The Blind Assassin

  Mathematics had a long column of numbers, with words opposite some of them. It took me a few minutes to realize what kinds of numbers they were. They were dates. The first date coincided with my return from Europe, the last was three months or so before Laura's departure for BellaVista. The words were these:

  Avilion, no. No. No. Sunnyside. No. Xanadu, no. No. Queen Mary, no no. New York, no. Avilion. No at first.

  Water Nixie, X. "Besotted."

  Toronto again. X.

  X. X. X. X.

  O.

  That was the whole story. Everything was known. It had been there all along, right before my very eyes. How could I have been so blind?

  Not Alex Thomas, then. Not ever Alex. Alex belonged, for Laura, in another dimension of space.

  Victory comes and goes

  After looking through Laura's notebooks, I put them back into my stocking drawer. Everything was known, but nothing could be proven. That much was clear.

  But there's always more than one way to skin a cat, as Reenie used to say. If you can't go through, go around.

  I waited until after the funeral, and then I waited another week. I didn't want to act too precipitously. Better to be safe than sorry, Reenie also used to say. A questionable axiom: so often it's both.

  Richard went off on a trip to Ottawa, an important trip to Ottawa. Men in high places might pop the question, he hinted; or if not now, then soon. I told him, and Winifred as well, that I would take this opportunity to go to Port Ticonderoga with Laura's ashes in their silver-coloured box. I needed to sprinkle these ashes, I said, and to see to the inscription on the monumental Chase family cube. All right and proper.

  "Don't blame yourself," said Winifred, hoping I'd do just that - if I blamed myself enough, I wouldn't get around to blaming anyone else. "Some things don't bear dwelling on." We dwell on them anyway, though. We can't help ourselves.

  Having seen Richard off on his travels, I gave the help a free evening. I would hold down the fort, I said. I'd been doing more of this lately - I liked being alone in the house, with just Aimee, when she was asleep - so even Mrs. Murgatroyd was not suspicious. When the coast was clear I acted quickly. I'd already done some preliminary, surreptitious packing - my jewel box, my photographs, Perennials for the Rock Garden - and now I did the rest. My clothes, though by no means all of them; some things for Aimee, though by no means all of those either. I got what I could into the steamer trunk, the same one that had once held my trousseau, and into the matching suitcase. The men from the railway arrived to collect the luggage, as I'd arranged. Then, the next day, it was easy for me to go off to Union Station in a taxi with Aimee, each of us with only an overnight case, and none the wiser.

  I left a letter for Richard. I said that in view of what he'd done - what I now knew he'd done - I never wanted to see him again. In consideration of his political ambitions I would not request a divorce, although I had ample proof of his scurrilous behaviour in the form of Laura's notebooks, which - I said untruthfully - were locked away in a safe-deposit box. If he had any ideas about getting his filthy hands on Aimee, I added, he should discard them, because I would then create a very, very large scandal, as I would also do should he fail to meet my financial requests. These were not large: all I wanted was enough money to buy a small house in Port Ticonderoga, and to assure maintenance for Aimee. My own needs I could supply in other ways.

  I signed this letter Yours sincerely, and, while licking the envelope flap, wondered whether I'd spelled scurrilous correctly.

  Several days before leaving Toronto, I'd sought out Callista Fitzsimmons. She'd given up sculpture, and was now a mural painter. I found her at an insurance company - the head office - where she'd landed a commission. Women's contributions to the war effort, was the theme - outdated, now that the war was over (and, though neither of us knew it yet, soon to be painted over in a reassuringly bland shade of taupe).

  They'd given her the length of one wall. Three women factory workers, in overalls and brave smiles, turning out the bombs; a girl driving an ambulance; two farm helpers with hoes and a basket of tomatoes; a woman in uniform, wielding a typewriter; down in the corner, shoved to one side, a mother in an apron removing a loaf of bread from the oven, with two approving children looking on.

  Callie was surprised to see me. I hadn't given her any warning of my visit: I had no wish to be evaded. She was supervising the painters, with her hair up in a bandanna, wearing khaki slacks and tennis shoes, and striding around with her hands in her pockets and a cigarette stuck to her lower lip.

  She'd heard of Laura's death, she'd read about it in the papers - such a lovely girl, so unusual as a child, such a shame. After these preliminaries, I explained what Laura had told me, and asked if it were true.

  Callie was indignant. She used the word bullshit, quite a lot. True, Richard had been helpful to her when she'd been nabbed by the Red Squad for agitating, but she'd thought that was just old-times'-sake family stuff on his part. She denied she'd ever told Richard anything, about Alex or any other pinko or fellow-traveller. What bullshit! These were her friends! As for Alex, yes, she'd helped him out at first, when he'd been in such a jam, but then he'd disappeared, owing her some money as a matter of fact, and next thing she'd heard he was in Spain. How could she have snitched about where he was when she didn't even know it herself?

  Nothing gained. Perhaps Richard had lied about this to Laura, as he had lied to me about much else. On the other hand, perhaps it was Callie who was lying. But then, what else had I expected her to say?

  Aimee didn't like it in Port Ticonderoga. She wanted her father. She wanted what was familiar to her, as children do. She wanted her own room back. Oh, don't we all.

  I explained that we had to stay here for a little while. I shouldn't say explained, because no explanation was involved. What could I have said that would have made any sense at all, to a child of eight?

  Port Ticonderoga was different now; the war had made inroads. Several of the factories had been reopened, during the conflict - women in overalls had turned out fuses - but now they were closing again. Perhaps they'd be converted to peacetime production, once it was determined what exactly the returning servicemen would want to buy, for the homes and families they would now doubtless acquire. Meanwhile there were many out of work, and it was wait and see.

  There were vacancies. Elwood Murray was no longer running the newspaper: he was soon to be a new, shiny name on the War Memorial, having joined the navy and got himself blown up. Interesting, which of the town's men were said to have been killed and which were said to have got themselves killed, as if it was a piece of clumsiness or even a deliberate though somewhat minor act - almost a purchase, like getting yourself a haircut. Bought the biscuit was a recent local term for this, used as a rule by men. You had to wonder whose baking they had in mind.

  Reenie's husband Ron Hincks was not classed among these casual shoppers for death. He was solemnly said to have been killed in Sicily, along with a bunch of other fellows from Port Ticonderoga who'd joined the Royal Canadian Regiment. Reenie had the pension, but not much else, and she was letting out a room in her tiny house; also she was still working at Betty's Luncheonette, although she said her back was killing her.

  It wasn't her back that was killing her, as I would soon discover. It was her kidneys, and they finished the job six months after I moved back. If you're reading this, Myra, I would like you to know what a severe blow this was. I'd been counting on her to be there - hadn't she always been? - and now, all of a sudden, she wasn't.

  And then increasingly she was, for whose voice did I hear when I wanted a running commentary?

  I went to Avilion, of course. It was a difficult visit. The grounds were derelict, the gardens overgrown; the conservatory was a wreck, with broken panes of glass and desiccated plants, still in their pots. Well, there'd been some of those, even in our time. The guardian sphinxes had several inscriptions of the John Loves Mary variety on them; one had been overturned. The
pond of the stone nymph was choked with dead grass and weeds. The nymph herself was still standing, though missing some fingers. Her smile was the same, though: remote, secret, unconcerned.

  I didn't have to break into the house itself: Reenie was still alive then, she still had her clandestine key. The house was in a sad state: dust and mouse doings everywhere, stains on the now-dull parquet floors where something had leaked. Tristan and Iseult were still there, presiding over the empty dining room, though Iseult had suffered an injury to her harp, and a barn swallow or two had built over the middle window. No vandalism inside the place, however: the wind of the Chase name blew round the house, however faintly, and there must have been a fading aura of power and money lingering in the air.

  I walked all over the house. The smell of mildew was pervasive. I looked through the library, where Medusa's head still held sway over the fireplace. Grandmother Adelia too was still in place, though she'd begun to sag: her face now wore an expression of repressed but joyful cunning. I bet you were alleycatting around, after all, I thought at her. I bet you had a secret life. I bet it kept you going.

  I poked around among the books, I opened the desk drawers. In one of them there was a box of sample buttons from the days of Grandfather Benjamin: the circles of white bone that had turned to gold in his hands, and that had stayed gold for so many years, but had now turned back into bone again.

  In the attic I found the nest Laura must have made for herself up there, after she'd left BellaVista: the quilts from the storage trunks, the blankets from her bed downstairs - a dead giveaway if anyone had been searching the house for her. There were a few dried orange peels, an apple core. As usual she hadn't thought to tidy anything away. Hidden in the wainscot cupboard was the bag of odds and ends she'd stashed there, that summer of the Water Nixie: the silver teapot, the china cups and saucers, the monogrammed spoons. The nutcracker shaped like an alligator, a lone mother-of pearl cuff link, the broken lighter, the cruet stand minus the vinegar.

  I'd come back later, I told myself, and get more.

  Richard did not appear in person, which was a sign (to me) of his guilt. Instead, he sent Winifred. "Are you out of your mind?" was her opening salvo. (This, in a booth at Betty's Luncheonette: I didn't want her in my little rented house, I didn't want her anywhere near Aimee.)

  "No," I said, "and neither was Laura. Or not so far out of it as you both pretended. I know what Richard did."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," said Winifred. She had on a mink stole composed of lustrous tails, and was extricating herself from her gloves.

  "I suppose when he married me he figured he'd got a bargain - two for the price of one. He picked us up for a song."

  "Don't be ridiculous," said Winifred, though she looked shaken. "Richard's hands are absolutely clean, whatever Laura said. He is pure as the driven. You've made a serious error in judgment. He wants me to say he's prepared to overlook this - this aberration of yours. If you'll come back, he's fully willing to forgive and forget."

  "But I'm not," I said. "He may be pure as the driven, but it's not the driven snow. It's another substance entirely."

  "Keep your voice down," she hissed. "People are looking."

  "They'll look anyway," I said, "with you dressed up like Lady Astor's horse. You know, that colour of green doesn't suit you one bit, especially at your present age. It never has, really. It makes you look bilious."

  This hit home. Winifred was finding it hard going: she wasn't used to this new, viperish aspect of me. "What do you want, exactly?" she said. "Not that Richard did anything at all. But he doesn't want an uproar."

  "I told him, exactly," I said. "I spelled it out. And now I'd like the cheque."

  "He wants to see Aimee."

  "There is no way in Hell," I said, "that I will permit such a thing. He has a yen for young girls. You knew that, you've always known it. Even at eighteen I was pushing the upper limit. Having Laura in the same house was just too much temptation for him, I see that now. He couldn't keep his hands off her. But he's not getting his mitts on Aimee."

  "Don't be disgusting," Winifred said. She was very angry by now: she'd gone blotchy under her makeup. "Aimee is his own daughter."

  I was on the verge of saying, "No, she's not," but I knew that would be a tactical mistake. Legally, she was his daughter; I had no way of proving otherwise, they hadn't invented all those genes and so forth, not yet. If Richard knew the truth, he'd be even more eager to snatch Aimee away from me. He'd hold her hostage, and I'd lose all the advantage I'd gained so far. It was a game of nasty chess. "He'd stop at nothing," I said, "not even at Aimee. Then he'd pack her off to some under-the-counter abortion farm, the way he did with Laura."

  "I can see there's no point in continuing this discussion further," said Winifred, gathering up her gloves and her stole and her reptilian purse.

  After the war, things changed. They changed the way we looked. After a time the grainy muted greys and half-tones were gone. Instead there was the full glare of noon - gaudy, primary, shadowless. Hot pinks, violent blues, red and white beach balls, the fluorescent green of plastic, the sun blazing down like a spotlight.

  Around the outskirts of towns and cities, bulldozers rampaged and trees were toppled; great holes were scooped in the ground as if bombs had been dropped there. The streets were gravel and mud. Lawns of bare earth appeared, with spindly saplings planted on them: weeping birches were popular. There was far too much sky.

  There was meat, great hunks and slabs and chunks of it glistening in the butchers' windows. There were oranges and lemons bright as a sunrise, and mounds of sugar and mountains of yellow butter. Everyone ate and ate. They stuffed themselves full of technicolour meat and all the technicolour food they could get, as if there was no tomorrow.

  But there was a tomorrow, there was nothing but a tomorrow. It was yesterday that had vanished.

  I had enough money now, from Richard and also from Laura's estate. I'd bought my little house. Aimee was still resentful of me for having dragged her away from her former and considerably more affluent life, but she appeared to have settled down, though once in a while I'd catch a cold look from her: she was already deciding that I was unsatisfactory as a mother. Richard on the other hand had reaped the benefits of long distance, and had much more of a gleam to him, in her eyes, now that he was no longer present. However, the flow of gifts from him had slowed to a trickle, so she didn't have many options. I'm afraid I expected her to be more stoical than she was.

  Meanwhile, Richard was readying himself for the mantle of command, which was - according to the newspapers - as good as within his grasp. True, I was an impediment, but rumours of a separation had been squashed. I was said to be "in the country," and that was marginally all right, as long as I was prepared to stay there.

  Unbeknownst to myself, other rumours had been floated: that I was mentally unstable; that Richard was maintaining me financially, despite my wackiness; that Richard was a saint. No harm in a mad wife, if properly handled: it does make the spouses of the powerful so much more sympathetic to one's cause.

  In Port Ticonderoga I lived quietly enough. Whenever I went out, I moved through a sea of respectful whispers, the voices hushing when I came within earshot, then starting up again. It was agreed that whatever had happened with Richard, I must be the wronged party. I'd got the short end of the straw, but as there was no justice and precious little mercy, nothing could be done for me. This was before the book appeared, of course.

  Time passed. I gardened, I read, and so on. I had already begun - in a modest way, and beginning with a few pieces of animal jewellery from Richard - the trade in second-hand artifacts that, as it turned out, would stand me in good stead in the coming decades. A semblance of normality had been installed.

  But unshed tears can turn you rancid. So can memory. So can biting your tongue. My bad nights were beginning. I couldn't sleep.

  Officially, Laura had been papered over. A few years more and it would be almo
st as if she'd never existed. I shouldn't have taken a vow of silence, I told myself. What did I want? Nothing much. Just a memorial of some kind. But what is a memorial, when you come right down to it, but a commemoration of wounds endured? Endured, and resented. Without memory, there can be no revenge.

  Lest we forget. Remember me. To you from failing hands we throw. Cries of the thirsty ghosts.

  Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.

  The heap of rubble

  I sent the book off. In due time, I received a letter back. I answered it. Events took their course.

  The author's copies arrived, in advance of publication. On the inside jacket flap was a touching biographical note:

  Laura Chase wrote The Blind Assassin before the age of twenty-five. It was her first novel; sadly, it will also be her last, as she died in a tragic automobile accident in 1945. We are proud to present the work of this young and gifted writer in its first astonishing flowering.

  Above this was Laura's photo, a bad reproduction: it made her look flyspecked. Nevertheless, it was something.

  When the book came out, there was at first a silence. It was quite a small book, after all, and hardly best-seller material; and although well received in critical circles in New York and London, it didn't make much of a splash up here, not initially. Then the moralists grabbed hold of it, and the pulpit-thumpers and local biddies got into the act, and the uproar began. Once the corpse flies had made the connection - Laura was Richard Griffen's dead sister-in-law - they were all over the story like a rash. Richard had, by that time, his store of political enemies. Innuendo began to flow.

  The story that Laura had committed suicide, so efficiently quashed at the time, rose to the surface again. People were talking, not just in Port Ticonderoga but in the circles that mattered. If she'd done it, why? Someone made an anonymous phone call - now who could that have been? - and the BellaVista Clinic entered the picture. Testimony by a former employee (well paid, it was said, by one of the newspapers) led to a full investigation of the seedier practices carried on there, as a result of which the backyard was dug up and the whole place was closed down. I studied the pictures of it with interest: it had been the mansion of one of the lumber barons before it became a clinic, and was said to have some rather fine stained-glass windows in the dining room, though not so fine as Avilion's.