Commune of Women (40 page)

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.

“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...”

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.

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 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!

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 person 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.

She squeezes the trigger.

The first of the Brothers falls.

She steps out from behind the wall.

She aims and fires again, and again.

Before they even know what has happened to them, Najat’s Brothers have found their reward in Glory.

When it finally comes, it’s too chaotic to understand. It’s all noise and shouting and crashing. Ondine holds onto Betty, as if she could keep them both from exploding from terror.

The drink machine topples inward and a rush of outside light spotlights Sophia, as the falling machine pushes her from her stand at the door. She’s screaming, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

She staggers backward to plunk down in the orange chair, as the invading force bursts in with an explosion of gunfire.

They come charging through the door, as if the machine were not even there. There are blinding lights and all Ondine can see are silhouettes surging through billows of shifting dust.

“Get down!” she screams at Sophia.

But Ondine doesn’t know if she does because, suddenly, there is a huge man standing in front of her. He’s got a headlamp on and it’s shining right in her face and she hears herself shrieking, “
Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! God! Please, don’t shoot!
”

There is shouting and screaming all around her. She glances around in panic, but all she can see are standing walls of backlit dust and huge black figures careening through them, casting blue-white beams as they go.

It’s a scene from Dante’s
Inferno
. She lowers her head onto her knees and waits to die.

As they come through the door, the angel’s arms hold her tighter.

Betty’s screaming, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Help us.
Please!
”

And wonder of wonders – she starts to laugh because she said “us” and not “me”!

Can you believe it?

It took all this to open her shell!

She thinks she’s pooped her pants – like any new creature would.

She’s about to die and she feels unaccountable joy!

She’s lying with her head in Matilda’s lap and Matilda is crooning to her. She feels comforted. The dream is subsiding. Order is being restored.

No. That’s not right.

She’s on the floor and riot is going on all around her.

“
OW!
” Someone steps on her foot, hard.

Heddi sits up, enraged.

“You son of a
bitch!
” she shrieks. “Watch where you’re stepping!”

And then, there’s a blinding light in her eyes and someone is kneeling next to her; someone huge and padded, like a hockey player or a large beetle.

“Sorry, m’am,” a baritone voice says. It sounds young and genuinely apologetic. “Are you okay?”

Heddi looks blindly into his headlamp, in the general vicinity of where she thinks his eyes should be and summons her most ironic and bitichiest tone.

“Oh! Never better!”

Well, the Good Lord done give Pearl a long life an a passel a trouble. She’s been round the Horn seven times, seen it rain, sleet an snow, been ta ten goat ropins an a hog-callin contest, but she ain’t
never
seen the lak a this!

All hell and tarnation done sprung loose everwhar!

Theys all these big fellers trampin ever which way, raisin dust an flashin lights ta blind the dead.

That Heady, she’s a feisty one. She’s a-reamin out some young buck big as a buffalo an he’s back peddlin, even though he’s big enough ta squish her lak a ant.

Over thar, in t’other corner, theys the Onion, cradlin Betty lak a baby. An Pearl cain’t believe these ol eyes a hers, but she thinks Betty’s a-laughin!

Maybe her poor ol brain finally done tripped over the edge. None a this seems lak it cain really be happenin.

The only one calm is Sophia, which ain’t no surprise. She’s a-settin thar jes waitin fer the pandemonium ta die down. That thar is a gal ta be stranded on a desert island with, jes lak she says bout Pearl.

From what Pearl cain gather, they has jes done been rescued. These here fellers ain’t the tearists. Theys the good guys.

Soons she cain catch her breath, she intends ta ax em what the hell took em so long.

They are treating her like a hero!

They have believed everything she has told them. It amazes her, how easily lies come to her lips. She, a good Moslem woman, and she speaks these things as if they were Allah’s truth. How devious the mind and body of humankind are! Is there ever a bottom to their will to deception?

The women have helped her dress. They’ve hidden her black fatigues and guns. They are afraid that the SWAT team, when it comes, will shoot first and ask questions later.

They believe Najat when she tells them that she took clothing from a dead terrorist in order to do what she has done. They fuss over her because her head wound is still bleeding and she is feeling faint.

Now, she is not just a liar with a ravenous stomach and a weak bladder, but a murderer, too.

But she will not stop now. She knows, now, what is her mission.

Outside somewhere, very close, is the one who led them astray. They blamed Father Christopher and the Imam, but Najat alone knows the truth. That one in the FBI jacket who speaks on television as the leader – he is the one who planned this entire catastrophe.

She has no doubt that he is enjoying this event. He does not care about the lives that are lost or the damage that has been done to the living. He cares that his plan has succeeded. He cares that his pride is magnified. Maybe he cares that he has done the bidding of another, even higher than he.