The Blind Assassin: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Iris admits that she is surprised to still be here, “talking to you.” The ice on the Louveteau Gorge has almost completely melted. One body was found in the river that year, a drug user from Toronto who had an aunt and uncle in Port Ticonderoga. Walter comes over to do a check of the house and fix whatever needed fixing. Iris spends the day on the sofa like “some vaporous novelistic heroine who’s been forgotten in the pages of her own books.” She has been experiencing heart trouble again, and her doctor has expressed concern. Iris really needs a heart transplant, but she doesn’t believe she could live knowing “the heart of a dead child” was inside her.

Iris makes coffee for Walter. When he comes in to drink it, Iris comments on the brand new yellow work gloves he’s been wearing, and Walter explains that Myra bought them for him. Iris is gripped by an image of herself holding Walter’s hand at night. She gently teases him, but then suddenly has another image, this time of Walter holding her coffin.

Iris watches the news and is dismayed to see that “there’s another war somewhere.” She imagines the pileup of violence, destruction, rape, and death and thinks about the contrast to the “gentle, tedious backwater” of Port Ticonderoga. She admits that it’s common to have apocalyptic visions in old age and to feel grateful that one won’t be alive to live through it. Briefly, she struggles to remember what happened after the last point in the story where she left off, at the beginning of World War II. In the months leading up to the war, Richard and Iris’s marriage starts to crumble. Iris has two miscarriages, while Richard has several mistresses. At the time, people believe that men are powerless to control their “urges.”

Iris imagines that Richard’s mistresses are all young and beautiful, girls he hired to be his secretaries. He never considers divorcing Iris because it would jeopardized his political ambitions. Iris doesn’t care about his infidelities, but she tells herself to “Rise above it,” which is the advice Reenie would have given. At this point, Iris interrupts herself to say that she knows the depiction of Richard she’s constructed is two-dimensional. Yet she explains that this is because he is a mystery to her. His wealth and stature made him into nothing more than an image, something “hollow.”

The beginning of the war is a tricky time for Richard, who had aligned himself too closely with the Germans and ignored the crimes of the Nazi regime. The fact that he can no longer trade with Germany puts him in a highly precarious financial position, yet he ultimately manages to save himself through strategic “kowtowing.” At the same time, life in the Chase household becomes more austere. The war does bring greater freedom to women, and Iris learns how to drive. Then the war ends, although it takes a long time for the dust to settle.

In the present day, Iris walks to the Jubilee Bridge and  then goes to the doughnut shop. In the bathroom, she accidentally bumps into a young woman with a foreign accent and thinks about how this girl belongs there, whereas Iris is “the stranger now.” In the bathroom stall, Iris sees a misquote of Laura: “Heaven is on the Planet Xenor.” Back in the past, the week after the official end of the war in Europe in May of 1945, Laura calls Iris. At first, Iris doesn’t recognize her sister’s voice. Laura says that she’s in Toronto but she won’t reveal her exact location. However, she does agree to let Iris pick her up in her car from a street corner.

When Iris collects Laura, she finds it difficult not to cry, but Laura seems unmoved. Laura seems different: even thinner than she was before, plus older, neater, and plainer. They go into a café called Diana Sweets, where Laura orders coffee and Iris orders tea. Laura explains that after escaping BellaVista, she went to Avilion. Reenie secretly kept a spare key after Richard had it locked up. She waited until she turned 21 and inherited the money from Norval, at which point she went to Halifax because that was “where the ships came in.” On finding out that Iris never received the letters she sent, Laura concluded that Richard must have stolen them. She tells Iris that he’s evil and that it’s dangerous for her to stay in the house with him. 

Iris insists that she can’t divorce Richard because of Aimee and because she doesn’t have any money. Iris says that Richard told her Laura had gone insane and that she was saying she was pregnant. Laura explains that she was pregnant and that Richard and Winifred had her institutionalized in order to avoid scandal. Iris finds this plausible. Laura explains that she got an abortion at BellaVista. When Iris asks who the father was, Laura replies, “If you don’t already know, I don’t think I can tell you.” Iris assumes it was Alex and asks if Laura was in love with “him,” refusing to say his name. Confused, Laura says that she hated it but did it to save Alex.

Even more confused, Iris asks what Laura means. Laura explains that Callie knew where Alex was hiding and told Richard after he bailed her out of jail. Laura did her part to save Alex, but then he went to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Laura explains that this was why she’s meeting Iris now, because the war has ended and she’s expecting Alex to come home soon. Seeing Laura’s calm confidence, Iris suddenly feels consumed by anger and a desire to push Laura like when they were children. She tells Laura that Alex was killed six months ago in Holland, and Laura turns pale. Iris then reveals that Alex had listed her (Iris) as his next of kin because they’d been having an affair.

Without saying anything, Laura picks up Iris’s purse and leaves the restaurant. When Iris goes back to her car, she finds that it’s was gone—the car keys had been in the purse Laura took. Iris walks home, trying to think of what she would tell Richard and Winifred. Yet Richard isn’t home—he’s giving a speech at a club. Iris knows that Richard is running for office not to gain more money or power, but to gain respect. Iris bathes Aimee and reads to her, holding her until she fell asleep. She wonders where Laura is. 

Iris experiences a strange blank in her mind, followed by a single word: escarpment. She doesn’t know why this word is appearing to her now. The day after she sees Laura at Diana Street, Iris waits by the telephone, but no one calls. She goes to lunch with Winifred and two of “her committee members,” where they discuss the cabaret Winifred is planning to raise money for injured soldiers. Winifred comments that Iris seemed weak, and Iris can’t stop thinking about Laura. When she gets home, Mrs. Murgatroyd tells her that Laura had been there while she was gone.

Iris is relieved to hear this, but shortly after, a police officer comes to the house and informs her of Laura’s death, explaining that the dead woman in Iris’s car was initially believed to be Iris herself. Iris is left shaking. She realizes that she will still have to invent a story for Richard about why Laura had her car. She calls Richard and tells him that Laura is dead, explaining that she’s about to go to the morgue. Richard advises Iris to have the body moved to somewhere more “private.” When Iris mentions that the police are speculating Laura may have killed herself on purpose, Richard dismisses this as “nonsense.” He tells Iris that if Laura left a suicide note, she should burn it.

Iris goes to get changed, and while pulling open her stocking drawer she finds a pile of notebooks labelled Mathematics, a subject Laura despised. At this point, Iris stops her own narration, saying that she could have chosen not to read the notebooks. However, humans are rarely able to resist the temptations of curiosity. As for those who leave behind “evidence” like this, they may have many reasons for doing it, including “egotism” or the desire for absolution or vengeance.