by Bev Jafek
Alex towered over them all and was as dark as Sylvie, with short hair and thick, dramatic black eyebrows behind minimal glasses. Her facial features were strong but subtly fine-lined, giving her a look that was perpetually intent, quizzical, and distinctive. She was striking and attractive without beauty. Speaking Spanish fluently with a slight American accent, everything in her self-assured manner suggested America except her fluency in European languages. She noticed Sylvie’s beauty with a visible shock that she made a violent effort to conceal, making it clear to all that she had just fallen desperately in love. She detected a French accent in Sylvie’s Spanish and spoke to her in equally fluent French. This was profoundly unAmerican but it pleased Sylvie, as intended.
The four women instantly knew that they were two couples of lovers. Since Alex and Sylvie were in their twenties and their lovers, much older, a unique symmetry presented itself to them and compelled their fascination and curiosity and, for Ruth and Monserrat, their amusement as well.
Monserrat was striking, with dark features that were very regular and still beautiful. With expressively arched eyebrows, thick, dark hair of medium length, and luminously olive skin, she had obviously been a great beauty as a young woman, probably as extraordinary as Sylvie. Her features carried a look of perpetual curiosity and intrigue, mellowed with a tenderness that suggested natural maternal feelings. She had no children, however, and Ruth immediately suspected that the feminist movement provided her with many daughters. Like Sylvie, she wore colorful, deep-necked tunics that accentuated her beauty in the simplest and least affected way.
Alex decided that Ruth was also an American and spoke to her in English, effortlessly shifting between three languages.
Well, at least she’s not an American dunce who speaks only one language, Sylvie thought. Damn, I bet Ruth already has me paired off with her.
Alex is perfect for Sylvie, Ruth thought. You have my blessing.
Alex’s thought was an abyss of turbulently conflicting sensations since she had just been introduced to the most beautiful woman in the world and who also, it appeared, was a lesbian.
What a charming chaos, Monserrat thought. I’ve finally found someone for my Alex. Ruth and Monserrat noticed that each was trying hard not to laugh.
Their conversation was animated and insatiably curious as the afternoon passed. All the relevant information was discovered quickly: that Monserrat and Sylvie were both very ambitious artists; that Ruth was a zoologist researching and writing a book on an incipient global catastrophe and mass extinction; that Alex was finishing her doctoral dissertation in romance languages and literature, living in Spain on a Fulbright from the US; that Alex was also technologically savvy and created the house’s web site and Facebook page.
Far more slowly and with both empathy and interest, Ruth and Alex discovered that they had both left the U.S. in disgust with the government, that they were both active members of Moveon.org and devoted regular time to Internet protest. With empathy and mutual anger, they discovered that they both had high expectations for the next American presidential election in 2008 but thought the U.S. was a too rigidly center-right country fueled by rightwing religion. They were in agreement that the U.S. was destroying its own middle class by favoring a small wealthy elite of no economic, intellectual or cultural value. They felt strongly that this was exactly the fatal structure of a dying third-world economy, and that the U.S. would lose its political and economic dominance soon as a result. Alex, in her youth, found this alienating and disgusting whereas Ruth, in her age, regarded it as a tragedy that would seal the terrible fate of life on the planet. It occurred to them both that they were, to an extent, young and old versions of the same person. Monserrat and Sylvie were considering a similar likeness between themselves.
Except, of course, that I’ve got to have your girl, Alex thought.
Except that you don’t know I’ve already given up the girl, Ruth thought.
This has to be the most annoying afternoon of my life, Sylvie thought. There they are, bonding and reveling in all they have in common, and Alex wants to run off with me and Ruth intends to let her. Really! I want them to fight a duel over me! Then Ruth could still die in my arms in Spain. Sylvie’s line of thought came to an abrupt halt. Of course, she considered, a duel is the most ridiculous act on earth, and I would never let anything terrible happen to Ruth. This is a direct contradiction, but there is nothing unusual about that.
Oh, most wonderful! Monserrat thought, and it will all fall into place, too. What power this house has! It’s haunted by female spirits of passion and play, its aesthetic oceanic and animal. We’re all in the belly of a she-whale and ready to become new flesh, new creatures. It changes the lives of all that come here.
IN THE EVENING the house, as usual, was filled with the meetings of several women’s groups. They were laughing, debating, declaiming, inspiring; they were uproarious, furious, delighted, exhibitionistic, philosophical, political, whimsical, enamored. Excited by the house’s atmosphere, Sylvie had worn a colorful, deep-necked dress and low heels, and several women were staring at her uncontrollably and even following her around. Alex quickly came up to her in a state that was alternately confused and courageous and said, “Sylviane, I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . I mean . . . you’ve come here with Ruth and I thought . . . I wondered whether you and she were . . . sort of . . . I mean, if you were definitely . . .”
“Yes!” Sylvie said harshly and walked away. Alex collapsed into a chair, utterly disconsolate, and then attempted to raise her spirits and courage. No, don’t give up! she thought. You can’t! Briefly gritting her teeth, she jumped up again and now approached Ruth, who was alone, filling two wineglasses.
“Ruth, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she began again in confused courage, “I mean, you’ve come here with Sylviane and I wondered whether . . . that is . . . how long . . . but mainly, whether, I guess . . .”
Ruth smiled and said, “No, we’re not really committed to one another. We’ve only been lovers for a week or so. Is that what you wanted to know?” Alex nodded, too overwhelmed to speak, and collapsed into the same chair again. Amazing, she thought, one says yes, the other, no. Of course, I really meant to know whether I might have a chance, to which Sylviane said no and Ruth, yes. This kind of thing is supposed to happen to Alice in Wonderland, not to me. Of course, it is hopelessly complicated, well beyond any resolution I can see; how could it be anything else in a place like this? Damn, it’s hopeless! But no, it can’t be!
Ruth was now standing next to Sylvie and they were drinking the two glasses of wine together. “There are about a half-dozen to a dozen women following you around. Are you annoyed yet?”
“No, actually,” Sylvie said, smiling. “And that surprises me. It’s annoying when men make a play for me because I always feel it means ‘well, you look good and you’re probably a woman I can dominate.’ That’s anything but flattering. Women, on the other hand, are doing what for them must be deviant and nervy, and what a hypocrite I would be to forbid that.” They both laughed. Alex saw this and assumed they were laughing at her. Again, she felt devastated. I will turn into marble in this chair, she thought, a sculpture they will call “Dyke, in Misery” on display at an art museum. “It was a big mistake to wear this dress, though,” Sylvie continued. “I’m the only woman wearing a dress besides Monserrat. From now on, I won’t change from my paint-spattered T-shirts and jeans.”
The loudest and most uproarious group, Mujeres Libres, the contemporary version of the 1930s Spanish anarchist women’s movement, was meeting beside Alex’s chair. They were all wearing T-shirts with “Mujeres Libres” printed across them. Alex was wearing one of these T-shirts, too, but she was not following the group as usual. She stared at Sylvie with a look of longing and despair, realizing how difficult it would be to seriously interest her.
And now, Ruth thought, I leave you both to your fates of adventure and love. Monserrat had asked to see her alone in the gazebo. Sylvie did not
notice that Ruth had left.
At that moment, the women of Mujeres Libres were debating an addition to their web site. Several wanted the original Mujeres Libres anthem from the 1930s but couldn’t remember the lyrics. They were also debating what their current mission statement should include. They were so loud that they could be heard throughout the house. Alex made a comment to them, and one of the group members said, “Hey, you’ve got an accent! Where are you from?” When Alex replied that she was from the US, several women jumped to their feet in excitement. “Go home immediately!” one of them shouted. “Your country has been taken over by maniacs! They’re menacing the whole world, and all the Muslim countries will think they’ve got to have nuclear weapons!” The rest of the group noisily agreed.
Alex blushed deeply and felt even more miserable and exasperated. She had often heard comments like this at Monserrat’s house; but now, with Sylvie able to hear every word, she could not bear to be criticized in addition to her other torments, particularly by the shamelessly loud, vehement voices of Mujeres Libres, second to none in volume of noise. “Look,” she said, “I’m politically active here, a member of Moveon.org. I do an hour’s worth of Internet protest every day, just as I’d do if I were in the States, and I always vote by absentee ballot. Those maniacs are just damned hard to get rid of. One person can’t do it, and hell, you can be sure I never voted for them!” She looked up to see Sylvie smiling and following the altercation. Then she lowered her head in rage and despair and said, “By the way, the Mujeres Libres anthem, published in Valencia in 1937 with lyrics written by Lucia Sanchez Soarnil, goes like this.”
Fists upraised, women of Iberia
Toward horizons pregnant with light
On paths afire
Feet on the ground
Face to the blue sky.
Affirming the promise of life
We defy tradition
We mold the warm clay
Of a new world born of pain.
Let the past vanish into nothingness!
What do we care for yesterday!
We want to write anew
The word WOMAN.
Fists upraised, women of the world
Toward horizons pregnant with light
On paths afire
Onward, onward
Toward the light.
Alex recited it perfectly from memory, and her delivery was impassioned, since it allowed a channel for her frustration and despair over Sylvie.
The inconceivable and impossible then occurred: the noisiest group in all of Spanish feminism, fully equal to any ambulance or police siren, was completely silent, all staring at Alex. She had obviously impressed them deeply.
Alex continued to look down as a tidal wave of emotion engulfed her. She decided to risk everything: she would cut a magnificent figure, since everyone in the house could hear. She would be either a genius who could win Sylvie or a fool who would lose her forever. She decided to describe a new Mujeres Libres web site that would be the most brilliant and original on the Internet. “You’ll have a truly original mission statement and web site if you use the poetry written by Spanish women instead of a boring and predictable essay. For example, here’s your position on women’s identity in the words of Gloria Fuertes.”
Birds nest in my arms,
On my shoulders, behind my knees,
Between my breasts there are quails,
they must think I’m a tree.
The swans think I’m a fountain,
They all come down and drink when I talk.
When sheep pass, they pass over me,
and perched on my fingers, the sparrows eat,
The ants think I’m earth,
And men think I’m nothing.
Again, Alex recited the lines perfectly from memory with the energy conferred by absolute despair. Poetry continued to be an outlet for the love and desperation she felt at that moment.
Again, the members of Mujeres Libres stared at her in amazement, silently regarding her as an upstart marvel with enormous creative chutzpah that went entirely beyond what they imputed to themselves. All the groups in the house were now silent, watching the encounter. To be worthy of the Mujeres Libres’ silence, which they had never before seen, must be the mark of greatness.
And so it was: “Here’s your position on the male world,” Alex continued with a confidant smile. Privately, she thought that the top of her head had just unscrewed and was floating in the air.
The scrawny women of the foundry workers
are still giving birth on trolley cars or at home.
The boys, some of them, go to the city schools
and learn about rivers, why not, it’s harmless enough.
The girls go to the Sisters, who teach them
girl work
and how to say their prayers.
The traces of mortar fire slowly fade from the city.
So many months have gone by!
...
But in my dreams I am looking at certain gentlemen
who sit around a conference table discussing exchange
rates,
discussing tankers and aircraft, and cornices
just about to fall as the bombs hit.
And I beg forgiveness of the Almighty Whoever He Is
for wishing them all a shining coffin
and four of the finest candles.
Again, Alex gambled everything since greatness or hopelessness were her only options. The web site of the Mujeres Libres would be a work of impossibly frustrated genius, since that was exactly what she felt at that moment. “And here’s your position on religion,” Alex said and again recited perfectly and with great feeling:
With her nylon veil
and electric crown,
with dry-cell batteries
in her breast, and a dismal smile,
she’s on display in all the shops
and on the dusty shelves of poor Catholics.
In New York City, above the bedstead
this white virgin watches over
the washstands of Negroes . . .
Crossbreed of Fatima and Lourdes,
lightweight model stamped “made in USA,”
with streaming hair and open hands,
she’s washable and shatterproof.
Comes in three colors
—white, pink, and blue—
available in three sizes
though even the big one is small.
There without angels,
virgin Virgin,
I’ve felt so bad for you
—pure virgin of plastic—
I can’t bring myself
To ask for one miracle.
The members of Mujeres Libres continued to observe Alex in silence. They would have sat at her feet for hours like children, listening to the words of the prophetess of poetry. “And if you want a position on materialism, even one on death, I’ll recite more poetry written entirely by Spanish women. The point is, every word of your mission will burn with inspiration; nothing will be mediocre!”
The women of Mujeres Libres looked at one another, nodding and smiling. “Compañera,” said the woman who had shouted at Alex, “I will personally, and with gratitude, write down every word you have recited, and it will become our mission statement.” She looked around at the other women, who nodded their agreement. “We’ll have the most striking, moving and original web site in all of Spain. Please forget what I said to you; I’m grateful that you’re here—a sane genius from one hell of a crazy country. Good work, compañera!”
“In fact,” said another woman, “you deserve a round of applause.” The women of Mujeres Libres gave Alex the loudest applause that had ever been heard in the house, accompanied by some high whistles, cheers, catcalls, two bazookas, and even ululations, since the Mujeres Libres were nothing if not anarchical. Alex only continued to look down, overcome, which was interpreted as abject humility in the face of unsought praise. In fact, Alex was thinking, may your web site sink
to the bottom of the ocean; I just want the girl. The group then broke up and Alex’s former antagonist remained behind, writing down the anthem and poetry Alex had recited. Alex closed her eyes in deep relief and then, regaining courage, at last looked up at Sylvie and smiled wistfully and humbly.
Sylvie, who had followed the entire exchange in fascination, as had most women in the house, blushed and suddenly felt devastated. She realized that Alex had deeply impressed her, as well, and that wistful smile at the end was the perfect close to the performance. There was nothing arrogant, triumphant, or domineering in it; it only asked, dare I hope? Sylvie then became aware of intense, disturbing feelings towards Alex: already, she was proud of her and felt possessive. Worst of all, she knew that she had never failed to make love with anyone to whom she felt this powerful urge to appropriate and still worse, she had always done so at the first opportunity.
Sylvie was now so distraught that she walked out of the room, went upstairs and sat on the bed she had shared with Ruth, touching the sheets upon which she had felt uncontrollable passion. Ruth was right, she thought, Alex will be my lover within twenty-four hours. She laughed at the absurdity of it, but it only increased her agitation and she walked downstairs and out the door, into the soft, cool night. At no point did she realize that Ruth had left her; Ruth’s prediction had so much presence that Sylvie did not feel alone.
Alex’s eyes followed Sylvie at each visible point. When she saw Sylvie leave, she swiftly asked if she could e-mail the lyrics to her beseecher and even add other poetry written by women so that the group could make the final choice. This was enthusiastically accepted; she had the address in her pocket and, fleet as a fox, she was out into the cool and forgiving, the unspeakably intriguing and erotic, night.
Sylvie had just turned the corner at the far end of the street, and Alex ran to the corner; then walked more slowly to her side. Sylvie was shocked to see Alex. “That was fast,” she said. “I thought you were reciting all that poetry again.”