COMMUNE OF WOMEN

by SUZAN STILL

  She’s sitting here and what she’s feeling is something inside that doesn’t want to die – but that is aware of death, very near.

  For a gal whose biggest excitement is finding plastic daffodils on sale at K-Mart, this new sensitivity could almost be thrilling, if it weren’t just flatly paralyzing her.

  X

  No one has come back for her.

  On the monitors, she can see where the Brothers are. They have rounded up a few dozen hostages in the food and shop area back near the gates. It is a smart idea because they can eat and stay there for a long time.

  As for her, she is starving. Her stomach is grumbling. She wants to urinate and then eat, in that order. And she wants to do it now.

  This is very silly, considering that a few hours ago she expected to die. And now, all her idealism is reduced to animal cravings by a full bladder and an empty stomach. She wonders if philosophers and theologians ever consider that in their revolutionary theories?

  The monitors are very boring. Dead bodies do not do much.

  She did see one body move, throw off a leg that was wrapped around it and begin to crawl. She could not tell if it was a man or a woman. It crawled right off the screen and has not reappeared on any of the others. She can see the patrols moving along from screen to screen on a regular basis, though. So she expects they will find this survivor before long and shoot it.

  On the monitors there are a few pockets of survivors, mostly out in the gate areas beyond the food court. She does not think the Brothers care if they get to them or not. They have what they want – hostages and an opportunity to make the world listen.

  Other than that, it is just quiet – very quiet, the way a city never is. She keeps thinking the police will charge in at any second, or that Jamal will come back to tell her to join them.

  Or maybe, the door will creep open and that crawling thing will crawl in here with her and she will have to shoot it.

  Allah-God, it has been a long day! She has been making sit-ups and jumping jacks to awaken herself.

  It took her almost two hours, with so many monitors, before she realized that there is a television set over on the left. So now, she is watching the news, which is being broadcast live from where, but LAX! So she is learning what the world is thinking about them and what they do.

  Making the news is a pretty blonde with a microphone in her hand, looking concerned. It is strange how America wants to be fed its television news by attractive blondes. And how these women try to look intellectual and as if their emotions are involved.

  Part of the reeducation of the American people needs to be focused on this: could you bear to have your news delivered by an ugly, older woman? Someone with dark hair and an accent? Someone with a brain?

  It would seem that nobody really cares if she sleeps or not. The “Brothers” – ha! – have not checked in with her once. They’ve forgotten all about her – even Jamal, apparently.

  She could go and find them but that is forbidden. She was ordered to stay here.

  Too bad for them! If the cell phones worked or if they would just come by to see her, she could tell them all that is happening – of which there is plenty.

  Some things she can see on her monitors, and some on the television. All of it is relevant to them, if anyone were interested.

  “By now, the entire world has seen the amateur video taken at the time of the attack: a camera trained on happily departing vacationers recorded the moment when, suddenly, the doors behind them are filled with terrified, running, shoving people,” the newswoman begins. X watches as the footage is replayed again. At first, the human flood is silent but urgent. Then, a second wave emerges, screaming, their faces contorted in terror. And finally comes a third wave, bloodied, limping, staggering, their faces blank with shock and their mouths opened for screams that will not come.

  Only by seeing what is written in those faces can anyone comprehend what has happened. The reporter’s words just slither in one side of the brain and out the other, but those faces speak a language any human can understand: their eyes have looked upon the face of Death.

  “Security cameras, too, have captured the initial assault. However, as the assailants are masked, it will take some time to establish their identity. The van in which the terrorists arrived, and which they left abandoned at the curb, has been determined to be stolen. The FBI is presently disassembling it on the spot, in an effort to find the smallest clue.

  “One hopeful note: the possible identity of the assailants may be linked to a scrap of paper found trampled in the gutter near the van, with the printed heading UCLA Kultur Klub.”

  X feels as if the blonde woman has just reached straight through the screen and punched her in the stomach. How could they have been so careless? And if the police know about the Klub, what will happen to Father Christopher and the Iman? She reaches for the wastebasket, just in time to capture a stream of vomit.

  As the afternoon progresses, she watches the rescue of three groups of people – all of them out at the international gates ready to board when the attack came. To be rescued, they simply come down the covered ramps and then, down roll-away stairways, the kind in front of shiny airplanes in old movies.

  Of course, there is more to it than that because there are helicopters hovering and SWAT teams behind barricades, and armored trucks making an avenue for the people to escape. The blonde newswoman is obviously thrilled with the drama of it all.

  X expected, then, that the police would invade the terminal – but still, nothing.

  The authorities have tried several things, however. They have shouted through the front doors with a bullhorn, demanding the release of hostages and the immediate surrender of their group. They have sent in robotic drones, but they could not get through the tangled bodies in the halls. They even sent in a negotiator, but he lost his nerve halfway down the concourse and retreated. Twice, SWAT teams have swept the front lobby, removing bodies but have gone no further.

  Then, the negotiator came back. On the monitor, she watched the way he moved. He was clearly badly frightened. But then, who would not be? He made it all the way back to where the hostages are – and the Brothers took him hostage. They did not even listen to him. In fact, they gagged him and sat him on the floor against a counter.

  She thought the approach of the police would be far more aggressive. Is it the hostages? Or is there some other reason they hesitate?

  She also has seen both the Imam and Father Christopher interviewed on the television early in the evening. Both of them looked very frightened. Father Chris had a large blue bruise over his right eye. Did they abuse him, when they questioned him?

  It’s the eleven o’clock news now, and she is sure they will show them again. Yes, here’s Father Chris now, the same clip, saying, “We started the Kultur Klub in an attempt to bring warring factions together. We hoped that, on the basis of their shared tragedies, these young people would begin a dialogue that would aid, in some small way, in overcoming fundamentalist prejudices and in bringing peace to the Middle East and other parts of the world.”

  The Imam looks even worse. Because he is Islamic, she is sure that the questioning has been far more severe for him. He looks haggard. There are big blue circles around his eyes. Under his brown skin, he appears pale and bloodless.

  “These young men” – he does not mention X, the woman among them, a typical Islamic prejudice against the female – “have experienced terrible losses in their lives. My only hope in bringing them together was to replace with love the bitterness and hatred they carried in their hearts towards other religious and ethnic groups.”

  She believes the Imam and Father Christopher had good intentions in founding their Klub. What the Klub became was not their fault. In fact, they would have known horror at what the Brothers were planning – and they must be very discouraged now.

  This much is sure – they succeeded to help all of them bridge their bigotry towards each other. The individual stories in group session
s, the oral reports on the situations of each of their peoples – these aided their mutual understandings. They began to see that they are not the enemy to one another. They understand, now, with Ibrahim’s guidance, that they have but one common enemy.

  At first, this frightened them. And it repelled them, that they were being carried in the bosom of their enemy. Then, through days and nights at discussion and planning, they began to see this as a tremendous advantage. They came to understand that Allah-God, as they call Him now to please all their religions, has placed them strategically.

  They realized that He has given them a mission that they must carry out. At first, they had no idea what the mission might be.

  They all realized that ideology without action is hypocritical and cowardly. They understood that the political is personal – this they knew from most painful individual experiences. What they did not know, and what took the longest time and the most argument, was the nature of their action.

  When finally they decided, the men tried to discourage her from participating. “A woman has no place in violent action,” they said.

  “Tell that to my dead mother and Aunty,” she would respond. “Or to your own.”

  At first, she was torn between her emerging feminist understandings and her allegiance to the men’s cause – even though it seemed too violent and sexist to her. But the men did not want her to participate; a prejudice that spurred her to insist on inclusion.

  Finally, she won the right to join them in training. Thank Allah-God that she is strong and could keep up with them. They certainly did not cut her the slack, as the Americans say.

  But with the guns, she is hopeless. They say she is too small for the rifles. With the handguns, the explosion so close to her ear is painful. “You keep squeezing your eyes shut and the trigger at the same time,” Hansi jeers. Even with one hand cut off, he is doing better than she is.

  She feels like a failure, but she refuses to quit.

  The Brothers stop calling her by her name and tease her by calling her “X.” “You are the unknown factor in this operation, so from now on you will be called X.” A further humiliation.

  At the bomb making, she is better. Her fingers are small and delicate. Once she understands the principles, she becomes the best at twisting the circuit wires and soldering the parts. She handles the dynamite sticks in their paper skins and the blocks of C-4, as if they were her firstborn child. She feels a certain love for her creations.

  On the other hand, she is secretly beginning to loathe some of the Brothers. She admires their love of risk, their skill and their power. She loves what they are able to manifest – this action glorifying Allah-God. But personally, they become loathsome to her – all, except Jamal.

  They are everything Women’s Studies teaches – hierarchical, misogynistic, sexually depraved and simply messy. They expect her to clean up after them. They deliberately do not help her. Every day they deliver the message that she is second-class, inferior.

  Still, she envies their confidence that they deserve power. They are convinced of their superiority. She personally never has experienced this.

  But with the gun in her hand, or the bomb, she begins to feel powerful. It is intoxicating.

  At the same time, she is terrified. When she thinks of their plan, she wants to leap up and make it happen now. That is because she expects to die. If she is going to die, she wants to complete this ordeal immediately. She does not want to live with the fear of it, which makes her vomit. Her chest is so constricted with fear, she begins to pant, as if she cannot draw breath fully.

  But she keeps on because she will not let down the females. If she is going to die, let it be as a martyr. Death is the ultimate way to prove that women can manipulate political power. If she dies for their cause, how then could these men feel superior to her? Dead, she is beyond criticism.

  They write a Manifesto: We are a multi-national and religiously diverse group assembled for the purpose of affirming international brotherhood (they would not include sisterhood, despite her many arguments) and to wage war on the American military-industrial complex, and to protest that unquestioning obedience to multinational corporate interests is not patriotic, but idiotic. In defense of the downtrodden peoples of the world, and of their resources and their labor that ought to belong to them and not be stolen by corporate greed, and in the name of Allah-God, we call for a universal uprising against the forces of oppression, and give our lives willingly as martyrs to this cause.

  They labor over this statement for weeks, nearly warring among themselves.

  One night, she goes to the restroom and when she comes back, the men tell her to leave.

  “After all this time, you are dismissing me?” She is almost too outraged to speak. Her voice is shrill.

  “No, no,” they assure her. “We have someone coming who will only deal with us men. It is secret – and very important. Our mission depends on it. You must trust us.”

  So, reluctantly, she goes. But she does not leave. She hides. She sneaks into the next room, puts her ear to the furnace grate, and listens. She hears a man’s voice. He is offering their group money to aid the fight. He is saying that they must negotiate, using hostages, and make the government fly them to the Middle East. There, they will be safe to continue the struggle.

  She wants very much to go into the meeting room and see this man, but does not dare. His voice goes on and on, promising so many things – guns, training camps, money, access to top leadership. Where have the Brothers found such a powerful man? Why does one with such power interest himself in them? She sits on the floor and feels even sicker and more anxious.

  After that, there is no stopping the Brothers. The rhetoric of violence intensifies. They feel they are indomitable.

  This is her weakest moment. She is nearly overwhelmed with temptation to tell them that she cannot join them. That they are correct. She is the weak link. She is the one who will make an otherwise successful operation come to grief.

  It is a supreme act of will not to falter. She accomplishes this by saying nothing. She sits like a stone and accepts their dictates. She fears that if she speaks, it will come out as a whimper. This, she cannot tolerate in herself. She chews a hole inside her lower lip, but she manages to stay silent.

  And now, here they are. Here she is. They, the Brothers, are elsewhere. But they are all here in the Los Angeles International Airport international terminal.

  To their credit, they have made a tremendous victory. Bodies lie heaped in the corridors. They have vanquished the enemy.

  To their discredit, they have murdered a few hundred unarmed innocents. Bodies lie heaped in the corridors. In what way are they distinguished from the enemy they hope to vanquish?

  Pearl

  Well, one good thin bout this here sitchiation is, Pearl ain’t gots ta figger out a place ta sleep. By the looks a thins, ain’t none of em a-goin nowhar.

  Pearl never had much use fer other women. That’s why she cain’t go ta the shelter. All them women. They fuss bout this an nag bout that. Worse then a swarm a hornets. She’d rather set down on a anthill then go ta that damn shelter.

  So Pearl cain’t quite get the jist a these here gals. Theys a different breed a cat. Theys so nice an proper an polite, one t’other, you’d think they was at a church social. Or a meetin a the Golden Star.

  Not that Pearl’s ever been ta either, but she’s seen it often enough – ladies all dolled up, wearin heels an hats, carryin cake plates, sayin, Oh, Howdy-do? Oh, how pretty you look! Oh mah, ain’t it a lovely day?

  But that ain’t even quite rat. These gals ain’t simperin. Theys more lak folks bein real gingerly, tryin ta keep thins in balance, goin over the falls together in a big barrel. Alls it takes is one panickin an the whole she-bang gonna flop over an they’ll all be kilt.

  Her Granny use ter say, Thems cain’t work together, fails together. From the look a this crowd here, ain’t no one plannin on failin.

  Lak, at dinnertime, e
verone gots a paper plate from the stack on the microwave. Sophia passed a pen an everone put they name on they own. Pearl made a X on hers.

  Then they parceled out the food. Ever one of em gots ta choose somethin. Pearl chose peanuts. Nothin keeps yer stomach from growling lak peanuts!

  But the machine don’t deliver but a little tiny sack an then she gots ta divvy it five ways. Nothin fer the nigger gal. She don’t get nothin but water, says Sophia.

  Then Betty, she chooses cookies. Thar warn’t but four a them. She breaks em, so everbody gots roughly they share.

  Now the one called Onion or somethin lak that, she looks an looks inta that machine, lak all of a sudden a fried fish is gonna appear in thar, or a cherry tart. She chooses crackers an cheese, after the chef turnt up missin. That split up purdy good.

  Sophia come next. She takes some corn chips, rat smart. No waitin around. Pearl laks a gal knows her own mind.

  Then Heady. She’s as bad as the Onion. Worse. She whines bout this an sniffs bout that, an Pearl’s bout fed up. It’s almost as bad as the shelter. But then, Heady gots a smile full a whimsy an says, “I know! I’ll buy dessert!” an pops fer a Payday. Sophia saws it up lak a log with her knife an that’s how Pearl gots some of her peanuts back!

  By the time theys finished parcelin stuff out, the plate’s almost full. Shoot! Been many a nat Pearl ain’t et this good!

  Don’t seem lak time’s passed much, but all of a sudden, it’s going on 11:00. Everbody’s sayin how tared they is.

  Ain’t no way fer a body ta get comfortable here. Floor’s hard as a straw boss’s heart. The ladies is beddin down, best they cain. Everbody gots issued a roll a toilet paper fer a piller.

  Pearl, she gots her pack. Never lets hersef be parted from it. She gots a blanket an a piller made from a sack stuffed with plastic bags – latweight ta carry, but nice an soft under her head.

  Sophia turnt out the lats, hours ago. She was scairt the lat’d go through the bullet holes in the door an out inta the hall an attract the tearists. Ain’t nothin but the lats in the machines, an them kinda purrin ta theirselves, keepin thins cold.