where? There isn't anywhere else. And this is the best place - this is the one place they'd never think to look."

  Alex Thomas said he didn't want to get snowed in. He said a winter in the attic would drive him buggy. He said he was going stir-crazy. He said he would walk a couple of miles down the tracks, and hop a freight - there was a high bank there that made it easier. He said that if only he could get as far as Toronto, he could hide out - he had friends there, and they had friends. Then he'd get across to the States, one way or another, where he'd be safer. From what he'd read in the papers, the authorities suspected he might be there already. They certainly weren't still looking for him in Port Ticonderoga.

  By the first week in January, we decided it was safe enough for him to leave. We filched an old coat of Father's from the back corner of the cloak room for him, and packed him a lunch - bread and cheese, an apple - and sent him away on his travels. (Father later missed the coat and Laura said she'd given it to a tramp, which was a partial truth. As this act was entirely in character for her it wasn't questioned, only grumbled about.)

  On the night of his departure we let Alex out the back door. He said he owed a lot to us; he said he wouldn't forget it. He gave each of us a hug, a brotherly hug of equal duration for each. It was obvious he wanted to be quit of us. Apart from the fact that it was night, it was oddly as if he were going off to school. Afterwards we cried, like mothers. It was also the relief - that he'd gone away, that he was off our hands - but that is like mothers too.

  He left behind one of the cheap exercise books we'd given him. Of course we opened it immediately to see if he'd written anything in it. What were we hoping for? A farewell note, expressing undying gratitude? Kind sentiments about ourselves? Something of that sort.

  This is what we found:

  "Precious stones?" said Laura.

  "No. They don't sound right," I said.

  "Is it a foreign language?"

  I didn't know. I thought this list looked suspiciously like a code. Perhaps Alex Thomas was (after all) what other people accused him of being: a spy of some kind.

  "I think we should get rid of this," I said.

  "I will," said Laura quickly. "I'll burn it in my fireplace." She folded it up, and slid it into her pocket.

  A week after Alex Thomas's departure, Laura came to my room. "I think you should have this," she said. It was a print of the photograph of the three of us, the one Elwood Murray had taken at the picnic. But she'd cut herself out of it - only her hand remained. She couldn't have got rid of this hand without making a wobbly margin. She hadn't coloured this picture at all, except for her own cut-off hand. This had been tinted a very pale yellow.

  "For goodness' sake, Laura!" I said. "Where did you get this?"

  "I made some prints," she said. "When I was working at Elwood Murray's. I've got the negative too."

  I didn't know whether to be angry or alarmed. Cutting up the picture like that was a very strange thing to have done. The sight of Laura's light-yellow hand, creeping towards Alex across the grass like an incandescent crab, gave me a chill down the back of my spine. "Why on earth did you do that?"

  "Because that's what you want to remember," she said. This was so audacious that I gasped. She gave me a direct look, which in anyone else would have been a challenge. But this was Laura: her tone was neither sulky nor jealous. As far as she was concerned she was simply stating a fact.

  "It's all right," she said. "I have another one, for me."

  "And I'm not in yours?"

  "No," she said. "You're not. None of you but your hand." This was the closest she ever came, in my hearing, to a confession of love for Alex Thomas. Except for the day before her death, that is. Not that she used the word love, even then.

  I ought to have thrown this mutilated picture away, but I didn't.

  Things settled back into their accustomed, monot
onous order. By unspoken consent, Laura and I did not mention Alex Thomas between us any more. There was too much that could not be said, on either side. At first I used to go up to the attic - a faint odour of smoke was still detectable there - but I stopped doing that after a while, as it served no good purpose.

  We busied ourselves with daily life again, insofar as that was possible. There was a little more money now, because Father would get the insurance after all, for the burned factory building. It wasn't enough, but we had been given - he said - a breathing space.

  The Imperial Room

  The season is turning on its hinges, the earth swings farther from the light; under the roadside bushes the paper trash of summer drifts like an omen of snow. The air is drying out, preparing us for the coming Sahara of centrally heated winter. Already the ends of my thumbs are fissuring, my face withering further. If I could see my skin in the mirror - if I could only get close enough, or far enough away - it would be crisscrossed by tiny lines, in between the main wrinkles, like scrimshaw.

  Last night I dreamt that my legs were covered with hair. Not a little hair but a great deal of it - dark hair sprouting in tufts and tendrils as I watched, spreading up over my thighs like the pelt of an animal. The winter was coming, I dreamed, and so I would hibernate. First I would grow fur, then crawl into a cave, then go to sleep. It all seemed normal, as if I'd done it before. Then I remembered, even in the dream, that I'd never been a hairy woman in that way and was now bald as a newt, or at least my legs were; so although they appeared to be attached to my body, these hairy legs couldn't possibly be mine. Also they had no feeling in them. They were the legs of something else, or someone. All I had to do was follow the legs, run my hand along them, to find out who or what it was.

  The alarm of this woke me, or so I believed. I dreamt that Richard was back. I could hear him breathing in the bed beside me. Yet there was nobody there.

  I woke up then in reality. My legs were asleep: I'd been lying twisted. I fumbled for the bedside lamp, decoded my watch: it was two in the morning. My heart was hammering painfully, as if I'd been running. It's true, what they used to say, I thought. A nightmare can kill you.