The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories (58 page)

“Premenstrual syndrome was the name the male medical establishment fabricated for the natural variation in hormonal levels that signal the onset of menstruation,” the docent said. “This mild and entirely normal fluctuation was exaggerated by men into a debility.” She looked at Karen for confirmation.

“I used to cut my hair,” Karen said.

The docent looked uneasy.

“Once I chopped off one whole side,” Karen went on. “Bob had to hide the scissors every month. And the car keys. I’d start to cry every time I hit a red light.”

“Did
you swell up?” Mother asked, pouring Karen another glass of dandelion wine.

“I looked just like Orson Welles.”

“Who’s Orson Welles?” Twidge asked.

“Your comments reflect the self-loathing thrust on you
by the patriarchy,” the docent said. “Men have brainwashed women into thinking menstruation is evil and unclean. Women even called their menses ‘the curse’ because they accepted men’s judgment.”

“I called it the curse because I thought a witch must have laid a curse on me,” Viola said. “Like in ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”

Everyone looked at her.

“Well, I did,” she said. “It was the only reason I could
think of for such an awful thing happening to me.” She handed the folder back to the docent. “It still is.”

“I think you were awfully brave,” Bysshe said to Viola, “going off the ammenerol to have Twidge.”

“It was awful,” Viola said. “You can’t imagine.”

Mother sighed. “When I got my period, I asked my mother if Annette had it, too.”

“Who’s Annette?” Twidge said.

“A Mouseketeer,” Mother said,
and added, at Twidge’s uncomprehending look, “On TV.”

“High-rez,” Viola said.

“The Mickey Mouse Club,” Mother said.

“There was a high-rezzer called the Mickey Mouse Club?” Twidge said incredulously.

“They were days of dark oppression in many ways,” I said.

Mother glared at me. “Annette was every young girl’s ideal,” she said to Twidge. “Her hair was curly, she had actual breasts, her pleated
skirt was always pressed, and I could not imagine that she could have anything so
messy
and undignified. Mr. Disney would never have allowed it. And if Annette didn’t have one, I wasn’t going to have one either. So I asked my mother—”

“What did she say?” Twidge cut in.

“She said every woman had periods,” Mother said. “So I asked her, ‘Even the Queen of England?’ And she said, ‘Even the Queen.’”

“Really?” Twidge said. “But she’s so
old!”

“She isn’t having it now,” the docent said irritatedly. “I told you, menopause occurs at age fifty-five.”

“And
then you have hot flashes,” Karen said, “and osteoporosis and so much hair on your upper lip, you look like Mark Twain.”

“Who’s—” Twidge said.

“You are simply reiterating negative male propaganda,” the docent interrupted, looking very red
in the face.

“You know what I’ve always wondered?” Karen said, leaning conspiratorially close to Mother. “If Maggie Thatcher’s menopause was responsible for the Falklands War.”

“Who’s Maggie Thatcher?” Twidge said.

The docent, who was now as red in the face as her scarf, stood up. “It is clear there is no point in trying to talk to you. You’ve all been completely brainwashed by the male patriarchy.”
She began grabbing up her folders. “You’re blind, all of you! You don’t even see that you’re victims of a male conspiracy to deprive you of your biological identity, of your very womanhood. The Liberation wasn’t a liberation at all. It was only another kind of slavery.”

“Even if that were true,” I said, “even if it had been a conspiracy to bring us under male domination, it would have been worth
it.”

“She’s right, you know,” Karen said to Mother. “Traci’s absolutely right. There are some things worth giving up anything for, even your freedom, and getting rid of your period is definitely one of them.”

“Victims!” the docent shouted. “You’ve been stripped of your femininity, and you don’t even care!” She stomped out, destroying several squash and a row of gladiolas in the process.

“You
know what I hated most before the Liberation?” Karen said, pouring the last of the dandelion wine into her glass. “Sanitary belts.”

“And those cardboard tampon applicators,” Mother said.

“I’m never going to join the Cyclists,” Twidge said.

“Good,” I said.

“Can I have dessert?”

I called the waitress over, and Twidge ordered sugared violets. “Anyone else want dessert?” I asked. “Or more primrose
wine?”

“I think it’s wonderful the way you’re trying to help your sister,” Bysshe said, leaning closer to Viola.

“And those Modess ads,” Mother said. “You remember, with those glamorous women in satin-brocade evening dresses and long white gloves, and below the picture was written, ‘Modess, because…’ I thought Modess was a perfume.”

Karen
giggled. “I thought it was a brand of
champagne!”

“I don’t think we’d better have any more wine,” I said.

The phone started singing the minute I got to my chambers the next morning, the universal ring.

“Karen went back to Iraq, didn’t she?” I asked Bysshe.

“Yeah,” he said. “Viola said there was some snag over whether to put Disneyland on the West Bank or not.”

“When did Viola call?”

Bysshe looked sheepish. “I had breakfast with her and Twidge
this morning.”

“Oh.” I picked up the phone. “It’s probably Mother with a plan to kidnap Perdita. Hello?”

“This is Evangeline, Perdita’s docent,” the voice on the phone said. “I hope you’re happy. You’ve bullied Perdita into surrendering to the enslaving male patriarchy.”

“I have?” I said.

“You obviously employed mind control, and I want you to know we intend to file charges.” She hung up.
The phone rang again immediately, another universal.

“What is the good of signatures when no one ever uses them?” I said, and picked up the phone.

“Hi, Mom,” Perdita said. “I thought you’d want to know I’ve changed my mind about joining the Cyclists.”

“Really?” I said, trying not to sound jubilant.

“I found out they wear this red scarf thing on their arm. It covers up Sitting Bull’s horse.”

“That is a problem,” I said.

“Well, that’s not all. My docent told me about your lunch. Did Grandma Karen really tell you were right?”

“Yes.”

“Gosh! I didn’t believe that part. Well, anyway, my docent said you wouldn’t listen to her about how great menstruating is, that you all kept talking about the negative aspects of it, like bloating and cramps and crabbiness, and I said, ‘What are cramps?’
and she said, ‘Menstrual bleeding frequently causes headaches and discomfort,’ and I said, ‘Bleeding? Nobody
ever said anything about bleeding!’ Why didn’t you tell me there was blood involved, Mother?”

I had, but I felt it wiser to keep silent.

“And you didn’t say a word about its being painful. And all the hormone fluctuations! Anybody’d have to be crazy to want to go through that when they
didn’t have to! How did you stand it before the Liberation?”

“They were days of dark oppression,” I said.

“I
guess!
Well, anyway, I quit, and so my docent is really mad. But I told her it was a case of personal sovereignty, and she has to respect my decision. I’m still going to become a floratarian, though, and I
don’t
want you to try to talk me out of it.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

“You know, this whole thing is really your fault, Mom! If you’d told me about the pain part in the first place, none of this would have happened. Viola’s right! You never tell us
anything!”

Christmas
Eve. The organ played
the last notes of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and the choir sat down. Reverend Will hobbled slowly to the pulpit, clutching his sheaf of yellowed typewritten sheets.

In the choir, Dee leaned over to Sharon and whispered, “Here we go. Twenty-four minutes and counting.”

On Sharon’s other side, Virginia murmured, “‘And all went to be taxed, every one into his
own city.’”

Reverend Wall set the papers on the pulpit, looked rheumily out over the congregation, and said, “‘And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. To be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great
with child.’” He paused.

“We know nothing of that journey up from Nazareth,” Virginia whispered.

“We know nothing of that journey up from Nazareth,” Reverend Wall said, in a wavering voice, “what adventures befell the young couple, what inns they stopped at along the way. All we know is that on a Christmas Eve like this one they arrived in Bethlehem, and there was no room for then at the inn.”

Virginia was scribbling something on the margin of her bulletin. Dee started to cough. “Do you have any cough drops?” she whispered to Sharon.

“What happened to the ones I gave you last night?” Sharon whispered back.

“Though we know nothing of their journey,” Reverend Wall said, his voice growing stronger, “we know much of the world they lived in. It was a world of censuses and soldiers, of
bureaucrats and politicians, a world busy with property and rules and its own affairs.”

Dee
started to cough again. She rummaged in the pocket of her music folder and came up with a paper-wrapped cough drop. She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.

“…a world too busy with its own business to even notice an insignificant couple from far away,” Reverend Wall intoned.

Virginia passed her
bulletin to Sharon. Dee leaned over to read it, too. It read, “What happened here last night after the rehearsal? When I came home from the mall, there were police cars outside.”

Dee grabbed the bulletin and rummaged in her folder again. She found a pencil, scribbled “Somebody broke into the church,” and passed it across Sharon to Virginia.

“You’re kidding,” Virginia whispered. “Were they caught?”

“No,” Sharon said.

The rehearsal on the twenty-third was supposed to start at seven. By a quarter to eight the choir was still standing at the back of the sanctuary, waiting to sing the processional, the shepherds and angels were bouncing off the walls, and Reverend Wall, in his chair behind the pulpit, had nodded off. The assistant minister, Reverend Lisa Farrison, was moving poinsettias onto
the chancel steps to make room for the manger, and the choir director, Rose Henderson, was on her knees, hammering wooden bases onto the cardboard palm trees. They had fallen down twice already.

“What do you think are the chances we’ll still be here when it’s time for the Christmas Eve service to start tomorrow night?” Sharon said, leaning against the sanctuary door.

“I can’t be,” Virginia said,
looking at her watch. “I’ve got to be out at the mall before nine. Megan suddenly announced she wants Senior Prom Barbie.”

“My throat feels terrible,” Dee said, feeling her glands. “Is it hot in here, or am I getting a fever?”

“It’s hot in these robes,” Sharon said. “Why are we wearing them? This is a rehearsal.”

“Rose wanted everything to be exactly like it’s going to be tomorrow night.”

“If I’m exactly like this tomorrow night, I’ll be dead,” Dee said, trying to clear her throat. “I can’t get sick. I don’t have any of the presents wrapped, and I haven’t even thought about what we’re having for Christmas dinner.”

“At
least you
have
presents,” Virginia said. “I have eight people left to buy for. Not counting Senior Prom Barbie.”

“I don’t have anything done. Christmas cards, shopping,
wrapping, baking, nothing, and Bill’s parents are coming,” Sharon said. “Come on, let’s get this show on the road.”

Rose and one of the junior choir angels hoisted the palm trees to standing. They listed badly to the right, as if Bethlehem were experiencing a hurricane. “Is that straight?” Rose called to the back of the church.

“Yes,” Sharon said.

“Lying in church,” Dee said. “Tsk, tsk.”

“All right,” Rose said, picking up a bulletin. “Listen up, everybody. Here’s the order of worship. Introit by the brass quartet, processional, opening prayer, announcements—Reverend Farrison, is that where you want to talk about the ‘Least of These’ Project?”

“Yes,” Reverend Farrison said. She walked to the front of the sanctuary. “And can I make a quick announcement right now?” She turned and
faced the choir. “If anybody has anything else to donate, you need to bring it to the church by tomorrow morning at nine,” she said briskly. “That’s when we’re going to deliver them to the homeless. We still need blankets and canned goods. Bring them to the Fellowship Hall.”

She walked back down the aisle, and Rose started in on her list again. “Announcements, ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,’ Reverend
Wall’s sermon—”

Reverend Wall nodded awake at his name. “Ah,” he said, and hobbled toward the pulpit, clutching a sheaf of yellowed typewritten papers.

“Oh, no,” Sharon said. “Not a Christmas pageant
and
a sermon. We’ll be here forever.”

“Not
a
sermon,” Virginia said. “
The
sermon. All twenty-four minutes of it. I’ve got it memorized. He’s given it every year since he came.”

“Longer than that,”
Dee said. “I swear last year I heard him say something in it about World War I.”

“‘And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city,’” Reverend Wall said. “‘And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth.’”

“Oh,
no,”
Sharon said. “He’s going to give the whole sermon right now.”

“We know nothing of that journey up from Bethlehem,” he said.

“Thank
you, Reverend Wall,”
Rose said. “After the sermon, the choir sings ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, and Mary and Joseph—”

“What message does the story of their journey hold for us?” Reverend Wall said, picking up steam.