Rosa Imaculada never would have played her hand so miserably. Ulrike is sure of that. If Rosa were concerned about the safety and welfare of her child, she wouldn’t have schemed, and she definitely wouldn’t have plotted. She would have shed a theatrical tear and then, voice cracking, screamed her cares to the world. She would have warned her child of the Big Bad Wolf, she would have given a colorful lecture on the full spectrum of male treachery, and finally she would have slapped a package of condoms in her hand.
Aaaartistes, Ulrike whispers without a sound, her mouth twisting in anger as this memory of her mother pops unexpectedly into her mind. Had that been her last interaction with her mother?
Ulrike slumps, even though her posture doesn’t change. Something inside her snaps, something stops supporting her. She looks at Rosa in the distance, her outlines just barely visible: mouth, a sort of a smile, the bump of her nose, plump breasts. There beyond reach are the arms where Ulrike had just been, the arms that do not exist any more. There is no stopping it. Her mother, her very own mother from years ago, pops back into her mind. The memory rolls over her like the terror before, completely and everywhere, but still different, because her mother from years ago was warm, her mother from years ago was beautiful, her mother from years ago was something completely different than the mooooother it was impossible to live with in the same flat, the same city, the same world. Her mother from years ago had smelled of an expensive nightgown woven by silk worms, soft and sweet. Her mother from years ago wrapped Ulrike under the covers, snuggled up next to her, and, in a voice that smelled of peppermint, hummed “Schlafe, meine prinzessin, schlafe . . .”
Out of old habit, Ulrike begins to sob. No tears come any more, so the weeping resembles vomiting on an empty stomach, without the pain caused by the bile. It is acrobatics for the face. Ugly, or at least far from beautiful. Embarrassing, not at all sympathetic. But what does it matter! Like Rosa, she also knows how to feel. And, like Rosa, she will be gone soon too. These women who dangle the dim lamp of reason in their dead fingers can continue developing their theories until the end of the world for all she cares.
Shlomith, Wlibgis, Nina, Polina, and Maimuna stare in fear as Ulrike’s face contorts. There are differences of degree in their fear. There is a dash of irritation (Polina), a pinch of confusion (Nina), and a smidgen of curiosity (Shlomith). There is perhaps one stare in which no fear can be found: Maimuna’s empty look of Ça va bien, which seems to underline the meaninglessness of it all. There is Wlibgis’s gaze, which contains bucket-loads of suffering, which admittedly could have been caused by her sickness, not the situation currently underway. Wlibgis had learned to be a person in suffering no later than in the hospital bed where she knew she would stay and which she had no chance of leaving healthy. And besides, suffering can become a second skin, a hardened leather, a mask that no longer even requires an illness. All that’s needed is one lifelong disappointment . . . and repeated violence. And you can’t just take off that mask. Not even if everyone around you yells in chorus, “Start LIVING, dear woman!” Suffering is better than emptiness, a pillow with a musty smell you can discern at a distance, and still you bury your face in it to stifle your sobs.
Ulrike has stopped crying.
Her mother from years ago hadn’t existed for ages. So why waste the tears? Ulrike stiffens. The women stare at her like cows at an open pasture. Is it time to leave? Is the way open? And what if the “Oooon . . . ” Ulrike had uttered had been enough, what if the change had already begun in her? What if she was about to begin to rock, to shake, to zigzag, then to sink, to sink and to fade?
Shlomith acts first. She lifts her hand and places it against Ulrike’s, and it looks exactly as it should look, like hand holding, and that is enough. In this situation, that could be enough. Nodding, Shlomith encourages the others to follow after her: Let’s form a circle.
So Maimuna clasps Ulrike’s other, if possible even stiffer hand, Polina slaps her fingers against Maimuna’s digits, Nina snatches Polina’s arm, Wlibgis slides between Nina and Shlomith, and then the circle is closed around Rosa Imaculada’s pale body.
Now each of them is stiff, tense like a bow. Shlomith glances at Ulrike: Yes? The others glance at Ulrike and Shlomith: Well? Ulrike nods and in a low voice begins to murmur Oooo, just as a yoga teacher murmurs “Oooo” as she begins to call the holy Pranava symbol with her larynx, with that Highest Holy Syllable vibrating the entire universe, the world soul, and Truth—in a word, Brahman—as she, with the students sitting before her also murmuring, awakens every slumbering corner of the bodily existence.
Except for Wlibgis, all of the women join in the utterance, one eagerly huffing, another more cautiously, voice cracking. Finally, they are doing something! Something like joy begins to bubble in one
