Woman (22 page)

     The voice spoke once again.

     "You are permitted to
be told, because of your wife," it said. It was, quite clearly, he now
realized, a woman's voice. But not Ganine's. Although Ganine's face looked at
him with an expression of detached assurance, he knew it wasn't she who spoke
to him.

     "Men and women can no
longer co-exist," the woman said, her tone malignant but controlled.
"We are sundered beings.

     "There is only one
Earth," she continued. "Only one force can control it. This was not
inevitable at the beginning but now is so.

     "Nature can no longer
be a conquest. No longer will you be empowered to desolate its very existence.
From this day forth, you will not despoil its growth. You will, no more, infect
its lakes and rivers and its oceans. You will, no longer, fill its atmosphere
with wasting poisons.

     "You will, no longer,
butcher seals and whales and dolphins or any other rightful creature in the
seas. You will, no longer, slaughter animals for greed or sport.

     "No longer will your
gender be given leave to turn its back on all responsibility to age, to race or
to religious faith. You will ignore, no further, what is ancient, debase, no
further, what is different. You have abused your last human being, raped your
last human being, gassed and burned and blown to bloody shreds your last human
being. Politics and power blight existence. You will not be privileged to
blight existence any longer.

     "Your betrayal of me
now also ceases. I will not be brutalized again. I am not an object, not a
slave, neither inferior nor invalid. I am awareness and compassion. I do not
destroy but create. I do not deform but sustain. I have lived forever. I will
always live.

     "I am Woman."

     Whatever held Ganine in
domination gazed silently at David for several moments, then turned toward the
door.

     
"Wait,"
David said.

     The woman in Ganine turned
back to look at him.

     
"There
has to be an answer."

     "The answer is already
taking place," the woman's voice informed him. "The child within this
instrument is unsired by man. It will be female. In due time, all newborn
babies will be female. Male infants will abort or die at birth. The race,
unsullied by the male distraction, will endure. Conception will be dealt with
in another way.

     "Women will control the
Earth.

     "Not those women who
have defiled themselves to satisfy the male. Not those who have attempted to
corrupt their gender by becoming males themselves in any way. Not those who
fail to understand the natural purpose of our Being. These, too, shall perish.
Your wife might have been one of these."

     "But surely—" he
protested.

     The voice ignored him.
"What will remain will be a permutation," she continued. "Nature
altered by nature to undo the eons of offense. What will remain will be a new
vitality, a new substance. Gradually, a perfect woman will emerge. A
transcendent force of life dedicated to—"

     The voice broke off, then
told him, "You have heard enough and you will not repeat it."

     Ganine—the woman—looked at
him with pity.

     "It is
unfortunate," she said. "There might have been a chance with such as
you.

     
"Now
it is too late."

     She turned and left the
apartment, leaving the door open. David stared toward the hallway, feeling lost
and impotent.

     In his chest, his heart beat
slowly, labouredly.

MONDAY

StationKBNY, 3:01 P.M. Doctor David Harper.
Candidly speaking.

     I am not going to answer
questions today. Instead, I am going to speak to you about a subject we've
discussed for several weeks now, namely the feminist movement. I've said that I
think it's failing and I still believe that. I was referring to its social
aspect though, as a revolution, it cannot succeed.

     But there is, also,
evolution.

     The human fetus is, by
nature, initially female. It becomes male if the genetic code determines it.
But, first, it is female.

     The oldest known representation
of the Deity is the figure of a woman. Nature and its secrets have always been
associated with women. Worship of the moon, in ancient times, was worship of
creative power in the female—of her attunement with natural law.

     Because this law has been
and is being broken, the disenchantment goes beyond the demands of feminism. It
gravitates into the area of total life upon the environment of this planet. A
planet on which women live but have had no real voice.

     Until now.

     Social justice cannot be
achieved while man is dominant. Accordingly, the same genetic code which turns
a female fetus into a male must, of necessity, be re-oriented.

     Let me quote from Esther
Harding.

"Even today, they say, certain babies are begotten by
the Moon, not by any mortal father. Such children are marked out for some great
destiny as befits their celestial parentage."

     Concluding then. . .

     A poem from the sixth
century reads as follows:

Lady of Ladies,

Goddess of Goddesses

Queen of all peoples,

Directress of mankind

Thou art great, thou art exalted

All mankind boweth down before thy power

Look upon me, O my Lady

and acceptmy supplication

Cry unto me "It is enough! "

and let thyspirit be appeased.

     This spirit is
being
appeased. There is, upon this
Earth, as Inow speak to you, a
new
woman. Who carries, in her womb, the embryo of what is soon to be—
oh, no.
Listen to me. What is happening is
in its infancy. It can be prevented if we— I'm having trouble breathing.
Oh!
  Dear God, my
chest!
  The
pain.
I'm
choking.
Listen! This is
happening!
We must—oh, dear
God!

     Turn it off! Right now!

     I can't! It won't go off!

     Jesus Christ, what's
happening?!

     Call an ambulance! He's
having a goddamn heart attack!

     For Chrissake,
turn the mike off.

     Ladies and gentlemen—
Please stand by.