It’s the maids. He sees them in the distance, heading our way. They make him nervous. They make him restless. They cause him pain. They make him want to be anywhere and anyone else.

He’s been a French general, he’s been a Mongolian invader, he’s been a tycoon in America, he’s been a headhunter in Borneo. He’s been a film star, an inventor, an advertising man. It always ended badly, with a suicide or an accident or a death in battle or an assassination, and then he’s back her again.

‘Why can’t you leave him alone?’ I yell at the maids. I have to yell because they won’t let me go near them. ‘Surely it’s enough! He did penance, said the prayers, he got himself purified!’

‘It’s not enough for us,’ they call.

‘What more do you want from him?’ I ask them By this time I’m crying. ‘Just tell me!’

But they only run away.

Run isn’t quite accurate. Their legs don’t move. Their still-twitching feet don’t touch the ground.

XXIX. The Chorus Line: We’re Walking Behind A Love Song

Yoo hoo! Mr Nobody! Mr Nameless! Mr Master Illusion! Mr Sleight of Hand, grandson of thief and liars!

We’re here too, the ones without names. other ones without names. The ones with the shame stuck onto us by others. The ones pointed at, the ones fingered.

The chore girls, the bright-cheeked girls, the juicy gigglers, the cheeky young wigglers, the you bloodscrubbers.

Twelve of us. Twelve moon-shaped bums, twelve yummy mouths, twenty-four feather-pillow tits, and best of all, twenty-four twitching feet.

Remember us? Of course you do! We brought water for you to wash your hands, we bathed your feet, we rinsed your laundry, we oiled your shoulders, we laughed at your jokes, we ground your corn, we turned down your cosy bed.

You roped us in, you strung us up, you left us dangling like clothes on a line. What hijinks! What kicks! How virtuous you felt, how righteous, how purified, now that you’d got rid of the plump young dirty dirt-girls inside your head!

You should have buried us properly. You should have poured wine over us. You should have prayed for our forgiveness.

Now you can’t get rid of us, wherever you go: in your life or your afterlife or any of your other lives.

We can see through all your disguises: the paths of day, the paths of darkness, whichever paths you take we’re right behind you, following you like a trail of smoke, like a long tail, a tail made of girls, heavy as memory, light as air: twelve accusations, toes skimming the ground, hands tied behind our backs, tongues sticking out, eyes bulging, songs choked in our throats.

Why did you murder us? What had we done to you that required our deaths? You never answered that.

It was an act of grudging, it was an act of spite, it was an honour killing.

Yoo hoo, Mr Thoughtfulness, Mr Goodness, Mr Godlike, Mr Judge! Look over your shoulder! Here we are, walking behind you, close, close by, close as a kiss, close as your own skin.

We’re the serving girls, we’re here to serve you.

We’re here to serve you right. We’ll never leave you, we’ll stick to you like your shadow, soft and relentless as glue. Pretty maids, all in a row.

XXIX.  Envoi

we had no voice we had no name we had no choice we had one face one face the same

we took the blame it was not fair but now we’re here we’re all here too the same as you

and now we follow you, we find you now, we call to you to you too wit too woo too wit too woo too woo

The Maids sprout feathers, and fly away as owls.

Notes

The main source for The Penelopiad was Homer’s Odyssey, in the Penguin Classics edition, translated by E.V Rieu and revised by D.C.H. Rieu (1991).

Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths (Penguin) was crucial. The information about Penelope’s ancestry, her family relations Helen of Troy was her cousin—and much else, including the stories about her possible infidelity, are to be found there. (See Sections 160 and 171 in particular.) It is to Graves that I owe the theory of Penelope as a possible female-goddess cult leader, though oddly he does not note the significance of the numbers twelve and thirteen in relation to the unfortunate maids.

Graves lists numerous sources for the stories and their variants. These sources include Herodotus, Pausanias, Apollodorus, and Hyginus, among many.

The Homeric Hymns were also helpful—especially in relation to the god Hermes and Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World threw some light on the character of Odysseus.

The Chorus of Maids is a tribute to the use of such choruses in Greek drama. The convention of burlesquing the main action was present in the satyr plays performed before serious dramas.

Acknowledgements

Very many thanks to early readers Graeme Gibson, Jess Gibson, Ramsay and Eleanor Cook, Phyllida Lloyd, Jennifer Osti-Fonseca, Surya Bhattacharya, and John Cullen; to my British agents, Vivienne Schuster and Diana McKay, and to my North American agent, Phoebe Larmore; to Louise Dennys of Knopf Canada, who edited with esprit; to Heather Sangster, queen of the semi-colons, and to Arnold Conradi, who sent thought-rays from a distance; to Sarah Cooper and Michael Bradley, for general support and having lunch; to Coleen Quinn, who keeps me in shape; to Gene Goldberg, fastest mouth on the phone; to Eileen Allen and to Melincla Dabaay; and to Arthur Gelgoot Associates. And to Jamie Byng of Canongate, who leapt out from behind a gorse bush in Scotland and talked me into it.

About the Author

Nominated for the inaugural 2005 Man Booker International Prize, which recognises one writer for his or her outstanding achievement in fiction, is the author of more than thirty-five internationally acclaimed works of fiction, poetry and critical essays.

Her numerous awards include the Governor General’s Award for The Handmaid’s Tale, and the Giller Prize and Italian Premio Mondale for Alias Grace. The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, Alias Grace, and Oryx and Crake were all shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, which she won with The Blind Assassin. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has been awarded the Norwegian Order of Literary Merit and the French Chevalier clans Order des Arts et des Lettres, and is a Foreign Honorary Member for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in Toronto.