Commune of Women (9 page)

“Information
is
flowing,” the reporter enthuses, one hand holding her blonde hair back from her face in the rising night wind. “There are now some revelations on the identity of the terrorists, hunted down by investigative agents who, with the help of Interpol, have tirelessly chased leads, worked timelines and scoured the intelligence logs.

“Negotiators are huddled with psychologists, talking through scripts and plotting strategy, while the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team is primed for the assault they’ve trained so long to perform. The sniper commander has placed his best shots in prime strategic positions. All is in readiness! What will the next move be?”

The TV screen suddenly fills with an advertisement for a gigantic car lot. X shakes her head in aggravation. All that blonde woman needed to say was, “Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of
Terrorists in L.A.!
” She treats the entire incident as if it were entertainment. X can scarcely contain her disgust.

The news returns to the screen. They are signing off for the night. The camera pans away from the blonde woman. Only a few hundred yards further out from the throbbing ring of emergency lights is the steady river of headlights, the never-ceasing traffic on L.A.’s freeways, flowing on and on, sounding like falling water. Only a few miles further, X imagines, the Pacific Ocean rocks in its vast basin like a cauldron of molten tar. The shore lights of the city reach feebly into its bottomless blackness and then, a hundred yards from shore are lost, drowning in the fathomless dark.

Heddi’s quite sure she’s never spent a more miserable night in her entire life. Not even in that fleabag motel up on the Big Sur coast, where the mattress sloped 30 degrees and she slept hanging on to the edge all night to keep from rolling downhill into Hal. Who, of course, slept like a baby.

She rubs the bruises from yesterday’s pile-up gingerly. Her watch says its
5:14
, but you’d never know if that was morning or afternoon in here. Isn’t there a law against building rooms without windows – some fire code, or something?

She was more awake than asleep, all night. She didn’t hear a sound outside in the concourse and she had this funny thought that it was all a mistake. That this morning some worker would unlock the door and here they’d all be, all over the floor, their heads balanced on rolls of toilet paper. And the people in the concourse, with their rolling suitcases and suiters over their arms, would look in here and frown and wonder what the hell was going on.

That struck her as hilarious. She started to giggle and had to throw an arm over her mouth to keep from waking the others – something she definitely does
not
want to do.

Pretty soon, these women are going to be waking up, anyway, and Heddi dreads it. She wishes they could all just lie here, absolutely still, until the police come for them. Being caged up with all these women and their anxieties today is going to be like running the group therapy session from hell.

Already, she hears someone moving over by the machines. She opens her eyes just a slit, not letting on she’s awake...

Oh, it’s the Bruegel. Look at that old sneak!

She tiptoes over to the table. Takes some coins. Tiptoes back to the machines. Looks around... Puts in a coin. The noise of it dropping is like a freight train rolling through. Looks around again... No one is stirring. Drops in another coin...and another, until there’s a soft
whack
, as a cup drops and then the sound of coffee squirting into it.

The smell fills the room.

Still no movement from the others. Maybe they’re all dead from shock. Surely, they can’t have slept through that old reprobate’s performance.

There she sits on her blanket, leaning against the machine with her pillow behind her, sipping her coffee like the Queen of Sheba.

What’s she doing now?

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

Enough noise to wake the dead – so Heddi guesses the others
aren’t
, after all.

Oh! I don’t believe this! A pipe?! The woman smokes a pipe?

Sure enough. The Brueghel’s packing her pipe with... what? Marijuana? No. Smells like tobacco. Heddi’s a Virginia girl. She’d know the smell of tobacco anywhere.

She’s striking the match – that sharp smell of sulphur!

Sulphur, coffee, tobacco smoke. Cheap coffee. Cheap tobacco smoke, the lowest grade. But what smells! Elemental smells of Heddi’s childhood. Those, and horse sweat, oiled leather, hay, kerosene from the stable lanterns. She can almost hear Tobias nickering for his morning apple and Amos, in that baritone that could soothe a skittish horse – or a frightened child – saying, “We-e-e-ll, good mornin’ there, Miss Heddi. You up bright an’ early dis mornin’.”

And little Heddi, barely up to his kneecaps, smiling at his mock surprise, with one hand on her hip. “Amos, you know I come here this time every morning!”

And Amos, beaming in feigned confusion. “Is dat so, Miss Heddi? Now, how could I a forgot dat?”

Another elemental – her first flirtation. Those early morning exchanges with Amos filled her empty little heart and set high her expectations for all of male-female love – it would be tender, humorous and gallant. It would always cherish and honor her.

Yes, Amos, wherever you are, I am up bright an’ early dis mornin’. And you would never, ever believe this world I’ve awakened to. Thank God you lived out your life among pitchforks and currycombs! You were made of too fine a stuff for the Age of AK-47
_s.

Well, if this don’ beat all! Pearl cain’t believe she done fell inta such good luck! A good, safe nat’s sleep, nice an warm, plenty a food, an good, black coffee! She’s been roamin this earth fer a hunnert years an the Lord finally done smilt on her.

If her luck holds, they’ll be in here fer a day or two more, an she cain rest up. Since Pop died, she confesses, she’s been feelin poorly. Don’ quite know what ta do with hersef. If she cain set a spell, she’ll get hersef collected, she reckons.

José done her a good turn. She wonders what’s happent ta his cousin, Maria? Hope she’s alrat. Them tearists mean business. Another piece a good luck, she was in here when all Hell broke loose.

Alls she gots ta do is survive them women.

Sophie’s a good egg. The nigger gal ain’t gonna be no trouble. Betty, she strikes Pearl as a gal with a heart – but she looks ta be rat on the brink a hysteria, lak she’ll bust out laughin or cryin or both, an fer no patic’lar reason.

Then, theys this Heady woman an the Onion. Pearl don’ ratly know how ta consider them. Theys too high-toned fer the laks a her. Pearl watcht em at supper last nat, pickin through all the good food the Lord done provided lak they was lookin fer jewels in hog slop, little fingers prinked.
Too fine fer feathers
, her Granny use ter say.

Before everbody wakes up, Pearl’s gonna get in that bathroom thar an freshen up. She’ll rinse her out some undies an maybe soak her feet in the john. Loosen up some a them callouses.

The Lord done blest her today an she’s gonna take full advantage of it.

Sophia didn’t sleep all night. She kept dozing and then instantly waking, the way you do in a combat zone, constantly checking on Erika. Sophia thinks she’ll mend. Today will tell. If an infection’s started, it’ll show today.

Not a sound from the concourse all night. Where on Earth are the police? How could it take this long? They’ve got to have an army out there, by now – SWAT teams, ambulances, helicopters, FBI. Maybe even National Guard and tanks. A whole city of news trucks
,
at a safe distance. But not a peep, in here. It’s eerie. What could be wrong?

Maybe they’ve taken hostages. That’s probably it. They’ve got a whole bunch of people rounded up
,
somewhere in the terminal
,
and the police are afraid to come in. That must be it.

The terrorists must have a demand of some kind, she figures. They’re negotiating. Otherwise, why do this? They could just send in a suicide bomber...get it over with, if they’re just pissed and want to make a statement. No. They want something...passage to Libya, release of a fellow terrorist from prison...something like that.

That means no heroic rescue any time soon. Negotiations will take time.

Meanwhile, the police’ll be planning a strategy. Spotting the lookouts. Setting up snipers. Reading the buildings with infrared to see where the concentrations of bodies are...living bodies.

She wonders if a decomposing body shows up on one of their scopes? Even a dead body emits heat. Then it cools. Then it starts to rot, which is a form of slow fire – so you get heat again. She’ll have to ask someone when this is all over.

All Betty wants to do is cry. She’s been lying here – how long? And she just can’t stop. The tears just flow and flow. Thank goodness she keeps Kleenex in her purse.

Her nose is running, too. She’s a big, blubbering mess – except she’s not blubbering, not aloud anyway.

Betty’s never cried like this before. When she cries, she always wails. But here she’s trying to be quiet. But that doesn’t stop the tears. They just well up and spill over, without her even thinking much about it. They have a mind of their own.

Heddi would want to know what she’s crying about. Betty hasn’t a clue. It’s just scary and overwhelming. They’re locked in here; dead people are heaped in front of their door; her family doesn’t even know she’s in trouble... or care, probably. This room is small and ugly. There’s a gutted Coke machine looming over her.

Isn’t that enough?

She just wants to do what it takes to get through this. Thank God Sophia and Heddi are with them! They seem to have some idea of what needs doing.

She just doesn’t understand why she can’t stop crying. Maybe it’s because her backside is numb from lying on this floor.

Or maybe because she’s hungry. What they had for dinner last night was nothing more than a snack. And breakfast this morning isn’t going to be any better. Betty’s like a vole – she needs to eat her own weight, every day, just to stay balanced. She’s afraid she’s waking the others up with the thunder rumbling in her stomach – another thing she can’t control.

She can imagine that they’ll be trapped in here for weeks, until they’re reduced to drinking tap water. Maybe one of them will die, finally, and then they’ll have to decide whether to eat her or not, just like that problem her high school philosophy teacher gave on a test: several men are on a boat, lost at sea. They’re starving. They have no way to catch fish. Someone proposes that they select lots and the loser gets killed and eaten. Write an essay: did she think that was a good plan, or not?

Well, what kind of question is
that?
What L.A. high school student could relate to sitting in an open boat in the middle of the ocean, chewing on a raw hunk of human flesh? That’s the kind of thing you only read about in the
National Enquirer
.

Betty wrote that she’d rather die than eat another person. Then, after she was dead from starvation, they could eat
her
if they wanted to – that way, her life would be lost for some purpose. She’d felt noble when she handed in her paper.

She doesn’t feel so noble, now. She doesn’t want to die – and she doesn’t want anybody gnawing on her thigh-bone, either, thank you very much.

All her adult life, Ondine has felt exhausted. She drove herself. Everyone thought she was Ms. Congeniality. She was always the one with the biggest picnic hamper at soccer matches. Always had the cleverest theme parties, like the time, for Richard’s birthday, she transformed the backyard into a pirates’ grotto. Or the Marie Antoinette wedding shower she gave for her friend, Joan, all pink and green.

Heddi says she’s tired all the time because she’s an introvert who’s been living an extroverted existence. She says that kind of reversal of type can be extremely harmful, physiologically.

And in France, at Tante Collette’s, Ondine finally started to understand what she means. One day, she felt so strange – she thought she might be coming down with something. Then, she realized –
I’m relaxed!
It had been so long, it felt pathological!

Well, this morning, after a miserable night of repositioning a roll of toilet paper at the back of her neck and awakening from near-hallucinogenic dreams, she’s exhausted again.

She guesses escaping death at the hands of terrorists counts for extroversion.

Erika’s glad to hear the others start to move around. She was beginning to think this night would never end.

Sophia’s been shoving pills down her, but –
I’m sorry
– Advil really doesn’t cut it when you’ve got a hole bored clear through you!

Sophia says she shouldn’t eat anything. Who’s hungry? And she wouldn’t eat that junk, even if she were hungry – which she’s not.

She feels hot and sweaty, and like something with big teeth is gnawing on her left shoulder while jabbing a redhot wire right through the bullet hole.

Christ!
She pays enough taxes. Wouldn’t you think the LAPD could get it together to come and rescue them? Sometime soon? Like, before she dies.

Oh! She must have been sleeping!

Where is everybody? All the monitors are quiet.

Oh, there they are.

Still with that cluster of civilians who, for the most part, are still sleeping on the floor. A few are sitting up but with their knees drawn up and their arms around them like they need something to hang onto – or hide behind.

The Brothers are there, too, either standing and talking, or lying down, asleep. But where are the sentries? Maybe it’s the changing of the guard, although she does not see anyone in the corridors right now. Are the Brothers becoming careless?

With those ski masks on, it’s impossible to tell who is who. Could that be Jamal
,
over by the restroom door? She cannot tell.

Ah! Now they are moving. Six of them go off into the corridor and she starts to see them flitting from screen to screen. They split up into pairs and she monitors their individual trajectories through the terminal.