"Really, Laura, I have no idea," I said. "It's just a poem. You can't always tell what poems mean. Maybe they think he's crazy."
"It's because he's too happy," said Laura. "He's drunk the milk of Paradise. It frightens people when you're too happy, in that way. Isn't that why?"
"Laura, don't keep at me," I said. "I don't know everything, I'm not a professor."
Laura was sitting on the floor, in her school kilt. She sucked on her knuckle, staring up at me, disappointed. I was disappointing her frequently of late. "I saw Alex Thomas the other day," she said.
I turned away quickly, adjusted my veil in the mirror. It was a fairly poor effect, the green satin: some Hollywood vamp in a desert movie. I comforted myself with the thought that everyone else would look equally faux. "Alex Thomas? Really?" I said. I should have displayed more surprise.
"Well, aren't you glad?"
"Glad about what?"
"Glad he's alive," she said. "Glad they haven't caught him."
"Of course I'm glad," I said. "But don't say anything to anyone. You wouldn't want them to track him down."
"You don't need to tell me that. I'm not a baby. That's why I didn't wave at him."
"Did he see you?" I said.
"No. He was just walking along the street. He had his coat collar up and his scarf over his chin, but I knew it was him. He had his hands in his pockets."
At the mention of hands, of pockets, a sharp pang went through me. "What street was this?"
"Our street," she said. "He was on the other side, looking at the houses. I think he was looking for us. He must know we live around here."
"Laura," I said, "have you still got a crush on Alex Thomas? Because if you do, you should try to get over it."
"I don't have a crush on him," she said with scorn. "I never had a crush. Crush is a horrible word. It really stinks." She'd become less pious since going to school, and her language had become a good deal stronger. Stinks was in the ascendant.
"Whatever you want to call it, you should give it up. It's just not possible," I said gently. "It will only make you unhappy."
Laura put her arms around her knees. "Unhappy," she said. "What on earth do you know about unhappy?"
VIII
The Blind Assassin: Carnivore stories
He's moved again, which is just as well. She hated that place out by the Junction. She didn't like going there, and in any case it was so far, and so cold then: every time she got to it her teeth were chattering. She hated the narrow cheerless room, the stink of old cigarettes because you couldn't open the stuck window, the sordid little shower in the corner, that woman she'd meet on the stairs - a woman like a downtrodden peasant in some musty old novel, you kept expecting to see her with a bundle of sticks on her back. The sullen insolent stare she'd give, as if picturing exactly what would go on behind his door once it was closed. A stare of envy, but also of spite.
Good riddance to all of that.
Now the snow has melted, though a few grey smudges of it remain in the shadows. The sun is warm, there's the smell of damp earth and stirring roots and the sodden vestiges of last winter's discarded newspapers, blurred and illegible. In the better sections of the city the daffodils are out, and, in a few front gardens where there's no shade, there are tulips, red and orange. A note of promise, as the gardening column says; though even now, in late April, it snowed the other day - big white sloppy flakes, a freakish blizzard.
She's hidden her hair under a kerchief, worn a navy blue coat, the closest she could get to sombre. He said it would be best. In the nooks and corners down here, tomcat scents and vomit, the reek of crated chickens. Horse dung on the road, from the mounted policemen who keep an eye out, not for thieves but for agitators - nests of foreign Reds, whispering together like rats in straw, six to a bed no doubt, sharing their women, incubating their warped, intricate plots. Emma Goldman, exiled from the States, is said to live somewhere nearby.
Blood on the sidewalk, a man with a bucket and brush. She steps fastidiously around the wet pink puddle. It's a region of kosher butchers; also of tailors, of wholesale furriers. And sweatshops, no doubt. Rows of immigrant women hunched over machines, their lungs filling with lint.
The clothes on your back come off somebody else's, he'd said to her once. Yes, she'd replied lightly, but I look better in them. Then added with some anger, What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? Do you seriously think I have any power?
She stops at a greengrocer's, buys three apples. Not very good apples, last season's, their skins softly wrinkling, but she feels she needs a peace offering of some kind. The woman takes one of the apples away from her, points out a punky brown spot, substitutes a better apple. All this without speaking. Meaningful nods and gap-toothed smiles.
Men in long black coats, wide black hats, small quick-eyed women. Shawls, long skirts. Broken verbs. They don't look directly at you but they don't miss much. She's conspicuous, a giantess. Her legs right out in the open.
Here's the button store, just where he said. She stops a moment to look in the window. Fancy buttons, satin ribbons, braid, rickrack, sequins - raw material for the dreamland adjectives of fashion copy. Someone's fingers, right around here, must have sewn the ermine trim on her white chiffon evening cape. The contrast of fragile veil and rank animal pelt, that's what appeals to the gentlemen. Delicate flesh, then the shrubbery.
His new room is above a baker's. Around to the side, up the stairs, in a haze of a smell she likes. But dense, overpowering - yeast fermenting, going straight to her head like warm helium. She hasn't seen him for too long. Why has she kept away?
He's there, he opens the door.
I brought you some apples, she says.
After a while the objects of this world take shape around her once more. There's his typewriter, precarious on the tiny washstand. The blue suitcase is beside it, topped with the displaced washbasin. Shirt crumpled on the floor. Why is it that tumbled cloth always signifies desire? With its wrenched, impetuous forms. The flames in paintings look like that - like orange fabric, hurled and flung.
They lie in the bed, an enormous carved mahogany structure that almost fills the room. Wedding furniture once, from far away, meant to last a lifetime. Lifetime, what a stupid word it seems right now; durability, how useless. She cuts an apple up with his pocket knife, feeds him segments.
If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to seduce me.
No - I'm just keeping you alive. I'm fattening you up to eat later.
That's a perverse thought, young lady.
Yes. It's yours. Don't tell me you've forgotten the dead women with azure hair and eyes like snake-filled pits? They'd have you for breakfast.
Only if permitted. He reaches for her again. Where have you been keeping yourself? It's been weeks.
Yes. Wait. I need to tell you something.
Is it urgent? he says.
Yes. Not really. No.
The sun declines, the shadows of the curtains move across the bed. Voices on the street outside, unknown languages. I will always remember this, she tells herself. Then: Why am I thinking about memory? It's not then yet, it's now. It's not over.
I've thought out the story, she says. I've thought out the next part of it.
Oh? You've got your own ideas?
I've always had my own ideas.
Okay. Let's hear them, he says, grinning.
All right, she says. The last we knew, the girl and the blind man were being taken off to see the Servant of Rejoicing, leader of the barbarian invaders called the People of Desolation, because the two of them were suspected of being divine messengers. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You really pay attention to this stuff? he says wonderingly. You really remember it?
Of course I do. I remember every word you say. They arrive at the barbarian camp, and the blind assassin tells the Servant of Rejoicing he has a message for him from the Invincible One, only it must be delivered in private, with just the girl there. Tha
t's because he doesn't want to let her out of his sight.
He can't see. He's blind, remember?
You know what I mean. So the Servant of Rejoicing says that's fine.
He wouldn't just say That's fine. He'd make a speech.
I can't do those parts. The three of them go into a tent apart from the others, and the assassin says here's the plan. He will tell them how to get into the city of Sakiel-Norn without any siege or loss of life, I mean their lives. They should send a couple of men, he'll give them the password for the gate - he knows the passwords, remember - and once they're inside, these men should go to the canal and float a rope down it, under the archway. They should tie their end of it to something or other - a stone pillar or something - and then at night a group of soldiers can pull themselves into the city hand over hand by the rope, underwater, and overpower the guard, and open all eight of the gates, and then bingo.
Bingo? he says, laughing. That's not a very Zycronian word.
Well, Bob's your uncle then. After that, they can kill everyone to their heart's content, if that's what they want to do.
A smart trick, he said. Very crafty.
Yes, she said, it's in Herodotus, or something like that is. The fall of Babylon, I think it was.
You've got a surprising amount of bric-a-brac in your head, he says. But I suppose there's a tradeoff? Our two young folks can't go on posing as divine messengers. It's too risky. Sooner or later they'd make a slip, they'd fail, and then they'd be killed. They have to get away.
Yes. I've thought of that. Before the password and the directions are handed over, the blind man says that the two of them must be taken to the foothills of the western mountains, with ample food supplies and so on. He'll say they have to make a sort of pilgrimage there - go up a mountain, get more divine instructions. Only then will he hand over the goods, by which he means the password. That way, if the barbarian attack fails, the two of them will be somewhere none of the citizens of Sakiel-Norn will ever think to follow them.
But they'll be killed by the wolves, he says. And if not by them, by the dead women with curvaceous figures and ruby-red lips. Or she'll be killed, and he'll be forced to fulfill their unnatural desires till the cows come home, poor fellow.
No, she says. That's not what will happen.
Oh no? Says who?
Don't say oh no. Says me. Listen - it's this way. The blind assassin hears all rumours, and so he knows the real truth about those women. They aren't actually dead at all. They just put those stories around so they'll be left in peace. Really they're escaped slaves, and other women who've run away to avoid being sold by their husbands or fathers. They aren't all women either - some are men, but they're kind and friendly men. All of them live in caves and herd sheep, and have their own vegetable gardens. They take turns lurking around the tombs and frightening travellers - howling at them, and so forth - in order to keep up appearances.
In addition to that, the wolves aren't really wolves, they're just sheepdogs who've been trained to impersonate wolves. Really they're very tame, and very loyal.
So these people will take the two fugitives in, and once they've heard their sad story they'll be really nice to them. Then the blind assassin and the girl with no tongue can live in one of the caves, and sooner or later they'll have children who can see and speak, and they'll be very happy.
Meanwhile, all their fellow-citizens are being slaughtered? he says, grinning. You're endorsing treachery to one's country? You've traded the general social good for private contentment?
Well, those were the people that were going to kill them. Their fellow citizens.
Only a few had those intentions - the elite, the top cards in the deck. You'd condemn the rest along with them? You'd have our twosome betray their own people? That's pretty selfish of you.
It's history, she says. It's in The Conquest of Mexico - what's his name, Cortez - his Aztec mistress, that's what she did. It's in the Bible too. The harlot Rahab did the same thing, at the fall of Jericho. She helped Joshua's men, and she and her family were spared.
Point taken, he says. But you've broken the rules. You can't just change the undead women into a bunch of folkloric pastoralists at whim.
You never actually put these women into the story, she says. Not directly. You only told rumours about them. Rumours can be false.
He laughs. True enough. Now here's my version. In the camp of the People of Joy, everything happens as you've said, although with better speeches. Our two young folks are taken to the foothills of the western mountains and left there among the tombs, and then the barbarians proceed to enter the city as per instructions, and they loot and destroy, and massacre the inhabitants. Not one escapes alive. The King is hanged from a tree, the High Priestess is disembowelled, the plotting courtier perishes along with the rest. The innocent slave children, the guild of blind assassins, the sacrificial girls in the Temple - all die. An entire culture is wiped from the universe. No one is left alive who knows how to weave the marvellous carpets, which you'll have to admit is a shame.
Meanwhile the two young people, hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, through the western mountains take their solitary way. They are secure in the faith that they'll soon be discovered by the benevolent vegetable-gardeners, and taken in. But, as you say, rumours don't have to be true, and the blind assassin has got hold of the wrong rumour. The dead women really are dead. Not only that, the wolves really are wolves, and the dead women can whistle them up at will. Our two romantic leads are wolf meat before you can say Jack Robinson.
You're certainly an incurable optimist, she says.
I'm not incurable. But I like my stories to be true to life, which means there have to be wolves in them. Wolves in one form or another.
Why is that so true to life? She turns away from him onto her back, stares up at the ceiling. She's miffed because her own version has been trumped.
All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.
All of them?
Sure, he says. Think about it. There's escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.
I think they do, she says. I think the story about you telling me the story about wolves isn't about wolves.
Don't bet on it, he says. I have a wolf side to me. Come over here.
Wait. There's something I have to ask you.
Okay, shoot, he says lazily. His eyes are closed again, his hand is across her.
Are you ever unfaithful to me?
Unfaithful. What a quaint word.
Never mind my choice of vocabulary, she says. Are you?
No more than you are to me. He pauses. I don't think of it as unfaithfulness.
What do you think of it as? she asks, in a cold voice.
Absent-mindedness, on your part. You close your eyes and forget where you are.
And on yours?
Let's just say you're first among equals.
You really are a bastard.
I'm only telling the truth, he says.
Well, maybe you shouldn't.
Don't get up on your hind legs, he says. I'm only fooling. I couldn't stand to lay a finger on any other woman. I'd sick up.
There's a pause. She kisses him, draws back. I have to go away, she says carefully. I needed to tell you. I didn't want you to wonder where I was.
Away where? What for?
We're going on the maiden voyage. All of us, the whole entourage. He says we can't miss it. He says it's the event of the century.
The century's only a third finished. And even so, I'd have thought that little spot was reserved for the Great War. Champagne by moonlight can hardly compete with millions dead in the trenches. Or how about the influenza epidemic, or ...
He
means the social event.
Oh, pardon me, ma'am. I stand corrected.
What's the matter? I'll only be gone a month - well, more or less. Depending on the arrangements.
He says nothing.
It's not as if I want to.
No. I don't suppose you do. Too many seven-course meals to eat, and far too much dancing. A gal could get all wore out.
Don't be like that.
Don't tell me how to be! Don't join the chorus line of folks with plans for my improvement. I'm fucking tired of it. I'll be what I am.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I hate it when you grovel. But Jesus you're good at it. I bet you get a lot of practice, on the home front.
Maybe I should leave.
Leave if you feel like it. He rolls over, his back to her. Do whatever you fucking well feel like doing. I'm not your keeper. You don't have to sit up and beg and whine and wag your tail for me.
You don't understand. You don't even try. You don't understand at all what it's like. It's not as if I enjoy it.
Right.
Mayfair, July 1936
IN SEARCH OF AN ADJECTIVE
BY J. HERBERT HODGINS
... No more beautiful ship ever crossed the sea lanes. She has the lithe, streamlined beauty of the greyhound in her outward construction and she is outfitted, in her interior, with a lavishness of detail and a superiority of decor that make her a masterpiece of comfort, efficiency and luxury. The new ship is a Waldorf-Astoria hotel, afloat.
I have searched for the proper adjective. She has been called marvellous, thrilling, magnificent, regal, stately, majestic and superb. All of these words describe her with a certain feeling of accuracy. But each word, in itself, accounts for no more than a single phase of this "greatest achievement in the history of British shipbuilding." The Queen Mary is impossible of description: she must be seen and "felt," and her unique shipboard life participated in.
. . . There was dancing each evening, of course, in the Main Lounge, and here it was difficult to imagine one was at sea. The music, the dance floor, the smartly dressed crowd was typical of a hotel ballroom in any one of a half dozen cities in the world. You saw all of the newest gowns decreed by London and Paris, fresh and crisp from their bandboxes. You saw, too, the latest conceits in accessories: charming little hand bags; billowing evening capes of which there were many smart versions to accent colour schemes; luxurious wraps and capelets in fur. The bouffant gown carried off top honours, whether in taffeta or net. Where the pencil silhouette was favoured, the frock was invariably accompanied by an elaborate tunic of taffeta or printed satin. Chiffon capes were many and varied. But all fell from the shoulders in flowing military fashion. One lovely young woman with a Dresden china face under a coiffure of white hair wore a lilac chiffon cape over a full-flowing grey gown. A tall blonde in a watermelon pink gown wore a white chiffon cape trimmed with ermine tails.