A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water. I was furious with Laura for what she'd done, but also with the policeman for implying that she'd done it. In reality I could barely get the words out my mouth was numb, my entire face was rigid with pain. "I'll come down as soon as I can." I could hear the calmness of my own voice, as if from a distance. "I suppose you want someone to identify her," I said. Not that they were ever the same as anybody else's reasons. They'd noticed her hands on the wheel because of the white gloves she'd been wearing. They'd said Laura had turned the car sharply and deliberately, and had plunged off the bridge with no more fuss than stepping off a curb. He said the tires may have caught on a streetcar track or the brakes may have failed, but he also felt bound to inform me that two witnesses-a retired lawyer and a bank teller, dependable people-had claimed to have seen the whole thing. His tone was respectful: no doubt he recognised Richard's name.
I was informed of the accident by a policeman: the car was mine, and they'd traced the licence. Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The word is a flame burning in a dark glass. – INSCRIPTION ON A CARTHAGINIAN FUNERARY URN Tanit was merciless, my prayers were answered. I swam, the sea was boundless, I saw no shore. Other groups reach inhabited settlements… singing songs about the extermination of the citizens of Kerman… Some, wandering around in the countryside, lose their way in the desert and die of thirst. They line up the inhabitants, slice off the heads of the adults, gouge out the eyes of the children… Later, processions of blinded children leave the city.
His praetorians set energetically to work. Imagine the monarch Agha Mohammed Khan, who orders the entire population of the city of Kerman murdered or blinded -no exceptions. Brilliantly weaving together such seemingly disparate elements, Atwood creates a world of astonishing vision and unforgettable impact. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura?s story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. Genre: sf, The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
0 kommentar(er)
