The Blind Assassin

The hard-boiled egg

What will it be, then? he says. Dinner jackets and romance, or shipwrecks on a barren coast? You can have your pick: jungles, tropical islands, mountains. Or another dimension of space-that's what I'm best at.

Another dimension of space? Oh really!

Don't scoff, it's a useful address. Anything you like can happen there. Spaceships and skin-tight uniforms, ray guns, Martians with the bodies of giant squids, that sort of thing.

You choose, she says. You're the professional. How about a desert? I've always wanted to visit one. With an oasis, of course. Some date palms might be nice. She's tearing the crust off her sandwich. She doesn't like the crusts.

Not much scope, with deserts. Not many features, unless you add some tombs. Then you could have a pack of nude women who've been dead for three thousand years, with lithe, curvaceous figures, ruby-red lips, azure hair in a foam of tumbled curls, and eyes like snake-filled pits. But I don't think I could fob those off on you. Lurid isn't your style.

You never know. I might like them.

I doubt it. They're for the huddled masses. Popular on the covers though-they'll writhe all over a fellow, they have to be beaten off with rifle butts.

Could I have another dimension of space, and also the tombs and the dead women, please?

That's a tall order, but I'll see what I can do. I could throw in some sacrificial virgins as well, with metal breastplates and silver ankle chains and diaphanous vestments. And a pack of ravening wolves, extra.

I can see you'll stop at nothing.

You want the dinner jackets instead? Cruise ships, white linen, wrist-kissing and hypocritical slop?

No. All right. Do what you think is best.

Cigarette?

She shakes her head for no. He lights his own, striking the match on his thumbnail.

You'll set fire to yourself, she says.

I never have yet.

She looks at his rolled-up shirt sleeve, white or a pale blue, then his wrist, the browner skin of his hand. He throws out radiance, it must be reflected sun. Why isn't everyone staring? Still, he's too noticeable to be out here-out in the open. There are other people around, sitting on the grass or lying on it, propped on one elbow-other picnickers, in their pale summer clothing. It's all very proper. Nevertheless she feels that the two of them are alone; as if the apple tree they're sitting under is not a tree but a tent; as if there's a line drawn around them with chalk. Inside this line, they're invisible.

Space it is, then, he says. With tombs and virgins and wolves-but on the instalment plan. Agreed?

The instalment plan?

You know, like furniture.

She laughs.

No, I'm serious. You can't skimp, it might take days. We'll have to meet again.

She hesitates. All right, she says. If I can. If I can arrange it.

Good, he says. Now I have to think. He keeps his voice casual. Too much urgency might put her off.

On the Planet of-let's see. Not Saturn, it's too close. On the Planet Zycron, located in another dimension of space, there's a rubble-strewn plain. To the north is the ocean, which is violet in colour. To the west is a range of mountains, said to be roamed after sunset by the voracious undead female inhabitants of the crumbling tombs located there. You see, I've put the tombs in right off the bat.

That's very conscientious of you, she says.

I stick to my bargains. To the south is a burning waste of sand, and to the east are several steep valleys that might once have been rivers.

I suppose there are canals, like Mars?

Oh, canals, and all sorts of things. Abundant traces of an ancient and once highly developed civilization, though this region is now only sparsely inhabited by roaming bands of primitive nomads. In the middle of the plain is a large mound of stones. The land around is arid, with a few scrubby bushes. Not exactly a desert, but close enough. Is there a cheese sandwich left?

She rummages in the paper bag. No, she says, but there's a hard-boiled egg. She's never been this happy before. Everything is fresh again, still to be enacted.

Just what the doctor ordered, he says. A bottle of lemonade, a hard-boiled egg, and Thou. He rolls the egg between his palms, cracking the shell, then peeling it away. She watches his mouth, the jaw, the teeth.

Beside me singing in the public park, she says. Here's the salt for it.

Thanks. You remembered everything.

This arid plain isn't claimed by anyone, he continues. Or rather it's claimed by five different tribes, none strong enough to annihilate the others. All of them wander past this stone heap from time to time, herding theirthulks -blue sheep-like creatures with vicious tempers-or transporting merchandise of little value on their pack animals, a sort of three-eyed camel.

The pile of stones is called, in their various languages, The Haunt of Flying Snakes, The Heap of Rubble, The Abode of Howling Mothers, The Door of Oblivion, and The Pit of Gnawed Bones. Each tribe tells a similar story about it. Underneath the rocks, they say, a king is buried-a king without a name. Not only the king, but the remains of the magnificent city this king once ruled. The city was destroyed in a battle, and the king was captured and hanged from a date palm as a sign of triumph. At moonrise he was cut down and buried, and the stones were piled up to mark the spot. As for the other inhabitants of the city, they were all killed. Butchered-men, women, children, babies, even the animals. Put to the sword, hacked to pieces. No living thing was spared.

That's horrible.

Stick a shovel into the ground almost anywhere and some horrible thing or other will come to light. Good for the trade, we thrive on bones; without them there'd be no stories. Any more lemonade?

No, she says. We've drunk it all up. Go on.

The real name of the city was erased from memory by the conquerors, and this is why-say the taletellers-the place is now known only by the name of its own destruction. The pile of stones thus marks both an act of deliberate remembrance, and an act of deliberate forgetting. They're fond of paradox in that region. Each of the five tribes claims to have been the victorious attacker. Each recalls the slaughter with relish. Each believes it was ordained by their own god as righteous vengeance, because of the unholy practises carried on in the city. Evil must be cleansed with blood, they say. On that day the blood ran like water, so afterwards it must have been very clean.

Every herdsman or merchant who passes adds a stone to the heap. It's an old custom-you do it in remembrance of the dead, your own dead-but since no one knows who the dead under the pile of stones really were, they all leave their stones on the off chance. They'll get around it by telling you that what happened there must have been the will of their god, and thus by leaving a stone they are honouring this will.

There's also a story that claims the city wasn't really destroyed at all. Instead, through a charm known only to the King, the city and its inhabitants were whisked away and replaced by phantoms of themselves, and it was only these phantoms that were burnt and slaughtered. The real city was shrunk very small and placed in a cave beneath the great heap of stones. Everything that was once there is there still, including the palaces and the gardens filled with trees and flowers; including the people, no bigger than ants, but going about their lives as before-wearing their tiny clothes, giving their tiny banquets, telling their tiny stories, singing their tiny songs.

The King knows what's happened and it gives him nightmares, but the rest of them don't know. They don't know they've become so small. They don't know they're supposed to be dead. They don't even know they've been saved. To them the ceiling of rock looks like a sky: light comes in through a pinhole between the stones, and they think it's the sun.

The leaves of the apple tree rustle. She looks up at the sky, then at her watch. I'm cold, she says. I'm also late. Could you dispose of the evidence? She gathers eggshells, twists up wax paper.

No hurry, surely? It's not cold here.

There's a breeze coming through from the water, she says. The wind must have changed. She leans forward, moving to stand up.

Don't go yet, he says, too quickly.

I have to. They'll be looking for me. If I'm overdue, they'll want to know where I've been.

She smoothes her skirt down, wraps her arms around herself, turns away, the small green apples watching her like eyes.

Griffen Found in Sailboat

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

After an unexplained absence of several days, the body of industrialist Richard E. Griffen, forty-seven, said to have been favoured for the Progressive Conservative candidacy in the Toronto riding of St. David's, was discovered near his summer residence of "Avilion" in Port Ticonderoga, where he was vacationing. Mr. Griffen was found in his sailboat, the Water Nixie, which was tied up at his private jetty on the Jogues River. He had apparently suffered a cerebral haemorrhage. Police report that no foul play is suspected.

Mr. Griffen had a distinguished career as the head of a commercial empire that embraced many areas including textiles, garments and light manufacturing, and was commended for his efforts in supplying Allied troops with uniform parts and weapons components during the war. He was a frequent guest at the influential gatherings held at the Pugwash home of industrialist Cyrus Eaton and a leading figure of both the Empire Club and the Granite Club. He was a keen golfer and a well-known figure at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. The Prime Minister, reached by telephone at his private estate of "Kingsmere," commented, "Mr. Griffen was one of this country's most able men. His loss will be deeply felt."

Mr. Griffen was the brother-in-law of the late Laura Chase, who made her posthumous d ©but as a novelist this spring, and is survived by his sister Mrs. Winifred (Griffen) Prior, the noted socialite, and by his wife, Mrs. Iris (Chase) Griffen, as well as by his ten-year-old daughter Aimee. The funeral will be held in Toronto at the Church of St. Simon the Apostle on Wednesday.

The park bench

Why were there people, on Zycron? I mean human beings like us. If it's another dimension of space, shouldn't the inhabitants have been talking lizards or something?

Only in the pulps, he says. That's all made up. In reality it was like this: Earth was colonised by the Zycronites, who developed the ability to travel from one space dimension to another at a period several millennia after the epoch of which we speak. They arrived here eight thousand years ago. They brought a lot of plant seeds with them, which is why we have apples and oranges, not to mention bananas-one look at a banana and you can tell it came from outer space. They also brought animals-horses and dogs and goats and so on. They were the builders of Atlantis. Then they blew themselves up through being too clever. We're descended from the stragglers.

Oh, she says. So that explains it. How very convenient for you.

It'll do in a pinch. As for the other peculiarities of Zycron, it has seven seas, five moons, and three suns, of varying strengths and colours.

What colours? Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry?

You aren't taking me seriously.

I'm sorry. She tilts her head towards him. Now I'm listening. See?

He says: Before its destruction, the city-let's call it by its former name, Sakiel-Norn, roughly translatable as The Pearl of Destiny-was said to have been the wonder of the world. Even those who claim their ancestors obliterated it take great pleasure in describing its beauty. Natural springs had been made to flow through the carved fountains in the tiled courtyards and gardens of its numerous palaces. Flowers abounded, and the air was filled with singing birds. There were lush plains nearby where herds of fatgnarr grazed, and orchards and groves and forests of tall trees that had not yet been cut down by merchants or burned by spiteful enemies. The dry ravines were rivers then; canals leading from them irrigated the fields around the city, and the soil was so rich the heads of grain were said to have measured three inches across.

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 pretence 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 hospitalised 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 carpets

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.

But they became throat-cutters.

They didn't have much choice, did they? They couldn't become the carpet-merchants themselves, or the brothel-owners. They didn't have the capital. So they had to take the dirty work. Tough luck for them.

Don't, she says. It's not my fault.

Nor mine either. Let's say we're stuck with the sins of the fathers.

That's unnecessarily cruel, she says coldly.

When is cruelty necessary? he says. And how much of it? Read the newspapers, I didn't invent the world. Anyway, I'm on the side of the throat-cutters. If you had to cut throats or starve, which would you do? Or screw for a living, there's always that.

Now he's gone too far. He's let his anger show. She draws away from him. Here it comes, she says. I need to get back. The leaves around them stir fitfully. She holds out her hand, palm up: there are a few drops of rain. The thunder's nearer now. She slides his jacket off her shoulders. He hasn't kissed her; he won't, not tonight. She senses it as a reprieve.

Stand at your window, he says. Your bedroom window. Leave the light on. Just stand there.

He's startled her. Why? Why on earth?

I want you to. I want to make sure you're safe, he adds, though safety has nothing to do with it.

I'll try, she says. Only for a minute. Where will you be?

Under the tree. The chestnut. You won't see me, but I'll be there.

She thinks, He knows where the window is. He knows what kind of tree. He must have been prowling. Watching her. She shivers a little.

It's raining, she says. It's going to pour. You'll get wet.

It's not cold, he says. I'll be waiting.

Prior, Winifred Griffen. At the age of 92, at her Rosedale home, after a protracted illness. In Mrs. Prior, noted philanthropist, the city of Toronto has lost one of its most loyal and long-standing benefactresses. Sister of deceased industrialist Richard Griffen and sister-in law of the eminent novelist Laura Chase, Mrs. Prior served on the board of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra during its formative years, and more recently on the Volunteer Committee of the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Canadian Cancer Society. She was also active in the Granite Club, the Heliconian Club, the Junior League, and the Dominion Drama Festival. She is survived by her great-niece, Sabrina Griffen, currently travelling in India.

The funeral will take place on Tuesday morning at the Church of St. Simon the Apostle, followed by interment at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Donations to Princess Margaret Hospital in lieu of flowers.

The lipstick heart

How much time have we got? he says.

A lot, she says. Two or three hours. They're all out somewhere.

Doing what?

I don't know. Making money. Buying things. Good works. Whatever they do; She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, sits up straighter. She feels on call, whistled for. A cheap feeling. Whose car is this? she says.

A friend's. I'm an important person, I have a friend with a car.

You're making fun of me, she says. He doesn't answer. She pulls at the fingers of a glove. What if anyone sees us?

They'll only see the car. This car is a wreck, it's a poor folks' car. Even if they look right at you they won't see you, because a woman like you isn't supposed to be caught dead in a car like this.

Sometimes you don't like me very much, she says.

I can't think about much else lately, he says. But liking is different. Liking takes time. I don't have the time tolike you. I can't concentrate on it.

Not there, she says. Look at the sign.

Signs are for other people, he says. Here-down here.

The path is no more than a furrow. Discarded tissues, gum wrappers, used safes like fish bladders. Bottles and pebbles; dried mud, cracked and rutted. She has the wrong shoes for it, the wrong heels. He takes her arm, steadies her. She moves to pull away.

It's practically an open field. Someone will see.

Someone who? We're under the bridge.

The police. Don't. Not yet.

The police don't snoop around in broad daylight, he says. Only at night, with their flashlights, looking for godless perverts.

Tramps then, she says. Maniacs.

Here, he says. In under here. In the shade.

Is there poison ivy?

None at all. I promise. No tramps or maniacs either, except me.

How do you know? About the poison ivy. Have you been here before?

Don't worry so much, he says. Lie down.

Don't. You'll tear it. Wait a minute.

She hears her own voice. It isn't her voice, it's too breathless.

There's a lipstick heart on the cement, surrounding four initials. An L connects them: L for Loves. Only those concerned would know whose initials they are-that they've been here, that they've done this. Proclaiming love, withholding the particulars.

Outside the heart, four other letters, like the four points of the compass: F U C K The word torn apart, splayed open: the implacable topography of sex.

Smoke taste on his mouth, salt in her own; all around, the smell of crushed weeds and cat, of disregarded corners. Dampness and growth, dirt on the knees, grimy and lush; leggy dandelions stretching towards the light.

Below where they're lying, the ripple of a stream. Above, leafy branches, thin vines with purple flowers; the tall pillars of the bridge lifting up, the iron girders, the wheels going by overhead; the blue sky in splinters. Hard dirt under her back.

He smoothes her forehead, runs a finger along her cheek. You shouldn't worship me, he says. I don't have the only cock in the world. Some day you'll find that out.

It's not a question of that, she says. Anyway I don't worship you. Already he's pushing her away, into the future.

Well, whatever it is, you'll have more of it, once I'm out of your hair.

Meaning what, exactly? You're not in my hair.

That there's life after life, he says. After our life.

Let's talk about something else.

All right, he says. Lie down again. Put your head here. Pushing his damp shirt aside. His arm around her, his other hand fishing in his pocket for the cigarettes, then snapping the match with his thumbnail. Her ear against his shoulder's hollow.

He says, Now where was I?

The carpet-weavers. The blinded children.

Oh yes. I remember.

He says: The wealth of Sakiel-Norn was based on slaves, and especially on the child slaves who wove its famous carpets. But it was bad luck to mention this. The Snilfards claimed that their riches depended not on the slaves, but on their own virtue and right thinking-that is, on the proper sacrifices being made to the gods.

There were lots of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything, and the gods of Sakiel-Norn were no exception. All of them were carnivorous; they liked animal sacrifices, but human blood was what they valued most. At the city's founding, so long ago it had passed into legend, nine devout fathers were said to have offered up their own children, to be buried as holy guardians under its nine gates.

Each of the four directions had two of these gates, one for going out and one for coming in: to leave by the same one through which you'd arrived meant an early death. The door of the ninth gate was a horizontal slab of marble on top of a hill in the centre of the city; it opened without moving, and swung between life and death, between the flesh and the spirit. This was the door through which the gods came and went: they didn't need two doors, because unlike mortals they could be on both sides of a door at once. The prophets of Sakiel-Norn had a saying: What is the real breath of a man-the breathing out or the breathing in? Such was the nature of the gods.

This ninth gate was also the altar on which the blood of sacrifice was spilled. Boy children were offered to the God of the Three Suns, who was the god of daytime, bright lights, palaces, feasts, furnaces, wars, liquor, entrances, and words; girl children were offered to the Goddess of the Five Moons, patroness of night, mists and shadows, famine, caves, childbirth, exits, and silences. Boy children were brained on the altar with a club and then thrown into the god's mouth, which led to a raging furnace. Girl children had their throats cut and their blood drained out to replenish the five waning moons, so they would not fade and disappear forever.

Nine girls were offered every year, in honour of the nine girls buried at the city gates. Those sacrificed were known as "the Goddess's maidens," and prayers and flowers and incense were offered to them so they would intercede on behalf of the living. The last three months of the year were said to be "faceless months"; they were the months when no crops grew, and the Goddess was said to be fasting. During this time the Sun-god in his mode of war and furnaces held sway, and the mothers of boy children dressed them in girls' clothing for their own protection.

It was the law that the noblest Snilfard families must sacrifice at least one of their daughters. It was an insult to the Goddess to offer any who were blemished or flawed, and as time passed, the Snilfards began to mutilate their girls so they would be spared: they would lop off a finger or an earlobe, or some other small part. Soon the mutilation became symbolic only: an oblong blue tattoo at the V of the collarbone. For a woman to possess one of these caste marks if she wasn't a Snilfard was a capital offence, but the brothel-owners, always eager for trade, would apply them with ink to those of their youngest whores who could put on a show of haughtiness. This appealed to those clients who wished to feel they were violating some blue-blooded Snilfard princess.

At the same time, the Snilfards took to adopting foundlings-the offspring of female slaves and their masters, for the most part-and using these to replace their legitimate daughters. It was cheating, but the noble families were powerful, so it went on with the eye of authority winking.

Then the noble families grew even lazier. They no longer wanted the bother of raising the girls in their own households, so they simply handed them over to the Temple of the Goddess, paying well for their upkeep. As the girl bore the family's name, they'd get credit for the sacrifice. It was like owning a racehorse. This practice was a debased version of the high-minded original, but by that time, in Sakiel-Norn, everything was for sale.

The dedicated girls were shut up inside the temple compound, fed the best of everything to keep them sleek and healthy, and rigorously trained so they would be ready for the great day-able to fulfil their duties with decorum, and without quailing. The ideal sacrifice should be like a dance, was the theory: stately and lyrical, harmonious and graceful. They were not animals, to be crudely butchered; their lives were to be given by them freely. Many believed what they were told: that the welfare of the entire kingdom depended on their selflessness. They spent long hours in prayer, getting into the right frame of mind; they were taught to walk with downcast eyes, and to smile with gentle melancholy, and to sing the songs of the Goddess, which were about absence and silence, about unfulfiled love and unexpressed regret, and wordlessness-songs about the impossibility of singing.

More time went by. Now only a few people still took the gods seriously, and anyone overly pious or observant was considered a crackpot. The citizens continued to perform the ancient rituals because they had always done so, but such things were not the real business of the city.

Despite their isolation, some of the girls came to realise they were being murdered as lip service to an outworn concept. Some tried to run away when they saw the knife. Others took to shrieking when they were taken by the hair and bent backwards over the altar, and yet others cursed the King himself, who served as High Priest on these occasions. One had even bitten him. These intermittent displays of panic and fury were resented by the populace, because the most terrible bad luck would follow. Or it might follow, supposing the Goddess to exist. Anyway, such outbursts could spoil the festivities: everyone enjoyed the sacrifices, even the Ygnirods, even the slaves, because they were allowed to take the day off and get drunk.

Therefore it became the practice to cut out the tongues of the girls three months before they were due to be sacrificed. This was not a mutilation, said the priests, but an improvement-what could be more fitting for the servants of the Goddess of Silence?

Thus, tongueless, and swollen with words she could never again pronounce, each girl would be led in procession to the sound of solemn music, wrapped in veils and garlanded with flowers, up the winding steps to the city's ninth door. Nowadays you might say she looked like a pampered society bride.

She sits up. That's really uncalled for, she says. You want to get at me. You just love the idea of killing off those poor girls in their bridal veils. I bet they were blondes.

Not at you, he says. Not as such. Anyway I'm not inventing all of this, it has a firm foundation in history. The Hittites…

I'm sure, but you're licking your lips over it all the same. You're vengeful-no, you're jealous, though God knows why. I don't care about the Hittites, and history and all of that-it's just an excuse.

Hold on a minute. You agreed to the sacrificial virgins, you put them on the menu. I'm only following orders. What's your objection-the wardrobe? Too much tulle?

Let's not fight, she says. She feels she's about to cry, clenches her hands to stop.

I didn't mean to upset you. Come on now.

She pushes away his arm. You did mean to upset me. You like to know you can.

I thought it amused you. Listening to me perform. Juggling the adjectives. Playing the zany for you.

She tugs her skirt down, tucks in her blouse. Dead girls in bridal veils, why would that amuse me? With their tongues cut out. You must think I'm a brute.

I'll take it back. I'll change it. I'll rewrite history for you. How's that?

You can't, she says. The word has gone forth. You can't cancel half a line of it. I'm leaving. She's on her knees now, ready to stand up.

There's lots of time. Lie down. He takes hold of her wrist.

No. Let go. Look where the sun is. They'll be coming back. I could be in trouble, though I guess for you it's not trouble at all, that kind: it doesn't count. You don't care-all you want is a quick, a quick- Come on, spit it out.

You know what I mean, she says in a tired voice.

It's not true. I'm sorry. I'm the brute, I got carried away. Anyway it's only a story.

She rests her forehead against her knees. After a minute she says, What am I going to do? After-when you're not here any more?

You'll get over it, he says. You'll live. Here, I'll brush you off. It doesn't come off, not with just brushing. Let's do up your buttons, he says. Don't be sad.

The Colonel Henry Parkman High School Home and School and Alumni Association Bulletin, Port Ticonderoga, May 1998 Laura Chase Memorial Prize to be Presented BY MYRA STURGESS, VICE-PRESIDENT, ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Colonel Henry Parkman High has been endowed with a valuable new prize by the generous bequest of the late Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior of Toronto, whose noted brother Richard E. Griffen, will be remembered, as he often vacationed here in Port Ticonderoga and enjoyed sailing on our river. The prize is the Laura Chase Memorial Prize in Creative Writing, of a value of two hundred dollars, to be awarded to a student in the graduating year for the best short story, to be judged by three Alumni Association members, with literary and also moral values considered. Our Principal Mr. Eph Evans, states: "We are grateful to Mrs. Prior for remembering us along with her many other benefactions."

Named in honour of famed local authoress Laura Chase, the first Prize will be presented at Graduation in June. Her sister Mrs. Iris Griffen of the Chase family which contributed so much to our town in earlier days, has graciously consented to present the Prize to the lucky winner, and there's a few weeks left to go, so tell your kids to roll up their creativity sleeves and get cracking!

The Alumni Association will sponsor a Tea in the Gymnasium immediately after the Graduation, tickets available from Myra Sturgess at the Gingerbread House, all proceeds towards new football uniforms which are certainly needed! Donation of baked goods welcome, with nut ingredients clearly marked please.