The Blind Assassin

The Blind Assassin:

Yellow curtains

How did the war creep up? How did it gather itself together? What was it made from? What secrets, lies, betrayals? What loves and hatreds? What sums of money, what metals?

Hope throws a smokescreen. Smoke gets in your eyes and so no one is prepared for it, but suddenly it’s there, like an out-of-control bonfire—like murder, only multiplied. It’s in full spate.

The war takes place in black and white. For those on the sidelines that is. For those who are actually in it there are many colours, excessive colours, too bright, too red and orange, too liquid and incandescent, but for the others the war is like a newsreel—grainy, smeared, with bursts of staccato noise and large numbers of grey-ski

She goes to the newsreels, in the movie theatres. She reads the papers. She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy.

She’s made up her mind. She’s determined now, she’ll sacrifice everything and everyone. Nothing and nobody will stand in her way.

This is what she’ll do. She has it all pla

It won’t be enough money but it will have to be enough. She’ll rent a room, an inexpensive room but not too dingy—nothing a coat of paint won’t brighten up. She’ll write a letter saying she isn’t coming back. They’ll send emissaries, ambassadors, then lawyers, they’ll threaten, they’ll penalize, she’ll be afraid all the time but she’ll hold firm. She’ll burn all her bridges except the bridge to him, even though the bridge to him is so tenuous. I’ll be back, he said, but how could he be sure? You can’t guarantee such a thing.

She’ll live on apples and soda crackers, on cups of tea and glasses of milk. Cans of baked beans and corned beef. Also on fried eggs when available, and slices of toast, which she’ll eat at the corner café where the newsboys and early drunks also eat. Veterans will eat there too, more and more of them as the months go past: men missing hands, arms, legs, ears, eyes. She’ll wish to talk with them, but she won’t because any interest from her would be sure to be misunderstood. Her body as usual would get in the way of free speech. Therefore she will only eavesdrop.

In the café the talk will be about the end of the war, which everyone says is coming. It will only be a matter of time, they’ll say, before it’ll all be mopped up and the boys will be back. The men who say this will be strangers to one another, but they’ll exchange such comments anyway, because the prospect of victory will make them talkative. There will be a different feeling in the air, part optimism, part fear. Any day now the ship will come in, but who can tell what might be on it?

Her apartment will be above a grocery store, with a kitchenette and a small bathroom. She will buy a house plant—a begonia, or else a fern. She will remember to water this plant and it will not die. The woman ru

Both of them—she and this woman—will spend a lot of time listening: for footsteps, a telephone call, a knock on the door. It’s hard to sleep under these circumstances: they’ll discuss remedies for sleeplessness. Occasionally the woman will press an apple into her hand, or an acid-green candy from the glass container of them on the counter. Such gifts will be more comforting to her than their low price would suggest.

How will he know where to reclaim her? Now that her bridges have been burned. He’ll know, however. He’ll find out somehow, because journeys end in lovers meeting. They should. They must.

She’ll sew curtains for the windows, yellow curtains, the colour of canaries or the yolks of eggs. Cheerful curtains, like sunshine. Never mind that she doesn’t know how to sew, because the woman downstairs will help her. She’ll starch the curtains and hang them up. She’ll get down on her knees with a whisk and clean out the mouse droppings and dead flies under the kitchen sink. She’ll repaint a set of canisters she’ll find in a junk store, and stencil on them: Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Flour. She will hum to herself while doing this. She’ll buy a new towel, a whole set of new towels. Also sheets, these are important, and pillowcases. She’ll brush her hair a lot.

These are the joyful things she will do, while waiting for him.

She’ll buy a radio, a small ti

None of this happens, of course. Or it does happen, but not so you would notice. It happens in another dimension of space.

The Blind Assassin:

The telegram

The telegram is delivered in the usual way, by a man in a dark uniform whose face brings no glad tidings. When they’re hired for the job they teach them that expression, remote but doleful, like a dark blank bell. The closed coffin look.

The telegram comes in a yellow envelope with a glassine window, and it says the same thing telegrams like that always say—the words distant, like the words of a stranger, an intruder, standing at the far end of a long empty room. There aren’t many words, but every word is distinct: inform, loss, regret. Careful, neutral words, with a hidden question behind them: What did you expect?

What’s this about? Who is this? she says. Oh. I remember. It’s him. That man. But why did they send it to me? I’m scarcely the next of kin!

Kin? says one of them. Did he have any? It’s meant to be a witticism.

She laughs. It’s nothing to do with me. She crumples up the telegram, which she assumes they’ve read on the sly before passing it on to her. They read all of the mail; that goes without saying. She sits down, a little too abruptly. I’m sorry, she says. I feel quite strange all of a sudden.

Here you go. This’ll buck you up. Drink it down, that’s the ticket.

Thank you. It’s nothing to do with me, but still it’s a shock. It’s like someone walking on your grave. She shivers.

Easy does it. You look a little green. Don’t take it personally.

Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps they got the addresses mixed.

Could have done. Or perhaps it was his own doing. Perhaps it was his idea of a joke. He was an odd duck, as I recall.

Odder than we thought. What a filthy rotten thing to do! If he was alive you could sue him for mischief.

Perhaps he was trying to make you feel guilty. That’s what they do, his kind. Envious, all of them. Dog in the manger. Don’t let it worry you.

Well, it’s not a very nice thing, no matter how you look at it.