The Blind Assassin: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

An article in The Globe and Mail dated October 7, 1938 describes Richard giving a speech to the Empire Club in which he praises the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and the Munich Accord. Richard claimed that “A strong, healthy Germany […] was in the interests of the West, and of business in particular” and predicted that the 1940s would be a decade of economic prosperity. Meanwhile, a Mayfair article from June 1939 describes a party hosted by Lord and Lady Tweedsmuir in honor of the King’s birthday. It notes that Iris and Richard were in attendance.

In The Blind Assassin, the woman waits at a train station on a humid day. The man arrives and they kiss each other only briefly, in case someone sees them. The man is skinny, and the woman can tell that he’s nervous. He admits that he had difficulties on the journey home because he had no money. The woman brought a flask of scotch for him in her handbag, and they go to a cheap hotel with a “Beverage Room” on the ground floor. The “v” and second “e” on the neon sign are out, so it reads “Be rage Room” instead. The man apologizes for the grimy nature of the hotel, while the woman tries to put on a cheerful, carefree air.  

The room is very dirty and there are no glasses, so they drink straight from the flask. The man says, “Well […] Here we are again.” The woman embraces him and says that she read the Lizard Men of Xenor story, which the man dismisses as trash. He explains that he was too busy to write the next installment. He says that he needs a drink, and the woman begs him not to sleep yet, although he does fall asleep for three hours. The woman knows she needs to leave and makes up an excuse in her head for when she gets home. The man wakes up, saying he wants another drink and a cigarette.

When the woman asks the man about the war, he says that he almost got killed. Although it was horrifying, he became used to it, and now he feels he can’t acclimatize to civilian life again. In any case, he explains, a new war is about to begin. The woman doesn’t want to believe this; she calls the man “cynical” and he calls her “naïve.” She starts crying and the man comforts her. When the woman leaves, she’s so emotional that she can barely see straight. 

Perhaps one reason why people didn’t see the war coming is that they were blinded by their own hope. Once it starts, the woman watches newsreels from the front in movie theaters. She’s made a plan to get money by pawning her possessions. She’ll then rent a cheap but pleasant enough room and write to her husband to say she’s leaving for good. She’ll subsist on a simple, economical diet and wait for the war end. She’ll decorate her room to make it cozy and buy a second hand radio to hear news of the war. In reality, though, none of this will ever happen.

The woman receives a telegram informing her of the man’s death. She pretends to treat it casually, wondering aloud why it was sent to her considering she isn’t his next of kin. However, she then says she needs to sit down because she feels dizzy. The other people in the room with her chat casually while the woman, feigning nonchalance, wonders if the man was trying to make her feel guilty. However, the woman is not able to hide her emotions, and the people around her suggest she goes upstairs to lie down until she feels better.

The woman wakes up violently from a dream. She looks out the window past the chestnut tree and sees a man on the street, looking up and waving. Suddenly, the man is in the room; the woman wants to touch him, but she feels that if she does he would begin to “blur” and disintegrate. The man says that he promised he would come back. Suddenly, they are outside on the roof, and the whole city is burning. The woman realizes that she is in Sakiel-Norn, watching it be reduced to rubble. She suddenly feels frightened of the man—she knows he’s dead because she received the telegram. The man disappears, and the woman feels overwhelmed by grief. Then, suddenly, she actually wakes up.