Black ribbons

   Tonight there’s a lurid sunset, taking its time to fade. In the east, lightning flickering over the underslung sky, then sudden thunder, an abrupt door slammed shut. The house is like an oven, despite my new fan. I’ve brought a lamp outside; sometimes I see better in the dimness.
   I’ve written nothing for the past week. I lost the heart for it. Why set down such melancholy events? But I’ve begun again, I notice. I’ve taken up my black scrawl; it unwinds in a long dark thread of ink across the page, tangled but legible. Do I have some notion of leaving a signature, after all? After all I’ve done to avoid it, Iris, her mark, however truncated: initials chalked on the sidewalk, or a pirate’s X on the map, revealing the beach where the treasure was buried.
   Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It’s all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?
   At the very least we want a witness. We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

   The day after Mother’s funeral I was sent with Laura out into the garden. Reenie sent us out; she said she needed to put her feet up because she’d been run off them all day. “I’m at the end of my tether,” she said. She had purply smudges under her eyes, and I guessed she’d been crying, in secret so as not to disturb anyone, and that she would do it some more once we were out of the way.
   “We’ll be quiet,” I said. I didn’t want to go outside—it looked too bright, too glaring, and my eyelids felt swollen and pink—but Reenie said we had to, and anyway the fresh air would do us good. We weren’t told to go out and play, because that would have been disrespectful so soon after Mother’s death. We were just told to go out.
   The funeral reception had been held at Avilion. It was not called a wake—wakes were held on the other side of the Jogues River, and were rowdy and disreputable, with liquor. No: ours was a reception. The funeral had been packed—the factory workmen had come, their wives, their children, and of course the town notables—the bankers, the clergymen, the lawyers, the doctors—but the reception was not for all, although it might as well have been. Reenie said to Mrs. Hillcoate, who’d been hired to help out, that Jesus might have multiplied the loaves and fishes, but Captain Chase was not Jesus and should not be expected to feed the multitudes, although as usual he hadn’t known where to draw the line and she only hoped nobody would be stampeded to death.
   Those invited had crammed themselves into the house, deferential, lugubrious, avid with curiosity. Reenie had counted the spoons both before and after, and said we should have used the second-best ones and that some folks would make off with anything that wasn’t nailed down just to have a souvenir, and considering the way they ate, she might as well have laid out shovels instead of spoons anyway.
   Despite this, there was some food left over—half a ham, a small heap of cookies, various ravaged cakes—and Laura and I had been sneaking into the pantry on the sly. Reenie knew we were doing it, but she didn’t have the energy right then to stop us—to say, “You’ll spoil your supper” or “Stop nibbling in my pantry or you’ll turn into mice” or “Eat one more smidgen and you’ll burst”—or to utter any of the other warnings or predictions in which I’d always taken a secret comfort.
   This one time we’d been allowed to stuff ourselves unchecked. I’d eaten too many cookies, too many slivers of ham; I’d eaten a whole slice of fruitcake. We were still in our black dresses, which were too hot. Reenie had braided our hair tightly and pulled it back, with one stiff black grosgrain ribbon at the top of each braid and one at the bottom: four severe black butterflies for each of us.
   Outside, the sunlight made me squint. I resented the intense greenness of the leaves, the intense yellowness and redness of the flowers: their assurance, the flickering display they were making, as if they had the right. I thought of beheading them, of laying waste. I felt desolate, and also grouchy and bloated. Sugar buzzed in my head.
   Laura wanted us to climb up on the sphinxes beside the conservatory, but I said no. Then she wanted to go and sit beside the stone nymph and watch the goldfish. I couldn’t see much harm in that. Laura skipped ahead of me on the lawn. She was annoyingly light-hearted, as if she didn’t have a care in the world; she’d been that way all through Mother’s funeral. She seemed puzzled by the grief of those around her. What rankled even more was that people seemed to feel sorrier for her because of this than they did for me.
   “Poor lamb,” they said. “She’s too young, she doesn’t realize.”
   “Mother is with God,” Laura said. True, this was the official version, the import of all the prayers that had been offered up; but Laura had a way of believing such things, not in the double way everyone else believed them, but with a tranquil single-mindedness that made me want to shake her.
   We sat on the ledge around the lily pond; each lily pad shone in the sun like wet green rubber. I’d had to boost Laura up. She leaned against the stone nymph, swinging her legs, dabbling her fingers in the water, humming to herself.
   “You shouldn’t sing,” I told her. “Mother’s dead.”
   “No she’s not,” Laura said complacently. “She’s not really dead. She’s in Heaven with the little baby.”
   I pushed her off the ledge. Not into the pond though—I did have some sense. I pushed her onto the grass. It wasn’t a long drop and the ground was soft; she couldn’t have been hurt much. She sprawled on her back, then rolled over and looked up at me wide-eyed, as if she couldn’t believe what I’d just done. Her mouth opened into a perfect rosebud O, like a child blowing out birthday candles in a picture book. Then she began to cry.
   (I have to admit I was gratified by this. I’d wanted her to suffer too—as much as me. I was tired of her getting away with being so young.)
   Laura picked herself up off the grass and ran along the back driveway towards the kitchen, wailing as if she’d been knifed. I ran after her: it would be better to be on the spot when she reached someone in charge, in case she accused me. She had an awkward run: her arms stuck out oddly, her spindly little legs flung themselves out sideways, the stiff bows flopped around at the ends of her braids, her black skirt jounced. She fell once on the way, and this time she really hurt herself—skinned her hand. When I saw this, I was relieved: a little blood would cover up for my malice.

The soda

   Sometime in the month after Mother died—I can’t remember when, exactly—Father said he was going to take me into town. He’d never paid much attention to me, or to Laura either—he’d left us to Mother, and then to Reenie—so I was startled by this proposal.
   He didn’t take Laura. He didn’t even suggest it.
   He announced the upcoming excursion at the breakfast table. He’d begun insisting that Laura and I have breakfast with him, instead of in the kitchen with Reenie, as before. We sat at one end of the long table, he sat at the other. He rarely spoke to us: he read the paper instead, and we were too in awe of him to interrupt. (We worshipped him, of course. It was either that or hate him. He did not invite the more moderate emotions.)
   The sun coming through the stained-glass windows threw coloured lights all over him, as if he’d been dipped in drawing ink. I can still remember the cobalt of his cheek, the lurid cranberry of his fingers. Laura and I had such colours at our disposal as well. We’d shift our porridge dishes a little to the left, a little to the right, so that even our dull grey oatmeal was transformed to green or blue or red or violet: magic food, either charmed or poisoned depending on my whim or Laura’s mood. Then we’d make faces at each other while eating, but silently, silently. The goal was to get away with such behaviour without alerting him. Well, we had to do something to amuse ourselves.

   On that unusual day, Father came back from the factories early and we walked into town. It wasn’t that far; at that time, nothing in the town was very far from anything else. Father preferred walking to driving, or to having himself driven. I suppose it was because of his bad leg: he wanted to show he could. He liked to stride around town, and he did stride, despite his limp. I scuttled along beside him, trying to match his ragged pace.
   “We’ll go to Betty’s,” said my father. “I’ll buy you a soda.” Neither of these things had ever happened before. Betty’s Luncheonette was for the townspeople, not for Laura and me, said Reenie. It wouldn’t do to lower our standards. Also, sodas were a ruinous indulgence and would rot your teeth. That two such forbidden things should be offered at once, and so casually, made me feel almost panicky.
   On the main street of Port Ticonderoga there were five churches and four banks, all made of stone, all chunky. Sometimes you had to read the names on them to tell the difference, although the banks lacked steeples. Betty’s Luncheonette was beside one of the banks. It had an awning of green-and-white stripes, and a picture of a chicken pot pie in the window that looked like an infant’s hat made of pastry dough, with a frill around the edge. Inside, the light was a dim yellow, and the air smelled of vanilla and coffee and melted cheese. The ceiling was made of stamped tin; fans hung down out of it with blades on them like airplane propellers. Several women wearing hats were sitting at small ornate white tables; my father nodded to them, they nodded back.
   There were booths of dark wood along one side. My father sat down in one of them, and I slid in across from him. He asked me what kind of soda I would like, but I wasn’t used to being alone with him in a public place and it made me shy. Also I didn’t know what kinds there were. So he ordered a strawberry soda for me and a cup of coffee for himself.
   The waitress had a black dress and a white cap and eyebrows plucked to thin curves, and a red mouth shiny as jam. She called my father Captain Chase and he called her Agnes. By this, and by the way he leaned his elbows on the table, I realized he must already be familiar with this place.
   Agnes said was this his little girl, and how sweet; she threw me a glance of dislike. She brought him his coffee almost immediately, wobbling a little on her high heels, and when she set it down she touched his hand briefly. (I took note of this touch, though I could not yet interpret it.) Then she brought the soda for me, in a cone-shaped glass like a dunce cap upside down; it came with two straws. The bubbles went up my nose and made my eyes water.
   My father put a sugar cube into his coffee and stirred it, and tapped the spoon on the side of the cup. I studied him over the rim of my soda glass. All of a sudden he looked different; he looked like someone I had never seen before—more tenuous, less solid somehow, but more detailed. I rarely saw him this close up. His hair was combed straight back and cut short at the sides, and was receding from his temples; his good eye was a flat blue, like blue paper. His wrecked, still-handsome face had the same abstracted air it often had in the mornings, at the breakfast table, as if he were listening to a song, or a distant explosion. His moustache was greyer than I’d noticed before, and it seemed odd, now that I considered it, that men had such bristles growing on their faces and women did not. Even his ordinary clothes had turned mysterious in the dim vanilla-scented light, as if they belonged to someone else and he had only borrowed them. They were too big for him, that was it. He had shrunk. But at the same time he was taller.
   He smiled at me, and asked if I was enjoying my soda. After that he was silent and thoughtful. Then he took a cigarette out of the silver case he always carried, and lit it, and blew out smoke. “If anything happens,” he said finally, “you must promise to look after Laura.”
   I nodded solemnly. What was anything? What could happen? I dreaded some piece of bad news, though I couldn’t have put a name to it. Maybe he might be going away—going overseas. Stories of the war had not been lost on me. However he did not explain further.
   “Shake hands on it?” he said. We reached our hands across the table; his was hard and dry, like a leather suitcase handle. His one blue eye assessed me, as if speculating about whether I could be depended on. I lifted my chin, straightened my shoulders. I wanted desperately to deserve his good opinion.
   “What can you buy for a nickel?” he said then. I was caught off-guard by this question, tongue-tied: I didn’t know. Laura and I were not given any money of our own to spend, because Reenie said we needed to learn the value of a dollar.
   From the inside pocket of his dark suit he took out his memorandum book in its pigskin cover and tore out a sheet of paper. Then he began talking about buttons. It was never too early, he said, for me to learn the simple principles of economics, which I would need to know in order to act responsibly, when I was older.
   “Suppose you begin with two buttons,” he said. He said your expenses would be what it cost you to make the buttons, and your gross revenues would be how much you could sell the buttons for, and your net profit would be that figure minus your expenses, over a given time. You could then keep some of the net profit for yourself and use the rest of it to make four buttons, and then you would sell those and be able to make eight. He drew a little chart with his silver pencil: two buttons, then four buttons, then eight buttons. Buttons multiplied bewilderingly on the page; in the column next to them, the money piled up. It was like shelling peas—peas in this bowl, pods in that. He asked me if I understood.
   I scanned his face to see if he was serious. I’d heard him denounce the button factory often enough as a trap, a quicksand, a jinx, an albatross, but that was when he’d been drinking. Right now he was sober enough. He didn’t look as if he was explaining, he looked as if he was apologizing. He wanted something from me, apart from an answer to his question. It was as if he wanted me to forgive him, to absolve him from some crime; but what had he done to me? Nothing I could think of.
   I felt confused, and also inadequate: whatever it was he was asking or demanding, it was beyond me. This was the first time a man would expect more from me than I was capable of giving, but it would not be the last.
   “Yes,” I said.

   In the week before she died—one of those dreadful mornings—my mother said a strange thing, though I didn’t consider it strange at the time. She said, “Underneath it all, your father loves you.”
   She wasn’t in the habit of speaking to us about feelings, and especially not about love—her own love or anyone else’s, except God’s. But parents were supposed to love their children, so I must have taken this thing she said as a reassurance: despite appearances, my father was as other fathers were, or were considered to be.
   Now I think it was more complicated than that. It may have been a warning. It may also have been a burden. Even if love was underneath it all, there was a great deal piled on top, and what would you find when you dug down? Not a simple gift, pure gold and shining; instead, something ancient and possibly baneful, like an iron charm rusting among old bones. A talisman of sorts, this love, but a heavy one; a heavy thing for me to carry around with me, slung on its iron chain around my neck.

Four

The Blind Assassin:
The café

   The rain is light, but steady since noon. Mist rises from the trees, from the roadways. She comes past the front window with its painted coffee cup, white with a green stripe around it and three steam trails coming up out of it in wavering lines, as if three clutching fingers have slid down the wet glass. The door is marked CAFE in peeling gold letters; she opens it and steps inside, shaking her umbrella. It’s cream-coloured, as is her poplin raincoat. She throws back the hood.
   He’s in the last booth, beside the swing door to the kitchen, as he said he’d be. The walls are yellowed by smoke, the heavy booths are painted a dull brown, each with a metal hen’s-claw hook for coats. Men sit in the booths, only men, in baggy jackets like worn blankets, no ties, jagged haircuts, their legs apart and feet in boots planted flat to the floorboards. Hands like stumps: those hands could rescue you or beat you to a pulp and they would look the same while doing either thing. Blunt instruments, and their eyes as well. There’s a smell in the room, of rotting planks and spilled vinegar and sour wool trousers and old meat and one shower a week, of scrimping and cheating and resentment. She knows it’s important to act as if she doesn’t notice the smell.
   He lifts a hand, and the other men look at her with suspicion and contempt as she hurries towards him, her heels clacking on the wood. She sits down across from him, smiles with relief: he’s here. He’s still here.
   Judas Priest, he says, you might as well have worn mink.
   What did I do? What’s wrong?
   Your coat.
   It’s just a coat. An ordinary raincoat, she says, faltering. What’s wrong with it?
   Christ, he says, look at yourself. Look around you. It’s too clean.
   I can’t get it right for you, can I? she says. I won’t ever get it right.
   You do, he says. You know what you get right. But you don’t think anything through.
   You didn’t tell me. I’ve never been down here before—to a place like this. And I can hardly rush out the door looking like a cleaning woman—have you thought of that?
   If you just had a scarf or something. To cover your hair.
   My hair, she says despairingly. What next? What’s wrong with my hair?
   It’s too blonde. It stands out. Blondes are like white mice, you only find them in cages. They wouldn’t last long in nature. They’re too conspicuous.
   You’re not being kind.
   I detest kindness, he says. I detest people who pride themselves on being kind. Snot-nosed nickel-and-dime do-gooders, doling out the kindness. They’re contemptible.
   I’m kind, she says, trying to smile. I’m kind to you, at any rate.
   If I thought that’s all it was—lukewarm milk-and-water kindness—I’d be gone. Midnight train, bat out of hell. I’d take my chances. I’m no charity case, I’m not looking for nooky handouts.
   He’s in a savage mood. She wonders why. She hasn’t seen him for a week. Or it might be the rain.
   Perhaps it isn’t kindness then, she says. Perhaps it’s selfishness. Perhaps I’m ruthlessly selfish.
   I’d like that better, he says. I prefer you greedy. He stubs out his cigarette, reaches for another, thinks better of it. He’s still smoking readymades, a luxury for him. He must be rationing them. She wonders if he’s got enough money, but she can’t ask.
   I don’t want you sitting across from me like this, you’re too far away.
   I know, she says. But there’s nowhere else. It’s too wet.
   I’ll find us a place. Somewhere out of the snow.
   It isn’t snowing.
   But it will, he says. The north wind will blow.
   And we shall have snow. And what will the robbers do then, poor things? At least she’s made him grin, though it’s more like a wince. Where have you been sleeping? she says.
   Never mind. You don’t need to know. That way, if they ever get hold of you and ask you any questions, you won’t have to lie.
   I’m not such a bad liar, she says, trying to smile.
   Maybe not for an amateur, he says. But the professionals, they’d find you out, all right. They’d open you up like a package.
   They’re still looking for you? Haven’t they given up?
   Not yet. That’s what I hear.
   It’s awful, isn’t it, she says. It’s all so awful. Still, we’re lucky, aren’t we?
   Why are we lucky? He’s back to his gloomy mood.
   At least we’re both here, at least we have…
   The waiter is standing beside the booth. He has his shirt sleeves rolled up, a full-length apron soft with old dirt, strands of hair arranged across his scalp like oily ribbon. His fingers are like toes.
   Coffee?
   Yes please, she says. Black. No sugar.
   She waits until the waiter leaves. Is it safe?
   The coffee? You mean does it have germs? It shouldn’t, it’s been boiled for hours. He’s sneering at her but she chooses not to understand him.
   No, I mean, is it safe here.
   He’s a friend of a friend. Anyway I’m keeping an eye on the door—I could make it out the back way. There’s an alley.
   You didn’t do it, did you, she says.
   I’ve told you. I could have though, I was there. Anyway it doesn’t matter, because I fill their bill just fine. They’d love to see me nailed to the wall. Me and my bad ideas.
   You’ve got to get away, she says hopelessly. She thinks of the word clasp, how outworn it is. Yet this is what she wants—to clasp him in her arms.
   Not yet, he says. I shouldn’t go yet. I shouldn’t take trains, I shouldn’t cross borders. Word has it that’s where they’re watching.
   I worry about you, she says. I dream about it. I worry all the time.
   Don’t worry, darling, he says. You’ll get thin, and then your lovely tits and ass will waste away to nothing. You’ll be no good to anybody then.
   She puts her hand up to her cheek as if he’s slapped her. I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.
   I know you do, he says. Girls with coats like yours do have those wishes.

The Port Ticonderoga Herald and Banner, March 16, 1933

Chase Supports Relief Effort
By Elwood R. Murray, Editor-in-Chief


   In a public-spirited gesture such as this town has come to expect, Captain Norval Chase, President of Chase Industries Ltd., announced yesterday that Chase Industries will donate three boxcars of factory “seconds” to the relief efforts on behalf of those parts of the country most hard-hit by the Depression. Included will be baby blankets, children’s pullovers, and an assortment of practical undergarments for both men and women.
   Captain Chase expressed to the Herald and Banner that in this time of national crisis, all must pitch in as was done in the War, especially those in Ontario which has been more fortunate than some. Attacked by his competitors most notably Mr. Richard Griffen of Royal Classic Knitwear in Toronto, who have accused him of dumping his overruns on the market as free giveaways and thus depriving the working man of wages, Captain Chase stated that as recipients of these items cannot afford to purchase them he is not doing anyone out of sales.
   He added that all portions of the country have suffered their setbacks and Chase Industries currently faces a scale down of its operations due to reduced demand. He said he would make every attempt to keep factories running but may soon be under the necessity, of either layoffs or part hours and wages.
   We can only applaud Captain Chase’s efforts, a man who holds to his word, unlike the strikebreaking and lockout tactics in centres such as Winnipeg and Montreal, which has kept Port Ticonderoga a law-abiding town and clear of the scenes of Union riots, brutal violence and Communist-inspired bloodshed which have marred other cities with considerable destruction of property and injury as well as loss of life.

The Blind Assassin:
The chenille spread

   Is this where you’re living? she says. She twists the gloves in her hands, as if they’re wet and she’s wringing them out.
   This is where I’m staying, he says. It’s a different thing.
   The house is one of a row, all red brick darkened by grime, narrow and tall, with steeply angled roofs. There’s an oblong of dusty grass in front, a few parched weeds growing beside the walk. A brown paper bag torn open.
   Four steps up to the porch. Lace curtains dangle in the front window. He takes out his key.
   She glances back over her shoulder as she steps inside. Don’t worry, he says, nobody’s watching. This is my friend’s place anyway. I’m here today and gone tomorrow.
   You have a lot of friends, she says.
   Not a lot, he says. You don’t need many if there’s no rotten apples.
   There’s a vestibule with a row of brass hooks for coats, a worn linoleum floor in a pattern of brown-and-yellow squares, an inner door with a frosted glass panel bearing a design of herons or cranes. Birds with long legs bending their graceful snake-necks among the reeds and lilies, left over from an earlier age: gaslight. He opens the door with a second key and they step into the dim inner hallway; he flicks on the light switch. Overhead, a fixture with three pink glass blossoms, two of the bulbs missing.
   Don’t look so dismayed, darling, he says. None of it will rub off oh you. Just don’t touch anything.
   Oh, it might, she says with a small breathless laugh. I have to touch you. You’ll rub off.
   He pulls the glass door shut behind them. Another door on the left, varnished and dark: she imagines a censorious ear pressed against it from the inside, a creaking, as if of weight shifting from foot to foot. Some malevolent grey-haired crone—wouldn’t that match the lace curtains? A long battered flight of stairs goes up, with carpeting treads nailed on and a gap-toothed banister. The wallpaper is a trellis design, with grapevines and roses entwined, pink once, now the light brown of milky tea. He puts his arms carefully around her, brushes his lips over the side of her neck, her throat; not the mouth. She shivers.
   I’m easy to get rid of afterwards, he says, whispering. You can just go home and take a shower.
   Don’t say that, she says, whispering also. You’re making fun. You never believe I mean it.
   You mean it enough for this, he says. She slides her arm around his waist and they go up the stairs a little clumsily, a little heavily; their bodies slow them down. Halfway up there’s a round window of coloured glass: through the cobalt blue of the sky, the grapes in dime-store purple, the headache red of the flowers, light falls, staining their faces. On the second-floor landing he kisses her again, this time harder, sliding her skirt up her silky legs as far as the tops of her stockings, fingering the little hard rubber nipples there, pressing her up against the wall. She always wears a girdle: getting her out of it is like peeling the skin off a seal.
   Her hat tumbles off, her arms are around his neck, her head and body arched backwards as if someone’s pulling down on her hair. Her hair itself has come unpinned, uncoiled; he smoothes his hand down it, the pale tapering swath of it, and thinks of flame, the single shimmering flame of a white candle, turned upside down. But a flame can’t burn downwards.
   The room is on the third floor, the servants’ quarters they must once have been. Once they’re inside he puts on the chain. The room is small and close and dim, with one window, open a few inches, the blind pulled most of the way down, white net curtains looped to either side. The afternoon sun is hitting the blind, turning it golden. The air smells of dry rot, but also of soap: there’s a tiny triangular sink in one corner, a foxed mirror hanging above it; crammed underneath it, the square-edged black box of his typewriter. His toothbrush in an enamelled tin cup; not a new toothbrush. It’s too intimate. She turns her eyes away. There’s a darkly varnished bureau scarred with cigarette burns and the marks from wet glasses, but most of the space is taken up by the bed. It’s the brass kind, outmoded and maidenish and painted white except for the knobs. It will probably creak. Thinking of this, she flushes.
   She can tell he’s taken pains with the bed—changed the sheets or at least the pillowcase, smoothed out the faded Nile-green chenille spread. She almost wishes he hadn’t, because seeing this causes her a pang of something like pity, as if a starving peasant has offered her his last piece of bread. Pity isn’t what she wants to feel. She doesn’t want to feel he is in any way vulnerable. Only she is allowed to be that. She sets her purse and gloves down on top of the bureau. She’s conscious suddenly of this as a social situation. As a social situation it’s absurd.
   Sorry there’s no butler, he says. Want a drink? Cheap scotch.
   Yes please, she says. He keeps the bottle in the top bureau drawer; he takes it out, and two glasses, and pours. Say when.
   When, please.
   No ice, he says, but you can have water.
   That’s all right. She gulps the whisky, coughs a little, smiles at him, standing with her back against the bureau.
   Short and hard and straight up, he says, the way you love it. He sits down on the bed with his drink. Here’s to loving it. He raises his glass. He’s not smiling back.
   You’re unusually mean today.
   Self-defence, he says.
   I don’t love it, I love you, she says. I do know the difference.
   Up to a point, he says. Or so you think. It saves face.
   Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just walk out of here.
   He grins. Come over here then.
   Although he knows she wants him to, he won’t say he loves her. Perhaps it would leave him armourless, like an admission of guilt.
   I’ll take my stockings off first. They run as soon as you look at them.
   Like you, he says. Leave them on. Come over here now.
   The sun has moved across; there’s just a wedge of light remaining, on the left side of the drawn blind. Outside, a streetcar rumbles past, bell clanging. Streetcars must have been going past all this time. Why then has the effect been silence? Silence and his breath, their breaths, labouring, withheld, trying not to make any noise. Or not too much noise. Why should pleasure sound so much like distress? Like someone wounded. He’d put his hand over her mouth.

   The room is darker now, yet she sees more. The bedspread heaped onto the floor, the sheet twisted around and over them like a thick cloth vine; the single bulb, unshaded, the cream-coloured wallpaper with its blue violets, tiny and silly, stained beige where the roof must have leaked; the chain protecting the door. The chain protecting the door: it’s flimsy enough. One good shove, one kick with a boot. If that were to happen, what would she do? She feels the walls thinning, turning to ice. They’re fish in a bowl.
   He lights two cigarettes, hands her one. They both sigh in. He runs his free hand down her, then again, taking her in through his fingers. He wonders how much time she has; he doesn’t ask. Instead he takes hold of her wrist. She’s wearing a small gold watch. He covers its face.
   So, he says. Bedtime story?
   Yes, please, she says.
   Where were we?
   You’d just cut out the tongues of those poor girls in their bridal veils.
   Oh yes. And you protested. If you don’t like this story I could tell you a different one, but I can’t promise it would be any more civilized. It might be worse. It might be modern. Instead of a few dead Zycronians, we could have acres of stinking mud and hundreds of thousands of…
   I’ll keep this one, she says quickly. Anyway it’s the one you want to tell me.
   She stubs out her cigarette in the brown glass ashtray, then settles herself against him, ear to his chest. She likes to hear his voice this way, as if it begins not in his throat but in his body, like a hum or a growl, or like a voice speaking from deep underground. Like the blood moving through her own heart: a word, a word, a word.

The Mail and Empire, December 5, 1934

Plaudits for Bennett
Special to the Mail and Empire


   In a speech to the Empire Club last evening, Mr. Richard E. Griffen, Toronto financier and outspoken President of Royal Classic Knitwear, had moderate praise for Prime Minister R.B. Bennett and brickbats for his critics.
   Referring to Sunday’s boisterous Maple Leaf Gardens rally in Toronto, when 15,000 Communists staged a hysterical welcome for their leader Tim Buck, jailed for seditious conspiracy but paroled Saturday from Kingston’s Portsmouth Penitentiary, Mr. Griffen expressed himself alarmed by the Government’s “caving in to pressure” in the form of a petition signed by 200,000 “deluded bleeding hearts.” Mr. Bennett’s policy of “the iron heel of ruthlessness” had been correct, he said, as imprisonment of those plotting to topple elected governments and confiscate private property was the only way to deal with subversion.
   As for the tens of thousands of immigrants deported under Section 98, including those sent back to countries such as Germany and Italy where they face internment, these had advocated tyrannical rule and now would get a first-hand taste of it, Mr. Griffen stated.
   Turning to the economy, he said that although unemployment remained high, with consequent unrest and Communists and their sympathizers continuing to profit from it, there were hopeful signs and he was confident that the Depression would be over by spring. Meanwhile the only sane policy was to stay the course and allow the system to correct itself. Any inclination towards the soft socialism of Mr. Roosevelt should be resisted, as such efforts could only further sicken the ailing economy. Although the plight of the unemployed was to be deplored, many were idle from inclination, and force should be used promptly and effectively against illegal strikers and outside agitators.
   Mr. Griffen’s remarks were roundly applauded.

The Blind Assassin:
The messenger

   Now then. Let’s say it’s dark. The suns, all three of them, have set. A couple of moons have risen. In the foothills the wolves are abroad. The chosen girl is waiting her turn to be sacrificed. She’s been fed her last, elaborate meal, she’s been scented and anointed, songs have been sung in her praise, prayers have been offered. Now she’s lying on a bed of red and gold brocade, shut up in the Temple’s innermost chamber, which smells of the mixture of petals and incense and crushed aromatic spices customarily strewn on the biers of the dead. The bed itself is called the Bed of One Night, because no girl ever spends two nights in it. Among the girls themselves, when they still have their tongues, it’s called the Bed of Voiceless Tears.
   At midnight she will be visited by the Lord of the Underworld, who is said to be dressed in rusty armour. The Underworld is the place of tearing apart and of disintegration: all souls must pass through it on their way to the land of the Gods, and some—the most sinful ones—must remain there. Every dedicated Temple maiden must undergo a visitation from the rusty Lord the night before her sacrifice, for if not, her soul will be unsatisfied, and instead of travelling to the land of the Gods she will be forced to join the band of beautiful nude dead women with azure hair, curvaceous figures, ruby-red lips and eyes like snake-filled pits, who hang around the ancient ruined tombs in the desolate mountains to the West. You see, I didn’t forget them.
   I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
   Nothing’s too good for you. Any other little thing you want added, just let me know. Anyway. Like many peoples, ancient and modern, the Zycronians are afraid of virgins, dead ones especially. Women betrayed in love who have died unmarried are driven to seek in death what they’ve so unfortunately missed out on in life. They sleep in the ruined tombs by day, and by night they prey upon unwary travellers, in particular any young men foolhardy enough to go there. They leap onto these young men and suck out their essence, and turn them into obedient zombies, bound to satisfy the nude dead women’s unnatural cravings on demand.
   What bad luck for the young men, she says. Is there no defence against these vicious creatures?
   You can stick spears into them, or mash them to a pulp with rocks. But there are so many of them—it’s like fighting off an octopus, they’re all over a fellow before he knows it. Anyway, they hypnotize you—they ruin your willpower. It’s the first thing they do. As soon as you catch sight of one, you’re rooted to the spot.
   I can imagine. More scotch?
   I think I could stand it. Thanks. The girl—what do you think her name should be?
   I don’t know. You choose. You know the territory.
   I’ll think about it. Anyway, there she lies on the Bed of One Night, a prey to anticipation. She doesn’t know which will be worse, having her throat cut or the next few hours. It’s one of the open secrets of the Temple that the Lord of the Underworld isn’t real, but merely one of the courtiers in disguise. Like everything else in Sakiel-Norn this position, is for sale, and large amounts are said to change hands for the privilege—under the table, of course. The recipient of the payoffs is the High Priestess, who is as venal as they come, and known to be partial to sapphires. She excuses herself by vowing to use the money for charitable purposes, and she does use some of it for that, when she remembers. The girls can hardly complain about this part of their ordeal, being without tongues or even writing materials, and anyway they’re all dead the next day. Pennies from heaven, says the High Priestess to herself as she totes up the cash.
   Meanwhile, off in the distance a large, ragged horde of barbarians is on the march, intent on capturing the far-famed city of Sakiel-Norn, then looting it and burning it to the ground. They’ve already done this very same thing to several other cities farther west. No one—no one among the civilized nations, that is—can account for their success. They are neither well clothed nor well armed, they can’t read, and they possess no ingenious metal contraptions.
   Not only that, they have no king, only a leader. This leader has no name as such; he gave up his name when he became the leader, and was given a tide instead. His title is the Servant of Rejoicing. His followers refer to him also as the Scourge of the All-Powerful, the Right Fist of the Invincible, the Purger of Iniquities, and the Defender of Virtue and Justice. The barbarians’ original homeland is unknown, but it is agreed that they come from the northwest, where the ill winds also originate. By their enemies they’re called the People of Desolation, but they term themselves the People of Joy.
   Their current leader bears the marks of divine favour: he was born with a caul, is wounded in the foot, and has a star-shaped mark on his forehead. He falls into trances and communes with the other world whenever he is at a loss as to what to do next. He’s on his way to destroy Sakiel-Norn because of an order brought to him by a messenger of the Gods.
   This messenger appeared to him in the guise of a flame, with numerous eyes and wings of fire shooting out. Such messengers are known to speak in torturous parables and to take many forms: burning thulks or stones that can speak, or walking flowers, or bird-headed creatures with human bodies. Or else they might look like anyone at all. Travellers in ones or twos, men rumoured to be thieves or magicians, foreigners who speak several languages, and beggars by the side of the road are the most likely to be such messengers, say the People of Desolation: therefore all of these need to be handled with great circumspection, at least until their true nature can be discovered.
   If they turn out to be divine emissaries, it’s best to give them food and wine and the use of a woman if required, to listen respectfully to their messages, and then to let them go on their way. Otherwise, they should be stoned to death and their possessions confiscated. You may be sure that all travellers, magicians, strangers or beggars who find themselves in the vicinity of the People of Desolation take care to provide themselves with a stash of obscure parables—cloud words, they’re called, or knotted silk —enigmatic enough to be useful on various occasions, as circumstances may dictate. To travel among the People of Joy without a riddle or a puzzling rhyme would be to court certain death.
   According to the words of the flame with eyes, the city of Sakiel-Norn has been marked out for destruction on account of its luxury, its worship of false gods, and in especial its abhorrent child sacrifices. Because of this practice, all the people in the city, including the slaves and the children and maidens destined for sacrifice, are to be put to the sword. To kill even those whose proposed deaths are the reason for this killing may not seem just, but for the People of Joy it isn’t guilt or innocence that determines such things, it’s whether or not you’ve been tainted, and as far as the People of Joy are concerned everyone in a tainted city is as tainted as everyone else.
   The horde rolls forward, raising a dark dust cloud as it moves; this cloud flies over it like a flag. It is not however close enough to have been spotted by the sentries posted on the walls of Sakiel-Norn. Others who might give warning—outlying herdsmen, merchants in transit, and so forth—are relentlessly run down and hacked to pieces, with the exception of any who might possibly be divine messengers.
   The Servant of Rejoicing rides ahead, his heart pure, his brow furrowed, his eyes burning. Over his shoulders is a rough leather cloak, on his head is his badge of office, a red conical hat. Behind him are his followers, eyeteeth bared. Herbivores flee before them, scavengers follow, wolves lope alongside.

   Meanwhile, in the unsuspecting city, there’s a plot underway to topple the King. This has been set in motion (as is customary) by several highly trusted courtiers. They’ve employed the most skilful of the blind assassins, a youth who was once a weaver of rugs and then a child prostitute, but who since his escape has become renowned for his soundlessness, his stealth, and his pitiless hand with a knife. His name is X.
   Why X?
   Men like that are always called X. Names are no use to them, names only pin them down. Anyway, X is for X-ray—if you’re X, you can pass through solid walls and see through women’s clothing.
   But X is blind, she says.
   All the better. He sees through women’s clothing with the inner eye that is the bliss of solitude.
   Poor Wordsworth! Don’t be blasphemous! she says, delighted.
   I can’t help it, I was blasphemous from a child.
   X is to make his way into the compound of the Temple of the Five Moons, find the door to the chamber where the next day’s maiden sacrifice is being kept, and slit the throat of the sentry. He must then kill the girl herself, hide the body beneath the fabled Bed of One Night, and dress himself in the girl’s ceremonial veils. He’s supposed to wait until the courtier playing the Lord of the Underworld—who is, in fact, none other than the leader of the impending palace coup—has come, taken what he has paid for, and gone away again. The courtier has paid good coin and wants his money’s worth, which doesn’t mean a dead girl, however freshly killed. He wants the heart still beating.
   But there’s been a foul-up in the arrangements. The timing has been misunderstood: as things stand, the blind assassin will be first past the post.
   This is too gruesome, she says. You have a twisted mind.
   He runs his finger along her bare arm. You want me to continue? As a rule I do this for money. You re getting it for nothing, you should be grateful. Anyway, you don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m only just thickening the plot.
   I’d say it was pretty thick already.
   Thick plots are my specialty. If you want a thinner kind, look elsewhere.
   All right then. Go on.
   Disguised in the murdered girl’s clothing, the assassin is to wait until morning and then allow himself to be led up the steps to the altar, where, at the moment of sacrifice, he will stab the King. The King will thus appear to have been struck down by the Goddess herself, and his death will be the signal for a carefully orchestrated uprising.
   Certain of the rougher elements, having been bribed, will stage a riot. After this, events will follow the time-honoured pattern. The Temple priestesses will be taken into custody, for their own safety it will be said, but in reality to force them to uphold the plotters’ claim to spiritual authority. The nobles loyal to the King will be speared where they stand; their male offspring will also be killed, to avoid revenge later; their daughters will be married off to the victors to legitimize the seizure of their families’ wealth, and their pampered and no doubt adulterous wives will be tossed to the mob. Once the mighty have fallen, it’s a distinct pleasure to be able to wipe your feet on them.
   The blind assassin plans to escape in the ensuing confusion, returning later to claim the other half of his generous fee. In reality the plotters intend to cut him down at once, as it would never do if he were caught, and—in the event of the plot’s failure—forced to talk. His corpse will be well hidden, because everyone knows that the blind assassins work only for hire, and sooner or later people might begin to ask who had hired him. Arranging a king’s death is one thing, but being found out is quite another.

   The girl who is thus far nameless lies on her bed of red brocade, awaiting the ersatz Lord of the Underworld and saying a wordless farewell to this life. The blind assassin creeps down the corridor, dressed in the grey robes of a Temple servant. He reaches the door. The sentry is a woman, since no men are allowed to serve inside the compound. Through his grey veil the assassin whispers to her that he carries a message from the High Priestess, for her ear alone. The woman leans down, the knife moves once, the lightning of the Gods is merciful. His sightless hands dart towards the jangle of keys.
   The key turns in the lock. Inside the room, the girl hears it. She sits up.

   His voice stops. He’s listening to something outside in the street.
   She raises herself on an elbow. What is it? she says. It’s just a car door.
   Do me a favour, he says. Put on your slip like a good girl and take a peek out the window.
   What if someone sees me? she says. It’s broad daylight.
   It’s all right. They won’t know you. They’ll just see a woman in a slip, it’s not an uncommon sight around here; they’ll just think you’re a…
   A woman of easy virtue? she says lightly. Is that what you think too?
   A ruined maiden. Not the same thing.
   That’s very gallant of you.
   Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.
   If it weren’t for you I’d be a whole lot more ruined, she says. She’s at the window now, she raises the blind. Her slip is the chill green of shore ice, broken ice. He won’t be able to hold on to her, not for long. She’ll melt, she’ll drift away, she’ll slide out of his hands.
   Anything out there? he says.
   Nothing out of the ordinary.
   Come back to bed.
   But she’s looked in the mirror over the sink, she’s seen herself. Her nude face, her rummaged hair. She checks her gold watch. God, what a wreck, she says. I’ve got to go.

The Mail and Empire, December 15, 1934

Army Quells Strike Violence
Port Ticonderoga, Ont.


   Fresh violence broke out yesterday in Port Ticonderoga, a continuation of the week’s turmoil in connection with the closure, strike and lockout at Chase and Sons Industries Ltd. Police forces proving outnumbered and reinforcements having been requested by the provincial legislature, the Prime Minister authorized intervention in the interests of public safety by a detachment of the Royal Canadian Regiment, which arrived at two o’clock in the afternoon. The situation has now been declared stable.
   Prior to order being restored, a meeting of strikers ran out of control. Shop windows were broken all along the town’s main street, with extensive looting. Several shop owners attempting to defend their property are in hospital recovering from contusions. One policeman is said to be in grave danger from concussion, having been struck on the head by a brick. A fire that broke out in Factory One during the early hours, but which was subdued by the town’s firefighters, is being investigated, and arson is suspected. The night watchman, Mr. Al Davidson, was dragged to safety out of the path of the flames, but was found to have died due to a blow on the head and smoke inhalation. The perpetrators of this outrage are being sought, with several suspects already identified.
   The editor of the Port Ticonderoga newspaper, Mr. Elwood R. Murray, stated that the trouble had been caused by liquor introduced into the crowd by several outside agitators. He claimed that the local workmen were law-abiding and would not have rioted unless provoked.
   Mr. Norval Chase, President of Chase and Sons Industries, was unavailable for comment.

The Blind Assassin:
Horses of the night

   A different house this week, a different room. At least there’s space to turn around between door and bed. The curtains are Mexican, striped in yellow and blue and red; the bed has a bird’s-eye maple headboard; there’s a Hudson’s Bay blanket, crimson and scratchy, that’s been tossed onto the floor. A Spanish bullfight poster on the wall. An armchair, maroon leather; a desk, fumed oak; a jar with pencils, all neatly sharpened; a rack of pipes. Tobacco particulate thickens the air.
   A shelf of books: Auden, Veblen, Spengler, Steinbeck, Dos Passos. Tropic of Cancer, out in plain view, it must have been smuggled. Salammbô, Strange Fugitive, Twilight of the Idols, A Farewell to Arms. Barbusse, Montherlant. Hammurabis Gesetz: Juristische Erlaüterung. This new friend has intellectual interests, she thinks. Also more money. Therefore less trustworthy. He has three different hats topping his bentwood coat stand, as well as a plaid dressing gown, pure cashmere.
   Have you read any of these books? she’d asked, after they’d come in and he’d locked the door. While she was taking off her hat and gloves.
   Some, he said. He didn’t elaborate. Turn your head. He untangled a leaf from her hair.
   Already they’re falling.
   She wonders if the friend knows. Not just that there’s a woman—they’ll have something worked out between them so the friend won’t barge in, men do that—but who she is. Her name and so on. She hopes not. She can tell by the books, and especially by the bullfight poster, that this friend would be hostile to her on principle.
   Today he’d been less impetuous, more pensive. He’d wanted to linger, to hold back. To scrutinize.
   Why are you looking at me like that?
   I’m memorizing you.
   Why? she said, putting her hand over his eyes. She didn’t like being examined like that. Fingered.
   To have you later, he said. Once I’ve gone.
   Don’t. Don’t spoil today.
   Make hay while the sun shines, he said. That your motto?
   More like waste not, want not, she said. He’d laughed then.

   Now she’s wound herself in the sheet, tucked it across her breasts; she lies against him, legs hidden in a long sinuous fishtail of white cotton. He has his hands behind his head; he’s gazing up at the ceiling. She feeds him sips of her drink, rye and water this time. Cheaper than scotch. She’s been meaning to bring something decent of her own—something drinkable—but so far she’s forgotten.
   Go on, she says.
   I have to be inspired, he says.
   What can I do to inspire you? I don’t have to be back till five.
   I’ll take a rain check on the real inspiration, he says. I have to build up my strength. Give me half an hour.
   O lente, lente currite noctis equi!
   What?
   Run slowly, slowly, horses of the night. It’s from Ovid, she says. In Latin the line goes at a slow gallop. That was clumsy, he’ll think she’s showing off. She can never tell what he may or may not recognize. Sometimes he pretends not to know a thing, and then after she’s explained it he reveals that he does know it, he knew it all along. He draws her out, then chokes her off.

   You’re an odd duck, he says. Why are they the horses of the night?
   They pull Time’s chariot. He’s with his mistress. It means he wants the night to stretch out, so he can spend more time with her.
   What for? he says lazily. Five minutes not enough for him? Nothing better to do?
   She sits up. Are you tired? Am I boring you? Should I leave?
   Lie down again. You ain’t goin’ nowheres.
   She wishes he wouldn’t do that—talk like a movie cowboy. He does it to put her at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, she stretches out, slides her arm across him.
   Put your hand here, ma’am. That’ll do fine. He closes his eyes. Mistress, he says. What a quaint term. Mid-Victorian. I should be kissing your dainty shoe, or plying you with chocolates.
   Maybe I am quaint. Maybe I’m mid-Victorian. Lover, then. Or piece of tail. Is that more forward-looking? More even-steven for you?
   Sure. But I think I prefer mistress. Because things ain’t even-steven, are they?
   No, she says. They’re not. Anyway, go on.

   He says: As night falls, the People of Joy have encamped a day’s march from the city. Female slaves, captives from previous conquests, pour out the scarlet hrang from the skin bottles in which it is fermented, and cringe and stoop and serve, carrying bowls of gristly, undercooked stew made from rustled thulks. The official wives sit in the shadows, eyes bright in the dark ovals of their head-scarves, watching for impertinences. They know they’ll sleep alone tonight, but they can whip the captured girls later for clumsiness or disrespect, and they will.
   The men crouch around their small fires, wrapped in their leather cloaks, eating their suppers, muttering among themselves. Their mood is not jovial. Tomorrow, or the day after that—depending on their speed and on the watchfulness of the enemy—they will have to fight, and this time they may not win. True, the fiery-eyed messenger who spoke to the Fist of the Invincible One promised they will be given victory if they continue to be pious and obedient and brave and cunning, but there are always so many ifs in these matters.
   If they lose, they’ll be killed, and their women and children as well. They’re not expecting mercy. If they win, they themselves must do the killing, which isn’t always so enjoyable as is sometimes believed. They must kill everyone in the city: these are the instructions. No boy child is to be left alive, to grow up lusting to revenge his slaughtered father; no girl child, to corrupt the People of Joy with her depraved ways. From cities conquered earlier they’ve kept back the young girls and doled them out among the soldiers, one or two or three each according to prowess and merit, but the divine messenger has now said that enough is enough.
   All this killing will be tiring, and also noisy. Killing on such a grand scale is very strenuous, also polluting, and must be done thoroughly or else the People of Joy will be in bad trouble. The All-Powerful One has a way of insisting on the letter of the law.
   Their horses are tethered apart. They are few in number, and ridden only by the chief men—slender, skittish horses, with hardened mouths and long woebegone faces and tender, cowardly eyes. None of this is their fault: they were dragged into it.
   If you own a horse you are permitted to kick and beat it, but not to kill it and eat it, because long ago a messenger of the All-Powerful One appeared in the form of the first horse. The horses remember this, it is said, and are proud of it. It is why they allow only the leaders to ride them. Or that is the reason given.

Mayfair, May 1935

Toronto High Noon Gossip
By York


   Spring made a frolicsome entrance this April, heralded by a veritable cavalcade of chauffeured limousines as eminent guests flocked to one of the most interesting receptions of the season, the charming April 6th affair given at her imposing Tudor-beamed Rosedale residence by Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior, in honour of Miss Iris Chase of Port Ticonderoga, Ontario. Miss Chase is the daughter of Captain Norval Chase, and the grand-daughter of the late Mrs. Benjamin Montfort Chase, of Montreal. She is to wed Mrs. Griffen Prior’s brother, Mr. Richard Griffen, long considered one of the most eligible bachelors of this province, at a brilliant May wedding which promises to be among the not-to-be-missed events on the bridal calendar.
   Last season’s “Debs” and their mothers were eager to cast eyes on the youthful bride-to-be, who was fetching in a demure Schiaparelli creation of blistered bisque crepe, with slim-cut skirt and peplum, trimmed with accents of black velvet and jet. Against a setting of white narcissi, white trellis-work bowers, and lighted tapers in silver sconces festooned with bunches of faux black Muscadine grapes bedecked with spiralling silver ribbon, Mrs. Prior received in a gracious Chanel gown of ashes-of-roses with a draped skirt, its bodice ornamented with discreet seed pearls. Miss Chase’s sister and bridesmaid, Miss Laura Chase, in leaf-green velveteen with watermelon satin accents, was also in attendance.
   Among the distinguished crowd were the Lieutenant-Governor and his wife, Mrs. Herbert A. Bruce, Col. and Mrs. R.Y. Eaton and their daughter Miss Margaret Eaton, the Hon. W.D. and Mrs. Ross and their daughters Miss Susan Ross and Miss Isobel Ross, Mrs. A.L. Ellsworth and her two daughters, Mrs. Beverley Balmer and Miss Elaine Ellsworth, Miss Jocelyn Boone and Miss Daphne Boone, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant Pepler.