Bodily Harm (43 page)

He asks her if she’s a secretary. “I’m doing a travel piece,” she says, and gets the usual reaction, a little surprise, a little respect, she’s not what she looks like. She tells him where.

Where they had the trouble? he says. He says he’s been there and it doesn’t have a tennis court worth mentioning, and she agrees that it doesn’t.

He asks her if she travels alone much and she says yes, she does, her work requires it. He asks her to dinner and she wonders what to say. She could say that her husband is meeting her at the airport or that she’s a lesbian or that she’s dying, or the truth. She says unfortunately she doesn’t have enough time, she has to meet a deadline, and that’s the end of him, he feels rejected, he’s embarrassed, he moves back to his own seat and opens up his briefcase, it’s full of paper.

She looks out the window of the plane, it’s so bright, the sea is below and there are some islands, she doesn’t know which ones. The shadow of the plane is down there, crossing over sea, now land, like a cloud, like magic. It’s ordinary, but for a moment she can hardly believe she’s here, up here, what’s holding them up? It’s a contradiction in terms, heavy metal hurtling through space; something that
cannot be done. But if she thinks this way they will fall.
You can fly
, she says to no one, to herself.

There’s too much air conditioning, wind from outer space blowing in through the small nozzles, Rennie’s cold. She crosses her arms, right thumb against the scar under her dress. The scar prods at her, a reminder, a silent voice counting, a countdown. Zero is waiting somewhere, whoever said there was life everlasting; so why feel grateful? She doesn’t have much time left, for anything. But neither does anyone else. She’s paying attention, that’s all.

She will never be rescued. She has already been rescued. She is not exempt. Instead she is lucky, suddenly, finally, she’s overflowing with luck, it’s this luck holding her up.

The author would like to thank the Canada Council and the Guggenheim Foundation for making it easier to complete this book. She would also like to thank Nan Talese, Donya Peroff, Phoebe Larmore, Michael Bradley, Jennifer Glossop, Jack McClelland, Carolyn Moulton, Rosalie Abella, Dan Green, Susan Milmoe, Carolyn Forché, and the others who are not named but whose help has been essential.

Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939, and grew up in northern Quebec and Ontario, and later in Toronto. She has lived in a number of cities in Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

Atwood is the author of more than forty books – novels, short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and books for children. Her work is acclaimed internationally and has been published around the world. Her novels include
The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake
, and, most recently,
The Year of the Flood
. She has received many prestigious awards, including the Giller Prize (Canada), the Booker Prize (U.K.), the Premio Mondello (Italy), the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (U.S.), Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), and the Prince of Asturias Award (Spain).

Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson. She is a Vice President of International PEN. She and Gibson are the Joint Honorary Presidents of the Rare Bird Club within Birdlife International, and spend much time on conservation projects. For more information, please visit
www.margaretatwood.ca
.