The Blind Assassin

Lizard Men of Xenor

For weeks she trolls the racks. She goes to the nearest drugstore, buys some emery boards or an orange stick, something minor, then strolls past the magazines, not touching and careful not to be seen looking, but riffling through the titles with her eyes, on the lookout for his name. One of his names. She knows them by now, or most of them: she used to cash the cheques.

Wonder Stories. Weird Tales. Astounding. She scans them all.

At last she spots something. This must be it: Lizard Men of Xenor. First Thrilling Episode in the Annals of the Zycronian Wars. On the cover, a blonde in a quasi-Babylonian getup, a white robe tightly cinched under her unlikely breasts by a gold-link belt, her throat wound in lapis jewellery, a crescent moon in silver sprouting from her head. She's wet-lipped, open-mouthed, big-eyed, in the grip of two creatures with three-fingered claws and eyes with vertical pupils. They're wearing nothing but red shorts. Their faces are flattened discs, their skin is covered with scales, a pewtery teal in hue. They shine slickly, as if basted; under their grey-blue hide their muscles bulge and gleam. The teeth in their lipless mouths are numerous and needle-sharp.

She'd know them anywhere.

How to get hold of a copy? Not in this store, where she's recognised. It would never do to start rumours, by strange behaviour of any kind at all. On her next shopping trip she makes a detour to the train station and locates the magazine at the newsstand there. One thin dime; she pays with her gloves on, rolls the magazine up quickly, caches it in her handbag. The newsie looks at her strangely, but then men do.

She hugs the magazine to her all the way back in the taxi, smuggles it up the stairs, locks herself in the bathroom with it. Her hands, she knows, will tremble turning the pages. It's a story of the kind bums read on boxcars, or school-age boys by the light of a flashlight. Factory watchmen at midnight, to keep themselves awake; salesmen in their travellers' hotels after a fruitless day, tie off, shirt open, feet up, whisky in the toothbrush glass. Police, on a dull evening. None of them will find the message that will surely be concealed somewhere within the print. It will be a message meant only for her.

The paper's so soft it almost falls apart in her hands.

Here in the locked bathroom, spread out on her knees in hard print, is Sakiel-Norn, city of a thousand splendours-its gods, its customs, its wondrous carpet-weaving, its enslaved and maltreated children, the maidens about to be sacrificed. Its seven seas, its five moons, its three suns; the western mountains and their sinister tombs, where wolves howl and beautiful undead women lurk. The palace coup stretches its tentacles, the King bides his time, guessing at the forces deployed against him; the High Priestess pockets her bribes.

Now it's the night before the sacrifice; the chosen one waits in the fatal bed. But where is the blind assassin? What's become of him, and his love for the innocent girl? He must be keeping that part for later, she decides.

Then, sooner than she's expecting it, the ruthless barbarians attack, spurred on by their monomaniac leader. But they've just made their way inside the city gates when there's a surprise: three spaceships make a landing on the flat plain to the east. They're shaped like fried eggs or Saturn cut in half, and they come from Xenor. Out of them burst the Lizard Men, with their rippling grey muscles and their metallic bathing trunks and their advanced weaponry. They have ray guns, electric lassoes, one-man flying machines. All sorts of newfangled gadgets.

The sudden invasion changes things for the Zycronians. Barbarians and urbanites, incumbents and rebels, masters and slaves-all forget their differences and make common cause. Class barriers dissolve -the Snilfards discard their ancient tides along with their face masks, and roll up their sleeves, manning the barricades alongside the Ygnirods. All salute to each other by the name oftristok, which means (roughly), he with whom I have exchanged blood, that is to say, comrade or brother. The women are taken to the Temple and locked into it for their own safety, the children as well. The King takes charge. The barbarian forces are welcomed into the city because of their prowess in battle. The King shakes hands with the Servant of Rejoicing, and they decide to share command. A fist is more than the sum of its fingers, says the King, quoting an archaic proverb. In the nick of time the eight heavy gates of the city swing shut.

The Lizard Men achieve an initial success in the outlying fields, gained by the element of surprise. They capture a few likely women, who are shut up in cages and drooled at through the bars by dozens of Lizard soldiers. But then the Xenorian army suffers a setback: the ray guns on which they rely don't work very well on the planet of Zycron due to a difference in gravitational forces, the electric lassoes are efficient only at close quarters, and the inhabitants of Sakiel-Norn are now on the other side of a very thick wall. The Lizard Men don't have enough one-man flying machines to transport a sufficient assault force to take the city. Projectiles rain down from the ramparts on any Lizard Man who gets close enough: the Zycronians have discovered that the Xenorians' metal pants are inflammable at high temperatures, and are hurling balls of burning pitch.

The leader of the Lizards has a screaming tantrum, and five Lizard scientists bite the dust: Xenor is evidently not a democracy. Those left alive set to work to solve the technical problems. Given enough time and the proper equipment, they claim, they can dissolve the walls of Sakiel-Norn. They can also develop a gas that will render the Zycronians unconscious. Then they will be able to have their wicked way at leisure.

That's the end of the fist instalment. But what's happened to the love story? Where are the blind assassin and the tongueless girl? The girl has been all but forgotten in the confusion-she was last seen hiding under the red brocade bed-and the blind man has never turned up at all. She riffles back through the pages: maybe she's missed something. But no, the two of them have simply vanished.

Perhaps it will turn out all right, in the next thrilling episode. Perhaps he'll send word.

She knows there's something demented about this expectation of hers-he won't send a message to her, or if he does, this is not how it will arrive-but she can't free herself of it. It's hope that spins these fantasies, it's longing that raises these mirages-hope against hope, and longing in a vacuum. Perhaps her mind is slipping, perhaps she's going off the tracks, perhaps she is coming unhinged. Unhinged, like a broken door, like a rammed gate, like a rusting strongbox. When you're unhinged, things make their way out of you that should be kept inside, and other things get in that ought to be shut out. The locks lose their powers. The guards go to sleep. The passwords fail.

She thinks, Perhaps I've been forsaken. It's an outworn word, forsaken, but it describes her plight exactly. Forsaking her is something he might be imagined as doing. On impulse he might die for her, but living for her would be quite different. He has no talent for monotony.

Despite her better judgment she waits and watches, month after month. She haunts the drugstores, the train station, every chance newsstand. But the next thrilling episode never appears.

Toronto High Noon Gossip

BY YORK

April gambolled in like a lamb this year, and taking a cue from his sprightly kick-up-your-heels mood, the Spring season was all aflutter with the gay bustle of arrivals and departures. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ridelle have returned from a winter sojourn in Mexico, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson Reeves have motored back from their Florida hideaway in Palm Beach, and Mr. and Mrs. T. Perry Grange are back from their cruise amongst the sunny Caribbean isles, while Mrs. R. Westerfield and her daughter Daphne have set out for a visit to France, and to Italy as well, "Mussolini permitting," while Mr. and Mrs. W. Mc Clelland are off to fabled Greece. The Dumont Fletchers passed an exciting London season and made their entrance upon our local stage once more, just in time for the Dominion Drama Festival, at which Mr. Fletcher was an adjudicator.

Meanwhile, an entrance of another kind was celebrated in the lilac and silver setting of the Arcadian Court, where Mrs. Richard Griffen (formerly Miss Iris Montfort Chase) was glimpsed at a luncheon party given by her sister-in-law, Mrs. Winifred "Freddie" Griffen Prior. Young Mrs. Griffen, as lovely as ever and one of last season's most important brides, was wearing a smart ensemble of sky-blue silk with a chapeau of Nile green, and was receiving congratulations on the arrival of a daughter, Aimee Adelia.

The Pleiades were all abuzz over the advent of their visiting star, Miss Frances Homer, the celebrated monologuist, who, at Eaton Auditorium, again presented her Women of Destiny series, in which she portrays women of history and the influence they brought to bear upon the lives of such momentous world figures as Napoleon, Ferdinand of Spain, Horatio Nelson and Shakespeare. Miss Homer sparkled with wit and vivacity as Nell Gywn; she was dramatic as Queen Isabella of Spain; her Josephine was a delightful vignette; and her Lady Emma Hamilton was a poignant bit of acting. Altogether it was a picturesque and charming entertainment.

The evening concluded with a buffet supper for the Pleiades and their guests at the Round Room, lavishly hosted by Mrs. Winifred Griffen Prior.

Letter from Bella Vista

Office of the Director,

The Bella Vista Sanctuary,

Arnprior,

Ontario

May 12, 1937

Mr. Richard E. Griffen, President and Chairman of the Board, Griffen-Chase Royal Consolidated Industries Ltd., 20 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario Dear Richard: It was a pleasure to meet with you in February-although in such regrettable circumstances-and to shake your hand again after so many years. Our lives have certainly taken us in different directions since those "good old golden rule days."

On a more sober note, I am sorry to report that the condition of your young sister-in-law, Miss Laura Chase, has not improved; if anything it has worsened somewhat. The delusions from which she suffers are well entrenched. In our opinion, she remains a danger to herself and must be kept under constant observation, with sedation when necessary. No more windows have been broken, though there has been an incident involving a pair of scissors; however, we will do our utmost to prevent a recurrence.

We continue to do all in our power. Several new treatments are available that we hope to use with positive effect, in particular the "electro-shock therapy," for which we will have the equipment soon. With your permission we will add this to the insulin treatment. We have firm hopes for an eventual improvement, although it is our prognosis that Miss Chase will never be strong.

Distressing though it may be, I must request that you and your wife refrain from visiting or even from sending letters to Miss Chase at present, as contact with either of you is sure to have a disruptive effect upon the treatment. As you are aware, you yourself are the focus of Miss Chase's more persistent fixations.

I will be in Toronto this Wednesday week, and look forward to a private conversation with you-at your offices, as your young wife, being a new mother, ought not to be unduly troubled with such disturbing matters. At that time I will ask you to sign the necessary forms of consent relative to the treatments we propose.

I take the liberty of enclosing this past month's bill for your prompt consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Gerald P. Witherspoon, Director

The tower

She feels heavy and soiled, like a bag of unwashed laundry. But at the same time flat and without substance. Blank paper, on which-just discernible-there's the colourless imprint of a signature, not hers. A detective could find it, but she herself can't be bothered. She can't be bothered looking.

She hasn't given up hope, just folded it away: it's not for daily wear. Meanwhile the body must be tended. There's no point in not eating. It's best to keep your wits about you, and nourishment helps with that. Small pleasures too: flowers to fall back on, the first tulips for instance. No use going distracted. Running down the street barefoot, shouting Fire! The fact that there is no fire is sure to be noticed.

The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one. Sokind, she says to the telephone. But so sorry. I can't make it then. I'm tied up.

On some days-clear warm days especially-she feels buried alive. The sky is a dome of blue rock, the sun a round hole in it through which the light of the real day shines mockingly. The other people buried with her don't know what's happened: only she knows. If she were to voice this knowledge, they'd shut her away forever. Her only chance is to go on as if everything is proceeding normally, meanwhile keeping an eye on the flat blue sky, watching out for the large crack that is bound to appear in it eventually. After which he might come down through it on a rope ladder. She'll make her way to the roof, jump for it. The ladder will be drawn up with the two of them clinging to it, clinging to each other, past turrets and towers and spires, out through the crack in the fake sky, leaving the others down below on the lawn, gawking with their mouths open.

Such omnipotent and childish plots.

Under the blue stone dome it rains, it shines, it blows, it clears. Amazing to consider how all these naturalistic weather effects are arranged.

There's a baby in the vicinity. Its cries come to her intermittently, as if borne on the wind. Doors open and close, the sound of its tiny, immense rage waxes and wanes. Amazing how they can roar. Its wheezy breathing is quite close at times, the sound harsh and soft, like silk tearing.

She lies on her bed, sheets over or under her depending on the time of day. She prefers a white pillow, white as a nurse and lightly starched. Several pillows to prop her up, a cup of tea to anchor her so she won't drift off. She holds it in her hands, and if it hits the floor she'll wake. She doesn't do this all the time, she's far from lazy.

Reverie intrudes at intervals.

She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.

In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he said, what she said, what they did, what they did then. Even the times they argued, fought, parted, agonised, rejoined. How they'd loved to cut themselves on each other, taste their own blood. We were ruinous together, she thinks. But how else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin?

Sometimes she wants to put a match to him, have done with him; finish with that endless, useless longing. At the very least, daily time and the entropy of her own body should take care of it-wear her threadbare, wear her out, erase that place in her brain. But no exorcism has been enough, nor has she tried very hard at it. Exorcism is not what she wants. She wants that terrified bliss, like falling out of an airplane by mistake. She wants his famished look.

The last time she'd seen him, when they'd gone back to his room-it was like drowning: everything darkened and roared, but at the same time it was very silvery, and slow, and clear.

This is what it means, to be in thrall.

Perhaps he carries an image of her always with him, as if in a locket; or not an image exactly, more like a diagram. A map, as if for treasure. What he'll need to get back.

First there's the land, thousands of miles of it, with an outer circle of rock and mountains, ice-covered, fissured and wrinkled; then forest tangled with windfall, a matted pelt of it, dead wood rotting under moss; then the odd clearing. Then heaths and windswept steppes and dry red hills where war goes forward. Behind the rocks, at ambush within the parched canyons, the defenders crouch. They specialise in snipers.

Next come the villages, with squalid hovels and squinting urchins and women lugging bundles of sticks, the dirt roads murky with pig-wallow. Then the railroad tracks running into the towns, with their stations and depots, their factories and warehouses, their churches and marble banks. Then the cities, vast oblongs of light and dark, tower upon tower. The towers are sheathed in adamant. No: something more modern, more believable. Not zinc, that's poor women's washtubs.

The towers are sheathed in steel. Bombs are made there, bombs fall there also. But he bypasses all of that, comes through it unscathed, all the way to this city, the one containing her, its houses and steeples encircling her where she sits in the most inward, the most central tower of them all, which doesn't even resemble a tower. It's camouflaged: you could be forgiven for confusing it with a house. She's the tremulous heart of everything, tucked into her white bed. Locked away from danger, but she is the point of it all. The point of it all is to protect her. That's what they spend their time doing-protecting her from everything else. She looks out the window, and nothing can get at her, and she can get at nothing.

She's the round O, the zero at the bone. A space that defines itself by not being there at all. That's why they can't reach her, lay a finger on her. That's why they can't pin anything on her. She has such a good smile, but she doesn't stand behind it.

He wants to think of her as invulnerable. Standing in her lighted window, behind her a locked door. He wants to be right there, under the tree, looking up. Taking courage, he climbs the wall, hand over hand past vine and ledge, happy as a crook; he crouches, raises the window, steps down in. The radio's gently on, dance music swelling and fading. It drowns out footsteps. There's not a word between them, and so begins again the delicate, painstaking ransack of the flesh. Muffled, hesitating and dim, as if underwater.

You've led a sheltered life, he'd said to her once.

You could call it that, she'd said.

But how can she ever get out of it, her life, except through him?

Red Vendetta in Barcelona

PARIS. SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Although news from Barcelona is heavily censored, word has got through to our correspondent in Paris of clashes between rival Republican factions in that city. The Stalin-backed Communists, well armed by Russia, are rumoured to be carrying out purges against the rival POUM, the extremist Trotskyists who have made common cause with the Anarchists. The heady early days of Republican rule have given way to an atmosphere of suspicion and fear, as Communists accuse the POUM of "fifth-column" treachery. Open street fighting has been observed, with city police siding with the Communists. Many POUM members are said to be in jail or in flight. Several Canadians may have been caught in the crossfire, but these reports remain unverified.

Elsewhere in Spain, Madrid continues to be held by the Republicans, but Nationalist forces under General Franco are making significant gains.

Union Station

She bends her neck, rests her forehead on the edge of the table. Imagines his advent.

It's dusk, the station lights are on, his face is haggard in them. Somewhere nearby there's a coast, ultramarine: he can hear the cries of gulls. He swings aboard the train through clouds of hissing steam, hoists his duffel bag onto the rack; then he slumps into the seat, takes out the sandwich he's bought, unwraps it from the crumpled paper, tears it apart. He's almost too tired to eat.

Beside him is an elderly woman who's knitting something red, a sweater. He knows what she's knitting because she tells him; she'd tell him all about it if allowed, about her children, about her grandchildren; no doubt she's got snapshots, but hers is not a story he wishes to hear. He can't think about children, having seen too many dead ones. It's the children that stay with him, even more than the women, more than the old men. They were always so unexpected: their sleepy eyes, their waxy hands, the fingers lax, the tattered rag doll soaked with blood. He turns away, gazes at his face in the night window, hollow-eyed, framed by his wet-looking hair, the skin greenish black, bleared with soot and the dark shapes of trees rushing past behind it.

He clambers past the old woman's knees into the aisle, stands between cars, smokes, tosses the butt, pisses into the void. He senses himself going the same way-off into nothingness. He could fall away here and never be found.

Marshland, a dimly seen horizon. He returns to his seat. The train is chilly and damp or overheated and muggy; he either sweats or shivers, perhaps both: he burns and freezes, as in love. The bristly upholstery of the seat back is musty and comfortless, and rasps against his cheek. At last he sleeps, mouth open, head fallen to the side, against the dirty glass. In his ears is the ticking of the knitting needles, and under that the clacking of the wheels along the iron rails, like the workings of some relentless metronome.

Now she imagines him dreaming. She imagines him dreaming of her, as she is dreaming of him.

Through a sky the colour of wet slate they fly towards each other on dark invisible wings, searching, searching, doubling back, drawn by hope and longing, baffled by fear. In their dreams they touch, they intertwine, it's more like a collision, and that is the end of the flying. They fall to earth, fouled parachutists, botched and cindery angels, love streaming out behind them like torn silk. Enemy groundfire comes up to meet them.

A day passes, a night, a day. At a stop he gets out, buys an apple, a Coca-Cola, a half-pack of cigarettes, a newspaper. He should have brought a mickey or even a whole bottle, for the oblivion that's in it. He looks out through the rain-blurred windows at the long flat fields unrolling like stubbled rugs, at the clumps of trees; his eyes cross with drowsiness. In the evening there's a lingering sunset, receding westward as he approaches, wilting from pink to violet. Night falls with its fitfulness, its starts and stops, the iron screams of the train. Behind his eyes is redness, the red of tiny hoarded fires, of explosions in the air.

He wakes as the sky grows lighter; he can make out water on one side, flat and shoreless and silvery, the inland lake at last. On the other side of the tracks are small discouraged houses, laundry drooping on the lines in their yards. Then an encrusted brick smokestack, a blank-eyed factory with a tall chimney; then another factory, its many windows reflecting palest blue.

She imagines him descending into the early morning, walking through the station, through the long vaulted hall lined with pillars, across the marble floor. Echoes float there, blurred loudspeaker voices, their messages obscure. The air smells of smoke-the smoke of cigarettes, of trains, of the city itself, which is more like dust. She too is walking through this dust or smoke; she's poised to open her arms, to be lifted up by him into the air. Joy clutches her by the throat, indistinguishable from panic. She can't see him. Dawn sun comes in through the tall arched windows, the smoky air ignites, the floor glimmers. Now he's in focus, at the far end, each detail distinct-eye, mouth, hand-though tremulous, like a reflection on a shivering pool.

But her mind can't hold him, she can't fix the memory of what he looks like. It's as if a breeze blows over the water and he's dispersed, into broken colours, into ripples; then he reforms elsewhere, past the next pillar, taking on his familiar body. Around him is a shimmering.

The shimmering is his absence, but it appears to her as light. It's the simple daily light by which everything around her is illuminated. Every morning and night, every glove and shoe, every chair and plate.