by Radclyffe
The years pass. Sister Ursula dies and inwardly we rejoice, although not for long, as her successor, Sister Monica, is younger and keener and her wrist is better able to inflict the switch on our thighs. More girls arrive, and we turn our faces to the wall so that we don’t hear their cries as they plead for their babies to be brought back to them. Some girls die—consumption, flu or mysterious sickly wasting illnesses—and they are buried out in the apple orchard in unconsecrated ground. No gravestone marks their resting place. And a few girls leave when a brother or a mother or an aunt brings a letter.
I forget how old I am, but my menses become irregular. There are strands of gray in Maura’s hair. But the constant of work and prayer and porridge and soup and bread with jam on Sundays continues. This is our life and now we don’t think of any other. But our other life in the dark goes on, and love is our only comfort.
And then, one day, there’s a lady at breakfast. She’s not a nun. She wears a dress and she smiles at us. She carries a clipboard, and she says she will talk to us all by ourselves. The laundry is to be closed. She is there to find out what we want to do. Ireland has changed, she gently tells our down-bent heads. You are welcome in the community.
One girl, one brave and bold girl, raises her hand. “Can I have my little girl back now?” she asks.
There’s a pause, and there’s a catch in the lady’s voice when she answers, “We’ll try. We’ll try our hardest to find out where your baby is.”
She talks to us all one by one in the office. But Sister Monica is in the room, sitting malevolently by the door, a grim restricting presence.
“Eileen,” asks the lady, “do you have family?”
I shake my head. If my aunt still lives, I want nothing to do with her.
“Would you like to do some training?” the lady persists. “We can give you a flat in the town to live in. You’ll have money of your own if you take a job. What would you like to do?”
A job? Where’s the bloody money for the years from working here, I want to scream. But instead I look her in the face, searching for the trickery. Sister Monica is motionless by the door.
The lady’s face is composed and she writes on her clipboard. “Tell me what you want, Eileen,” she encourages. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I want to live with Maura,” I say.
“Maura?” The lady writes that down.
“My friend here.” I stare Sister Monica in the face as I say those words. We’re not allowed to form friendships. Her blank face stares back at me, but I can see the wheels turning in her mind.
The lady smiles. “Let’s talk to Maura. I think if you are friends, that is a good idea. You can be support for each other as you adjust to your new life.”
And it’s that easy, although it’s taken us over twenty years to reach this point. It’s 1988, and Ireland has changed. Maura and I leave together, hand in hand, clasping small suitcases. We’ve been given some clothes, some money. There’s a flat for us in town. Not the town nearby, the bigger town on the river where no one will know where we’ve come from.
The lady opens a car door. “It’s not far,” she says. “Soon, you’ll be at your new home.”
I’m scared. Part of me wants to retreat back inside the convent doors, bury my arms in the laundry sink and scrub away these thoughts of freedom. But then Maura squeezes my fingers and together, we walk down the steps to our new life.
For over 150 years, Ireland placed nearly 30,000 women into the Catholic-run institutions known as “Magdalene Laundries.” Originally meant as a way for prostitutes to purge their sin through hard work, the Magdalene Laundries evolved into a convenient solution for families wanting to hide the shame of an unwed pregnancy. Sometimes women sent to the institutions had done no more than behave in a way considered overly flirtatious or wanton, or were wrongly accused of promiscuity. In the laundries, the women were forcibly detained and made to slave in total silence, often up to twelve hours a day, with breaks only for simple meals and prayer. If pregnant, they were bullied into giving up their child. They were often mentally and physically mistreated by the nuns. The only way out was if a family member or a priest would vouch for them—often the very people who had sent them there in the first place. Some women died and were buried in unmarked graves. Others went insane and were removed to mental hospitals. It was not uncommon for a girl to enter in her teenage years and remain until she died.
Ireland’s last Magdalene Laundry was closed in 1996.
THE GAME
Elaine Burnes
I held the stick loosely. My right thumb rubbed a flaw in the varnished surface, a crack in the veneer, so I turned it for a better grip and realigned the shaft. The white cue ball, marred by smudges of blue chalk, loomed large in this close view. Steady, I told myself. I used to know how to do this. I knew about angles and spin and strategy. But that was a long time ago. That was in college. This was in a hotel bar in Provincetown. I willed the stick to hit the ball, to ricochet off the bumper, to knock the yellow striped nine into the corner pocket. Stick hit ball. Ball hit bumper. Then nothing. Missed the nine by an inch and the cue ball rolled to a stop against a tight cluster of stripes and solids. At least my opponent would have a difficult shot. She watched, unsmiling, not focused on me but on the layout of the balls on the green felt tabletop. I straightened and shrugged. No excuses.
The silence of my concentration was infiltrated by music drifting from the dance floor downstairs and murmurs from the young women gathered at the bar like wildebeests around a watering hole. Some turned to watch us, a group of kids played air hockey and a foursome shot at the other pool table.
My opponent was a striking woman. That’s what had made me challenge her. I wanted to see her bend and reach, to be able to look at her while she concentrated on her shot, unable to look back at me. Tall, solid and confident, she wore her hair cut short on the sides but long on top, with a tantalizing lock draped over her right brow. Flecks of gray added to the allure. She’d been around the block a few times. She knew what she was doing.
She took her game seriously, circling the table, eyeing her options. The sleeves of her denim shirt were rolled to the elbow, exposing lean, muscled forearms. Her shirt tucked into black jeans that fit tight, but well, decorated by a thick, leather belt with a large silver buckle. She leaned over the table. Her hands could easily break the cue stick, I thought, yet she held it gently, her right wrist fluid like a violinist’s. Her left hand splayed on the felt bed, thumb and index finger supporting the stick. She wore a ring, but so did I.
She cracked the cue ball into the clustered pack, acknowledging I’d left her in a hole so she just blew it open, changing the game. There is almost nothing so satisfying as the sharp clatter of billiard balls against each other, a crash of sound waves in an otherwise silent game. The colorful orbs skittered across the table, clacking into each other and the cushions. Instant, brief chaos. The Big Bang writ small. Nothing dropped, so it was my turn. She looked at me but her brown eyes, ebony in the dim light of the bar, betrayed no emotion.
A light breeze cooled my back. The double doors to the patio stood open, and the scent of low tide drifted in from the harbor across the street, brine and fish competing with sweat and beer. Dusk deepened as the August sun set over my home back in Boston. I’m always a little off kilter in P-town, east of a city I think of as being west of nothing but ocean, and a place where I’m suddenly a member of the majority. The game changes in P-town.
I felt her eyes on me as I scoped the table and wished I still had the touch. This time I had options. One easy shot. I leveled the cue, sighted carefully and checked that the stick would glide smoothly through my fingers. I wiped my hand on my jeans to be sure and set up again. The music and the murmurs dropped away. My opponent faded and I was left with the shaft, the cue ball and the nine, again. I called it. Side pocket. This time I hit better. The white ball spun away from me, connected and stopped, transferring its energy to the nine, which rolled
smoothly till it vanished. I glanced at her. She gave a nod of acknowledgement. Maybe an exhale. Focus. The next shot would not be so easy. Solids blocked my path leaving me with a banked shot.
When I was good, and I was very good, I’d enter a Zen state. My senses would narrow or expand as needed. Sounds dropped away, lights brightened, focus sharpened. It’s not about my opponent. My only opponent is myself.
Pool is high school physics and geometry. Points move across a level plane in straight lines, angles and occasional curves. The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Force equals mass times acceleration. Momentum and inertia, a transfer of kinetic energy. All I have to do is measure the angle and the distance, calculate the force, anticipate the spin, adjust for the friction of my fingers, align the stick. If I do each of these things perfectly, I can’t help but sink the ball.
I tried to concentrate but was too aware of her watching me. This time I hit my striped ball, but nothing went in. I’m no longer very good or even good. That takes practice, and I’ve had other things to focus on. No foul, at least.
Pool is two-dimensional and simple, unlike life, which is three-dimensional and messy, with textures and smells, ups and downs—where success defies easy formulas. Life is a longer game, so I won’t know for a while yet if I’ve made the right choices, called the right shots.
Four young things had wandered over. One wore dreadlocks, though she was white, another had so much hardware stapled to her lips I wondered if she could kiss at all. The other two were entwined around each other like a brown and white candy cane. Hardware stepped forward and placed a pile of quarters on the rail. She didn’t look at either of us. She wasn’t challenging us. Or me. She just wanted the table. When did that happen? When did I change from being the object of a young woman’s attention to a mere obstacle to her enjoyment? Someone she had to wait in line behind instead of wait for.
My opponent prepared her next shot. The bar had vanished behind a wall of wildebeests—some held beers and margaritas and turned to watch the action, others huddled, arms draped across shoulders, mouths mashed together. The music was louder now, the low-toned beat pulsing through the floor, the high notes too weak to penetrate.
She bent over her shot. Muscles in her cheek flexed. I resisted the urge to reach out and trace her fine jawline with my finger. In college, I didn’t have to worry about being distracted by my opponents. They were mostly boys. In college, I never considered sex with boys, though I never thought about it with girls either. Science labs took all my time. That game changed long ago. Now, I wouldn’t mind transferring a little energy with her. Overcoming inertia. Gathering some momentum. I wondered if she was the type to have an affair. I wondered if I was.
She missed a complicated combination. Chalking my cue bought me some time, but it didn’t help. We traded misses for a few rounds before I finally sank my thirteen. Lucky me. The background noise grew louder, and the young women paced impatiently. So what. Each time she squinted to aim, flexed her fingers on the table then cringed when she missed, a little zing went through me.
Running a hand through her hair, she eyed the setup. I’d left her with a good shot. I wanted her to smile—maybe when she sank the ball. She took her time. She could take as long as she wanted. I was enjoying the view. She wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip. Was the room getting warmer or were we? Then she leaned in for her shot, setting her hand on the table, taking aim. She drew back the cue but then straightened and fished a cell phone out of her pocket, checked the number and took the call. She murmured a few words into the phone, closed it and looked at me.
“It’s time to go, hon. The twins are ready for their story, and Ginny has to get to her COLAGE thing.”
Sugar. I let out a breath. Ginny is hers from a postcollege marriage, but for ten years she’s been mine, too. Fifteen going on fifty, she’s a peer counselor for Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere. The “thing” she has to get to is their dance downstairs. She’s DJ-ing the last half but had insisted on baby-sitting so we could have a date. The twins have always been both of ours. They are five going on five and tilt my world. Just today they reminded me that race cars made of sand are wicked awesome and listening to the ocean in a seashell can raise the hairs on the back of your neck. When did I forget that? The nubile young things who had migrated over to wait their turn were clueless.
“Can’t we finish the game?” I pleaded.
She looked at the table full of balls, then at me, raising an eyebrow and smiling. “That might take till morning. I haven’t sunk a ball in the last half hour, and you’re not doing much better.”
The pile of quarters caught my eye. “Fine. All yours,” I said to the next generation. I put my stick in the rack.
She took my hand and pulled me to her. “You’re such a good sport.” Then she kissed me, light and teasing, but it blew me open.
I grabbed her belt and pulled her closer. “Do that again.”
She smiled, her eyes bright with desire. “In front of them?” she said, nodding back to our audience. “Can’t you wait? The twins will be asleep in half an hour.”
I pulled her tighter to me so I could feel her breasts against mine, her stomach move with each breath. I glanced at the youngsters and winked. I kissed her, deep and serious, swaying our hips to the music and moving my leg between hers. She moaned. The noise dropped away, the lights dimmed.
She pulled back, needing to breathe. “Damn, you’re good,” she said, her voice low and ragged.
“Watch your language.” I slapped her bottom playfully. She threw her head back and laughed.
I sighed and leaned against her. “When will we be able to come to Women’s Week instead of Family Week?”
She wrapped her arms around me. “In about, oh, thirteen years, when the twins go off to college. If we can afford it.” She took my hand and led me to the stairs.
“Dang, I’ll be an old lady by then,” I complained.
“But think how much more practice you’ll have had.”
THE GIFT
Sacchi Green
The desert under the full moon lay still and serene, as though the storms of war and of nature had never swept across it. With a bit of squinting and a dose of wishful thinking, Lou could almost fancy that the pale expanse of sand was a snowfield. But the distant hills to the north and the ice-glazed mountains of the Hindu Kush far beyond weren’t the Swiss Alps, and only imagination spurred by loneliness could show Meg, in her trim ski kit, tracing elegant curves across the slopes and throwing up plumes of new powder as she raced by. Or sinking into a hot tub at the end of an exhilarating day, skin flushed by more than the rising steam.
Sand or snow. Made no difference. What mattered was that it was Christmas, and Lou was four time zones away from Meg. No, wait, Switzerland wasn’t as far from Afghanistan as their home in England; three time zones. Or three and a half—and how had that half hour bit got stuck in, anyway? Never mind. She tilted her bottle and drank the next-to-last draft of water. Almost midnight here, just midevening in the Alps. Meg would be at dinner with friends or already partying in one chalet or another. That was as it should be, no matter how much Lou longed to be with her. They’d planned the ski holiday long before Lou’s orders had come through, and it was better for Meg to go than to sit alone at home. Except that home was where Lou needed most to envision her. To envision them both, together.
Bugger envisioning! Lou needed to see Meg right now, tonight, if only for a moment. Touching her, hearing her, feeling the brush of her soft hair, the warmth of her breath, the accelerating rhythm of her heart—all these were impossible, and Lou had chosen to accept that, knowing how hard it would be, even knowing how much she was hurting Meg. Seeing her was just as impossible, Lou knew that, and the sooner she forgot about what the old Afghani grandmother had said this morning, the better—mind games, even if the woman hadn’t meant it that way.
Even so, Lou slid a hand into the pocket of her camo jacket. The flat brass box was w
arm to the touch from her own body heat. The gift had been a generous gesture on the old woman’s part, too generous, really, when all Lou had done was to bring food from the mess tent to the family group huddled outside the hospital complex.
They’d been there for hours, waiting while the doctors worked on two small children with serious injuries. Bringing them food and water had been the least she could do. She had to confess to some slight curiosity as well; sick or injured children were brought in all too often, but this was the first time a woman had accompanied the men. It was she who had tended the children, and the bearded men had shown her something approaching deference.
The curiosity had been mutual, Lou was sure. The fierce old eyes peering out from the enveloping burka had seemed to follow her intently, until, as Lou collected the emptied cups and bowls, rough, wrinkled fingers had pressed the box into her hand. Would refusing a gift be taken as an insult? The woman spoke a few words, and then a nurse came out to lead the family into the post-op tent.
A local civilian maintenance worker had been watching the whole encounter. Lou asked what the woman had said, and after some hesitation he’d translated the words as meaning something along the lines of, “Catch the moon in the box and see your heart’s desire.” He’d started to add something about how foolish women’s tales were, stammered as he remembered that Lou was a woman as well as a soldier and escaped back to his work with relief.
It was foolishness, of course. A good story to tell Meg tomorrow in email, but nothing worth dwelling on now. Tonight she’d just have to make do with some more serious envisioning of Meg, and that might be better done in her warm cot, except that tents provided very little in the way of privacy.