Women Talking Read online

  Nettie nods vigorously and climbs back down the ladder.

  We all know Nettie is exhausted, Agata remarks to the others.

  (Nettie doesn’t talk, except to the children, but at night the members of the colony can hear her screaming in her sleep—or perhaps screaming in full consciousness.)

  Agata suggests that the women sing to Miep, and Greta agrees.

  The teenagers, Autje and Neitje, are once again visibly distressed by this request, although they do join the other women in a melodic rendition of “Children of the Heavenly Father.”

  Ona smiles at me. (Or perhaps she smiled at no one in particular and only I have noticed it.)

  In song (and perhaps in song alone) the women’s voices soar in perfect harmony. Miep snuggles against her mother’s breast.

  I should include the lyrics here but the truth is I’ve forgotten most of them (crowded out by “California Dreamin’”) and can’t write quickly enough. I’ll worship silently while the women sing for little Miep. I’m remembering my father. I’m remembering my mother. I’m remembering life, the scent of my mother’s hair, the warmth of my father’s back beneath the sun, bent towards the earth, his laughter, my mother running towards me, my faith. Without a homeland to return to, we return to our faith. Faith is our homeland. Great is Thy faithfulness, the song in my head, my mind, my thoughts, my intellect, my home, my funeral—but not my death.

  The day is coming to an end. The singing has ended. The cows are demanding to be milked. The flies have left their shady hide-outs and are flinging themselves at filthy glass. Dueck’s dogs are barking for their dinner, but Dueck is in the city and he is the only one who would care to feed them.

  As if my thoughts can be heard, Mariche says that she’ll throw some meat at Dueck’s dogs later this evening to prevent them from attacking any of the children.

  The distinctive odours of dill and roasted sausage have managed to travel all the way from the summer kitchen to Earnest Thiessen’s hayloft.

  Greta asks for consensus: Can we agree that tomorrow morning, she says, we will arrive at a decision about whether to stay or to leave, and then implement that decision?

  Each woman, in turn, and in her individual fashion, agrees. But when it is her turn, Mejal Loewen raises a point. If the women do leave the colony, she asks, how will we live with the anguish of not seeing our loved ones again, our husbands and our brothers, the men?

  It appears that Salome is about to speak, but Mejal raises her hand, stops her.

  Salome whispers to Mejal. Miep stirs in her arms, but is quiet. Mejal smiles.

  The two women laugh, briefly, and whisper again. Which man? asks Salome.

  Stop, says Mejal. (Does she have a secret life?)

  Mariche, it seems, is eager to end the meeting. The menfolk can accompany the women, she says, if they choose to, but only if they sign and adhere to the conditions of the manifesto.

  Ona asks Mariche, politely, if she hadn’t earlier dismissed the manifesto as a toothless document?

  Mariche opens her mouth, but Salome quickly interjects. Time will heal our heavy hearts, she states. Our freedom and safety are the ultimate goals, and it is men who prevent us from achieving those goals.

  But not all men, says Mejal.

  Ona clarifies: Perhaps not men, per se, but a pernicious ideology that has been allowed to take hold of men’s hearts and minds.

  Neitje, alarmed now that the implications are sinking in, asks if it is true that if the women choose to leave, she will never see her brothers again?

  (I should explain here that in the colony there is a loose commitment to the conventional definition of brothers and sisters. Men and women, boys and girls, address each other as brother and sister—and in fact, every colony member is related, closely.)

  Autje asks: Who will take care of our brothers?

  Agata Friesen, her expression one of concern, requests that the women resume their seats. These are important questions, she says solemnly. And we must resolve them before we make our final decision to stay or to leave.

  Fair enough, says Greta. Strands of white hair have escaped her kerchief and she is blowing on the wisps from the side of her mouth. Her teeth remain on the plywood table. She asks: But what of the milking and supper preparations?

  This is met with blank stares from the women in the hayloft.

  I laugh, for some reason I don’t fully understand, then quickly apologize. I see that Miep has fallen asleep in Salome’s arms.

  Agata asks, in what appears to be a supreme act of mercy towards the younger ladies, if the others in attendance would permit Autje and Neitje to leave the meeting in order to assist the colony women with the evening chores.

  But Salome objects. It is the younger ladies, Autje and Neitje, she points out, who have posed certain pertinent questions regarding boys and men. They should be expected to remain in the meeting in order to participate in the discussion pertaining to those questions and, most importantly, to be privy to the answers we attach to those questions.

  Keep them here, then, for the love of Joshua Judges Ruth! shouts Mariche.

  Agata smiles, twists her body from side to side (a thing she does when she is pleased or delighted). I like that expression, she says.

  Salome, feigning shock, says, I didn’t know, Mariche, that you were so familiar with the chronology of the books of the Bible, as you never seem to be in possession of that Good Book.

  Greta rests her hand on Mariche’s arm—to warn her not to respond to Salome’s comment. She whispers something, perhaps acknowledging Mariche’s fear that Klaas will be home soon and there is no dinner ready.

  Autje and Neitje, caught in this crossfire among their elders, are statues.

  Agata takes a deep breath. She addresses the unspoken fears of the women. The milking and supper preparations will easily be taken care of by the women “on the ground,” she says. And the women’s future is better served by us remaining in the hayloft for now and hammering out these last-minute concerns.

  Ona says: I wouldn’t necessarily categorize the future of our relationships with the boys and men we love as “last-minute concerns.”

  She may have glanced in my direction when she said this, but I cannot tell for certain. “My” direction is in the same direction as the window (directly behind me), which is filthy and crawling with flies and looks out at the miles and miles of fields and sky and galaxies beyond that, and then infinity. So perhaps not.

  The women settle in for more discussion. Shadows fall on their faces and upon the piece of plywood set up to be their table. I have spotted several mice—or is it the same mouse, an exceptionally active one? Autje and Neitje, still comically conjoined, are using their kerchiefs to swipe at flies.

  (Technically these kerchiefs are to be worn by all women over the age of fifteen in the presence of men. I have never seen Autje’s and Neitje’s hair before. It looks very soft—blonde in the case of Neitje, with varying shades from nearly white to golden to beige, and in the case of Autje, dark brown with a discreet auburn glaze, a colour that matches her eyes and also the manes and tails of Ruth and Cheryl, Greta’s skittish team. I am ashamed to admit that I wonder if Autje and Neitje do not consider me enough of a man, or really one at all, to warrant covering their hair in my presence.)

  Agata is barefoot now. She raises her legs and props them on a piece of wood to reduce the fluid build-up she suffers from. Edema, she calls it. There is a note of pride in her voice when she says the word “edema.” (There must be satisfaction gained in accurately naming the thing that torments you.)

  Salome has laid Miep down on a saddle blanket beside her, and the child is the focal point of the assembled women.

  Agata has asked me to print in large letters:

  OPTIONS FOR THE MEN AND

  OLDER BOYS IF THE WOMEN DECIDE TO

  LEAVE:

  1. That they be allowed to leave with the women if they wish.

  2. That they be allowed to leave with the women
only if they sign the declaration/manifesto.

  3. That they be left behind.

  4. That they be allowed to join the women later, when the women have determined where they’re going and have established themselves and are thriving as a democratic/ collective/literate community (with progress reports made regularly on the rehabilitation/behaviour of the men and boys with regard to the women and girls).

  NB. Boys under the age of twelve, simple-minded boys of any age, Cornelius (a colony boy of fifteen who is confined to a wheelchair) and the elderly/infirm men who are unable to care for themselves (these are the boys and men who have remained here instead of going to the city) will automatically accompany the women.

  For the first time since the commencement of the meeting, the women appear to be genuinely perplexed. They are silent, deep in thought.

  Mariche speaks first. She votes for the first option.

  This sits well with no one else. Voices are raised in unison and Mariche crosses her arms. She is anxious to leave. She tosses the dregs of her instant coffee onto the floor, says she’d like to strangle herself.

  But Mariche, says Ona, the possibility arises of the men, perhaps all of them, choosing to leave with us, and all we’d be doing is re-creating our existing colony, with all of its inherent dangers, elsewhere, wherever we end up.

  Agata adds: And the men would most definitely leave with us because they can’t survive without us.

  Greta laughs and says, Well, not for longer than a day or two.

  Salome points out that option number one is really rather moot. If we do decide ultimately to leave the colony rather than to stay and fight, she says, we will leave the colony before the men return, so there is no possibility of the men leaving with us.

  Mejal, now openly smoking (although, because it vexes Salome, making grand gestures of batting the smoke away from sleeping Miep), states that option number one is ridiculous and should be scratched off the list. She further states that option number two (allowing the men to leave with the women if the men sign the manifesto of demands) is, for the same reason as number one, moot. Furthermore, says Mejal, even if we did decide to leave only after the men have returned, and to take with us those of the men who agree to sign the manifesto, how do we know that their acts of signing are not treacherous? Who, other than the women of Molotschna, could be more aware of the duplicity of men?

  Well spoken, says Ona.

  Mariche states: Well then, let’s be done with it and leave the men behind. Number three it is! She slams the table (plywood) with her fist, and Miep stirs.

  Salome asks Mariche to restrain herself.

  You are going from one extreme to the other, Greta protests to Mariche. First allowing any men to leave with us if they want to, and now leaving them all behind.

  Then why, Mariche asks, if option numbers one and three are extreme, moot or preposterous, were they allowed to be written down in the first place? To waste time? To provide August Epp more time to practise his letters?

  August Epp doesn’t need any more practice, Ona murmurs. Perhaps Mariche is envious of his ability to write.

  Mariche assures Ona that she is not envious of an effeminate man who is unable to properly till a field or eviscerate a hog.

  Order! Agata insists. Clearly option numbers one and three, as evident in the minutes, are unrealistic and untenable. Option number two is suspect, in that we women cannot be confident that the presence of the men’s signatures on our manifesto wouldn’t be meaningless, or that they would have been made in good faith.

  So, says Greta, it would appear that our only remaining option is option number four.

  (As a reminder: This is the option that allows the men to join the women later, subject to certain conditions.)

  Mariche says, Well, you mean the only remaining option that has been written down on the packaging paper.

  Yes, agrees Agata. But these are the options we have mutually arrived at and we do require a system of some kind. If there are other options, they cannot reside within our minds only—we need to state them and have them documented.

  According to you, says Mariche. I carry many options around with me in my head.

  But, says Greta, those don’t help us now, do they? We don’t know what they are and if they’re viable. Would you like to tell us what they are, if they are significantly different from the options we have already collectively agreed on, and which August Epp has so kindly inscribed on paper?

  Mariche is silent.

  Autje says: I like number four.

  Neitje says: Me too.

  Agata smiles at the young women. Both Autje and Neitje have younger and older brothers, along with fathers and male cousins, that they wish to see again one day.

  Would everyone consent to option number four, asks Greta, with the proviso that our minds might be changed in the future? And that any change must be undertaken with one goal in mind: the safety of the girls and women, and the likeliness of rehabilitation of the men and boys, of Molotschna?

  Oh! Salome’s rage has turned to tears, a stunning development. She presses her index fingers into the corners of her eyes, near the bridge of her nose, pushing back the tears.

  (I am reminded of how Ona ends her sentences with a sharp intake of breath, inhaling her words back into herself, safe. If the women implement option number four, Salome’s beloved son Aaron will be left behind with the men because he is over twelve years of age. Though just barely.

  Aaron is a good-natured boy with an easy grace, and one of my exceptional students, although he will be leaving school soon for good to help the older men in the fields. Aaron holds the colony title for fence walking. With his innate ability to balance, he is able to walk on the three-inch-wide top beam, the entire length of the fence that encloses the paddock belonging to the yearling barn. The boys and I fashioned a trophy for him out of various bits of machinery, wood and twine, and Cornelius, our resident pyrographer, expertly inscribed Aaron’s name and title into the bottom part of the trophy, in cursive! The trophy was confiscated from Aaron by Peters who warned him—and the next day, all of us—of the consequences—vague, though including flesh-eating worms—of vanity and pride.

  On that morning, the morning that Peters confiscated Aaron’s trophy, I excused myself from the classroom and walked into the field behind the school. I stood and prayed. I knelt and prayed. I listened for God’s words, an answer. But all I could hear were my own thoughts, coiled snakes, and the venom of my words, which were: Today I have come to understand arson. I imagined my students, the young boys of Molotschna, alone in the classroom waiting for me—or not waiting for me, making mischief, throwing animal turds, laughing, sneering, cowering, begging, snapping suspenders, snatching hats, the littlest ones with frozen smiles praying for me to return, to silence the big boys, to restore order, me, the teacher, who, with only one desire, to burn it all down, to burn it to the ground, was on his knees, weeping, in the field behind the classroom.

  In jail, one of my cellmates who misheard that I was an arsonist, not an anarchist or an Antichrist, spoke to me about his feelings, a complex web of fire, anger and destruction. I pretended to listen closely because I was afraid of him. Would he have spoken to me about his feelings if he had known the truth?)

  Agata has put her arm around Salome’s shoulders. She says to Salome that the sadness of leaving Aaron behind for the time being will only spur her, Salome, and the other grieving mothers, to rebuild a new and better colony for everyone.

  Mejal is upset now, too, although she doesn’t have a son to leave behind. She and Salome spend a great deal of time at odds, but always come together as a united force during crises. Now Mejal crosses to Salome’s side of the plywood in order to embrace her fully.

  But why, asks Salome, if fifteen-year-old boys are already in the city with the men (fifteen is the age of baptism and full-fledged membership in the church), and boys twelve and under are allowed to join the women, are boys aged thirteen and fourteen left to the d
ubious care and instruction of the men? Why are the boys in this slender category not also allowed to accompany us if we leave? And what if the rapists are released on bail and return to the colony and find that there are no girls and women here, and begin to use these boys, the thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, as targets for their attacks?

  Mejal chimes in: Surely we can’t be afraid of boys this age? Why couldn’t they join us?

  Ona now startles me with a question. August, she says, you’re the boys’ teacher. What is your feeling about this? Do boys of this age pose a threat to our girls and women?

  I must stop my transcribing in order to properly answer her question. I’m simply not capable of containing my happiness and surprise at being asked a question by Ona, formulating my answer, communicating it in Low German, and translating it instantly in my mind to English—while almost simultaneously writing the English translation down on paper. I will put my pen down momentarily while I attempt to answer Ona’s question.

  I have now picked up my pen again and the women are speaking amongst themselves.

  (Ona has thanked me for a thoughtful response to the question. My joy is overwhelming and I’m struggling to suppress it. I wish I were able to turn myself to stone as easily as Neitje and Autje do. I feel that so many problems in my life may have been prevented if I’d been more … contained.)

  My answer to Ona’s question—do boys of thirteen and fourteen pose a threat to the girls and women of Molotschna Colony?—was yes, possibly. Every one of us, male or female, poses a potential threat. Thirteen- and fourteen-year-old boys are capable of causing great damage to girls and women, and to each other. It is a brash age. These boys are possessed of reckless urges, physical exuberance, intense curiosity that often results in injury, unbridled emotion, including deep tenderness and empathy, and not quite enough experience or brain development to fully understand or appreciate the consequences of their actions or words. They are similar to the yearlings: young, awkward, gleeful, powerful. They are tall, muscular, sexually inquisitive creatures with little impulse control, but they are children. They are children and they can be taught. I’m a two-bit schoolteacher, a failed farmer, a schinda, an effeminate man, and, above all, a believer. I believe that with direction, firm love and patience these boys, aged thirteen and fourteen, are capable of relearning their roles as males in the Molotschna Colony. I believe in what the great poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge thought were the cardinal rules of early education: “To work by love and so generate love. To habituate the mind to intellectual accuracy and truth. To excite imaginative power.” In his Lecture on Education, Coleridge concluded with the words: “Little is taught by contest or dispute, everything by sympathy and love.”