Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood

Author:Margaret Atwood [Atwood, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: History, Fiction, General, Literary, Revolutionary
ISBN: 9780385491075
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 1981-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

After the chocolate cake they drive back, straight back, no stopping in the woods this time. Rennie sits jolting in the front seat, trying not to feel disappointed. What does she need it for anyway? It’s foolishness, as her grandmother would say. Her mother too. They all have the category, it gets passed down like a cedar chest, though they each put different things into it.

When they reach the hotel Paul doesn’t touch her, not even a peck on the cheek. He opens his door and gets out, whistling through his teeth. He doesn’t take her hand to help her down, he takes her arm, and he doesn’t go as far as her room. He waits at the bottom of the stone stairs until she reaches the top, that’s all.

Rennie walks down the green wooden corridor, feeling very tired. What is she supposed to make of all this? Why is she trying to make anything? He asked her for dinner and dinner is what she got. She remembers seeing a film, years ago, about the effects of atomic radiation on the courtship instincts of animals: birds ignoring each other or attacking instead of dancing, fish going around in lopsided circles instead of spawning, turtles leaving their eggs to fry in the sun, unfertilized anyway. Maybe this is what accounts for the New Chastity: a few too many deadly rays zapping the pineal gland. The signals are all screwed up and nobody understands any more what they used to mean.

What she remembers most clearly about the evening is not even Paul. It’s the deaf and dumb man on his knees in the street, the two men kicking at him, then watching him with that detachment, that almost friendly interest.

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