Commune of Women (26 page)

“I think I must be boring you to death. Let’s take a break, shall we?”

The archetype of Diana the Huntress, as she lives and breathes! The purest example Heddi’s ever witnessed in all her years as an analyst. It’s easy to imagine Sophia on a full moon night, with her pack of dogs, cloaked in fierce independence, striding out into the inky shadows of the oak woods, intent on performing her secret rituals, or dancing naked to the rhythms of the night wind. Amazing that so pure a type could still exist in 21
^st
-century America!

Well, that’s the weirdest story yet! Even the bag lady isn’t as strange as this gal. What is she – a witch? A pagan? Betty’s father would have said she’s Satanic. All that talk of fairies and goddesses and Tarot cards! If it weren’t for Madame Zola, Betty wouldn’t even have a clue what she’s talking about.

And all these little details of her life! Should Betty care how she builds a fire in the morning? Or what the weather patterns are at her house? They’ve got weather in L.A., too, but Betty never bothers with it and she’d never bother anybody else with it, either. She guesses when it rains and the freeways flood, it’s a big deal, but really...!

Betty just can’t get on her wavelength, at all.

And all this talk of dreams... Heddi does it, too. Every session: “Did you dream?” Well, yes, of course Betty dreams – but it’s all just nonsense.

But she
does
daydream. Some, she’s been working on for years, kind of perfecting the plot. Then there’s a new one that she’s started, just since they got trapped in here. It helps her cope. She just sort of slips away into it like mental knitting; how you always want to do just one more row before you quit. Her story’s like that. She wants to imagine just one more detail before she has to come out of it and deal with what’s here and now.

Heddi wants her to start imagining living things instead of dead flowers, so it’s kind of strange that in this latest story Larry is dying of prostate cancer, but that’s what her imagination is dishing out.

On his deathbed, Larry calls for her – and forgives her...

“I made a promise, ‘til death do us part. I’m glad we didn’t finalize the divorce. I’m glad I can keep that promise to you... Don’t cry, Betty. I need you to hear this.

“I’ve got a life insurance policy you never knew about. It won’t make you rich, but it’ll get the kids through college and help you get started in whatever you plan to do next.”

Betty sits by his hospital bed, silently weeping. She is filled with shame and gratitude.

“Now you listen to me, Betty! If I so much as hear a peep on the Other Side about you spending one cent of it on fake flowers, I’m going to come back and haunt you. Do you hear me?”

He stops for a weak, hacking cough that produces nothing but exhaustion. When he continues, it’s in a rasping whisper. “That money is for moving on. Do you understand? For the kids to have the education that’ll help them move on. And for you to start a new life. Something real this time, okay? Something not artificial. Something living.”

He slides his hand limply across the blanket in her direction. She sits there, frozen – but only for a moment. She grabs his hand quickly and holds it with a fierceness she didn’t know was in her.

“I love you, Betty. Always did, kid. Whatever happened between us, it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. You hear me?”

She can only nod dumbly.

“Come here.” He pulls her to him with a little jerk of his head, like he always used to.

She creeps onto the bed and lowers her big body down gently, so she won’t jar him and ignite the pain that’s smoldering in his bones.

Gingerly, she rests her head on the shoulder he offers her. His arm comes around her protectively, lying across her shoulder with a pale warmth.

“Always did, kid. You know that, don’t you?”

She nods, working the top of her head underneath his chin. And slowly – oh, so slowly, as if it were a frozen hand reaching up from frigid water through ice – she watches her hand rise up, then float gently down and settle over his heart.

She hears Heddi and Ondine talking and it distracts her. Heddi’s saying, “I know it seems like the terrorists are winning, but in the end I think they will fail. The healthy psyche – and even the unhealthy one – has to withdraw periodically, so that the inner voice can be heard. The Self demands it. That’s why fanatical political action is incompatible with individuation.”

And then Ondine’s soft, tentative voice: “But the problem is, so many of these terrorists seem to be young men. They’re too young to have felt the urge for individuation. Their strength comes from the collective... from being a hero in the eyes of the group.”

And then Heddi: “It’s true that the collective opinion distrusts and rejects the bringing to life of psychic images and revelations. There’s a fundamental collective resistance to the unconscious because its messages rock the boat. But depth psychology shows us that when unconscious forces are repressed, they gain strength in the darkness and then erupt in terrible, pathological ways.”

“But isn’t that exactly what terrorism is?”

“Yes, this is what Jung warned about at the end of his life – destructive collective energies. But I think it’s also that the ego is unable to free itself from extroverted rational prejudices. The ego doesn’t want to relinquish control and admit that true liberation in our time can only come from psychological transformation. What does it matter if one dies for one’s cause, if the cause recognizes no meaningful goal in life – no goal for which it’s worthwhile to be free?”

“So, only if a person can create something meaningful is it worthwhile to be free?”

“Exactly. Isn’t that what freedom
is
– to be at liberty to live and create authentically? And that’s why the individual voice – the one that’s developed during the process of listening to the deep psyche – even if it’s a whisper, is so much more powerful than the communal shout.”

Their voices go on and on, attempting to put an intellectual corral around the crazy, chaotic energies that are encircling them like Attila’s hordes. Betty hopes it gives them comfort, the same way her story does for her.

So where was she?

She’s lying beside him and she slides her hand over his heart...

They bury him on a cold day in early spring.

In the days between his death and his interment, Betty fights her addiction. She plans wreathes of spring flowers, of rosemary for remembrance, of evergreen. She even goes so far as to start pulling bundles of them down from the garage rafters, getting herself all dusty and wheezy in the process.

But in the end, she forces herself to drive by a florist’s shop. She goes around the block three times before she has the courage to park and go in.

When she pushes open the heavy plate glass door with its little tinkling bell, it’s like Sisyphus pushing his rock. Just like Heddi says, anyone who hasn’t experienced it can’t believe the actual weight of psychological resistance.

She steps into a room that is really just a narrow passageway between banks of ferns and tubs of flowers. The heavy, penetrating perfume almost makes her faint.

It’s the smell more than anything that makes her want to bolt. It’s so alive – like the voices of children calling out for love; so desirous to be regarded and cared for.

It’s too much. Everything in her is gathering strength to turn and flee.

But she’s there for him. For Larry. And he wanted something living. So she starts poking around in the tubs, pulling out some daffodils here, some hyacinth there. Kind of clustering them in her hand and pushing them into one another until the colors begin to harmonize and hum together.

The owner has the good sense just to leave her alone and let her create. Betty can see him hovering back behind the counter but she ignores him. She’s going to get this thing over with and get out, ASAP.

But as she works, a funny thing begins to happen. As she handles the flowers – the cool waxiness of the bulbs, the dry feathers of asparagus fern, the lush, satiny roses – it’s as if something is moving inside her like a tightly furled bud breaking open.

At first, it’s painful and alarming. She has a fleeting thought that she might be having a stroke. But it gets easier and more fluid. It slides beneath her skin like a cool wave, lifting and plumping as it comes. She wants to be afraid, but it’s too pleasurable.

This must be what Heddi was saying about a lightning bolt from the gods. It’s so simple, really, that it’s hard to believe how amazing, how profound, it is. How much of a miracle.

It’s Larry’s last gift to her, and his parting shot of vindication, too.

Because she’s falling suddenly, madly, in love with living flowers. Some passion that had gotten all balled up in acquisition, in ownership of heaps of dead things, suddenly threw the entire weight of its being into love of the ephemeral. Every blossom a hymn to the fleeting moment. Each a treasure house of color, scent, form and giving Grace...

A vile smell draws her out of her reverie. Pearl’s pipe! What a rancid, nasty smell! A rose it’s not, by any name.

Ondine and Heddi are still talking. Heddi is saying, “To take the unconscious seriously is really an act of personal integrity and courage.”

And Ondine replies, “I can see how the loss of the power of religious symbols is compensated by a kind of scientific excitement, as we delve into the unconscious on a strange new kind of ethical adventure...”

Betty should be listening to all this. She could learn something that might help her make sense of this analysis she’s taken on – or even this situation she’s in. But the narrative keeps drawing her back in with an irresistible attraction.

She handles living flowers now, with love, every day. She works at the florist’s shop.

She handles Herb – he’s the owner, well, half-owner, Betty’s the other half – that way, too: with love. He’s a good man and they’re happy together, mating their flowers to one another; mating themselves to one another.

They live in a kind of bliss of fragrance and color. It’s like opening a door in a dream and walking through and finally finding yourself in your own life. What a surprise!

And then comes the part that she’s just working on. It’s hard and she can’t get it to flow. It’s about Serena.

Things are so broken between them. She can’t imagine anything – even the actual death of her father – that would bring them back together again.

In fact, her father’s death and Betty’s remarriage would most likely send Serena screaming out of Betty’s life forever. She’d blame Betty for her father’s death. She’d accuse her of wicked things. Betty knows all that. But she at least wants to be able to
imagine
that things could be better between them.

The last time she saw Serena was terrible beyond description. She came to the house looking like a street whore. She’d dyed her hair carrot orange. She had so many piercings Betty was afraid of infection. And tattoos! All her clothing was sawn off or shrunk up or ripped open to show them off.

She came to announce she was moving into a new apartment – with her lover!

Betty’d scarcely grasped the meaning of
that
proclamation when in came this new mate: a woman of about 35! She had on motorcycle boots and a black leather jacket and she took possession of her daughter’s body in a familiar way that made Betty nauseous.

Betty thought she’d faint.

But the worst part was that Serena didn’t come for Betty’s blessings or simply to inform her. She came to torment her.

And she succeeded.

X is digging in Fat Guy’s lunchbox, listening to the news with her back to the television when she hears it – that
voice!

She spins around and there is a man in an FBI jacket talking to the blonde newswoman. He is saying things but she cannot really understand them because her heart is beating so hard.

It is
he!
It is the man who came to talk to the Brothers at the Kultur Klub meeting! She knows it! It is a very distinctive voice – deep, with a small way of slurring his words that makes her believe he may be from one of the southern states.

She did not hear the announcer say his name. Who is he? What is he doing here? She tries very hard to focus her attention.

“We believe the terrorists are holed up in the food court,” he is saying.

“And why haven’t you gone in for them yet?” The blonde is shoving the microphone at his mouth in a way that is almost sexual.

“Because they’re holding hostages. We’re sure of that, now. We’re waiting for them to make a demand.”

X cannot concentrate on his words. The blood is pounding in her ears like a drum.

She feels dizzy and sick, the way she felt spying from the next room, that night.

This is the man who provoked the Brothers to this action! What is he doing here?

She feels sick in her stomach.

“Commander, can you give us a way to think about terrorism?” the newswoman asks. “I’m sure many of us are grappling with that, right now.” The reporter thrusts her microphone toward him and, with the other hand, pushes her blonde hair, blown by the wind, back from her cheek.

The man clears his throat and shifts his stance. His eyes are on the ground. Around him a herd of television cameras waits on his opinion with the black, inscrutable eyes of animals. “Well, basically, terrorism is comprised of violent acts by sub-State actors against noncombatants,” he intones, unaware that the PIO has already stolen his line.

The reporter nods her head enthusiastically, as if in full comprehension – while wondering if her mascara has smeared by this late hour, X guesses. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“No, actually, I can’t. And that’s because terrorism is taking so many forms these days. Some terrorists are moved by political concerns, some by religious conviction, and others by tribal loyalties. Sometimes, all three. Or by other things, like economic oppression, environmental erosion, simple hunger and thirst. It’s impossible to generalize further. Each event calls for a different understanding of motivation.”