Blind Assassin Read Free Page B

order to redeem his debt. It was much rarer for an Ygnirod to achieve the status of Snilfard, since the way up is usually more arduous than the way down: even if he were able to amass the necessary cash and acquire a Snilfard bride for himself or his son, a certain amount of bribery was involved, and it might be some time before he was accepted by Snilfard society.
    I suppose this is your Bolshevism coming out, she says. I knew you’d get around to that, sooner or later.
    On the contrary. The culture I describe is based on ancient Mesopotamia. It’s in the Code of Hammurabi, the laws of the Hittites and so forth. Or some of it is. The part about the veils is, anyway, and selling your wife. 1 could give you chapter and verse.
    Don’t give me chapter and verse today, please, she says. 1 don’t have the strength for it, I’m too limp. I’m wilting.
    It’s August, far too hot. Humidity drifts over them in an invisible mist. Four in the afternoon, the light like melted butter. They’re sitting on a park bench, not too close together; a maple tree with exhausted leaves above them, cracked dirt under their feet, sere grass around. A bread crust pecked by sparrows, crumpled papers. Not the best area. A drinking fountain dribbling; three grubby children, a girl in a sunsuit and two boys in shorts, are conspiring beside it.
    Her dress is primrose yellow; her arms bare below the elbow, fine pale hairs on them. She’s taken off her cotton gloves, wadded them into a ball, her hands nervous. He doesn’t mind her nervousness: he likes to think he’s already costing her something. She’s wearing a straw hat, round like a schoolgirl’s; her hair pinned back; a damp strand escaping. People used to cut off strands of hair, save them, wear them in lockets; or if men, next to the heart. He’s never understood why, before.
    Where are you supposed to be? he says.
    Shopping. Look at my shopping bag. I bought some stockings; they’re very good—the best silk. They’re like wearing nothing. She smiles a little. I’ve only got fifteen minutes.
    She’s dropped a glove, it’s by her foot. He’s keeping an eye on it. If she walks away forgetting it, he’ll claim it. Inhale her, in her absence.
    When can I see you? he says. The hot breeze stirs the leaves, light falls through, there’s pollen all around her, a golden cloud. Dust, really.
    You’re seeing me now, she says.
    Don’t be like that, he says. Tell me when. The skin in the V of her dress glistens, a film of sweat.
    1 don’t know yet, she says. She looks over her shoulder, scans the park.
    There’s nobody around, he says. Nobody you know.
    You never know when there will be, she says. You never know who you know.
    You should get a dog, he says.
    She laughs. A dog? Why?
    Then you’d have an excuse. You could take it for walks. Me and the dog.
    The dog would be jealous of you, she says. And you’d think I liked the dog better.
    But you wouldn’t like the dog better, he says. Would you?
    She opens her eyes wider. Why wouldn’t I?
    He says, Dogs can’t talk.
The Toronto Star, August 25, 1975
----
----
    Novelist’s Niece Victim of Fall
    SPECIAL TO THE STAR
    Aimee Griffen, thirty-eight, daughter of the late Richard E. Griffen, the eminent industrialist, and niece of noted authoress Laura Chase, was found dead in her Church St. basement apartment on Wednesday, having suffered a broken neck as a result of a fall. She had apparently been dead for at least a day. Neighbours Jos and Beatrice Kelley were alerted by Miss Griffen’s four-year-old daughter Sabrina, who often came to them for food when her mother could not be located.
    Miss Griffen is rumoured to have undergone a lengthy struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, having been hospitalized on several occasions. Her daughter has been placed in the care of Mrs. Winifred Prior, her great-aunt, pending an investigation. Neither Mrs. Prior nor Aimee Griffen’s mother, Mrs. Iris Griffen of Port Ticonderoga, was available for