COMMUNE OF WOMEN

by SUZAN STILL

  Lots a gruntin an groanin as the gals settle in – especially from that nigger gal. Sophia’s layin next ta her, by the sofa. She reaches up an takes the gal’s hand.

  Lord knows what tomorrow’ll bring – ain’t a one a them does, Pearl’s certain. That be the joy a it, she s’poses, from His perspective.

  Ain’t none of em gonna take it fer granit, an that’s fer sure!

  Erika

  All day, the women’s voices are like the hum of bees. Sometimes, Erika hears it. Sometimes, she drowses and dreams she’s in a meadow full of flowers with the bees buzzing through them.

  Then, the pain shoots through her and she wakes herself, moaning.

  This big woman, Sophia, is always there when she opens her eyes. She’s got a nice way with her, firm but gentle.

  She keeps getting Erika to take tiny sips of water. She’s swallowed she doesn’t know how many pills. Each time they take effect, the voices of the women fade and she’s in that meadow again. It’s not bad, really.

  Sophia says she was shot by terrorists. That would make Erika laugh, if it didn’t hurt too much. That’s what they say about women over 40: that they have a better chance of being shot by terrorists than of finding a husband – and her, only 34!

  That’s our little Erika – always exceeding the norm. Ever the over-achiever.

  If they survive – and Sophia thinks they will – she’ll enjoy telling that one over lunch.

  With the lights out, everything’s quiet – except for someone’s snoring over by the vending machines.

  In a few hours, she would have been in Berlin in that Bauhaus hotel with the impossible name. All those clean lines and minimal furniture. Hot, hot shower. Duvet a foot deep in goose down. Dining room, featuring an impossible number of ways to cook schnitzel. Nothing like a steamed vegetable or garden salad within the national borders of Germany.

  She would have been tired, hungry, and bitchy at having to eat such heavy food.

  Albert was right. Everything’s relative.

  Instead, she’s opted for a life-threatening wound and a steady diet of water and assorted meds, while lying in deep pain in a hacked-up thousand-dollar Donna Karan suit on a blood-crusted couch. Apparently, one half of an eight hundred dollar pair of heels is lying out in the hall under a pile of dead people.

  Another stellar career move brought to you by Black Girl Makes Good Productions.

  X

  An army has been steadily amassing all around the perimeter of LAX’s international terminal. X watches it all with growing alarm on the television news.

  “From the first frantic police responders in the morning to the black vans of SWAT teams rolling in from surrounding areas all afternoon,” the blonde reporter intones, “to the early evening arrival of a convoy of Elands and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, armored personnel carriers from the local National Guard Armory, an exotic Armada of high-tech and imperviously armored gadgetry is being assembled.”

  The television shows the view from the helicopters that continually circle the building, their searchlights strobing through the darkness. “The surrounding area is a sea of flashing red lights, a conglomeration of Police, Sheriff, FBI, FEMA, Red Cross, and OES vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances, all throbbing in the perennial starless dusk that is an L.A. night.”

  The reporter announces that the LAPD relinquished control before noon to the highest-ranking FEMA official in the L.A. area. He is shown conferring with a man from the Office of Emergency Services. Until late into the evening, it is reported, they are giving orders and organizing the fleet of vans arriving with everything from sensitive snooping devices – their antennae and broad dishes giving them a vaguely insect-like creepiness – to catered sandwiches. A second wave consisting of more and more media trucks and vans is fulminating at a distance.

  Finally, close to midnight, a black helicopter beats swiftly across the parking area and descends, all TV cameras trained on it. A tall man emerges from it, wearing black jeans and sneakers and a black jacket with FBI emblazoned across the shoulders in white. He is followed by a shorter man who looks like a box freezer in his chunky jacket of the same white on black design.

  Handshakes go around the small group assembled to greet the two men just arriving from Washington D.C. The tall man is introduced to the public as the incident’s Director of Operations, the number one spot, and the shorter one is number two, the On-Site Commander.

  By now, the commanders from FEMA and OES look exhausted and irritable, as if they are trying to disguise that they are out of their league. With evident relief, they relinquish control to the FBI command staff who immediately duck into a nearby tent to confer with various agency commanders and captains. X wonders sleepily how these new arrivals will affect her fate.

  Despite her exhaustion, she is impressed by the efficiency of these men. FBI technicians have strung up phone lines, erected radio repeaters and gotten encryption devices on line. The Tactical Operations Center has seen to it that there is a free flow of information to the command, while Special Agents in Charge storm around the various operations looking resolute and making sure that everyone can now talk to everyone else. She learns all this from the newswoman who, at the end of this long day, is also looking exhausted and disheveled.

  “Information is flowing,” the reporter enthuses, one hand holding her blonde hair back from her face in the rising night wind. “There are now some revelations on the identity of the terrorists, hunted down by investigative agents who, with the help of Interpol, have tirelessly chased leads, worked timelines and scoured the intelligence logs.

  “Negotiators are huddled with psychologists, talking through scripts and plotting strategy, while the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team is primed for the assault they’ve trained so long to perform. The sniper commander has placed his best shots in prime strategic positions. All is in readiness! What will the next move be?”

  The TV screen suddenly fills with an advertisement for a gigantic car lot. X shakes her head in aggravation. All that blonde woman needed to say was, “Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of Terrorists in L.A.!” She treats the entire incident as if it were entertainment. X can scarcely contain her disgust.

  The news returns to the screen. They are signing off for the night. The camera pans away from the blonde woman. Only a few hundred yards further out from the throbbing ring of emergency lights is the steady river of headlights, the never-ceasing traffic on L.A.’s freeways, flowing on and on, sounding like falling water. Only a few miles further, X imagines, the Pacific Ocean rocks in its vast basin like a cauldron of molten tar. The shore lights of the city reach feebly into its bottomless blackness and then, a hundred yards from shore are lost, drowning in the fathomless dark.

  Day Two

  Heddi

  Heddi’s quite sure she’s never spent a more miserable night in her entire life. Not even in that fleabag motel up on the Big Sur coast, where the mattress sloped 30 degrees and she slept hanging on to the edge all night to keep from rolling downhill into Hal. Who, of course, slept like a baby.

  She rubs the bruises from yesterday’s pile-up gingerly. Her watch says its 5:14, but you’d never know if that was morning or afternoon in here. Isn’t there a law against building rooms without windows – some fire code, or something?

  She was more awake than asleep, all night. She didn’t hear a sound outside in the concourse and she had this funny thought that it was all a mistake. That this morning some worker would unlock the door and here they’d all be, all over the floor, their heads balanced on rolls of toilet paper. And the people in the concourse, with their rolling suitcases and suiters over their arms, would look in here and frown and wonder what the hell was going on.

  That struck her as hilarious. She started to giggle and had to throw an arm over her mouth to keep from waking the others – something she definitely does not want to do.

  Pretty soon, these women are going to be waking up, anyway, and Heddi dreads it. She wishes they could all ju
st lie here, absolutely still, until the police come for them. Being caged up with all these women and their anxieties today is going to be like running the group therapy session from hell.

  Already, she hears someone moving over by the machines. She opens her eyes just a slit, not letting on she’s awake...

  Oh, it’s the Bruegel. Look at that old sneak!

  She tiptoes over to the table. Takes some coins. Tiptoes back to the machines. Looks around... Puts in a coin. The noise of it dropping is like a freight train rolling through. Looks around again... No one is stirring. Drops in another coin...and another, until there’s a soft whack, as a cup drops and then the sound of coffee squirting into it.

  The smell fills the room.

  Still no movement from the others. Maybe they’re all dead from shock. Surely, they can’t have slept through that old reprobate’s performance.

  There she sits on her blanket, leaning against the machine with her pillow behind her, sipping her coffee like the Queen of Sheba.

  What’s she doing now?

  Rustle, rustle, rustle.

  Enough noise to wake the dead – so Heddi guesses the others aren’t, after all.

  Oh! I don’t believe this! A pipe?! The woman smokes a pipe?

  Sure enough. The Brueghel’s packing her pipe with... what? Marijuana? No. Smells like tobacco. Heddi’s a Virginia girl. She’d know the smell of tobacco anywhere.

  She’s striking the match – that sharp smell of sulphur!

  Sulphur, coffee, tobacco smoke. Cheap coffee. Cheap tobacco smoke, the lowest grade. But what smells! Elemental smells of Heddi’s childhood. Those, and horse sweat, oiled leather, hay, kerosene from the stable lanterns. She can almost hear Tobias nickering for his morning apple and Amos, in that baritone that could soothe a skittish horse – or a frightened child – saying, “We-e-e-ll, good mornin’ there, Miss Heddi. You up bright an’ early dis mornin’.”

  And little Heddi, barely up to his kneecaps, smiling at his mock surprise, with one hand on her hip. “Amos, you know I come here this time every morning!”

  And Amos, beaming in feigned confusion. “Is dat so, Miss Heddi? Now, how could I a forgot dat?”

  Another elemental – her first flirtation. Those early morning exchanges with Amos filled her empty little heart and set high her expectations for all of male-female love – it would be tender, humorous and gallant. It would always cherish and honor her.

  Yes, Amos, wherever you are, I am up bright an’ early dis mornin’. And you would never, ever believe this world I’ve awakened to. Thank God you lived out your life among pitchforks and currycombs! You were made of too fine a stuff for the Age of AK-47s.

  Pearl

  Well, if this don’ beat all! Pearl cain’t believe she done fell inta such good luck! A good, safe nat’s sleep, nice an warm, plenty a food, an good, black coffee! She’s been roamin this earth fer a hunnert years an the Lord finally done smilt on her.

  If her luck holds, they’ll be in here fer a day or two more, an she cain rest up. Since Pop died, she confesses, she’s been feelin poorly. Don’ quite know what ta do with hersef. If she cain set a spell, she’ll get hersef collected, she reckons.

  José done her a good turn. She wonders what’s happent ta his cousin, Maria? Hope she’s alrat. Them tearists mean business. Another piece a good luck, she was in here when all Hell broke loose.

  Alls she gots ta do is survive them women.

  Sophie’s a good egg. The nigger gal ain’t gonna be no trouble. Betty, she strikes Pearl as a gal with a heart – but she looks ta be rat on the brink a hysteria, lak she’ll bust out laughin or cryin or both, an fer no patic’lar reason.

  Then, theys this Heady woman an the Onion. Pearl don’ ratly know how ta consider them. Theys too high-toned fer the laks a her. Pearl watcht em at supper last nat, pickin through all the good food the Lord done provided lak they was lookin fer jewels in hog slop, little fingers prinked. Too fine fer feathers, her Granny use ter say.

  Before everbody wakes up, Pearl’s gonna get in that bathroom thar an freshen up. She’ll rinse her out some undies an maybe soak her feet in the john. Loosen up some a them callouses.

  The Lord done blest her today an she’s gonna take full advantage of it.

  Sophia

  Sophia didn’t sleep all night. She kept dozing and then instantly waking, the way you do in a combat zone, constantly checking on Erika. Sophia thinks she’ll mend. Today will tell. If an infection’s started, it’ll show today.

  Not a sound from the concourse all night. Where on Earth are the police? How could it take this long? They’ve got to have an army out there, by now – SWAT teams, ambulances, helicopters, FBI. Maybe even National Guard and tanks. A whole city of news trucks, at a safe distance. But not a peep, in here. It’s eerie. What could be wrong?

  Maybe they’ve taken hostages. That’s probably it. They’ve got a whole bunch of people rounded up, somewhere in the terminal, and the police are afraid to come in. That must be it.

  The terrorists must have a demand of some kind, she figures. They’re negotiating. Otherwise, why do this? They could just send in a suicide bomber...get it over with, if they’re just pissed and want to make a statement. No. They want something...passage to Libya, release of a fellow terrorist from prison...something like that.

  That means no heroic rescue any time soon. Negotiations will take time.

  Meanwhile, the police’ll be planning a strategy. Spotting the lookouts. Setting up snipers. Reading the buildings with infrared to see where the concentrations of bodies are...living bodies.

  She wonders if a decomposing body shows up on one of their scopes? Even a dead body emits heat. Then it cools. Then it starts to rot, which is a form of slow fire – so you get heat again. She’ll have to ask someone when this is all over.

  Betty

  All Betty wants to do is cry. She’s been lying here – how long? And she just can’t stop. The tears just flow and flow. Thank goodness she keeps Kleenex in her purse.

  Her nose is running, too. She’s a big, blubbering mess – except she’s not blubbering, not aloud anyway.

  Betty’s never cried like this before. When she cries, she always wails. But here she’s trying to be quiet. But that doesn’t stop the tears. They just well up and spill over, without her even thinking much about it. They have a mind of their own.

  Heddi would want to know what she’s crying about. Betty hasn’t a clue. It’s just scary and overwhelming. They’re locked in here; dead people are heaped in front of their door; her family doesn’t even know she’s in trouble... or care, probably. This room is small and ugly. There’s a gutted Coke machine looming over her.

  Isn’t that enough?

  She just wants to do what it takes to get through this. Thank God Sophia and Heddi are with them! They seem to have some idea of what needs doing.

  She just doesn’t understand why she can’t stop crying. Maybe it’s because her backside is numb from lying on this floor.

  Or maybe because she’s hungry. What they had for dinner last night was nothing more than a snack. And breakfast this morning isn’t going to be any better. Betty’s like a vole – she needs to eat her own weight, every day, just to stay balanced. She’s afraid she’s waking the others up with the thunder rumbling in her stomach – another thing she can’t control.

  She can imagine that they’ll be trapped in here for weeks, until they’re reduced to drinking tap water. Maybe one of them will die, finally, and then they’ll have to decide whether to eat her or not, just like that problem her high school philosophy teacher gave on a test: several men are on a boat, lost at sea. They’re starving. They have no way to catch fish. Someone proposes that they select lots and the loser gets killed and eaten. Write an essay: did she think that was a good plan, or not?

  Well, what kind of question is that? What L.A. high school student could relate to sitting in an open boat in the middle of the ocean, chewing on a raw hunk of human flesh? That’s the kind of thi
ng you only read about in the National Enquirer.

  Betty wrote that she’d rather die than eat another person. Then, after she was dead from starvation, they could eat her if they wanted to – that way, her life would be lost for some purpose. She’d felt noble when she handed in her paper.

  She doesn’t feel so noble, now. She doesn’t want to die – and she doesn’t want anybody gnawing on her thigh-bone, either, thank you very much.

  Ondine

  All her adult life, Ondine has felt exhausted. She drove herself. Everyone thought she was Ms. Congeniality. She was always the one with the biggest picnic hamper at soccer matches. Always had the cleverest theme parties, like the time, for Richard’s birthday, she transformed the backyard into a pirates’ grotto. Or the Marie Antoinette wedding shower she gave for her friend, Joan, all pink and green.

  Heddi says she’s tired all the time because she’s an introvert who’s been living an extroverted existence. She says that kind of reversal of type can be extremely harmful, physiologically.

  And in France, at Tante Collette’s, Ondine finally started to understand what she means. One day, she felt so strange – she thought she might be coming down with something. Then, she realized – I’m relaxed! It had been so long, it felt pathological!

  Well, this morning, after a miserable night of repositioning a roll of toilet paper at the back of her neck and awakening from near-hallucinogenic dreams, she’s exhausted again.

  She guesses escaping death at the hands of terrorists counts for extroversion.

  Erika

  Erika’s glad to hear the others start to move around. She was beginning to think this night would never end.