COMMUNE OF WOMEN

by SUZAN STILL

  Almost immediately, she begins to dream:

  In the tent of the Incident Commander, a short conversation takes place, as he enters a portable sound proof booth and speaks into an encrypted line in the voice she knows so well. “Sir? It’s done. The bird has flown. Tomorrow, this will all be finished... Yes, Sir... All major networks, yes, Sir... Yes, Sir. Good night, Sir.”

  In her small room, X awakens, having forgotten some important part of the dream. There is something white – is it a piece of paper? A sheet? And there is a figure – a man, she thinks. What is he doing? Something with the white thing. She tries to remember, but is interrupted by the voice of the FBI’s Public Information Officer, who is beginning to read his information sheets, identifying the terrorists, twelve in all, with a brief synopsis of their personal histories.

  As he reads, X is frozen in horror: her name and that of the eleven Brothers are being reported on television!

  They know who we are! Allah!

  What truly stuns her, however, is the version of their lives she is hearing: Hansi, a Hutu militiaman responsible for murdering hundreds of Tutsis! Jamal, a member of a covert Egyptian death squad! And she – Allah! What have we done? – a murderous operative of the PLO, a latter-day Leila Khaled!

  Day Four

  Sophia

  She’s in the corridor. The lights are still on and, to her astonishment, Muzak is still inanely serenading the bodies sprawled down its length. It is deep in the earliest hours of the morning – she can tell by the fatigue that refuses to relinquish her muscles. Her brain, however, is perfectly awake. She knows what she must do.

  She grabs the ankles of the first bloated, reeking corpse and, straining backward, begins to drag it off the heap in front of their shattered door.

  Her ears are alert, over the soft shushing sound of the dragging body, for any other sound. She comes to a corner and turns to the left, but too sharply. The upper body of her burden wraps itself around the corner and refuses to budge. She strains and snarls under her breath, “Come on, you bastard! Come on!” She gives a last pull and the body breaks loose and lurches toward her. Its heels, shod in expensive Italian leather slip-ons, shoot forward and smack into her breasts. She pushes back from them in disgust, then keeps on pulling.

  Suddenly, her rump collides with something and, dropping his ankles, she spins in alarm. There, her face white with terror, is a small woman all in black who is in the act of dropping the ankles of a huge, bloated man whose legs she has been holding at her waist like the traces of a cart. She and Sophia stare at one another in astonishment.

  “Who...who are you?” Sophia manages to breathe.

  The woman stares back at her, too terrified to speak.

  Sophia’s eyes descend, taking in the handgun thrust into the woman’s waistband. “Are you...one of them? A terrorist?”

  Slowly, numbly, the woman nods her head, a movement so slight Sophia barely sees it.

  Without hesitation, Sophia lunges for her, her left hand reaching for the gun, her right striking a blow under the woman’s chin that jerks her head backwards. It should have been a killing blow, but Sophia is out of training. The woman sits down hard, her eyes wide in surprise, her fall cushioned by the huge corpse. She lands squarely on its belly, sinks in and is almost enfolded.

  And then the corpse emits a huge, foul-smelling, very noisy fart.

  Sophia’s eyes meet those of the small woman. Something simmers between them, something ageless and pure. Something female.

  They both begin to giggle.

  With the gun trained on the woman, Sophia backs away and makes her exit, still laughing.

  The smell is what wakes her, a smile still crimped on her lips. It’s getting overpowering; she can barely breathe. Something has to be done.

  Betty was in the bathroom retching, early this morning. And for a group that’s been without a square meal for three days, no one seems to mind that breakfast is a Saltine and a slice of cheese with black coffee, eaten in silence.

  She just can’t figure out how to move the bodies without exposing them to maximum danger. It isn’t just moving the drink machine from the door – even if she can. It’s so heavy, and now the linoleum is wrinkled underneath.

  She doubts she can do it alone, and who could possibly help her? Ondine? She’s so slight, it’s not likely. Heddi? No way. She’s the type who strains to lift her own suitcase. Betty’s too hysterical. The smell would probably make her sick, right when Sophia needed her most. Erika’s out, obviously. That leaves Pearl. Goddess knows, she’d give it a try – and it would snap her old bones like dry sticks.

  Even if she can move the thing, then the real problem comes. They’d be completely exposed and vulnerable. Once she goes out into the corridor, she’s a sitting duck. And if she’s spotted – or if they kill her – it would lead the terrorists straight to the rest.

  And where is she going to drag the bodies to? The terrorists, if they’re patrolling the ends of the concourse, doubtlessly look down it and know where every body is lying by now.

  It’s just one of those Devil and the deep blue sea situations – which doesn’t mean they can just ignore it.

  “Ladies, listen up! We’ve got a problem and we’ve got to deal with it. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

  They look at her with haggard, deadened eyes. No one says a word.

  Pearl begins rooting around in her pack, her head half-submerged in it, industrious as a dog unburying a bone. No one even looks her way. The rest look like they’re on heavy drugs.

  “I know it’s hard, but we have to...”

  Pearl emerges from the mouth of her pack and victoriously thrusts something into the air on the end of one gray claw.

  “I gots it! I knew I had one in thar somewhar. An here tis!”

  “What? What is it?” They’re all squinting at the thing Pearl’s waving around, like an excited child.

  “A mirrah. A dentist mirrah. I dug it outta his trash a hunert years ago an I been carryin it round ever since. I knowed I’d need it one day fer somethin!”

  They’re all staring at her, mystified. What can she possibly be thinking?

  “Explain your plan to us, Pearl. Please.”

  “Doncha see? Sophia thar, she leans the machine for-wart, an someone small, me or the Onion, we squeezes back behind thar an sticks this here mirrah through one a them bullet holes in the door. An then we cain see what’s out thar without havin ta move that damn machine!”

  Sophia has to admit, it’s a start. It doesn’t get the bodies moved or even the machine, for that matter, but it at least gives them some notion of what they’re up against before they un-barricade the door.

  You might know it would be Pearl who would come up with a solution. She’s as pleased as punch with herself, too.

  “That’s a brilliant idea, Pearl! Let’s do it!”

  Sophia pushes herself up off the floor and it seems to take almost more energy than she’s got. Even the war never brutalized her like this has – but then, she was a lot younger in those days.

  Pearl clings to the front of the candy machine and pulls herself up, too. The rest look at them with dawning but completely passive interest, as if she and Pearl were on television.

  Sophia pats Pearl on the shoulder, as she scuttles past. “You gonna be the one to do this?”

  “Well, I been a-waitin fer the Lone Ranger ta come along, but looks lak he’s been delayed.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s get ‘er done.”

  Sophia braces her right shoulder against the corner of the machine and reaches toward the back, engulfing it in a big embrace. Her fingers find the back edge and she grips it like the jaws of a trap.

  “Okay, Pearl. I’m going to pull it forward onto me. You tell me when you can slip back behind it.”

  “Ready!” is all Pearl says. She’s braced like a runner about to start a relay race, one foot forward, the dentist’s mirror in her fist like a baton. Just for an instant, Sophia thinks she
sees something else; something eternal – one of the Furies shrouded in gray mist, or Hecate in her swirling cloak of night – and she feels a bolt of love for this old woman go through her, so fierce that it’s like a pain.

  Then, she summons every ounce of her strength and pulls the machine onto her chest, like a lover.

  Heddi

  If that machine topples, it’ll smash Sophia flat, but the three of them just sit here like toadstools. Maybe it’s the stench that’s gotten to them. Heddi feels as if she’d been administered ether.

  As soon as a crack opens at the back of the machine, Pearl wedges herself into it like a scabrous old rat darting into a hole. There’s the crackle of glass grinding underfoot and then a long pause.

  Heddi glances at Sophia. She’s bent backward at the waist, hugging the machine and Heddi can’t see her face but she hears her breathing coming in the kind of deep, measured breaths that weightlifters use.

  Finally, Sophia grunts, “What’d you see, Pearl?”

  There’s another long pause and Heddi’s beginning to wonder if Pearl went back there and died. She had a rat do that behind her refrigerator once.

  Then there’s the scrape of glass again and Pearl sticks her head out to make her pronouncement. “Nothin,” she intones gravely.

  Suddenly, Ondine is up off the floor and dashes over to her. “Pearl,” she whispers urgently, “what do you mean? Sophia can’t hold this thing much longer.”

  Pearl shakes her head like a truculent child and steps out from behind the machine. “Ain’t nothin out thar, I tell ya.”

  Ondine snatches the dentist’s mirror from Pearl without a word and wedges herself behind the machine.

  Sophia gasps out one word: “Hurry!”

  As if in a trance, Heddi sees Betty struggle out of one of the plastic chairs which clings, momentarily, to her rump. She pushes it off with annoyance. Then, with surprising speed, she moves to Sophia and braces herself against the upper corners of the machine.

  Pearl is doing a kind of shuffling dance, like a molting and deranged chicken, craning her head sideways, trying to see into the crack where Ondine has disappeared.

  Heddi alone is disengaged. This is a complete descent of libido. She can’t lift a finger.

  Ondine’s slender backside comes wiggling out of the crack. She’s holding the mirror in her fist by its thin handle, like a disheveled fairy queen with her wand.

  “Pearl’s right!” Her creamy forehead wrinkles in puzzlement. “There’s nothing out there!”

  Pearl gives a victorious cackle, as Sophia and Betty heave the machine back against the door. It slams back with a leaden thump and a grinding crunch of shattered glass.

  Betty puts an arm around Sophia, who is breathing like a freight train and white with fatigue. She brings the plastic chair for her to sit in. Heddi knows she should offer her the armchair, but she seems to be unable to move.

  “Tell us,” Sophia wheezes.

  Ondine steps into the center of their ragged circle, still holding the mirror as if ready to bless them or grant a wish. “Pearl’s right. There are no bodies out there.”

  They look from one to another, blankly.

  “I think the bodies have been dragged away in the night. There’s a trail of blackened blood smeared down the corridor toward the right. I think the smell will get better now. There’s a pool of coagulated blood right outside the door. That must be what we’re still smelling.”

  As if that announcement has exhausted her, Ondine sinks to the floor in one graceful, yogic motion.

  “How could that happen without us hearing it?” Betty asks, puzzled.

  “Maybe we’re all so exhausted, we’re sleeping better than we think,” Ondine says, with a shrug.

  A long silence ensues.

  “Well,” Sophia says finally, “either the Good Guys are making some inroads at last, or the terrorists are preparing to storm our battlements. And there’s no way to tell which it might be.”

  Sophia

  It must be the heat. The bodies produce heat, just like she thought. They have to get rid of the bodies in order to scan the building and find where the living bodies are massed. All that decomposition is throwing their readings off. That must be it.

  And that means they’re preparing to do something – finally.

  But how will they know who’s a terrorist and who’s a civilian?

  Things are about to get dicey.

  Heddi

  It’s as if a plug has been pulled and their little group of automatons has ceased to function. Heddi’s got to rally herself before the silence encases them like wet cement. She clears her throat, as if revving up the requisite energy.

  “I guess I’ll invite myself to start this morning.

  “I’ve been lying awake all night, pondering my life. What it’ll be like, if...when...we finally get out of here.

  “This event that we’re experiencing is like a huge axe that’s come chopping down, just cutting all the former years of my life off from all the years that will follow. Everything from now on will be BTA or ATA – Before the Terrorist Attack or After the Terrorist Attack.

  “We talk in depth psychology about transformational events in the psyche – but I never dreamed, either literally or metaphorically, that something of this magnitude would happen to me.”

  Before this, she’s been trying to keep everything as normal as possible. Hal may be gone – and it’s looking like he’s really gone for good – but she doesn’t have to have every part of her life disrupted. Her lawyer says Hal’ll have to give her alimony once this thing goes to court. In the meantime, there’s plenty in the bank – savings and checking both – to sustain her. And she has the income from her practice. And there’s the trust fund that her father set up years ago, and the investments to divvy up. Financially, she’s fine.

  Keeping things going as usual means keeping Antonio to do the yard, and his wife Alma for the housework. It’s too much for Heddi to do herself and she’s not inclined to do those things anyway. It means keeping the house, while Hal moves out. It means keeping the furniture and the art because most of it originally belonged to her parents. In other words, it means keeping everything just as it was, with only Hal missing.

  But last night, she got this wild hair. She thought, What if I changed everything?

  What if she sold the house and moved to that retirement community up on the north coast? She’s betting there are lots of women there at loose ends who’d love to start analysis. Maybe do something physical for the first time since she was a girl – abalone diving or sea kayaking.

  Or maybe she could go back to Zurich to the Institute and teach.

  Or retire, and take up watercolors.

  Or write that book she’s been imagining, compiling everything she’s learned in all these years as an analyst.

  Sometime in the night, the ideas just started wriggling inside her, like minnows waking to a spring thaw.

  Lying here on this cold linoleum with a roll of toilet paper under her neck has done what fifteen years of analysis with Dr. Copeland couldn’t. It’s been a portal into a new life.

  And all she has to do is live long enough to get there!

  Or...almost all she has to do.

  And it’s that other thing she has to do that she wants to talk about this morning. She hasn’t been fully honest with them. She’s presented herself as a successful doctor whose main fault is a kind of professional blindness that allowed her life slip through her hands.

  That’s all true. But it’s not all.

  They’ve all been so forthcoming. They’ve exposed vulnerable parts of themselves in a way that would take years in analysis. That, Heddi supposes, is the gift of this horrible experience, if gift there be.

  Last night, as she lay here and reviewed each of their stories, she was just amazed by the integrity they’ve each brought to their lives – the willingness to examine them and endure them and transform them.

  And she’ll be honest – it made h
er ashamed.

  “Oh, Heddi!” Ondine protests. “You’re being so harsh with yourself!”

  “Yes, ashamed, Ondine. I know you want to leap in and soothe me. Fix it, so that I can see myself in the same kind light you do.

  “And maybe in good time, I will. But first, I have to do some disclosing of my own. And that’s what I intend to do this morning, if you’ve all got the time for it.”

  Pearl chortles, her back to the candy machine. “Someone call mah stockbroker fer me – tell him I cain’t come rat now fer that meetin.”

  “Yes, and cancel my hair appointment, while you’re at it!” Betty chimes in.

  “And here I was just going out for pizza,” Ondine adds.

  “Alright, all of you! I’ll get you! This’ll be the longest, most boring story yet!”

  Heddi comes from a very wealthy family, as she supposes they may have guessed. There was a big house, fancy parties, a stable of horses of Derby caliber, tennis courts, an Olympic-sized pool with a faux-Grecian-temple pool house – the works.

  She attended the best girls’ school on the east coast and could speak French before she was twelve and do Latin declensions like a Roman. She learned how to sit like a lady, greet people with aplomb, and set a table with everything from fish knives and sorbet spoons to five different wine and water glasses. She also learned that women of her class never buy clothing that is too tight or made from synthetic materials, to jump a horse, dance the waltz and foxtrot, and boss the servants. Her school groomed her to be cool, classic and superior.

  All this, of course, was not to fit the girls out for authentic lives, but to make them marriageable to men of their own – or better still, an even higher – social stratum. The thought that they might have ideas of their own about how to proceed with their lives never penetrated the silk-lined confines of Miss Pryor’s School for Girls. Such notions, in fact, were discouraged when they erupted, sui generis, from their heads, like Athena from the head of Zeus. They were considered as freak emissions of working-class mentality; young ladies were not meant for lives of labor but of courtly ease and elegance.