Les Guerilleres

by Wittig, Monique

  There are also legends in which young women having stolen fire carry it in their vulvas. There is the story of her who fell asleep for a hundred years from having wounded her finger with her spindle, the spindle being cited as the symbol of the clitoris. In connection with this story the women make many jokes about the awkwardness of the one who lacked the priceless guidance of a feminary. They say laughing that she must have been the freak spoken of elsewhere, she who, in place of a little pleasure-greedy tongue, had a poisonous sting. They say they do not understand why she was called the sleeping beauty.

  Snow-White runs through the forest. Her feet catch in the roots of the trees, which make her trip repeatedly. The women say that the little girls know this story by heart. Rose-Red follows behind her, impelled to cry out while running. Snow-White says she is frightened. Snow-White running says, O my ancestors, I cast myself at your holy knees. Rose-Red laughs. She laughs so much that she falls, that she finally becomes angry. Shrieking with rage, Rose-Red pursues Snow-White with a stick, threatening to knock her down if she does not stop. Snow-White whiter than the silk of her tunic drops down at the foot of a tree. Then Rose-Red red as a peony or else red as a red rose marches furiously to and fro before her, striking the ground with her stick shouting, You haven't got any, you haven't got any, until eventually Snow-White asks, What is it that I have not got? the effect of which is to immobilize Rose-Red saying, Sacred ancestors, you haven't got any. Snow-White says that she has had enough, especially as she is no longer at all frightened and seizing hold of the stick she begins to run in all directions, she is seen striking out with all her might against the tree-trunks, lashing the yielding shrubs, striking the mossy roots. At a certain point she gives a great blow with the stick to Rose-Red asleep at the foot of an oak and resembling a stout root, pink as a pink rose.

  OUGARIT EMERE BERTHA

  JOAN ELIANA FEODISSIA

  TORE SULEMNA AMARANTHIS

  JIMINIA CRETESIPOLIS

  VESPERA HEGEMONIA MAY

  DORIS FORZITIA HEMANA

  The women say that they have found a very large number of terms to designate the vulva. They say they have kept several for their amusement. The majority have lost their meaning. If they refer to objects, these are objects now fallen into disuse, or else it is a matter of symbolic, geographical names. Not one of the women is found to be capable of deciphering them. On the other hand the comparisons present no problems. For example when the labia minora are compared to violets, or else the general appearance of the vulvas to sea-urchins or starfish. Periphrases such as genitals with double openings are cited in the feminaries. The texts also say that the vulvas resemble volutes, whorled shells. They are an eye embedded in eyelids that moves shines moistens. They are a mouth with its lips its tongue its pink palate. As well as rings and circles the feminaries give as symbols of the vulva triangles cut by a bisector ovals ellipses. Triangles have been designated in every alphabet by one or two letters. The ovals or ellipses may be stylized in the form of lozenges, or else in the shape of crescent moons, that is, ovals divided in two. These are the same symbols as the oval rings, settings surrounding stones of every colour. According to the feminaries rings are contemporaneous with such expressions as jewels treasures gems to designate the vulva.

  The women say that it may be that the feminaries have fulfilled their function. They say they have no means of knowing. They say that thoroughly indoctrinated as they are with ancient texts no longer to hand, these seem to them outdated. All they can do to avoid being encumbered with useless knowledge is to heap them up in the squares and set fire to them. That would be an excuse for celebrations.

  Sometimes it rains on the orange green blue islands. Then a mist hangs over them without obscuring their colours. The air one inhales is opaque and damp. One's lungs are like sponges that have imbibed water. The sharks swallow the necklaces that are thrown overboard to be got rid of, the strings of glassware, the opalescent baubles. A few stay stuck in the teeth of some shark that rolls over and over to free itself of them. One may glimpse its white belly. An equatorial vegetation is visible on the banks. The trees are all near the sea. They are bananas arengas oreodoxas euterpas arecas latanias caryotas elaeis. Except they are the green oaks of Scotland. There is no shelter the length of the beaches, there is no bay, there is no port. The islands are surrounded by a fringe of cerulean blue sea. The women stand, as it may be, on the bridge of the boat. Marie-Agnes Smyrne vomits the forty-seven oranges she swallowed whole for a bet. They fall from her mouth one by one, strings of saliva accompany them. At a certain point the ships' sirens are heard.

  At each of their advances the women utter a brief cry. When they halt, their voices have long modulations. They move after the fashion of kangaroos, legs together which they bend to make their leap. Sometimes they spin on themselves like tops, heads in arms. It is during this movement that they exhale a perfume of arum lily verbena which spreads instantly through the surrounding space. The perfume differs according to the speed of their rotation. It disintegrates passing through various tonalities. Then it smells of mignonette lilac gardenia or else sweet-pea convulvulus nasturtium. It smells of warm rose-petals lychee currants. It smells of leaves decaying in the earth, the corpses of birds. When night falls they emerge from their furs to go to bed. They arrange them in the shape of bags, they hang them from the branches of trees and slip inside. Their colony is seen to cover the trees, as far as eye can reach, with great fur bundles.

  Sophie Ménade's tale has to do with an orchard planted with trees of every colour. A naked woman walks therein. Her beautiful body is black and shining. Her hair consists of slender mobile snakes which produce music at her every movement. This is the hortative head of hair. It is so called because it communicates by the mouths of its hundred thousand snakes with the woman wearing the headdress. Orpheus, the favourite snake of the woman who walks in the garden, keeps advising her to eat the fruit of the tree in the centre of the garden. The woman tastes the fruit of each tree asking Orpheus the snake how to recognize that which is good. The answer given is that it sparkles, that merely to look at it rejoices the heart. Or else the answer given is that, as soon as she has eaten the fruit, she will become taller, she will grow, her feet will not leave the ground though her forehead will touch the stars. And he Orpheus and the hundred thousand snakes of her headdress will extend from one side of her face to the other, they will afford her a brilliant crown, her eyes will become as pale as moons, she will acquire knowledge. Then the women besiege Sophie Ménade with questions. Sophie Ménade says that the woman of the orchard will have a clear understanding of the solar myth that all the texts have deliberately obscured. Then they besiege her with questions. Sophie Ménade says, Sun that terrifies and delights/multicoloured iridescent insect you devour yourself in night's memory/blazing genital/the circle is your symbol/you exist from all eternity/you will exist for all eternity. At these words the women begin to dance, stamping the ground with their feet. They begin a round dance, clapping their hands, giving voice to a song from which no coherent phrase emerges.

  The women say that even without the feminaries they can recall the time when, as was typical of them, they made war. They say that all they need do is to invent terms that describe themselves without conventional references to herbals or bestiaries. They say that this can be done without pretension. They say that what they must stress above all is their strength and their courage.

  The great register is laid open on the table. Every now and again one of them approaches and writes something therein. It is difficult to inspect it because it is rarely available. Even then it is useless to open it at the first page and search for any sequence. One may take it at random and find something one is interested in. This may be very little. Diverse as the writings are they all have a common feature. Not a moment passes without one of the women approaching to write something therein. Or else a reading aloud of some passage takes place. It may also happen that the reading occurs without any audience
, save for a fly that bothers the reader by settling on her temple.

  Sometimes Philomèle Sarte sings squatting on her heels, swaying her bust forwards and backwards rocking from right to left. Should she cease singing she falls forward, face to the ground, or sideways, her cheek striking the ground, her legs folding like a gun-dog's. Then she sings on without a break. When her eyes close from fatigue two of the women carry her to a bed or else on to the grass in the sun and she falls asleep there.

  Hélène Myre passes among the group with transparent trays. Voices, murmurs are heard. From the orangery there come the discordant sounds of a cartolo. Many of the women blow a trumpet and wander running through the avenues. Meanwhile Hélène Myre in passing offers glasses of differently coloured syrups. If she is asked what the blue or red liquid is she replies that the liquid is the same whatever its colour, syrupy and sugary, fingers dipped in it are sticky and coloured. In this connection someone says jokingly, tell me your colour and I will tell you who you are. From the branches of the trees fall shooting stars which change from blue to red to orange and abruptly go out. Round lanterns are hung from the wire on which the fans of the fruit-trees are horizontally trained. At a certain point those suspended from the arches of the rose avenue catch fire, the light they shed fades, slowly disappears.

  ROSAMUND ADELE EDME

  DEBORAH OSMENA GALLIA

  EDVOKIA ABIGAIL LAMIA

  ESTEVA TIMARETA SAUGE

  LEUCOTHEA ARLETTE MERE

  PASIPHAE CARRIE AUDREY

  Their eyes, stuck to a shred of skin, are hidden in their long locks. When they toss their heads to shake some wisp off their cheeks or else when they bend forward, their eyes are visible rolling gleaming bluish haloed by the white of the agate-round cornea. They put their hands there only to tidy themselves, when they comb their hair strand by strand. Then each eye, touched, closes its lids, like a firefly going out. When they bound in the meadows holding each other by the hand, it seems as if there were hundreds of great pearls in their hair sparkling in the sun. If they begin to weep they are enclosed from head to foot in their falling tears. Through the light small rainbows halo them and make them glitter.

  It is an animal without head or tail that resembles a top. It spins on itself without uttering a sound. Sometimes it is covered with scales, at others it is covered with feathers. No one knows how it moves. It is not seen to advance or retreat or move sideways as crabs do. All of a sudden it is there. It may emit a faint smell of aconite of incense or else smell unpleasantly of garlic or carnation. In the houses it stands in the centre of the rooms, ceaselessly spinning on itself. If it is forced to go away it suddenly appears again. Its eyes and mouth are at the level of the ground. They are invisible. It is possible that it makes use of them during its gyrations. It has no known cry. It is called the julep because it seems to have a predilection for rosewater. The little girls try to tame the juleps. They put them on a leash to drag them behind them. But even pulling with all their might they cannot succeed in making the juleps budge. They remain fixed to the point where they were seen to appear. They seem fixed to the ground by a species of magnetism.

  The women say that they perceive their bodies in their entirety. They say that they do not favour any of its parts on the grounds that it was formerly a forbidden object. They say that they do not want to become prisoners of their own ideology. They say that they did not garner and develop the symbols that were necessary to them at an earlier period to demonstrate their strength. For example they do not compare the vulvas to the sun moon stars. They do not say that the vulvas are like black suns in the shining night.

  In a high wind the leaves fall from the trees. They go on to gather them in bread baskets. Some, scarcely touched, rot. They are scattered in the fields in the woods. In the baskets there are leaves of chestnut hornbeam maple clove guaiac copal oak mandarine willow copper-beech elm plane terebinth latania myrtle. Tébaïre Jade scatters them in the room crying, Friends do not let your imagination deceive you. You compare yourselves privately to the fruits of the chestnut cloves mandarines green oranges but you are fruits only in appearance. Like the leaves you fly away at the slightest breeze, beautiful strong light subtle and prompt of understanding as you are. Beware of dispersal. Remain united like the characters in a book. Do not abandon the collectivity. The women are seated on the piles of leaves holding hands watching the clouds that pass outside.

  They play a game. It is performed on an enormous parade-ground. The ground is divided into zones corresponding to the colours of the spectrum. There are a hundred and fifty violet hoops a hundred and fifty indigo hoops a hundred and fifty blue hoops a hundred and fifty green hoops a hundred and fifty yellow hoops a hundred and fifty orange hoops a hundred and fifty red hoops. The teams consist of seventy-five persons each, arranged on either side of the midline of the parade-ground. Each team has equal strips of violet indigo blue green yellow orange red territory. A machine situated at the centre of the parade-ground ejects the hoops one after the other at a fast pace. They rise vertically above the heads of the players. They rotate on themselves. At the same time they describe a vast circle which continually increases, due to the momentum imparted to them by the machine. The path of their movements would be an immense spiral. The women playing must catch the hoops without leaving the coloured zones allotted to them. Very soon there is an indescribable tumult of bodies jostling each other in the attempt to take hold of the same hoop or to withdraw from the confusion.

  METTE KHADIOTA MICHAELA

  PHANO HUGUETTE LELIA

  SIDONIA OMAYA MERNEITH

  INIBRINA WUANG-QIANG

  ASPASIA HANNAH LETITIA

  NORA BENOITE RADEGONDE

  The bearers of fables are very welcome. A party is given in their honour. Tables are set up in the conservatories, in the orangeries. The drinks are mixed with narcotics, there are belladonna henbane nightshade datura in the wines in the spirits. There are also aphrodisiacs hashish opium. The drinkers are placid to begin with. Through the open doors they are visible stretched out on the divans, half asleep, or lying in the grass on the lawns. Later on they are seized with delirium. Some play an instrument and sing in part of the gardens, tears run down their cheeks, eventually sobs interrupt their singing. Others dance tangling their hair and stamping the ground with their feet with all their might. Around the tables, under the influence of the drugs, they engage in discourses which pile up paradoxes absurdities logomachies fallacies sophistries. At a certain point someone challenges the speakers, calling a halt, demanding reasoning devoid of error. Then the women all fall silent and go to sleep.

  They do not say that vulvas with their elliptical shape are to be compared to suns, planets, innumerable galaxies. They do not say that gyratory movements are like vulvas. They do not say that the vulva is the primal form which as such describes the world in all its extent, in all its movement. They do not in their discourses create conventional figures derived from these symbols.

  They weep, lying down or seated apart. The frost solidifies their tears which shine and sparkle on their cheeks. They weep, their sobs rack their bodies, they can be seen rolling in the snow. There are places where the wind blows white powdery clouds into their faces. Their cries moans lamentations do not rise from the depths. They might just as well be dumb. They do not bring their stiffened hands to their cheeks or their mouths to arrest the flow of blood from their gums. The icy cirque where they stand reflects all the sun's rays. The waves of light seem to detach themselves from the ground, to rise like flames, to quiver, to turn from red to orange-yellow or from pink to violet. It is like a volcanic crater that burns ready to overwhelm them.

  Drunk, the women say they are drunk. Great fields of scarlet poppies have been trampled underfoot. Their heads, their torn petals hang loosely or lie in confusion on the ground. Not a drop of dew is visible on the flowers. The women dance. They hold each other round the neck and let themselves fall to the ground, lips black, eyes starting. They say they
are drunk. Their arms and legs are bare. Their loosened hair hides their cheeks, then, flung back, reveals shining eyes, lips parted in song.

  One must not run. One must walk patiently counting the number of one's steps. If one makes no mistake, if one turns to the left at just the right moment, one will not touch the tree sticky with honey with one's outstretched arms. At this stage of the march one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake in the calculations, if one jumps with feet together at just the right moment, one will not fall into the snake-pit. At this stage of the march one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake in the calculations, if one bends down at just the right moment, one will not be caught in the jaws of the trap. At this stage of the march one must interrupt the calculations and begin again at zero. If one makes no mistake in the calculations and if one cries Sara Magre at just the right moment, one will fall into the arms of the incomparable, the gigantic, the wise Sara.