Woman on the Edge of Time

by Marge Piercy

  “They do interesting work in my field. On my next sabbatical, I’m going to travel there.”

  “Bee, will you go too?”

  “Not so. I traveled too much when I was involved in reparations to former colonies. I never want to move my body again! I got so weary. No, on sabbatical I want to follow a line of research our base decided against—foolishly.”

  She turned to Luciente. “Will you really go off to China without him?”

  “How not? For half a year. Person won’t run away.”

  “Ah, but without you to argue with day and night, my brain will turn into a jellyfish. You’ll come back and find me a Shaper. Who’ll keep me politically correct, who’ll chew me over?”

  White Oak had begun to warble a song that Connie had heard people singing lately all over the village:

  “Someday the past will die,

  the last scar heal,

  the last rubbish crumble to good dirt,

  the last radioactive waste decay

  to silence

  and no more in the crevices of the earth

  will poisons roll.

  Sweet earth, I lie in your lap,

  I borrow your strength,

  I win you every day.”

  Bee sang in his deep bass voice and Luciente sang fancy alto harmony until they were up to the door of the base where they all worked.

  “Someday water will run clear,

  salmon will thunder upstream,

  whales will spout just offshore,

  and no more in the depths of the sea

  will the dark bombs roll.

  Sweet earth, I lie in your lap …”

  Bee and White Oak went inside, still singing, while Luciente squatted down on the patch of grass outside to give her a lesson.

  Later White Oak came out to join them and they all went to work in the upper fields where the experimental gardens of zucchini and short-season lima beans were growing. They stopped by the children’s house to invite Dawn along, and White Oak took a baby for the ride and the sunshine. As they checked the plants and made measurements and notes, Luciente continued her lessons to Connie. Dawn had become curious about the past and kept interrupting with questions until Luciente said firmly, “Keep quiet now or leave, Dawn. Connie must fix on escaping from the bad place that holds per against per will. Next week, if Connie escapes, person will answer all the questions you can ask.”

  Dawn shut up. Connie said, “That’s the first time I heard anyone say no—you know, discipline a child here.”

  “I have to explain. Dawn must comprend the situation. And per questions will be given time.”

  She felt as if she, not Dawn, was pulling on Luciente, yanking her back and forth, and pestering her like a yapping puppy. She understood that what she was trying to master was simple indeed; something every six-year-old learned to do at will. In fact, that summer a child on naming had hurt himself badly on a rock pile and had remained in a form of hibernation until help came, slowing his bodily processes so that he was barely alive. That every six-year-old could zip in and out of delta and slow delta did nothing for Connie’s temper. Grimly she plodded through her lessons.

  Luciente checked the time. “Noon I meet Bolivar. We are eating a sandwich by the river and communing—or trying to!” Luciente gave a wry grin.

  “Do you like per better, Mommy?” Dawn asked, cocking her head.

  “I’m trying. Bumpy fasure, but I’m trying. So is Bolivar. But it’s like dog and cat.”

  “What do you talk about?” White Oak asked.

  “Childhood,” Luciente said with another thin grin. “It’s the only thing we have found in common, besides Jackrabbit, so far.”

  “Half the people I see are yawning today,” Connie said.

  “Oh!” Luciente groaned. “We were up till past midnight arguing the Shaping question. We had coffee twice. We’re taking a night off to catch up on sleep and then meeting again tomorrow night to argue out our village posit. Barbarossa and Luxembourg are on the other side, grasp,” she said to White Oak. “Got to work on them.”

  She stashed Dolly’s ten dollars between the upper and lower sole in her shoe and persuaded Valente to loan her a needle and thread to take in her dresses. On another ward her sewing would be considered a good sign—a feminine interest in making her clothes fit would have earned her points—but here no one cared. Only Valente’s kindness determined that she could get what she needed to fix her clothes so that people would not stare. People on the street.

  How she had dreaded leaving her tiny apartment in El Barrio for the grimy simmering streets! She had been crazy then. She would crawl, crawl on her hands and knees down Lexington, to be free.

  Saturday night she made her two extra dresses into a small bundle along with her few necessities and at eight she began pushing it out the window through the grating to fall on the privet hedge below. She had to spend ten minutes forcing it through the bars. She hated to think what the dresses would look like by the time she recovered them. Just don’t let it rain! It hadn’t rained in two weeks. While she was wiggling the package through, Sybil carried on at the nursing station, where she caused a small commotion, not quite enough to be punished but sufficient to absorb the attention of the Saturday night attendant.

  “Why can’t we socialize with other wards? On my old ward, every few weeks at least we had a nice social visit with another ward. We had Kool-Aid and cookies. Here we don’t have anything. We can’t even see movies. We don’t get occupational therapy. We don’t attend dance therapy. We don’t even take part in industrial therapy. Last time I was here, I worked in the laundry. Why not this time? This is exactly like a back ward, that’s what it’s like. We don’t even have group therapy! We must be the only functional patients in the entire hospital who don’t go to group therapy at least once a week!” Sybil posed with grande dame haughtiness, arching her brows, her voice, her shoulders, extending a regal arm in bold gestures, and managing to steal a glimpse of Connie’s progress.

  Connie had finished with the package and run into the bathroom, where she took out of her brassiere a small piece of metal she and Sybil had worked loose from Sybil’s bed. Slowly she cut into her thigh until it began to bleed and then she caught the blood in a small paper cup from meds they had carefully preserved. She thinned the blood just a little with water to keep it from coagulating too quickly and then she ran back out, dropping the metal weapon on Sybil’s bed. Then she put the paper cup of blood near the leg of the bed. Sybil at once stopped her tirade, making a Bette Davis exit back along the ward.

  “Good night, Lady Sybil,” the night attendant yelled. “We’ll give you a stiff one tonight”

  Connie stepped in Sybil’s path and ran against her.

  “Watch where you’re going, you fat cretin,” Sybil said.

  “Watch who you’re pushing, you skinny witch! Shooting your mouth off all the time. Think you’re better than the rest of us. But you’re just a crazy bitch!”

  “You tell her,” the night attendant called, laughing.

  “Your language is like the rest of you, out of the gutter!” Sybil shrieked.

  “At least I don’t pretend I can fly. They put you through shock so many times you got burnt toast for brains!”

  “Ooooooo!” Sybil flew at Connie. She seized the five-inch metal span and waved it aloft, where everyone could see. Then she began striking at Connie with the span. Some of the blows landed and really hurt Connie fought back with her fists and nails, flailing at Sybil. Tina Ortiz turned and came running down the ward, to mix in. Finally Sybil struck her in the side of the head, pulling the punch as best she could. Connie toppled at once, falling beside the bed and groping for the blood, pouring it into her ear, jamming her fingers hard up her nose into the tender mucous membrane so that her nose too began to bleed. Then she went into the state of unconsciousness she had been practicing. She could hear but was otherwise out. Sybil kicked the paper cup away under the bed as the night nurse and the attendant and Tin
a arrived, Tina screaming, “Jesús y María, you killed her, you white bitch!” They hypoed Sybil and then Tina. Skip had pushed open the door from the men’s ward and he was screaming in horror.

  They turned her over and prodded her and then strapped down Sybil, already fading from the sedation. They moved Connie up on her bed. The night nurse lifted her eyelids and peered, slapped her cheeks. “Well, I guess we better get an orderly to take her down to x-ray. I suppose it might be a fracture. Who’s on night duty? Probably Dr. Clausen. That New York smart ass Redding will have our hides if something happens to one of his precious brains, I’ll tell you. Put a bunch of the most violent hard cases in the hospital in here without enough security and what do you expect? I better give a call and see if Dr. Clausen’s asleep. In the meantime go wake up the orderly. Tell him to take her down to the x-ray till we see if we got anybody to operate it. Oh, shit! Why couldn’t they do this on a Monday night? Damn animals! Give them all an extra shot.”

  The orderly who loaded her on a truck and pushed her down the hallway to the creaky old elevator was bored and sleepy and annoyed. “Creeps,” he kept mumbling. Nobody hurried. Parked outside the x-ray room on the truck, she found the minutes oozing slowly as the orderly and the nurse stood around complaining. But eventually the nurse left to make phone calls and the orderly went off to the coffee machine on the floor above, having got the nurse to break a dollar for him.

  As soon as the orderly left she climbed down. Wiped the blood off as best she could on a sheet from the truck. Her nose was still dribbling blood. Then she trotted off down the nearest hall, trying every door as she went. In a closet she found a technician’s coat. All the labs and offices were locked. A broom closet was open and useless. Finally she turned a corner and saw a door to the outside. It was marked with a sign promising that if it was used as an exit the alarm system would be triggered. “What can I do? Santa Maria! Help me now, just once!” She burst through it and it began ringing fiercely, loud enough to be heard everywhere, everywhere.

  She had no idea what side of the building she had emerged on. Quickly she circled, looking for her clothes, but the outside lights flashed on and she gave up and started running. Perhaps she could hide someplace till dawn, till the search quieted, then circle back for her clothes. If only she had planned some better way to get the clothes out with her. She ran as hard as she could pump her short legs across the lawns, hopping low hedges, dodging benches. Soon they would be out looking for her in force. She was outside, she was outside for the first time since April! She ran, panting terribly, coughing, under the sliver of crescent moon, sharp enough to cut herself on. White as the metal span Sybil had pretended to attack her with. Bright as freedom. Skinny as her chances. “Pretty moon, mother, lady of those horns, help me. Luciente, shining one, like my friend, help me.”

  But the sharp scythe of moon mocked her. Commented in a stagy voice like Sybil’s that she had planned, but planned like a madwoman, not thinking past the first stage of her escape. Had panicked when the first doors were locked and seized the outside exit with the alarm. She should have continued to try every door on every corridor to make a safe exit.

  They might not find her clothes caught in the privet. If she hid, in the daytime she could shuffle slowly as any other inmate through the walks, meander close to the hospital, and grab the package. Another voice in her said, run, make space between. Escape and worry about clothes later. You have ten dollars. Buy, beg, steal clothes. Monday comes soon. Somebody will be doing a wash. Clothes will be hung on lines. Run! The voice sang that if she didn’t seize what chance she had, if she didn’t leap into the darkness, if like Sybil she awaited the perfect moment, the perfect moment never came. Alice had not tried to escape, and what punishment could they give her worse than to be turned into a toy, a puppet, a laboratory monkey?

  She decided to keep going and forget her bundle. A siren was screaming nearby Search parties, the police—they would all be after her. She knew where to get over the wall. She dodged among the buildings, along the inside of the hedges. She was glad she had been here before, glad she had had grounds privileges toward the end of her last stay so that she knew the layout. Now she was clambering up and over. Running in her clip-cloppy cheap shoes across the road to the far side. Behind a bush she crouched, panting. Waited for her breath to ease in her side. She coughed and coughed and spat. Used the white smock to wipe the blood from her face. Pulled the lump of bills from her shoe and stuffed it in the smock pocket.

  As soon as the pain loosened its grip on her ribs she rose and walked along the road. She could see headlights approaching. Whenever a car came, she hid in the bushes. She walked quickly. Before she reached the next crossroads at the end of the hospital grounds, four cars passed her. One of them was a police car. Every car had cruised too slowly to be passing motorists. She imagined the description: dangerous lunatic escaped. At the crossroads she paused, staring at the expanse of paving without protection. Then she ran clopping across the naked asphalt. Here was the state highway. She must follow it, but she was afraid to walk on the pavement. To reach cover would take too long. She clambered down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside. When a car approached, she threw herself on her belly. As soon as the car vanished, she rose and resumed a quick trot. Her braises were aching, her cut thigh chafed, and already her feet burned. She had hardly walked in the past months and her feet were tender; her body was slack and weak from bad food and lack of exercise. She felt spent. She wanted to lie down in the drainage ditch. Sleep would rise slowly around her, sleep would rise around her aching body as warm water filled a tub, yes, warm sweet clean water rising slowly, rising up to cover her nice and warm. She was kneeling, her head bowed to the gravel. She forced herself to rise and march on.

  All right, she could run and trot no farther. But she could walk. One foot, two foot. Right foot, left foot. A march played in her mind that people had been singing at militia practice, a song they said was from the time they called the Struggles or the Thirty Years’ War.

  Let me live in the sun

  the years I have,

  let me walk in the rain

  the years I have.

  Live long enough to tell my love

  to everyone I love.

  Live long enough to bake a brick

  for the house we share.

  Let me fight like a tiger

  and leave something pretty

  like a moon snail

  on the common beach.

  The words formed themselves in her mind and she hummed as she walked. Right foot, left foot. With her head tilted, she looked into the clear sky. Almost overhead a big red star shone. A little to the north, still high up in the sky, she found the Big Dipper. West and a little lower down, a sickle of stars hung. She wished she could remember how to find the North Star. Her father had shown her when she was a child.

  To leave the state highway would make her safer, but if she did she had no idea how to get to the next town. Again a police car came shining its spotlight lazily to both sides of the road. In the tall weeds of the drainage ditch she lay on her belly, glad that it had not rained for days. A mosquito settled on her leg and patiently sucked out her blood as she lay waiting for the police to leave. As she came to the next crossroads and raced across under high arc lights, she noticed that her green print dress was stained with dirt She was less acceptable-looking than ever. A gas station stood on the far corner of the crossroads, dark and shut for the night. She tried the doors of the bathrooms. The men’s had been left unlocked.

  Blood on her face. She looked like an accident victim. She did not dare keep the light on but sat down to rest with a pile of wet towels and cleansed herself, sponging dirt from her dress as well as she could. Helping herself to a nice big stack of toilet paper and a few paper towels, she tucked them away in the smock, which she put on to protect her dress. It was white and might stand out, but if she was too dirty she would never escape notice when it was time to get on a bus. In the pocket o
f the smock she found a wad of paper handkerchiefs, a pack of Kools with five left and a book of matches. She turned the latter over in her palm reverently. For four months she had been forbidden possession of this dangerous weapon and scrap of dignity: a pack of matches. The picture on the cover showed a man carrying a briefcase and smiling broadly. It invited her to go back to school and train for a great career through the mail. Even without a high school diploma she could earn $$$$$$$ preparing income taxes after only one eight-week mail order course.

  She wished she could go back to school. In Luciente’s time everybody studied as long as they wanted to. They took courses all the time in fours and fives and sixes. What would she study? She hardly knew where she would want to begin. She was an ignorant woman; sometimes she pitied Luciente for lighting on her, when what did she know? Reluctantly she rose from the tiled floor. The room stank less than the bathrooms in the hospital. It was wonderful to use the toilet alone, with no one looking at her. To shut the door of the toilet stall. Wonderful to wash her face, her hands, her body and feet carefully in the basin. Her feet were swollen but they felt better after a soak. She took the tiny bit of soap left and wrapped it carefully in a paper towel.

  Though she was eager to get back into the dark again and away from the intersection, on the chance that there might be a key left in the ignition, she checked all the cars parked behind the garage. They had taken the keys. In one, however, she found a state map, in another a pair of sunglasses (for disguise, maybe?), and in the trunk of an old white Thunderbird, someone had left a denim jacket. She tried it on. Better than the lab coat. She rolled back the sleeves and transferred her ten dollars, five cigarettes, the precious matches, the map to the pockets of the denim jacket. Then she folded the smock and tucked it under her arm.

  Then a panic whirled up in her for spending half an hour at the station and she began trotting down the drainage ditch beside the highway. Fatigue made her weak. As she trotted, then slowed to a walk, she nodded out and dreamed in snatches. Dolly and she were drinking café con leche very sweet in Dolly’s steamy kitchen. Nita sat on her lap, cuddling. She was letting Nita take a bite of her doughnut, soaked in the sweet milky coffee.