COMMUNE OF WOMEN

by SUZAN STILL

  She sees Jamal begin to walk toward the doors.

  She hears the newscaster say, “So far, there has been no sign of willingness to negotiate...”

  She sees Jamal’s hand touch the metal bar of the door handle.

  She hears the woman say, “FBI officials at the scene...”

  She strains to see his form as the doors swing open, as he becomes shadowy and vague through the glass and then disappears, as the door shuts.

  She turns to the TV where the blonde has stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open. “Oh my God! This is amazing... Can we get a camera on that? Hurry! Ladies and gentlemen, someone has just emerged from the terminal, waving a white flag!”

  A blurry image of a man all in black walks out from the shadows of the entrance, one arm raised and waving the white cloth.

  Faintly, she can hear men yelling, “Down! Get down!” but the figure does not get down.

  Slowly, he moves forward, still waving his flag, an isolated figure on the desolate plane of concrete, as alone and lost as a crash victim in the desert.

  “He’s ignoring the orders to get down, ladies and gentlemen! He seems to be moving almost in a trance...”

  X leans toward the screen, straining to clarify the cloudy image.

  “He seems to be shouting something! Can we pick that up on the mic? Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first big break in four days. This is apparently one of the terrorists and he seems to be trying to negotiate...”

  And then X hears his voice. It is unmistakably Jamal’s and, though distant and faint, she and the viewing audience of millions can hear his words distinctly. “We will wait no longer. We demand a plane and safe passage to Libya. Otherwise, in fifteen minutes, we will begin executing hostages...”

  His words are cut off. A group of armored men rushes him and just as they tackle him, before her horrified eyes, Jamal simply disappears, with horrific noise, in a cloud of smoke.

  Heddi

  Suddenly there is the most terrifying explosion!

  The entire floor rises under them like the back of a huge, shrugging beast and then subsides. Acoustic tiles rain down from the ceiling. The lights dim, brown out and go black. Thick dust fills the air, leaving Heddi choking for breath. All around her, she hears screams and wailing.

  Then above the coughing and sobs, she’s aware of an immense silence, as if the world has simply stopped turning – as if whatever it is that has happened has killed all life.

  She raises her head and looks around.

  Pitch blackness.

  She hears bodies rustling, moaning, the scrape of grit and tinkling of broken glass.

  Then miraculously, a light appears from over by the candy machine! She turns toward it, dazed by it like a moth. She can see nothing but it. It blinds her. But she feels a surge of life, of gratitude, as if it were an epiphany of God Himself.

  Then there’s a gravelly cackle, “I been luggin this ol flashlat round fer years, thinkin the day’d come when I’d surely need it, an it looks lak today’s the day!”

  The Brueghel! God love her!

  Pearl shines her light around the room. The first one Heddi sees is Erika, half-blown off the couch, her left leg hanging to the floor, her body buried in acoustic tiles from which dust wafts like a cloud of smoke.

  The light sweeps to the right and there’s Betty, her head completely white, as if someone had upended a flour canister over her. Her eyes are so big and dark, she looks like an electrocuted owl. And mercifully, she seems to have been shocked into silence.

  The beam sweeps on, toward the door where there’s the most amazing sight – Sophia, with her entire body bent beneath the weight of the toppled drink machine that leans at an angle more prone than upright. Her eyes are about to pop out of her head from the strain.

  “Quick!” Heddi shouts, without thinking of the noise. “Everyone help her!” She pushes herself up from the floor, feeling broken glass embed itself in the heel of her hand.

  Her legs are gelatinous. She doesn’t walk. She wavers towards the door. Other forms emerge from the darkness, weaving in the same direction.

  Arms reach out. There are grunts. Someone says “Shit!” through gritted teeth. Slowly, ever so slowly, the machine rises, balances a second on its back edge, then rocks backward, slamming into the doorframe. The remaining glass cascades from its front window with a tinkle like wind chimes.

  Sophia is breathing hard. She nods her head, mouths, “Thanks,” too winded to speak. And then, Heddi sees her tense again...!

  X

  When the explosion comes, it is so huge and violent that X cannot believe what she is seeing. The floor buckles beneath her feet. The television and all the monitors go black. She is thrown violently to her right. The ceiling lights flicker, go brown and then blink out. She crashes to the floor, screaming to Allah to let the walls fall in and bury her.

  Finally, she sees that a little light has come on over the door. It fills the room with an ugly red glow.

  She does not know for how long she has been lying there. Her head aches terribly and when she puts her hand to the back of her skull, it comes away covered in blood that looks black in the lurid light.

  She tries to sit up, but something is wrong. Then she sees that the monitors have all toppled to the floor, pinning her right leg. She cannot feel it and almost wishes it would hurt.

  She lies back and tries to think.

  So this is it! This is the glorious action of the Brothers – death, destruction, dust, terror, injury, despair. She knows from making bombs that this explosion is bigger than any she might have prepared. This is a concentration of C-4 of terrible force.

  She wants to cry but no tears come. They are all expended. There are no tears left.

  She sits again and begins to shove at the nearest monitor. As its weight slowly rocks backward across her leg, the pain follows. Suddenly, it bolts through her and she opens her mouth to scream but all that comes out is a groan – a terrible sound, barely human.

  She cannot formulate a plan – her mind is too chaotic – but in some strange fashion, she knows what to do; what is her destiny. All she has to do is to get her stubborn animal body to cooperate.

  Somehow, she manages to get to her feet in the chaos of ceiling tiles and monitors. In the red glow from the emergency light, it is a scene straight from the Christian’s Hell.

  She staggers through the wasted equipment. Wires are ripped from the wall and one is arcing quietly to itself, a greenish, jagged bolt of pure energy amid the jumble.

  She has a secret and now it’s time. If she had told the Brothers, they would have laughed at her – even Jamal.

  With filthy, numbed fingers, she unbuttons her pants and drags them down around her thighs. Wrapped tightly around her waist, the secret is warm and fitted to her body like an embrace. She pulls at it blindly until an end falls loose and she begins to unwind it. It is wrapped around her twice.

  She sets it aside, pulls up her pants and re-buttons them. Then she holds her prize up in the red light for inspection. It is the shawl her mother embroidered for her years ago, black and soft, with cross-stitch in red, green, and white, the Palestinian colors, making a wide geometric border. Red strawberries are strewn over the black field, like delicious hope sprinkled over a grave.

  Her good luck piece.

  She bends forward and wraps the shawl around her head like a woman wrapping wet hair in a towel, and winds the ends around and around until she can tie them in a knot.

  It is her crown and she wishes she had a mirror. She wants it to be very impressive.

  This is for you, Mama, and for my aunties and Cousin Sharona. This is for all the women in all the camps, wherever they are...for all their suffering, for all their patience, for all their love.

  As she hobbles through the rubble searching for her assault rifle, she can feel the blood beginning to saturate the back of her crown.

  Ondine

  They are all staring at Sophia by the light of Pearl
’s flashlight. She’s standing like a sibyl about to pronounce a prophecy.

  And yet there’s something animal-like about her, too. In Sophia’s stance can be seen all the years of her wanderings in the woods, as her nerve-endings turned hypersensitive and she learned from the animals the arts of self-preservation.

  Ondine has never witnessed such a transformation. It feels like Sophia might suddenly rise up on owl’s wings or leap like a deer. She feels a slow creep of gooseflesh, just looking at her.

  Sophia is like a dancer, poised on the balls of her feet, rocking slightly like a leaf lifted by wind. Her eyes are staring but not at anything in particular. Her entire body is like a tuning fork that’s been struck and is vibrating. Her nostrils dilate, as her head rears back and she cocks her ear toward the door.

  Sophia sweeps them all with her gaze and it seems as bright as a searchlight. Ondine thinks she sees an actual beam emitted from those eyes, piercing the curtains of dust.

  “Down!” Sophia hisses. “Get down! Into the corners!”

  They all start to move jerkily, strobe-like, through the curtains of dust.

  Ondine collides with someone; Betty, by her doughy bulk. Her face is powdered white, her eyes huge, by the intermittent light of the flashlight’s beam. Ondine grabs her by the elbow and drags her toward the corner at the end of the couch. She comes unresistingly, like a tired child.

  She sees Heddi, bent double, mincing through the littered tiles toward Pearl and the candy machine.

  “Turn out that light, Pearl!” comes Sophia’s rough whisper.

  The room goes black.

  There’s a heavy silence.

  And then they hear it, too: the muted cadence of many feet.

  They advance in a scurry, then stop.

  Advance. Stop.

  Advance. Stop.

  They’re drawing closer.

  Who are they? Ondine knows without question that they’re men. But terrorists? The SWAT team? There’s no way to know. She feels her heart hammering as if it would break straight through her chest wall – hard enough that they must surely be able to hear it out in the corridor.

  This is it, then. This is the moment of truth. And she thinks of Tante Collette, how she would likely reach over and take her hand and squeeze it at this moment, infusing her with her own courage.

  Ondine can hear Betty muttering to herself, hysterically. In the dark, she gropes until she finds Betty’s hand and follows it up her arm until she finds her shoulders. Then she reaches out and embraces her, with arms strong as a bear’s.

  Betty

  “Oh God, I am humbly sorry that I have offended Thee. Please accept my apologies and preserve me, unharmed, through this nightmare. I’ve been a bad person, God, I admit it. A terrible person. I was lost. So lost! But now, I see the error of my ways. Now, I know that life is precious. I know that I should throw out all those plastic flowers. I know I should open my windows and let the air come through. I know I shouldn’t have taken down my son’s birdfeeder. I should never have told him birds were dirty. Oh my God! How could I have done that? My little boy, so eager and so kind, and me teaching him to hate and fear your Creation! And Serena and her hamsters! She thinks they’re cute! She loves them. Probably more than she does me. And Larry! He always wanted to hold me in bed at night and I’d push him away and tell him to go to sleep. He didn’t even want sex, God. He just wanted to be affectionate and I rejected him. I’ve been a witch, a wicked, wicked witch. And I thought I was so good. So filled with maternal goodness. And I was just a control freak. I strangled the life right out of every living impulse, God. I made the people around me so miserable! I stifled their lives. I’m so ashamed! I am so utterly ashamed. Oh, please forgive me. Oh! Forgive me, dear God. Dear angels in heaven. Forgive me, please!”

  And then, out of the darkness come warm arms. Loving arms. Drawing her in, holding her tight. Radiating love.

  “Oh God! Thank you! Thank you for sending one of your angels in my hour of need! I am so sorry, God. So very, very sorry. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m a changed person. I’ll never act that way again. I promise. I promise you, dear God. Please have mercy on me, please...”

  Pearl

  That Heady gal come straight at Pearl, lak she was her salvation. Pearl seen rat away she’s scairt spitless. Even by flashlat, she cain see her color is bleached as a boilt shirt.

  Heady plunks hersef down next ta Pearl an Pearl cain feel her shiverin lak a dog shittin peach seeds. So Pearl jes reaches up an pulls her head down in her lap an strokes her hair an says, real quiet lak, “Shhhhh. Shhhhh. Ever-thin gonna be alrat now,” jes lak she use ter do with her kids when Abel Johns was on a rampage.

  Even her ol ears cain hear it now – the shufflin a boots out in the hallway.

  Good Lord, you’d think after all Pearl’s been through, that nothin short a God Hissef could scare her none. But she gots ta confess, she don’t lak this one bit. It’s lak all them times whar Abel Johns was a-huntin her an thar warn’t nowhar ta run ta. That’s the worst feelin in the world. Worse, almost, then when he finally done found her.

  Pearl jes strokes an strokes on Heady, sayin, “Shhhhhh. Shhhhhh now. It’s gonna be alrat.”

  Never fer one second believin one single word a it, hersef.

  Erika

  There’s no pain now. She’s swimming in a warm darkness where she can’t tell up from down. Maybe this is how a baby feels in the womb.

  There’s a soft light over there. She kind of wafts over and...

  Oh! It’s my Daddy!

  He’s sitting under the streetlight like he always does on summer nights, hunched on a wooden crate, picking his guitar.

  He looks up and smiles at her.

  “Come over here, Little Girl. I’ll play you a song my Momma taught me when I was no bigger than you.”

  She’s so skinny she can fit in the crook of his elbow and he can still finger the strings. She leans into the warmth of his big ribcage, as it swells like bellows and he starts to sing,

  “Way down yonder in the middle of a field,

  Angel workin’ at a chariot wheel.

  Not so particular ‘bout workin at the wheel,

  but I just want to see how the chariot feel.

  Now let me fly! Now let me fly!

  Now let me fly up to Mt. Zion, Lord, Lord...”

  Her body is both glued to the strength of his side and flying free, and so much weight seems to just drop away. And she feels it for the first time in her entire life: I’m free!

  Sophia

  Sophia knows this feeling. She’s had it many times. It’s the moment before the bombardment. The sweet suspension, while the shell hurtles toward earth. The time when you turn to the one you love and smile and say, “Bend over and let me kiss your sweet ass goodbye.”

  She doesn’t know what she’ll do when they come. She knows they’re going to come. She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re going to find them. Maybe they’ve always known they were here.

  And there’s no telling how that will come down. There’s no telling, even, who they are. Are they friend or foe? Does she fight them with all the strength that’s in her, or does she rip that machine out of the door and say, “What the hell took you so long?”

  Where’s her Little Voice when she really needs it?

  All she knows is, she won’t have to decide. The animal in her will know exactly what to do. Even now, it’s not fear she’s feeling. It’s the pumping-up of every bodily reserve. All around her, the women are consumed by fear.

  But Sophia – she’s ready!

  X

  By some miracle, the barrel of her rifle is not bent, even though an avalanche of monitors has landed on it. She breaks it down and puts it back together again, just as she has been taught. It is a perfectly oiled instrument of death. She pumps a cartridge into the chamber and takes the safety off.

  She takes a last look around this room that has been her prison. What a dreadful little cave! What kind of a pers
on must Fat Guy have been to have expended his life force in such a place? Not a Warrior, certainly.

  But she! She is a Warrior! She feels it now.

  Now she understands that fear is a clinging to life by this weak body. She is disgusted to be attached to such a weak thing!

  And she understands that the love for which the Brothers despised her and Jamal is not linked to this weak body, but to the soul – and is eternal.

  She knows, too, that the Brothers’ rejection of her was complete from the beginning. They never accepted her, but only planned how they might use her. Their words taunt her: “You are the unknown factor – so from now on, you will be called X.”

  But now, she says to them in her soul, I am Najat! My name is Najat! I never will allow myself to be X-ed out again!

  She opens the door and steps into the corridor. She knows the way.

  She does not do as Jamal has done, stooping and watching. She marches. Her feet seem to have minds of their own, like fine horses. Despite the limp dealt her by the monitors, they carry her along like the wind.

  She would like to imagine that her mother is with her, or her aunties, or any of the women of the camps whose lives have been so mangled by the wars of men. But she knows that she is alone – just as she wished at the beginning. She is the sole woman. The duty is hers, alone.

  She encounters no one in the corridors. It does not take long to reach the food court.

  Her heart is beating wildly, but not with fear. It is swelling and beating with resolve, as she takes cover behind the edge of the wall.

  Slowly, carefully, she peeks around. There are the Brothers. They have gathered the hostages into a tight bundle. She knows that, soon now, they will begin shooting them. She hears the voices of women, crying and pleading.

  She raises her rifle and takes careful aim. For once, her stupid body is steady as a rock.