The Blind Assassin

Back in the novel-within-a-novel, the unnamed lovers continue to meet, first at a cheap café, and later at a series of rundown houses where the man is staying. He is on the run from the police, which partially explains the couple's fear of being seen. At one point, the man even complains that the woman's hair is "too blonde": "[i]t stands out. Blondes are like white mice, you only find them in cages. They wouldn't last long in nature" (106). The woman objects that this isn't "kind," echoing the broader dynamics of their relationship; the man enjoysneedling and shocking his sensitive, upper-classlover (though she herself often banters back at him).

At each meeting, the man continues the story about Sakiel-Norn, elaborating further on the norms surrounding human sacrifice: to prevent the sacrificed girls from dying "unsatisfied, and…join[ing] the band of beautiful nude dead woman," each girl is raped before her death—ostensibly by a god, but really by a courtier (115). The story begins with one of these Temple maidens lying in the "Bed of One Night," waiting for the courtier's arrival. Unbeknownst to her, however, an assassin is on his way to her chamber; his job is to kill her, take her place, and then kill the King of Sakiel-Norn during the sacrificial ceremony. Having killed the guard outside the door, the assassin enters the room, prepared to kill the girl: "[i]t means nothing to him that she's little more than a decorated and bejeweled prisoner. It means nothing to him that the same people who have made him blind have made her mute. He'll do his job and take his pay and that will be the end of it" (132).

Meanwhile, an army is advancing on Sakiel-Norn. The "People of Joy" follow a religious leaderand are constantly on the lookout for messages from the gods. In fact, their war on Sakiel-Norn is divinely inspired: "They must kill everyone in the city: these are the instructions. No boy child is to be left alive, to grow up lusting to revenge his slaughtered father; no girl child, to corrupt the People of Joy with her depraved ways" (125).

Interspersed with these chapters from The Blind Assassin are more newspaper articles, this time dating from 1933 through 1935. They largely concern class unrest in Port Ticonderoga, as well as Canada at large; Norval Chase donates to relief efforts as The Great Depression sets in, while his competitor, Richard Griffen, denounces "deluded bleeding hearts" trying to institute "soft socialism" (113). Despite Norval's philanthropy, however, riots in 1934 culminate in a fire at the button factory. Finally, a 1935 article announces the engagement of Iris Chase to Richard Griffen.