Commune of Women (21 page)

Heddi just can’t bear the wizened old con artist. She doesn’t like to sit next to her because she expects her to stink – which she doesn’t. She looks filthy, like dirt has been ground into her pores that no amount of scrubbing will get out – even though she’s not.

Her whole body is like some old rag of a dress you’d find at a thrift shop – wrinkled, faded, snagged, both shrunk-up and stretched out, and turned in by its last owner grimy and spotted with past meals.

Heddi just can’t get beyond her revulsion for her. Dr. Copeland would say she’s obsessed. He’d want to know what she’s projecting onto Pearl.

And Heddi would give him the obvious answer – fear of old age; fear she’ll get as lumpy and basically repugnant as Pearl is, some day.

But that’s not really it. After so many years of analysis, it’s impossible for Heddi not to wonder what’s
really
going on here. The other women seem to like Pearl well enough, and she and Sophia have actually become thick as thieves. So what’s Heddi’s problem with her?

The answer snuck up on her in the night and she felt it eating in the pit of her stomach. But before she could go there and see the little mousie of emotion with her own eyes, she did this quick little thing in her brain and switched over to hating Pearl, just visualizing her and imagining she smells like pee – she doesn’t – and remembering the same little annoyances, over and over and over. And the little mousie just ate its fill and departed, with Heddi none the wiser.

Dr. Copeland would want to know: “Why the avoidance?” Then Heddi would get snippy with him. Maybe get up and walk out ten minutes early. Then she’d obsess all day, thinking of that scene and blaming her analyst.

God!

Maybe she’s just obsessing over Pearl to avoid thinking about the reality of their situation.

Heddi’s been optimistic until last night. On every side, she heard groans, muffled swearing and tears in the darkness. Everyone is starting to come undone – except Pearl, of course, whose peaceful snores would be enviable if they weren’t so dreadful.

And there’s another concern. Sophia’s prediction is apparently coming to pass. There’s a distinct odor now, more than just their unwashed bodies and clothing; a kind of sickly sweet smell.

At first, Heddi thought it might be Erika’s wound, because Sophia confided in her that infection has set in and Erika needs antibiotics soon. But now, she’s thinking the smell is exactly what Sophia predicted – decomposing bodies on the other side of the door.

Where the Hell are the police? She thought they’d be out of this room a day ago. They can go to the Moon, but they can’t disarm a few terrorists? She’s not sure who “they” are – but she’s mad at them, just the same.

She feels as if the entire world has stopped. Died. That they’re the only ones left – and they just don’t know it yet.

One good thing about exhaustion – it numbs the fear. These gals are going to be too tired to
move
today, let alone quake.

But someone’s going to have to muster the energy to help Sophia do the unthinkable. Today’s the day. There’s no putting it off now. They have to unblock that door and move those bodies. She’d know that smell anywhere – and, like a toothache, it never gets better, only worse.

Still, she hesitates, thinking...maybe...maybe they could hold off one more day. It’s not too bad yet. No sense in going out there, if they’re about to be rescued.

She hasn’t heard any movement in the hall at all. It doesn’t make sense. If the terrorists are still in control, you’d think she’d hear them patrolling. If they’re not in control, then where the hell are the police? The only thing she can think is, the terrorists have control of both ends of the concourse, so they don’t need to patrol it.

That means if they’re lucky, they can open the door, dash out and drag the bodies – where? Somewhere far enough away, so that the stink isn’t overwhelming – and then get back in and block the door again, without their spotting them.

And if they do spot them?
Oh Goddess!
She doesn’t even want to think about it.

Talk about being between the Devil and the deep blue sea!

Heddi told Betty once that there’s a kind of behavioral therapy where they make you go and face your fears. Like, if you’re afraid of flying, you fly and fly until you lose your fear. Or something like that. She said she didn’t recommend it.

Anyway, being locked in this room, threatened with death, half-starved, sleeping on the floor, may be God’s form of that therapy. Betty can’t imagine ever being bored or depressed again! If she ever gets out of this mess, she’ll fall down and kiss her wall-to-wall carpet. She’ll say Grace before every meal, every snack, every breath mint.

She’ll make time to assist in Sam’s homeroom. She’ll help Serena start a hamster farm. She’ll write Larry a letter of apology – she’d do it now, if she had paper and a pen.

What was that little song they learned in French class in high school?
Au Clair de la Lune?
Betty begins to hum under her breath:

Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot,
Prêtez-moi ta plume, pour écire un mot;
Ma chandelle est morte. Je n’ai plus de feu.
Ouvres-moi ta porte, pour l’amour de Dieu.

Some poor guy begging a pen, wanting his friend’s door opened so he can have light and warmth to write by.

This experience sure gives
that
new meaning! Betty wants the door opened, too. And she wants a friend, not a foe, to do it. And she wants a pen and paper, so she can write her family – just in case it doesn’t happen that way.

What would she say to them? How can she even begin to express what she’s feeling?

She feels like she’s made the most colossal mess of her life! How could she just let her family walk out like that? How could she just let Larry go? The love of her life? And Sam? And Serena? Has she been completely crazy?

This
is
reality therapy and, if she survives it, she’ll never be the same again – which is a
good
thing.

By some miracle, Ondine slept an hour or two last night. Sheer exhaustion, probably. And with sleep, came dreams...

She’s on the beach below Tante Collette’s house. The sea is unusually pacific and gulls are soaring in a cerulean sky. Down the beach, she spots Tante Collette coming toward her, moving with that stately grace so uniquely hers. She is all wrapped in some kind of aqua and celadon silks that breathe and flutter in the wind.

Ondine’s heart just leaps with joy! She starts running towards her.

Tante Collette stops, holds out her arms. Ondine runs into them and reaches up to receive her aunt’s kisses – only to see a Death’s Head grinning back at her!

Of course, it woke her straight up. But she was so tired, she’d doze again, and again find herself on the beach. She must have dreamed the same dream at least five times, with variations on the theme.

Until those dreams, she didn’t really understand the seriousness of her situation. Somehow, it’s seemed like
this
is the dream – this little room, these women, being trapped here. She’s been in denial, thinking this would suddenly all just go away magically, like a terrible nightmare that evaporates with the dawn.

But now she feels that Tante Collette has appeared to warn her of real danger – to say that Death is a reality.

Tante Collette always was her Early Warning System, using age as a promontory from which she looked down on everything that seemed like a jumble to Ondine. From her eminence, chaos must have showed as patterns, like Ondine seeing the mandala in the heart of Paris from the plane.

So the pattern Ondine’s weaving now – or being woven into is more the case – is Death. And she guesses it’s not so much the dying that scares her. It’s all the unlived Life.

Erika thinks she’s going to die. She can’t get any relief from the pain. She feels sweaty and hot – then icy cold.

They’re just going to fucking let her lie here and die!

Whooo-eee! Pearl ain’t had a good sleep lak that in a coon’s age. She done fergot what it was ta sleep indoors an not have ta worry bout some feller a-sneakin up on her; some junkie lookin fer dope or money, or some prevert lookin ta take his pleasure on her ol body – now ain’t
that
the very vision a desperation!

She wonders what’s fer breakfast an hopes the coffee ain’t run out yet. She sure do enjoy a cup in the mornin!

She’s gettin spoilt.

Ain’t it amazin how quick a gal gets use ter the high life?

X cannot believe herself. Here she is, watching television and eating Oreos out of Fat Guy’s lunch box like some American housewife!

It is the body again; it does not want to die, especially by starvation. Her stomach is rumbling so loudly she thinks it will give away her position!

If the police ever bother to come, that is.

When X first came to America two years ago, she was so excited! She wanted to become an American – to think like one, dress like one and eat like one. She discarded all her mother’s notions about food and dress. Instead, she consumed Big Macs and fries and wore jeans. She thought she was so chic, hanging out at MacDonald’s with her friends!

She cannot believe now that she was so naïve.

No one from the organization of Christian churches gave her any instruction. She was just brought here straight from her hiding place in Jerusalem because her English was good and her parents were dead, and because she had excelled in her classes.

She knows certain people risked their lives for her, and that she was favored by luck or she would not be here now. She would have missed this opportunity completely.

Still, they just threw her in the water and no one really cared if she would sink or swim.

The first year was devoted only to study. She was determined to excel in all her courses because she was afraid to lose her scholarship. It was not until the Imam and Father Christopher brought them together that she began to see the error in her ways. When the Kultur Klub was formed, everything changed.

First of all, she met Jamal. In the beginning, it was so frightening. What would her parents say, if they were alive? An Egyptian Copt and a Palestinian Muslim? She thinks she would be stoned to death.

But the entire point, according to the Imam and Father Christopher, was to break down the old prejudices that have left them all orphaned. Ibrahim and Hassan are from the Palestinian camps, like her; Abbas lost his parents to the intelligence agency VEVAK’s assassins in Iran; and Bros is an orphaned Croat. Slobodan’s entire family was murdered in Bosnia. Yuri’s parents died in a Russian bombing of Chechnya. Abdullah has permanent genetic damage from Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds that killed the rest of his family – eighteen of them! And Hansi has one hand missing from the massacre in Rwanda that took his family of ten. There’s even a Jew, Abraham, from a frontier village in Israel that was bombed by the Palestinians. She thinks he may still have a sister left alive somewhere.

It was only a fluke that X was included in the Klub. The Imam and Father Christopher located every foreign orphan they could find on campus and all the rest just happened to be male – or women too frightened to join.

But she doesn’t really want other women included. She’s proud to be the only one. She wants to be the token female and show how strong her gender can be. In Women’s Studies, they studied women like Ida Tarbell, Harriet Tubman and Madame Curie; women who did not let gender prejudice defeat them, who broke through the barriers and opened the doors.

X wants to be one of those women. She wants girls in Lebanon and Egypt and Palestine and yes, even America, to read her name in books and say,
I want to be like her!

Even though, meeting after meeting, she had to go to the restroom and be sick, she made her spirit stronger than her body. She did it by overcoming the body’s natural prejudice for life.

She had to make herself willing to die.

Thank the Goddess the food’s holding out. Breakfast was a little sparse, but potato chips taste pretty good with coffee when you’re ravenous.

Something’s going on with Betty. She’s roaming around in major meltdown, so distraught that she doesn’t even realize the green plastic chair is pinched on her enormous bottom like a squashed animal, its stiff legs protruding backwards in a kind of supplication.

A new take on having a reserved seat! Sophia wants to smile, but thinks she might burst into tears, instead.

Heddi and Ondine are hovering.

Sophia’s got to catch Heddi’s eye and get her to calm her down. Hysterics that loud could be heard outside.

Complete hysteria! She’s got to get this creature quieted down before she draws the terrorists to them like wolves to a wounded deer.

“Okay. Okay.

“Let me catch my breath.

“Okay.

“Okay.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

“It’s just...just that...

“It’s my family. They all hate me.

“They don’t even know I’m here...or care, if they do know.

“Heddi says I should tell you
my
story – not the neighbor’s – and I don’t really know where to begin.

“I guess it should be with the flowers.

“Heddi says that flowers are a symbol and that flowers are my fetish.

“I don’t really understand that. I always thought the flowers just created a nice, homey atmosphere. Celebrated the seasons and holidays. That’s what I thought they symbolized...a nice, loving home.

“For whatever reason, though, what started out innocently has become a big problem. I don’t really know how it happened, it was so gradual...

One Halloween, as she was arranging a plastic pumpkin full of corn stalks, Betty conceived a noble project. She would assemble a huge bouquet of flowers for every holiday and every month of the year.

For years after that, her secret vice was to drive by various shops – K-Mart, if she was poor, and the local gift shop, if she was flush – and buy a stem or two of plastic roses or holly or yellow daffodils, whatever the season or holiday dictated.