Blind Assassin (3 page)

The aristocrats of Sakiel-Norn were called the Snilfards. They were skilled metalworkers and inventors of ingenious mechanical devices, the secrets of which they carefully guarded. By this period they had invented the clock, the crossbow, and the hand pump, though they had not yet got so far as the internal combustion engine and still used animals for transport.

The male Snilfards wore masks of woven platinum, which moved as the skin of their faces moved, but which served to hide their true emotions. The women veiled their faces in a silk-like cloth made from the cocoon of thechaz moth. It was punishable by death to cover your face if you were not a Snilfard, since imperviousness and subterfuge were reserved for the nobility. The Snilfards dressed luxuriously and were connoisseurs of music, and played on various instruments to display their taste and skill. They indulged in court intrigues, held magnificent feasts, and fell elaborately in love with one another’s wives. Duels were fought over these affairs, though it was more acceptable in a husband to pretend not to know.

The smallholders, serfs, and slaves were called the Ygnirods. They wore shabby grey tunics with one shoulder bare, and one breast as well for the women, who were—needless to say—fair game for the Snilfard men. The Ygnirods were resentful of their lot in life, but concealed this with a pretense of stupidity. Once in a while they would stage a revolt, which would then be ruthlessly suppressed. The lowest among them were slaves, who could be bought and traded and also killed at will. They were prohibited by law from reading, but had secret codes that they scratched in the dirt with stones. The Snilfards harnessed them to ploughs.

If a Snilfard should become bankrupt, he might be demoted to an Ygnirod. Or he might avoid such a fate by selling his wife or children in 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.

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 comment.

This unfortunate event is yet another example of the laxity of our present social services, and the need for improved legislation to increase protection for children at risk.

The line buzzes and crackles. There’s thunder, or is it someone listening in? But it’s a public phone, they can’t trace him.

Where are you? she says. You shouldn’t phone here.

He can’t hear her breathing, her breath. He wants her to put the receiver against her throat, but he won’t ask for that, not yet. I’m around the block, he says. A couple of blocks. I can be in the park, the small one, the one with the sundial.

Oh, I don’t think…

Just slip out. Say you need some air. He waits.

I’ll try.

At the entrance to the park there are two stone gateposts, four-sided, bevelled at the top, Egyptian-looking. No triumphal inscriptions however, no bas-reliefs of chained enemies kneeling. Only No Loitering and Keep Dogs on Leash.

Come in here, he says. Away from the street light.

I can’t stay long.

I know. Come in behind here. He takes hold of her arm, guiding her; she’s trembling like a wire in a high wind.

There, he says. Nobody can see us. No old ladies out walking their poodles.

No policemen with nightsticks, she says. She laughs briefly. The lamplight filters through the leaves; in it, the whites of her eyes gleam. I shouldn’t be here, she says. It’s too much of a risk.

There’s a stone bench tucked up against some bushes. He puts his jacket around her shoulders. Old tweed, old tobacco, a singed odour. An undertone of salt. His skin’s been there, next to the cloth, and now hers is.

There, you’ll be warmer. Now we’ll defy the law. We’ll loiter.

What about Keep Dogs on Leash?

We’ll defy that too. He doesn’t put his arm around her. He knows she wants him to. She expects it; she feels the touch in advance, as birds feel shadow. He’s got his cigarette going. He offers her one; this time she takes it. Brief match-flare inside their cupped hands. Red finger-ends.

She thinks, Any more flame and we’d see the bones. It’s like X-rays. We’re just a kind of haze, just coloured water. Water does what it likes. It always goes downhill. Her throat fills with smoke.

He says, Now I’ll tell you about the children.

The children? What children?

The next instalment. About Zycron, about Sakiel-Norn.

Oh. Yes.

There are children in it.

We didn’t say anything about children.

They’re slave children. They’re required. I can’t get along without them.

I don’t think I want any children in it, she says.

You can always tell me to stop. Nobody’s forcing you. You’re free to go, as the police say when you’re lucky. He keeps his voice level. She doesn’t move away.

He says: Sakiel-Norn is now a heap of stones, but once it was a flourishing centre of trade and exchange. It was at a crossroads where three overland routes came together—one from the east, one from the west, one from the south. To the north it was connected by means of a broad canal to the sea itself, where it possessed a well-fortified harbour. No trace of these diggings and defensive walls remains: after its destruction, the hewn stone blocks were carried off by enemies or strangers for use in their animal pens, their water troughs, and their crude forts, or buried by waves and wind under the drifting sand.

The canal and the harbour were built by slaves, which isn’t surprising: slaves were how Sakiel-Norn had achieved its magnificence and power. But it was also renowned for its handicrafts, especially its weaving. The secrets of the dyes used by its artisans were carefully guarded: its cloth shone like liquid honey, like crushed purple grapes, like a cup of bull’s blood poured out in the sun. Its delicate veils were as light as spiderwebs, and its carpets were so soft and fine you would think you were walking on air, an air made to resemble flowers and flowing water.

That’s very poetic, she says. I’m surprised.

Think of it as a department store, he says. These were luxury trade goods, when you come right down to it. It’s less poetic then.

The carpets were woven by slaves who were invariably children, because only the fingers of children were small enough for such intricate work. But the incessant close labour demanded of these children caused them to go blind by the age of eight or nine, and their blindness was the measure by which the carpet-sellers valued and extolled their merchandise:This carpet blinded ten children, they would say.This blinded fifteen, this twenty. Since the price rose accordingly, they always exaggerated. It was the custom for the buyer to scoff at their claims.Surely only seven, only twelve, only sixteen, they would say, fingering the carpet.It’s coarse as a dishcloth. It’s nothing but a beggar’s blanket. It was made by a gnarr.

Once they were blind, the children would be sold off to brothel-keepers, the girls and the boys alike. The services of children blinded in this way fetched high sums; their touch was so suave and deft, it was said, that under their fingers you could feel the flowers blossoming and the water flowing out of your own skin.

They were also skilled at picking locks. Those of them who escaped took up the profession of cutting throats in the dark, and were greatly in demand as hired assassins. Their sense of hearing was acute; they could walk without sound, and squeeze through the smallest of openings; they could smell the difference between a deep sleeper and one who was restlessly dreaming. They killed as softly as a moth brushing against your neck. They were considered to be without pity. They were much feared.

The stories the children whispered to one another—while they sat weaving their endless carpets, while they could still see—was about this possible future life. It was a saying among them that only the blind are free.

This is too sad, she whispers. Why are you telling me such a sad story?

They’re deeper into the shadows now. His arms around her finally. Go easy, he thinks. No sudden moves. He concentrates on his breathing.

I tell you the stories I’m good at, he says. Also the ones you’ll believe. You wouldn’t believe sweet nothings, would you?

No. I wouldn’t believe them.

Besides, it’s not a sad story, completely—some of them got away.