COMMUNE OF WOMEN Read online

  She will not let her mind think any other thing.

  Violence is power; power is violence.

  Violence is power; power is violence.

  The van’s windows are blacked out, and the Brothers have duct taped a curtain between the driver’s seat and the back where they are all sitting. At first, she is able to imagine the turns and stops: the potholes on their narrow, weed-lined street that lacks sidewalks and dead-ends under a freeway overpass, the stop sign at the other end, the right turn onto the wider street, the sounds of increasing traffic.

  Did anyone notice them, a dozen people all in black, emerging from the dilapidated stucco apartment building, abandoned long ago to its fate as student housing? Or see them wedge themselves and their gear into a battered Tradesman van and pull the side door shut, without ever speaking a word? In this big city, does anyone really notice anything – or care, if they do? Certainly, no one would notice – or care – that they are all male, except for one young woman, who has had a demotion. The men have taken away her name and call her, simply, X.

  She has lost all idea, now, of where they are, or how close to their goal. She could be in a rocket ship speeding to the moon, for all she knows.

  Jamal is next to her, which is a comfort, even though he will not look at her, or speak.

  So far, everything is going as planned. Only her bowels do not seem to understand the necessity of discipline. They, and her heart, which is racing so fast she feels like it will explode.

  Violence is power; power is violence.

  Violence is power; power is violence.

  The van leans into a curve and she hears Ibrahim say softly, “Only two or three minutes, now.”

  Jamal cracks her ribs with the stock of his gun. She is careful not to hit him in the chin with the barrel of hers, as she raises it from the floor and tucks the stock into her right armpit.

  There is rustling all through the darkness, as the others make similar preparations. She pulls down the rolled balaclava from her forehead and settles its holes over her nose and mouth.

  Then they are all thrown forward as the van slams to a stop. Suddenly, the side door is thrown open and Ibraham is standing in the blinding glare, shouting “GO! GO! GO!”

  They all scramble out and run.

  Violence is power; power is violence.

  Violence is power; power is violence.

  Pearl

  More good luck! A cleanin lady come inta the bathroom an Pearl thunk, Oh Hell! I’m busted.

  But turns out, she’s José’s cousin or somethin. She cain’t speak even as good as José. She come ta Pearl an says, “You Berl?”

  “Yes,” Pearl says, “I am.” Feeling kinda feisty, thinkin she’s gonna get thrown out. Maybe Pearl’s on her turf.

  “I Maria, la prima de José...his cowsin.”

  Well, that perked Pearl rat up! “Howdeedo?” she says. “Glad ta meetcha.”

  “José say, go you for rest.”

  “Rest? I don’t need no rest.”

  “You come.” Maria grabs Pearl’s pack in one hand an her elbow in t’other, an steers her toward the door.

  “Wait a minute...”

  But theys outside in the big hallway, now. Maria don’t have enough words fer Pearl ta protest with.

  She kinda drags Pearl along, through the crowd, ta this door. No sign on it. Jes blonde wood, all kinda smeary an dirty lookin. She opens it with a key from a big ring of em an steers Pearl inside.

  “Dis worker room. You rest here.”

  She points ta a saggin sofa against the wall an angles Pearl over thar. Pearl’s startin ta feel lak a ol mule you gotta wrestle down the road.

  Maria lowers her down, pretty firm, an Pearl kinda topples back onta the sofa. One good swoop an Maria gots these strong, wiry arms under Pearl’s legs, an flops her down flat an props her head with some pillers.

  “You rest.”

  Ain’t no arguin with that!

  Theys some vendin machines against the wall an Maria goes over an puts in some coins. Pearl smells coffee, hot an acidy black, soundin lak it’s peein inta the cup. She feels the saliver start ta work back in her jaws.

  “Is for you.” Maria hands her the cup. “I go. You be here. I come.”

  Without waitin fer no back talk, she’s gone, slammin the door behind her.

  Truth be told, it don’t feel half bad, layin thar.

  The coffee tastes lak a cup a heaven. Pearl drinks it down an sets the cup on the floor.

  Fore she knows it, her eyes is rollin back in her head.

  She ain’t rested her bones on anythin this soft fer a hunert years! Ain’t gonna hurt nothin fer her ta jes snooze fer awhile...

  Heddi

  The reception area is ahead, obscured in a mist of moving humanity, so she has no clear sighting of it – at least not yet. She shifts her trajectory to bring her out of the concourse to the left of Customs, near the ladies’ restroom. One well manicured hand smoothes her pencil skirt, as she walks.

  What’s that? Popping noises.

  Some Chinese kids must have brought firecrackers to welcome Grandma from the Old Country. That’ll make Homeland Security pee their collective pants!

  More pops.

  Screaming!

  The loose mist of bodies is starting to aggregate and move in her direction, like a gathering storm cloud. It looks like a stampede coming at her! Everyone’s screaming!

  What’s happening? What’s happening?

  She feels her entire body jerked sideways so violently that she almost falls. She staggers, tethered by her left arm, through a doorway.

  Betty

  Betty’s trailing along behind Heddi, as they thread their way through the crowd to where they’re meeting Heddi’s friend. She’s never been to the international terminal before. She was only here at LAX once and that was at the domestic terminal to pick up Larry’s cousin, Patty, when she visited one summer from Tucson. She didn’t want to do it, but Larry had to work.

  She thought she’d have a heart attack. Coming in off the freeway, the exit immediately branched: Arrivals or Departures. And she’s thinking, Am I the Arrival, or is Patty? Or is Patty Departing the airport? Don’t we both Arrive, and then both Depart?

  Then there’s the Long Term Parking one, the Short Term Parking one, the Rental Car one, and a couple more she can’t remember. In the meantime, she’s in traffic going a gazillion miles an hour, with everyone cutting lanes to get to the exit they need.

  She had to go around three times before she got the right exit. When she finally got to her, Patty asked if Betty had Parkinson’s, she was shaking so bad.

  This time isn’t so traumatic because Heddi knows exactly which lane to be in and where to park. She’s been here a hundred times. She goes to Zurich to the Jung Institute every summer. Plus who knows where on her vacations? Betty thinks that she...

  What’s that? She hears something! Sounds like gunshots!

  People are starting to scream somewhere up ahead!

  The crowd’s stopped their forward surge. They’re milling.

  Now they’re turning around! They’ve got the same look on their faces as the people running out of 9-11 as the buildings were coming down.

  My God! What’s happening?

  Heddi’s just up ahead, still moving forward. She doesn’t seem to know anything’s wrong, yet.

  Betty takes two big strides, leans forward and catches Heddi by the upper arm. There’s a door to her left. She grabs the knob and – thank you, God! – it opens!

  She gives a huge heave and basically slings Heddi through the door, crack-the-whip style. She lets her go and turns to slam the door behind them. She can hear people out in the hall, screaming louder now. And over that, she thinks she hears more gunshots.

  When she turns into the room, she almost trips over Heddi, who’s sprawled on the floor.

  Oh, my God! She’s shot!

  Heddi

  Betty looms over her, a dark cloud of royal blue polyester trimme
d in red streak lightning.

  “Are you okay?”

  Heddi stares up at her from the floor.

  Is she okay? She has no idea.

  “What the Hell was that all about?” She means it to sound bitchy, but it comes out quavery; squeaky. She’s never heard herself sound like that before.

  “I don’t know!” Betty is sounding squeaky, too. “I think those were gunshots!”

  Erika

  Erika’s sprinting down the concourse, her designer heels clattering, toward Gate 28. Most of the foot traffic is heading the other way, so she’s making good time. If Security isn’t too crowded, she should just be able to make her flight. Mentally, she’s ticking off the things she told Amelia yesterday, at the office...

  Something’s happening up ahead.

  There’s some kind of disturbance in the traffic flow. People are milling.

  No! People are running! Running this way! What’s going on?

  My God! It sounds like gunfire!

  Something spins her around to the left and knocks her right off her feet. A tremendous tearing pain in her left shoulder takes her breath away. She wants to scream but no sound will come.

  Ondine

  Ondine is so glad Heddi’s picking her up. Technically, the flight from Paris is only eleven hours, but once you add having to get to the airport early for security clearance it’s been 15 hours since she set out from her hotel on Rue de Sévigné.

  Even flying first class on Air France, which is a very luxurious experience, that’s a long time. She’s exhausted. Her legs are actually wobbly.

  She’s instantly aware of the change in air, too. It’s hot and dry and tinged with that metallic taste of smog. She feels her lungs constrict, and her long auburn hair, always a kind of sensor, feels dry and flyaway.

  She learned a long time ago not to check baggage. She always just takes a little rolling carry-on and stuffs anything left over into her hobo bag. So she breezes right through Customs. The reception area is jam-packed and she starts scanning the crowd for Heddi, who said she’d be to the left, in the seating nearest the restrooms.

  The place is like one of those computer-generated animations of subatomic particles in an accelerator. People are rushing in every direction, totally randomly.

  She dodges a little pod of Japanese tourists, as she tacks left, and then some Americans. She can tell by the huge suitcases they’re hauling. American travelers always think they have to pack their entire closet with them. Then, there’s an African couple in marvelous, brightly dyed fabrics, their faces glowing like oiled rosewood. And...oh my God!

  Oh my God!

  She can’t breathe.

  Adrenaline shoots through her in one pure bolt of lightning.

  Men in black ski masks! Guns!

  Oh my God!

  She turns to her right and pushes through the crowd, blindly.

  Sophia

  Sophia’s getting a little worried about missing her bus. She thinks she’ll just start ambling out of the terminal toward the bus stop. Maybe grab a latté at Starbucks on the way out.

  This place certainly hasn’t lost its fascination for her. Maybe she’s been living in the hills too long! A couple just passed her, speaking a language that’s so foreign that she can’t place it anywhere in the world. Could it be some form of Slavic? Mayan? Malay? It’s impossible to tell by looking where the two of them are from. They’re that wonderful café-au-lait color that could be from anywhere or everywhere.

  They also seem to be in love. They’re holding hands, smiling that certain smile.

  Oh! One of them fell down! The man. She’s bending to help him and...

  Goddess!

  The young woman’s blown backwards and crumples at Sophia’s feet and a squall of blood droplets peppers her face!

  People are screaming all around her.

  She’s standing there like a goose. What the hell is happening?

  Then, she hears it.

  POP! POP!

  My God! Someone’s shooting inside the terminal! Immediately, Sophia hunkers down, wiping the girl’s blood from her face with the back of her wrist. All around her, people are scattering.

  Through a break in the crowd, she sees the opening to the concourse, just a few feet to her right.

  She makes a break for it, running full out, her Red Wing boots really taking flight.

  She passes people squatting in the hallway, hands to their faces.

  Sorry folks...that won’t save you!

  She leaps over a body that’s sprawling across the floor, then another one.

  In her peripheral vision, she can see clots of plaster spurting out of the walls. She’s running through a hail of bullets.

  Just ahead, two people are disappearing through a doorway. If she can just get there, she’ll take cover in there, too.

  Her back seems to have eyes – looking for the bullet that’s going to paste her, dead through her spine.

  Somehow, she gets to the door and slams into the doorframe, wrenching the knob, twisting to get through.

  Just as she’s crashing forward, a body hurtles into her arms; a young black woman with blank eyes and a twisted mouth. What seems to be a red rose corsage proves to be blood gushing from her shoulder. Sophia heaves her into the doorway and shoves forward.

  Then, something hits her from behind with tremendous force.

  Ondine

  Now there are shots, just steps behind Ondine, and people screaming.

  She sees the looming tunnel of the concourse, breaks free from the crowd in Reception and runs for it.

  She pounds down the hallway, pushing people out of her way, her powerful dancer’s legs pumping, her long auburn hair flapping about her like panicked wings.

  More shots and the steady rattle of automatic weapons.

  Screams.

  Ahead of her, a door magically opens. Some people are trying to fit through, all jammed together. She hits the back of the snarl like an NFL tackle and they all pop through the door like a cork flying out of a bottle of champagne.

  Erika

  Erika’s listing diagonally, caught in a web of arms and backs and shoulders, all being carried sideways. Feet are trampling her feet. Someone’s hard sole grazes her ankle, knocking off her shoe. It’s excruciating and she screams out in pain.

  She’s in a cyclone of body parts and gravity is having its way with them. Together, they’re toppling into a heap.

  The pain in her left shoulder is unbearable. Everything goes black.

  Sophia

  Sophia topples through the door, enmeshed in arms and legs, dragging the injured woman with her. They stagger and stumble forward. Someone’s on the floor and she trips over her legs. Then, as one body, they collapse into a heap.

  Ondine

  She can’t get her feet under her. She’s leaning into all of them.

  Forward momentum carries them a few steps and then they all go down like dominos.

  Betty

  Before she can get Heddi up off the floor to see if she’s been shot, the door blows open and a knot of people falls through. They topple in a mass and fall – right on top of Heddi!

  Heddi

  Betty’s reaching down to help her off the floor when the door flies open and a snarl of people crashes in, all tangled up in each other. One of them trips over Heddi. They all fall. She feels like she’s being crushed in a landslide.

  Someone is screaming – and Heddi suspects it may be she.

  Pearl

  Pearl’s just driftin off when, next thin she knows, theys a big ruckus. She sets up jes in time ta see bout a half dozen folks, layin in a heap on the floor, thrashin around, screamin.

  Now, what the Hell do you make a that?

  An theys this great, fat gal, lak a blue an red ball, bouncin round the heap. Fatty slams the door shut, squints at the knob, an pushes the little button in. They’s people startin ta hammer on the outside a the door, but the lock holds.

  X

  X feels triump
hant exhilaration, as her black-clothed group races into the terminal, shooting as they run. At first, she knows Jamal is by her side, but then she becomes unsure. The ski masks make the Brothers unrecognizable, even to her, and the crowd is chaotic. Despite the gunfire and the maelstrom of screaming people, a strange quiet settles inside her brain, then, punctuated by wails and the steady pop of automatic weaponry that are eerily distant. Bodies topple over like puppets tossed down by careless children after play. She observes it all in slow motion, as if from a great distance.

  Just beyond the reception area, a fat man steps through a doorway, straight into the path of the oncoming Brothers and, shot, is blown backward, staggering back a few feet into his room.

  Apparently, one glance tells Ibrahim the importance of this little room because, without hesitation, he grabs X by the arm and slings her in, shouting, “You stay here and monitor things until we return. Do not leave!”

  With a wave of his arm, he summons the others onward.

  X stares wild-eyed at the small room where Ibrahim has flung her. An entire wall gazes back at her from the cold blue eyes of banked video monitors. She takes in the uniformed man, bleeding from a gaping wound directly through the center of his back and slumped on the counter-like desk beneath him. She slowly turns to take in the remainder of the cramped little space, with its rolling chair, small metal desk, beige file cabinet and large wall-hung map of the facility. With a hand still stiff from clutching her weapon, she slowly and deliberately closes the door and locks it.

  They did it! They are in!

  She expected to die, but she did not.

  She does not mind dying for an ideal. This she committed herself to do. It is just that the body is like some balky animal being dragged down a chute to the depths of an abattoir. It resists what the mind accepts.