Les Guerilleres
Page 8
The rounded shields protect them. Every weapon is shattered against them. Dart-filled bombs and grenades sink softly into their thick substance. If they are at all defective they break at the first impact and fly into splinters like glass. A brightly-coloured cloud similar to a Bengal light then rises concealing the bearer of the shield from sight. It is at once replaced by another, passed from hand to hand. During the day the women hardly change their position. It is at night that great movements take place along the whole length of their defensive front, some bringing up victuals, others weapons, others still supplying fresh news to the entire front.
The young men signal to the women from a distance. They have identical blue garments. Their faces are smooth and round. When they approach some of the women strike up with them the song in their honour.
TAN-JI OENANTHE PELAGIA
LUDOVICA ELISABETH SOUA
CUNEGONDE PAULINE WACO
BRIDGET MOANA MELUSINE
CHANDRABATI CECILE KISI
KAIKEYI MU-GONG MELANIE
There can be distinctly heard the words, Fine martial faces and five-foot lances/on the parade-ground at daybreak/to those we name/there is no pleasure in the red costume/theirs must be the costume of war.
Young women dressed in black and wearing masks appear on the scene dancing and singing. They are armed with clubs. They twirl these as they advance. Others follow them with rifles which they pile on the grassy ground. Some are bare-breasted. There is a general movement all around the field of arms. Some carry rocket-launchers. They advance in their thousands. All have a long knife attached to their belt. They sing, The arms piled fanwise on the hills/no less brilliant than the lances of the Punic wars/do not slumber.
A woman sings, shedding tears, My heart softens/when I see the Spring return/Summer grow green again/the sweet air is a mortal poison/the flesh of your lips/is to my mouth/the sun and the snow. At a given moment, interrupting her song, she falls down, she writhes about, she is racked by sobs. At once other cries other sobs are heard. Behind the trees they discover a young man, prostrate, trembling in every limb, cheeks salt with tears, full of grace and beauty. Taking him in their arms, the women bear him to the side of the young weeping woman, applauding when they recognize each other and embrace. Then they express their satisfaction. They inform the young man that he is the first to have joined them in their struggle. They all embrace him. One of the women brings him a rifle, saying that she will teach him to handle it after the celebrations they prepare in his honour.
They run as fast as they can. Some have a rattle in their throats. Others pant from their efforts. Some fall and do not rise again. Then it is necessary to stop and carry them on the shoulders of four of their number. They must run with them until, refreshed, they can once more move on as fast as possible. Shelter is still far off. One of the hardier ones begins to sing a song to restore their courage. She says, Do not hang your head/like one who is conquered. She says, Awake/take courage/the struggle is long/the struggle is arduous/but power is at the end of a rifle. All the women shout their enthusiasm with all their might.
Young men clothed in white overalls clinging to their bodies run in a crowd before the women. They wear red flags at their shoulders and heels. They move rapidly just above the ground, legs together. Motionless the women watch them come. Stopping at a distance and saluting they say, for you the victors I strip myself of my most favoured epithet which used to be like an adornment. Henceforth may you be named in my stead the thrice-great, woman trismegista, you are quick as mercury and highway robbers, skilful at thwarting plots, mistress of life and death, guardian of your allies' welfare. Then the men sing the song of the robbers, The long-haired rebels are united in life and death/they do not attack solitary travellers/they do not attack the weaponless/but should an official or civil servant come/whether he be just or corrupt/they will leave him only the skin on his bones. The women, approaching the long-haired young men, embrace them with all their might.
The women say, truly is this not magnificent? The vessels are upright, the vessels have acquired legs. The sacred vessels are on the move. They say, will not the slope of the hills rebuff their assault? They say, henceforward the vessels empty of seed have shrunken loins. They move slowly at first then faster and faster. The women say, this is a sacrilege, a violation of all the rules. They say that they move slowly at first then faster and faster, these vessels buried up to the neck and receptacles of the most diverse objects, human spermatozoa coins flowers earth messages. It may be asked, why these excesses? Must they not hold violence in abhorrence? Is not their structure fragile and will they not shatter at the first onslaught if they are not already in pieces from collision with each other? They say, listen, listen, they cry évohé, évohé, leaping like the young horses on the banks of the Eurotas. Stamping the earth, they speed their movements.
URSULA OBI ATIGONE
ANTIGONE AGNETHE
NO/SYMBOLS TEARING
ARISE VIOLENCE FROM THE WHITENESS
OF THE UNDYING BEAUTIFUL PRESENT
WITH A GREAT DRUNKEN WING-BEAT
THE BODY RIDDLED TORN
(INTOLERABLE) WRITTEN BY DEFAULT
ARISE NO/SYMBOLS MASSED
EVIDENT/THE DESIGNATED TEXT
(BY MYRIAD CONSTELLATIONS)
FAULTY
LACUNAE LACUNAE
AGAINST TEXTS
AGAINST MEANING
WHICH IS TO WRITE VIOLENCE
OUTSIDE THE TEXT
IN ANOTHER WRITING
THREATENING MENACING
MARGINS SPACES INTERVALS
WITHOUT PAUSE
ACTION OVERTHROW
Moved by a common impulse, we all stood to seek gropingly the even flow, the exultant unity of the Internationale. An aged grizzled woman soldier sobbed like a child. Alexandra Ollontaï could hardly restrain her tears. The great song filled the hall, burst through doors and windows and rose to the calm sky. The war is over, the war is over, said a young working woman next to me. Her face shone. And when it was finished and we remained there in a kind of embarrassed silence, a woman at the end of the hall cried, Comrades, let us remember the women who died for liberty. And then we intoned the Funeral March, a slow, melancholy and yet triumphant air.