The Women's Room

by Marilyn French

  Economic and political. Bliss had no fancy words for any of this: she would have had difficulty in expressing it abstractly. What she said to herself was, you have to play it, and you have to play it their way. She recognized the master class, she recognized its expectations from a woman. She played the game by the rules that had been laid down long before she was born, laid down, as far as she could tell, in ancient times. There was only one thing Bliss wanted: to win. Nothing mattered more, except in some fierce inner place with few occupants – her mother and her children, and her mother was dead now. But she would have fought for her children’s survival just as her mother had fought for hers. Somehow, her children knew that. Although it was their father who teased and joked with them, and their mother who usually was the one to scold, they sensed her fierceness and her love, and returned it. Their gay independence was settled on a foundation they knew to be unshakable.

  Bliss had never been one of the girls in the cars. Sex and romance had been part of the great market basket of niceties she could not afford. But she had been eating a bit better of late, and her body was reaching out. She had sold herself to Bill knowing perfectly well what she was doing, and with honorable intentions. She would uphold her part of the bargain. She would be consort, maid, and brood mare, and he would pay for her services. She would be faithful, since that was one of the conditions. And Bill had upheld his part. They were not what is called ‘comfortable,’ but they ate. And he was faithful to her, of that she was sure, regardless – or perhaps because of – all his tales of stratospheric shacking up. He would, in time, earn decent money. He was Security.

  To risk that was terrifying. She sat and pondered this deeply. She went over and over in her mind the possibilities. At the worst, he would divorce her: he was not a killer. If he divorced her, she might be able to get a job in New Jersey, but with her Texas diploma, so looked down on in the North, she might not be able to teach. Even if she could teach, all she could earn was six or seven thousand a year, a salary Bill had passed years ago. It would be hard for her and the children to live on that without someone to do what she did – the unpaid labor: she would have to pay after-school babysitters, pay for laundry done, pay someone to stay with the kids if they were sick. And if she could not get a teaching job, she would earn even less. Sometimes when Bill was away, she read all the Help Wanted Ads for women. Only crack secretaries earned more, and she could not even take dictation. She could be a clerk in an office, in a department store, or in a dry cleaning shop. She could work in a factory. She could go to New York with her diploma and be a fancier clerk, earning more but having to spend more on clothes and commutation.

  There was no way out. A woman had to be married.

  But who would have her with two young children? As a mistress, yes, but Bliss did not delude herself that anyone was going to fall wildly in love with her and want to take her on with two kids. Of course, Bill might not divorce her. She might be able to play penitent, and he needed her so much that he might be willing to take her back, granting her forgiveness from his magnanimous male soul. But then he would become watchful, prying. That would be intolerable. The rest of her life she would be a virtual prisoner.

  Of course, he might not find out. If she were careful and clever enough, there was no reason for him to find out. But even the best laid plans … an accidental encounter, a chance word dropped. No matter how careful she was, there was always that chance. It came down to that: she would have to be clever and careful, and even then he might find out. Then she would have to use all her skills to play it so that he would not believe it, and at the same time play it so that if he came to believe it, he would forgive her. It was overwhelming, and too costly for a bridge teacher.

  She told her bridge teacher that she felt him to be terribly attractive, that she had, all this while, been lonely too, lonely for a kindred soul to talk to. But she loved her husband and felt she could not do this to him. She was sorry, but she thought they should not meet anymore.

  He did not understand. The problem with games is that all players do not have an equal insight into the rules. He did not understand that she was salving his male pride, playing up to his male ego: he believed her words. He began to call her up at home. She was terrified. Luckily, he called at moments when Bill was not there. But the third time, she told him that if he called again, she would call his wife and tell her everything. That worked. Bliss never got beyond Blackwood in bridge.

  But her body did not go away, and without the bridge teacher’s pressure, she felt its pressure more and more. She played seductress at parties, knowing what she was doing, knowing the men knew too, unable to help herself. She played seductress, telling herself she was in control. Bliss the snake.

  Bliss the ache. For when the parties were over, she went home with Bill and undressed in the bathroom while he, already in bed, was calling to her.

  ‘Hey, come here, Mommy, Baby wanna suck your boobs. Little Billy cold, Mommy, need little Blissy come play with him.’

  She would shower, remove her makeup carefully, brush her long hair a hundred strokes. But he would not stop. ‘Mooooooommmy! Biwwy wonwy!’

  She would stand there silent, or call out, ‘Coming!’ and gaze at herself. And slide her hands down her sides and wonder what it would be like to be held hard and firm and passionately by someone who wanted to own her, to take possession of her, to control her, someone who would embrace and encompass and hold her against him hard no matter what she did, and make her know that she was his.

  19

  Mira was washing windows when she heard the slam. It was hot, and sweat was running down her face and arms. She heard Natalie’s voice call out, and silently said, ‘Darn!’ Natalie would want to talk and she wanted to get these windows done before midday, before the heat became intolerable. She got down from the stepladder. Natalie was standing in the bedroom doorway.

  ‘I have to talk to you!’ she said, sounding almost angry. She had something in her hand that she was waving around.

  ‘Nat, can I come over later? I wanted to finish these windows.’

  ‘No! I’m going out of my mind. I have to talk to you.’ Mira looked at her and Natalie burst out, ‘I’m afraid for my life!’

  They went downstairs. ‘Got any booze?’ Nat asked, and Mira fished around in a cabinet and found some bourbon. She poured a drink for Nat, and made iced coffee for herself.

  Natalie’s face looked strange. She was holding a thick packet of papers in her hand, held together with a rubber band. It looked as if the packet contained some small memo books as well. Her manner was ominous.

  ‘I was packing the stuff from the bedroom. I’d reached Hamp’s chest. I never look at his things,’ she said stiffly and then puffed nervously on her cigarette. ‘I mean, I fold his underwear and socks and iron his handkerchiefs and put them all in his drawers, but I never look in his drawers. I never look at his papers,’ she kept insisting.

  ‘I believe you,’ Mira said, realizing she never looked at Norm’s papers either.

  ‘But I had to pack them. The movers are coming tomorrow. So I emptied out his drawers. And there, in the back of his sock drawer, way in back, behind the ski socks he’s had for years and never worn, were these!’ She held the papers almost under Mira’s nose.

  ‘Of course, I wouldn’t have looked at them, but I dropped them and they fell open to a page. And after one page, I had to read the rest.’

  Mira stared at her. Natalie began to fan herself with papers.

  ‘Mira, you wouldn’t believe! I can’t believe! Mild Hamp, sitting in his chair! When did he write them? They’re in his handwriting. That I know. He must’ve done it on the train, or in the office, then come home and buried them back there. Why did he keep them? Mira, I think he’s going to kill me!’

  Mira said, ‘Why? What’s in them?’ and held out her hand, but Natalie clutched the papers.

  ‘Terrible! Terrible! Stories. They’re all stories. None of them are finished, they’re just beginn
ings, and they are all about him. He uses his own name. “Hamp did this. Hamp did that.” And terrible!’

  Mira bent toward her, perplexed.

  Natalie tried to describe them. After a while, she opened one of the little memo books and began to read, holding it close to her so that Mira could not see. But there was no doubt she was reading from the book. She opened another, then another, choosing at random. They were all the same.

  In each of the beginnings, for that is what they were, a man named Hamp was involved with a woman. Sometimes the woman was named too: Natalie, Penelope (‘his mother, Mira!’), Iris (‘his sister!’), but there were other names too, Ruby and Elisia and Lee (‘He loves Lee Remick, I’ll bet that’s who that’s supposed to be’) and Irene. The involvement was less sexual than violent. In each of the pieces, the man had the woman in a condition of submission: tied up, chained to a bed, chained to a hook in the wall. And each one contained a torture. In the one dealing with Penelope, he pushed a hot poker up her vagina. He singed Iris’s breasts with curling irons, whipped Ruby with a cat-o’-nine-tails, racked Lee and screwed her at the same time. They were all variations on the same theme. They were not developed: no background scene had been sketched in, little description was offered. There was a man and a woman and the act: only the act was described lovingly, with detail. The number of strokes, the number of turns of the screw, the woman’s cries, screams, beggings: all were recounted carefully. The man’s emotions were not described. Whether he felt hate or love, whether he derived pleasure from his acts, or how the scenes ended, was not included. Only the act mattered. Mira was aghast. Mild, nice, pleasant Hamp! And all the time, underneath, such hatred of women.

  ‘Do you think it was because of the war, Mira?’ Natalie pleaded. ‘You know, when he was captured and put in that prison camp? Heaven knows what they did to him there.’

  Mira pondered. ‘I don’t think so. It seems to go back to his childhood.’

  ‘God, Mira, do you think he’ll kill me?’

  ‘Not as long as he keeps writing.’ Mira laughed shakily. She got up and poured a drink for herself, and a refill for Nat. ‘He probably thought he was writing pornographic stories. Probably had an idea he could make money selling them, money that had nothing to do with your father. Except all he was really doing was writing out his fantasies. And he hates. God, he hates. All of us. All women.’

  ‘Not quite all,’ an acid voice behind her put in.

  She turned. Natalie was glaring at her, slowly waving the rest of the packet. ‘There’s one woman he likes. Just one.’

  Mira frowned. She didn’t understand Nat’s tone. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know!’ Natalie accused. At Mira’s look of incomprehension, she burst out. ‘They’re to you! Are you going to say you didn’t know?’

  Mira sank into a chair. ‘What?’

  ‘Love letters. Oodles of them. “My darling Mira,” “My sweet baby,” “My adorable child Mira.” Oh, yes! But I don’t need to show them to you, I guess.’

  ‘Natalie, I never got a letter from Hamp.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked sweetly. She opened one folded paper. ‘ “My darling little Gigi, once you were a child but now you’re a woman. You have grown up right under my eyes. To me you will always be Gigi.” I could go on,’ she ended, folding the paper back up.

  ‘Natalie,’ Mira said reasonably, ‘if you found the letters, obviously they were never sent.’

  ‘These could be copies.’

  ‘They could be. But they’re not. Natalie, someplace inside of you, you know Hamp never sent those letters to me.’

  ‘All these years I thought you were my friend.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Sure. At every party you and Hamp would sit talking …’

  ‘Just because both of us felt out of it most of the time.’

  But Natalie would not be convinced. She had another drink. She went deeper and deeper into the affair as she imagined it, accusing Mira of treacheries and betrayals at every step. ‘I’ll bet you told him about Paul too! That’s why he overturned the paint can on the rug! And I thought you were my friend, I thought I could trust you!’

  Mira stopped arguing. It was obviously useless. Natalie raved on and on; Mira sat drinking, smoking, waiting. Natalie poured herself another drink. Mira poured herself another drink. Finally, Natalie cried, and Mira knew it was ending. Nat put her hands up to her face and sobbed about how much she loved Hamp, and how she could not bear it that he cared about someone else. She sobbed for minutes, then slowly calmed.

  ‘But he doesn’t love me,’ Mira said coldly.

  ‘What do you mean!’ Natalie was indignant. ‘You heard those letters.’

  Mira shrugged. ‘They’re the same as the notebooks. Why do you suppose he keeps them in the same packet? In the letters, I’m an adorable child he’s going to master; in the notebooks he masters women who aren’t adorable children. One step out of the role of adorable child and you get tortured.’

  Natalie didn’t understand. ‘He loves you.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Nat, you’ve loved other people.’

  ‘I haven’t! Never! I’ve screwed other people, but I never loved them.’

  Mira sat back in the chair. It was hopeless.

  ‘I believe you never got the letters,’ Natalie said finally.

  Mira smiled. ‘Good.’

  ‘I have to get back to packing. We’ll have to get together sometime.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Natalie went off like a chastened child. But Mira knew. She knew that no matter what had actually occurred, the facts stood as facts. Hamp had thought of her that way, and that was what was hurting Natalie. It didn’t matter that Mira hadn’t known, or that, had she known, she would not have become involved with Hamp. In fact, that even made it worse: that she would dare to refuse Hamp, the man Nat loved, the man who rejected Nat. But instead of dealing with Hamp, Nat had attacked Mira, who had been, if not a faithful friend, an honorable one. Natalie would never forgive her.

  ‘What do you care?’ Norm said when she told him about it.

  20

  Natalie moved in July; in August, Adele’s baby was born. Otherwise, it was an uneventful summer. The children were around all the time. The women had long ago learned to sit through the humid days with iced tea, listening to child noises. Mira had grown closer to Bliss; she even told her about the business with Natalie. It upset her, not because she was hurt – she wasn’t – but because of what she saw. She tried to explain to Bliss: ‘It’s that they go round and round. They never get anyplace. Everybody, all the unhappy marriages. They go on and on doing and saying the same things, miserable and wretched, but they never try to understand what they’re doing or why, they never try to do things differently so they can be a bit happier. I see it everywhere. It feels like hell to me. It may only be Dante’s first circle, but that’s hell enough. To go round and round like that forever.’

  Bliss shrugged. ‘Natalie was a bit of a bitch.’

  ‘I know,’ Mira said reluctantly, ‘but she was more than a bit unhappy.’

  ‘If she hadn’t been so bitchy, Hamp might have been better.’

  ‘Oh, Bliss! He was sick! We always blame the woman. That wasn’t Nat’s fault, it was his mother’s.’ Then she shook her head as she realized what she had said. But all the wisdom culled from all the books she had been reading sent her to no other source: it was Mother’s fault. And it was easier to blame Penelope than her husband: she was large and domineering and able and he was a shriveled little man, kind and ineffectual.

  Bliss did not want to talk about Natalie. These days, she was acting oddly. She was always humming or singing, and would stop abruptly when you spoke to her, answer, then start humming again. It was as if she had closed herself away in a private place she hated to come out of: the singing was the wall she had erected around it.

  ‘I wish somebody would give a party,’ Bliss said suddenly.

  ‘Yeah,
I can’t. The measly two days Norm and I had at Lake George broke us for two months,’ Mira laughed.

  Bliss smiled and began to sing ‘Sand in My Shoes’ under her breath.

  In September, Samantha decided nervously to try her hand. She was very excited and frightened – she’d never given a party before. But it went well. Part of what made the parties so good was that at their center was a nucleus of people who knew each other well and felt secure, so that they did not simply cling together but were open to those who were less familiar. Mira thought about the arrangement of these parties as a kind of model for a community. They seemed to her to hold the secret of togetherness and separateness, closeness and strangeness. The problem with most communities is they are xenophobic; the problem in most modern places is too much separateness. She pondered that, having by now read the Republic.

  Mira bought a new dress for this party, a white taffeta with a bouffant skirt and large purple flowers printed on it. It had cost $35 and was the most expensive dress she’d ever owned. She wore it as if she had borrowed it from her mother-in-law, and walked around as if she was afraid to brush against a wall.

  ‘So I got out the ice,’ Samantha said. ‘I put the trays on top of the refrigerator, and I went to get the lemons. And all of a sudden, bam!’ She put her hand on her head. ‘The lump’s as big as a marble!’

  Mira thought about her increasing habit of going off into private thoughts when she was with people. She felt cut off from the events around her these days, even from her friends and the parties. Things that happened no longer made her feel: they made her think. And she missed feeling, missed being nervous and excited. Things had changed. Natalie was gone, Bliss was in a private world, Adele was not as friendly as she had been – well, of course she was horrendously busy with the new baby – and, even more, Mira had grown tired of the game they had played. She did not think the things that happened to the women were funny, she was tired of making them out that way. She was tired of joking about the ineffectuality or absence of the men, who were absent even when they were physically present. That was not funny either. She was sick to death of Bill’s obscene jokes, of Roger’s behavior, Norm’s naughty-child act. She liked Samantha, but her mechanical doll behavior jarred Mira, and Samantha seemed determined to remain a wide-eyed child. Also Samantha was still playing the old game, the aren’t-we-funny-but-brave line. Mira had met two new women she liked, but they weren’t part of the party crowd. In fact, the old group seemed not to like Lily and Martha. Mira moved from group to group at the party, feeling sullen and unsocial.