'They're calling you little murderess around the hospital,' you told her, speaking passionately and looking straight into the little murderess's killer eyes., 'They're frightened of you. they think you're dangerous. they say I'm a fool to sit down in here with you alone. But I am not afraid, Diana. I know you won't harm me. I understand why you did what you did, and I'm going to say this to you now, before you even speak a word: You were right to kill them, and you oughtn't to be,feeling any guilt over it. None! None at all! they abused you and by doing so brought everything that happened upon themselves. Mother, grandmother, sister-are you supposed to bear unendurable suffering just because it comes from your blood relations?
Everyone's got murderous feelings toward family members, but few have got the guts to take up an ax and pay them back. You're different.
You have got the guts. So whatever happens between us now, Diana, I want you to know how much I respect you for your bravery.'
Having made your passionate personal statement, you assumed a cooler, more professional demeanor. 'Now listen carefully, we're going to be working together. I'm going to be your doctor and help make you well. After I prove to you that what you did was right, we're going to take a good hard look together at who you are and what you ought to be. You have a whole lifetime ahead of you, Diana. In a few years, when you're ready, I'll get you released, and then I'll show you how to realize your potential. I'm going to help you first by building you up, making you feel strong and confident.
Now tell mewhat do you feel about what I've just said? Tell me your true feelings. I want to hear.' The girl started to sob almost at once. You hugged her to you and urged her to weep on.
'It's okay. Let it out. Cry it all out of yourself. Clean yourself out with the tears, Diana. You'll feel better afterwards, I promise… 11 In the end, after the weeping gave way to sporadic little moans and sobs, she spoke the golden words you'd been waiting for: 'I feel at last 'Go on, my dear.'
'I've met-'
'Yes. Tell me, who've you met?'
'Finally someone-'
'Yes, go on.' ,-who understands me. Really does.'
'You believe that?'
'Oh, yes.' She nodded shyly. 'I do.'
You immediately hugged her to you again, then gently rocked her in your arms. 'That's right, Diana. You have, you have, sweet girl.'
And it was true! You did understand her! You truly, truly did!
The method was to envelop her in an alternate reality, a fictive world of your own creation existing parallel to the so-called real world, yet which to an outside observer would appear the same. to Diana, however, confined within your web, every so-called normal value would be subverted. Purposes, motives, principles, matters of morality and personal honor-in your alternate world such things would not have the same meanings as they did outside.
She's down there now in her dank little hole of a room in the basement, dreaming through her mission. She's imagining the feeling of popping the pin into the posterior of some unsuspecting man, the way it'll sink so nicely into his cushy ass. And then his yelp, squeal, cry, little chirp of pain, and how she'll record it as she runs by and how the pitch'il change because she'll be in motion. You smile to yourself: The exercise, if questioned, could be construed as a practical demonstration of the Doppler effect.
You went to watch her work out at her dojo at Broadway and I 10th, a big hot, humid room on the second floor above a supermarket, where you were greeted by the deep-throated cries of zealous young fighters and the tangy aroma of their bodies at work.
Diana was in the first line with the best of them, energetically slashing at the air with her strong young arms. You loved the way Tool threw fast kicks and punches in unison with the others, mostly giant males. She looked so right among them, cute, too, in her white canvas gi jacket, white pants, and black obi. But you'd seen the backs of her hands after a workout, raw from hundreds of knuckle push-ups ordered by her instructor, and occasional marks, too, across her back from hits delivered with a bamboo stick, penalties for poorly executed exercises or that obscure and thus endlessly punishable offense of the dojo, insufficient respect.
There was another girl in the class that afternoon who caught your interest, reminding you of someone from your past. She had blond hair cut into a wedge, beautifully tanned skin, and a smile that lit up her entire face as she punched and kicked the air. You watched her carefully during combat exercises. She easily overpowered her opponents. She was taller than Diana, though just as perfectly proportioned, and her eyes were entirely different. While Diana had cold killer's eyes, this girl's eyes blazed clear gray like a warrior's.
And while Diana had been trained to sneak attack her targets from behind, this girl was the sort to approach hers from the front in fair, refereed competitions.
That evening, as you ministered to Diana's bleeding knuckles, you asked her the other girl's name.
'Oh, you must mean Jess,' Diana said. 'Sensei says she's the best fighter in the class.'
Remember Bertha Parce, Mama? That old mean bag of a bitch English teacher at Ashley-Bumett? Yes, that one, who enjoyed making fun of certain selected kids in front of all the others. Remember the time I told you about when she read a story of mine aloud to the entire class? The story I wrote about you, Mama, the true one about your opening night at the Fairmount Club Lounge, when Millie and I hid in back of the curtain behind the orchestra and you belted out those great Porter tunes, 'You're the Top,' 'I Get a Kick Out of You,' 'I've Got You Under My Skin,' and the crowd went wild. 'More! More!' they shouted, and you grinned and belted out a couple more: 'Let's Do It,'
'So in Love,' and, as your final encore, 'Another Op'nin'; Another Show.' Even then they clapped and howled and begged for more. God!
Do you remember?
I wrote my story about that night, and everything I felt during it, the way my heart brimmed with pride in you, Mama, standing out there in your glittering sequintrimmed crimson strapless, knocking all those fancy folks for a loop. And then how you brought me and Millie out. 'I want you all to meet my two girls,' you announced. 'It's way past their bedtimes, but they wanted to be here to see if their old ma could really sing.' And the crowd went berserk again! I remember one fat old man in particular, with slicked-back gray hair, who stood and clapped until the rest of them followed suit. And then some bosomy lady yelled, 'Bravo! Bravo!' and you glowed, Mama, you positively lit up electric in the smoky, booze-scented dark of the lounge.
That's what I wrote about, and the grip of little Millie's hand in mine, and the swelling up I felt inside, the warmth of my pride in people knowing I was your daughter. I wrote, too, about how, late that night back home, you came into my room to tuck me in and how you smelled, the faint scent of perfume on your skin, the remnants of powder on your cheeks, and the glow on you still, the glow that comes from being applauded, and the aliveness of you, the pulsing energy, the power I felt when you reached down and grasped me in your arms. I wrote about how I fell asleep remembering the applause, listening to it echo, and how, just before I slept, I whispered four words to myself. I think you know them, Marna. 'A star is born' is what I whispered.
And I wrote how I smiled then and fell asleep and how I thought that was the happiest, proudest, most sublime night of my entire life, Mama, and I wrote about it that way, too, trying to capture the special quality of its magic.
A week later I was positively thrilled when Miss Parce announced she was going to read my story aloud in class. Except she had barely read a couple of paragraphs when I realized what she was trying to do. She read it in this mean, sarcastic way, and soon, sure enough, she had the other girls tittering, smirking, glancing at one another, and rolling eyes. And then, caught up in the spirit of the thing, she broadened her satiric attack, making funny little faces while relentlessly decimating my story, assassinating my every line, until finally all my words lay shattered and broken on the floor.
When she was finished, when there was nothing left of what I wrote except the sporadic tittering in the back of the room, she looked straight at me, eyes glowing, and said: 'Tell us one thing please, Beverly: Is there a single line in this entire tale in which there resides one tiny particle of truth?'
I stared back at her uncomprehending, too stupefied to reply. The classroom went silent. You could hear a pin drop, as they say.
'Well, dear?' she asked, and, when I still didn't answer: 'What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?'
She stared cold stone hard at me, her black pupils tightened down to points. And then she smirked. I wanted
