Commune of Women (30 page)

“‘“It will not surprise you, I think, what happened next. She got sick. There is always sickness in the camps. It waits like a devil for the people who become weak. And so, two months after my Aunty Rada was killed, my mother died, too.”

“‘We sat for a long while in silence. Finally, I ventured, very gently, “And your father, Najat? What happened to him?”

“‘“Ayyy, my Papa! He was a good man, you know? Not like the others, so crazy against women. He was educated. He had lived in the world and he understood – that is why he allowed my mother and my aunties to do what they did.

“‘“This is what happened to my Papa. He found out that one of my brothers, Abdul, was using drugs. Yes! I see you are surprised. Drugs in the camps! Can you imagine? How do people get the drugs? How do they have the money? You are wondering the same questions that my father thought.

“‘“He began to ask questions. He discovered that drugs are brought into the camp from the sea, smuggled in through tunnels under the wire. And there is more. The Occupying Authority knows this! Oh yes! They turn their eyes away and pretend they do not see. Why? Because a young man stupefied by drugs is less dangerous than one training to shoot guns, that is why.

“‘“And do you know what? The mullah knows it, too. My father went to him and asked him to do something; to use his authority to stop the drug trafficking. But the mullah said that my father was wrong...that there are no drugs. Two nights later, a gang of men found my father and beat him to death. The women told me that Papa was foolish. He should not have gone to the mullah because the mullah makes money from the drugs. He gains power by being the connection. Can you imagine such an evil thing?”

“‘“So, what happened to
you
, then? It must have been very dangerous for you.”

“‘“Dangerous? Father Christopher,” she said very slowly and deliberately, as if she were addressing a simpleton, “Every. Single. Day. Of my
life
. In Rafah Camp. Was
dangerous!
Do you somehow imagine that there is a
safe
place there?” She looked at me, stymied, as if I hadn’t heard a single word she’d been telling me.

“‘“Well, no, of course, I understand...” I stammered. I couldn’t continue. She was holding me in a gaze that completely flustered me.

“‘“Yes, of course. You understand.” She stated it so flatly that my own words condemned me.

“‘“Najat, forgive me. I’m a man. And what’s more, I’ve had male power and privilege my entire life. I have no right to tell you that I understand what you’ve experienced.”

“‘“Thank you,” she said with icy dignity.

“‘Then, after a pause, “So, you want to know what happened to me. Okay. This is what happened. I was going to the clinic. I had some symptoms like my mother. I met a doctor there – a woman. She knew about me. She was a friend of my mother and aunties. She told me that I had to leave the camp. She had a way to do it. She is part of an underground movement of women on
both
sides of the wire.

“‘“Can you believe that there are Israeli women who are willing to help us? Yes! It is true! These women are working for peace, while our governments wage war on each other!

“‘“The doctor gave me admission forms for this university. She told me to fill them out. I laughed at her. ‘How am I going to go to America when I cannot even go to
Jerusalem?
’ But she told me there is a way. When I had completed the forms, she put them in a mail pouch with medical forms from the clinic. The pouch went to a clinic on the Israeli side, where her friend waited for my forms.

“‘“This woman – may Allah always protect her! – had false papers made for me and sent them back in the pouch. With those papers, I was able to cross over into Israel. That woman – I cannot say her name because I promised – kept me in her home. She made the arrangements for me to come to America, with the help of a Christian church group. Can you imagine? And I cannot even write to thank her. It is forbidden. But I pray for her, every single day of my life.”

“‘I am humbled by my interviews with Najat. She is correct. I don’t have the smallest idea of the abuses she has suffered in her young life. After that second talk, I was forced to consider that the Imam and I have started the Kultur Klub because God willed that
we
should be educated and opened to the suffering of the world! It frightens me, the thought that these young people are martyrs to
our
ignorance and arrogance.

“‘I have spoken with all of Najat’s professors. They are unanimous in their praise of her. They cannot say enough about her intelligence, her sparkling personality and her beauty. Clearly, I am not the only one who has been captivated by her!

“‘If I have any reservations about Najat’s membership in the Klub, they revolve around the male members. I have heard Ibrahim being verbally dismissive and abusive to her. And some of the young men sniff around her like hyenas around a piece of meat. Only Jamal seems to have genuine respect for her.

“‘I am resolved to keep a very close watch over her, so that the Klub does not become yet another anguish in a life already so lashed by them.’”

Jamal stops reading and they sit for a long while in silence, each lost in their separate thoughts and griefs. Finally, Jamal reaches out and squeezes her hand, briefly and hard. “I must take this back before Father Christopher is finished teaching.”

She nods numbly. “Yes,” she whispers. She does not even rise to see him out.

X stares emptily at the television screen, lost in remembrance. After a commercial break, the television station will return to its special news programming, the announcer says. Soon, X imagines, the media people in the field must begin to pack up their equipment, weary from a long day. She is weary, too. Without awareness that it is happening, her head droops and she sleeps, still sitting at her post.

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!

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.