Is anyone around? he says. She pauses to look, shakes her head for no. Any animals? No, again. He hangs their clothes on the branches of the tree; then, in the fading light of the saffron and heliotrope and magenta moons, he gathers her up like silk, sinks into her. She’s cool as a melon, and faintly salty, like a fresh fish.
They’re lying in each other’s arms, fast asleep, when three spies who’ve been sent ahead by the People of Desolation to scout out the approaches to the city stumble across them. Brusquely they are awakened, then questioned by the one spy who speaks their language, though far from perfectly. This boy is blind, he tells the others, and the girl is mute. The three spies marvel at them. How could they have come here? Not out of the city, surely; all the gates are locked. It is as if they have appeared out of the sky.
The answer is obvious: they must be divine messengers. They are courteously allowed to dress in their now-dry clothing, mounted together on a spy’s horse, and led off to be presented to the Servant of Rejoicing. The spies are enormously pleased with themselves, and the blind assassin knows better than to say very much. He’s heard vague tales about these people and their curious beliefs concerning divine messengers. Such messengers are said to deliver their messages in obscure forms, and so he tries to remember all of the riddles and paradoxes and conundrums he has ever known: The way down is the way up. What goes on four legs at dawn, two at noon and three in the evening? Out of the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. What’s black and white and red all over?
That’s not Zycronian, they didn’t have newspapers.
Point taken. Scratch that. How about, More powerful than God, more evil than the Devil; the poor have it, the rich lack it, and if you eat it you die?
That’s a new one.
Take a guess.
I give up.
Nothing.
She takes a minute to work it out. Nothing. Yes, she says. That should do it.
As they ride, the blind assassin keeps one arm around the girl. How to protect her? He has an idea, impromptu and born of desperation, but nevertheless it may work. He will affirm that both of them are indeed divine messengers, but of different kinds. He is the one who receives the messages from the Invincible One, but only she can interpret them. This she does with her hands, by making signs with her fingers. The method of reading of these signs has been revealed only to him. He will add, just in case they get any nasty ideas, that no man must be allowed to touch the mute girl in an improper way, or in any way at all. Except himself, of course. Otherwise she will lose the power.
It’s foolproof, for as long as they’ll buy it. He hopes she’s quick on the uptake, and can improvise. He wonders if she knows any signs.
That’s all for today, he says. I need to open the window.
But it’s so cold.
Not for me it isn’t. This place is like a closet. I’m suffocating.
She feels his forehead. I think you’re coming down with something. I could go to the drugstore—
No. I never get sick.
What is it? What’s wrong? You’re worried.
I’m not worried as such. I never worry But I don’t trust what’s happening. I don’t trust my friends. My so-called friends.
Why? What are they up to?
Bugger all, he says That’s the problem.
Mayfair, February 1936
The Royal York Hotel overflowed with exotically garbed revellers in mid-January at the season’s third charity costume ball, given in aid of the Downtown Foundlings’ Crèche. The theme this year—with a nod to last year’s spectacular “Tamurlane in Samarkand” Beaux Arts Ball—was “Xanadu,” and under the skilled direction of Mr. Wallace Wynant, the three lavish ballrooms were transformed into a “stately pleasure dome” of compelling brilliance, where Kubla Khan and his glittering entourage held court. Foreign potentates from Eastern realms and their retinues—harems, servants, dancing girls and slaves, as well as damsels with dulcimers, merchants, courtesans, fakirs, soldiers of all nations, and beggars galore—whirled gaily around a spectacular “Alph, the Sacred River” fountain, dyed a Bacchanalian purple by an overhead spotlight, beneath shimmering crystal festoons in the central “Cave of Ice.”
Dancing went briskly forward as well in the two adjacent garden-bowers, each loaded with blossom, while a jazz orchestra in each ballroom kept up the “symphony and song” We did not hear any “ancestral voices prophesying war,” as all was sweet accord, thanks to the firmly-guiding hand of Mrs Winifred Griffen Prior, the Ball’s convenor, ravishing in scarlet and gold as a Princess from Rajistan. Also on the reception committee were Mrs Richard Chase Griffen, an Abyssinian maid in green and silver, Mrs. Oliver MacDonnell, in Chinese red, and Mrs Hugh N. Hillert, imposing as a Sultaness in magenta.
The Blind Assassin:
Alien on Ice
He’s in another place now, a room he’s rented out near the Junction. It’s above a hardware store. In its window is a sparse display of wrenches and hinges. It isn’t doing too well; nothing around here is doing too well. Grit blows through the air, crumpled paper along the ground; the sidewalks are treacherous with ice, from packed snow nobody’s shovelled.
In the middle distance trains mourn and shunt, their whistles trailing into the distance. Never hello, always goodbye. He could hop one, but it’s a chance: they’re patrolled, though you never know when. Anyway he’s nailed in place right now—let’s face it—because of her; although, like the trains, she’s never on time and always departing.
The room is two flights up, back stairs with rubber treads, the rubber worn patchy, but at least it’s a separate entrance. Unless you count the young couple with a baby on the other side of the wall. They use the same stairs, but he rarely sees them, they get up too early. He can hear them at midnight though, when he’s trying to work; they go at it as if there’s no tomorrow, their bed squeaking like rats. It drives him crazy. You’d think with one yelling brat they’d have called it quits, but no, on they gallop. At least they’re quick about it.
Sometimes he sets his ear against the wall to listen. Any porthole in a storm, he thinks. In the night all cows are cows.
He’s crossed paths with the woman a couple of times, padded and kerchiefed like a Russian granny, labouring with parcels and baby buggy. They stash that thing on the downstairs landing, where it waits like some alien death trap, its black mouth gaping. He helped her with it once and she smiled at him, a stealthy smile, her little teeth bluish around the edges, like skim milk. Does my typewriter bother you at night? he’d ventured—hinting that he’s awake then, that he overhears. No, not at all Blank stare, dumb as a heifer. Dark circles under her eyes, downward lines etched from nose to mouth corners. He doubts the evening doings are her idea. Too fast, for one thing—the guy’s in and out like a bank robber. She has drudge written all over her; she probably stares at the ceiling, thinks about mopping the floor.
His room has been created by dividing a larger room in two, which accounts for the flimsiness of the wall. The space is narrow and cold: there’s a breeze around the window frame, the radiator clanks and drips but gives no heat. A toilet stashed in one chilly corner, old piss and iron staining the bowl a toxic orange, and a shower stall made of zinc, with a rubber curtain grimy with age. The shower is a black hose running up one wall, with a round head of perforated metal. The dribble of water that comes out of it is cold as a witch’s tit. A Murphy bed, inexpertly installed so that he has to bust a gut prying it down; a plywood counter stuck together with furniture nails, painted yellow some time ago. A one-ring burner. Dinginess blankets everything like soot.