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Excerpt
The
Bridge
Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a
bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the
Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing
through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames
and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of
the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left of her but charred
smithereens.
I was informed of the accident by a policeman: the car was mine,
and they'd traced the licence. His tone was respectful: no doubt
he recognized Richard's name. He said the tires may have caught
on a streetcar track or the brakes may have failed, but he also
felt bound to inform me that two witnesses - a retired lawyer and
a bank teller, dependable people - had claimed to have seen the
whole thing. They'd said Laura had turned the car sharply and deliberately,
and had plunged off the bridge with no more fuss than stepping off
a curb. They'd noticed her hands on the wheel because of the white
gloves she'd been wearing.
It wasn't the brakes,
I thought. She had her reasons. Not that they were ever the same
as anybody else's reasons. She was completely ruthless in that way.
"I suppose you want someone to identify her," I said. "I'll come
down as soon as I can." I could hear the calmness of my own voice,
as if from a distance. In reality I could barely get the words out;
my mouth was numb, my entire face was rigid with pain. I felt as
if I'd been to the dentist. I was furious with Laura for what she'd
done, but also with the policeman for implying that she'd done it.
A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting
and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.
"I'm afraid there will be an inquest, Mrs. Griffen," he said.
"Naturally," I said. "But it was an accident. My sister was never
a good driver."
I could picture the smooth oval of Laura's face, her neatly pinned
chignon, the dress she would have been wearing: a shirtwaist with
a small rounded collar, in a sober colour - navy blue or steel grey
or hospital-corridor green. Penitential colours - less like something
she'd chosen to put on than like something she'd been locked up
in. Her solemn half-smile; the amazed lift of her eyebrows, as if
she were admiring the view.
The white gloves: a Pontius Pilate gesture. She was washing her
hands of me. Of all of us. What had she been thinking of as the
car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon
sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly for that one instant of held
breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of
our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular
bargain. Or of the stack of cheap school exercise books that she
must have hidden that very morning, in the bureau drawer where I
kept my stockings, knowing I would be the one to Wnd them.
When the policeman had gone I went upstairs to change. To visit
the morgue I would need gloves, and a hat with a veil. Something
to cover the eyes. There might be reporters. I would have to call
a taxi. Also I ought to warn Richard, at his office: he would wish
to have a statement of grief prepared. I went into my dressing room:
I would need black, and a handkerchief.
I opened the drawer, I saw the notebooks. I undid the crisscross
of kitchen string that tied them together. I noticed that my teeth
were chattering, and that I was cold all over. I must be in shock,
I decided.
What I remembered then was Reenie, from when we were little. It
was Reenie who'd done the bandaging, of scrapes and cuts and minor
injuries: Mother might be resting, or doing good deeds elsewhere,
but Reenie was always there. She'd scoop us up and sit us on the
white enamel kitchen table, alongside the pie dough she was rolling
out or the chicken she was cutting up or the fish she was gutting,
and give us a lump of brown sugar to get us to close our mouths.
Tell me where it hurts, she'd say. Stop howling. Just calm down
and show me where.
But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down.
They can't ever stop howling.
The Toronto Star, May 26, 1945
Questions Raised at the Death
Special to the Star
A coroner's inquest has returned a verdict of accidental death in
last week's St. Clair Ave. fatality. Miss Laura Chase, 25, was travelling
west on the afternoon of May 18 when her car swerved through the
barriers protecting a repair site on the bridge and crashed into
the ravine below, catching Wre. Miss Chase was killed instantly.
Her sister, Mrs. Richard E. GriVen, wife of the prominent manufacturer,
gave evidence that Miss Chase suVered from severe headaches affecting
her vision. In reply to questioning, she denied any possibility
of intoxication as Miss Chase did not drink.
It was the police view that a tire caught in an exposed streetcar
track was a contributing factor. Questions were raised as to the
adequacy of safety precautions taken by the City, but after expert
testimony by City engineer Gordon Perkins these were dismissed.
The accident has occasioned renewed protests over the state of the
streetcar tracks on this stretch of roadway. Mr. Herb T. Jolliffe,
representing local ratepayers, told Star reporters that this was
not the Wrst mishap caused by neglected tracks. City Council should
take note.
The Blind Assassin. By Laura Chase.
Reingold, Jaynes & Moreau, New York, 1947
Prologue: Perennials for the Rock Garden
She has a single photograph of him. She tucked it into a brown envelope
on which she'd written clippings, and hid the envelope between the
pages of Perennials for the Rock Garden, where no one else would
ever look.
She's preserved this photo carefully, because it's almost all she
has left of him. It's black and white, taken by one of those boxy,
cumbersome flash cameras from before the war, with their accordion-pleat
nozzles and their well-made leather cases that looked like muzzles,
with straps and intricate buckles. The photo is of the two of them
together, her and this man, on a picnic. Picnic is written on the
back, in pencil - not his name or hers, just picnic. She knows the
names, she doesn't need to write them down.
They're sitting under a tree; it might have been an apple tree;
she didn't notice the tree much at the time. She's wearing a white
blouse with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and a wide skirt tucked
around her knees. There must have been a breeze, because of the
way the shirt is blowing up against her; or perhaps it wasn't blowing,
perhaps it was clinging; perhaps it was hot. It was hot. Holding
her hand over the picture, she can still feel the heat coming up
from it, like the heat from a sun-warmed stone at midnight.
The man is wearing a light-coloured hat, angled down on his head
and partially shading his face. His face appears to be more darkly
tanned than hers. She's turned half towards him, and smiling, in
a way she can't remember smiling at anyone since. She seems very
young in the picture, too young, though she hadn't considered herself
too young at the time. He's smiling too - the whiteness
Excerpted from THE BLIND ASSASIN, Copyright (c) 2000 by Margaret
Eleanor Atwood. Reprinted with permission from the publisher, Random
House. All rights reserved.
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