The Blind Assassin

by Margaret Atwood

There’s nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage literacy.

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it’s noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear.

Thus my mother and my father. How could either of them atone to the other for having changed so much? For failing to be what was expected. How could there not be grudges? Grudges held silently and unjustly, because there was nobody to blame, or nobody you could put your finger on. The war was not a person. Why blame a hurricane?

“We weren’t doing anything,” I said. “We were talking.” “That’s beside the point,” said Reenie. “People could see you.” “Next time we’re not doing anything we’ll hide in the bushes,” I said.

I am her outcome, the result of the life she once lived headlong; whereas she, if she can be said to exist at all, is composed only of what I remember. I have the better view – I can see her clearly, most of the time. But even if she knew enough to look, she can’t see me at all.)

Aimee looked like any newborn baby – she had that squashed face, as if she’d hit a wall at high speed.

All that speech-making can bloat a man up. I’ve watched the process, many times now. It’s those kinds of words, the kind they use in speeches. They have a fermenting effect on the brain. You can see it on television, during the political broadcasts – the words coming out of their mouths like bubbles of gas.

Most of us will. We’ll choose knowledge no matter what, we’ll maim ourselves in the process, we’ll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive: love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We’ll spy relentlessly on the dead: we’ll open their letters, we’ll read their journals, we’ll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us – who’ve left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we’d supposed.