To repeat.
First, she herself, the very first: Shlomith.
Second: Polina.
Third: Rosa Imaculada.
Fourth: Nina (in her womb Little Antoine & Little Antoinette).
Fifth: a “W” drawn in the air (W as in Wlibgis).
Sixth: Maimuna.
They introduce themselves one at a time, each in her own way, and shake Ulrike’s hand politely. Their arrival order appears to be a very important thing to them, because they each raise the appropriate number of fingers, as if by prior arrangement; this is their very own number of arrival. If this were to happen anywhere else, in a stadium where people had come to flee a hurricane, in a tent city where refugees were being assembled during a civil war, then Ulrike, who has entertained herself with dreams of catastrophe since she was a child, would burst into laughter. The women are so comical, so overly serious. Their arrival order number fingers are still in the air. A smile begins to tug at Ulrike’s lips.
Suddenly Rosa Imaculada retracts her three extended fingers. She takes a step toward Ulrike, shaking her fist and launching into an explanation of something in a confusion of Portuguese and English. From here on, the performance is a familiar sight to everyone except Ulrike, who looks on in shock. They’re always embarrassed when Rosa’s show of panic begins. Lines appear on the women’s faces, furrows of impatience characteristic to each face type, which depends not only on temperament but also age, skin quality, and fat percentage. Of course Shlomith’s face is most creased of all. But Rosa pretends not to notice. Words burble out of her as her voice turns shrill and her hands move restlessly. Occasionally she crouches to pound the white below them with her fist. The pounding makes a hollow sound that starts out sharp but is instantly blunted, as if someone were striking a culvert with a metal rod covered in a woolen sock.
Ulrike begins to understand. Rosa Imaculada wants Ulrike to tell her something the others haven’t been able to say. Rosa Imaculada taps her head with a finger and waits for a response, even though she must understand that this tearful wretch of a girl isn’t capable of answering.
Ulrike gathers her courage and begins to rekindle her quenched anger. She opens her mouth and shouts at Shlomith in her high school English, with her high school pronunciation, with her high school vocabulary, with the high school impudence of a small, seventeen-year-old high school girl (with exactly the defiant self-assurance characteristic of young girls that can make some older men completely lose their wits); she screams at Shlomith and demands that she tell her everything, absolutely everything, because she knows that Shlomith knows. She has to know. She was the first one here, after all.
And this leaves Shlomith no alternative. She must tell, as she always must. Over and over she must tell, and now she must also expose some slightly more delicate matters. Why she stripped Ulrike’s lower body bare (just now Ulrike realizes she should put her trousers back on), why Polina and Nina held her arms (shame rushes over Ulrike again: how has she been sitting here with her pussy bare?!), why Maimuna and Rosa Imaculada forced her legs apart (Scheiße! Scheiße! Scheiße!), why Wlibgis lifted her head on her knees and why she, Shlomith, the worst of all, stuck her tongue in Ulrike’s most secret place.
THE CAMPFIRE
Come, Shlomith says to Ulrike, let’s move to the campfire. And before Ulrike has time to understand what is going on, she finds herself gently lifted up. She stands, feeling dizzy (that expectant vertigo caused by the first proper lurch in one direction of a ride that moves back and forth, such as an amusement park Viking ship or a traditional Scandinavian yard swing). Ulrike stands and instinctively spreads her arms, trying to find her balance and momentarily closing her eyes. Then she opens them again and looks down, at her feet that is, and tries to jump up, but she fails. The women standing around her remain where they are.
She didn’t rise a single millimeter.
Maimuna can’t resist the temptation any more. Crouching, she pushes off and whooshes high into the air, her bent knees reaching the level of Ulrike’s neck. What is even more confusing, she stays there as if imprisoned in a perfect photograph (a model dressed in sporting gear bounces on a trampoline in a garishly lit studio, just do it, in the background is a bright, monochrome but decidedly flashy backdrop, just do it, the model jumps, jumps, jumps but doesn’t sweat, do it, do it, do it, she jumps and is immortalized in the air and will never age again).
Shlomith glares in irritation at Maimuna, who obediently begins to descend without any further antics. Yes, Maimuna descends, or, in other words, kneels down low and begins to screw herself down by placing her arms tightly against her sides and thrusting her upper body in quick, sharp movements from left to right. The descent is jerky. Maimuna falls gradually, twist by twist, to the others’ level, and finally she is on her knees before Ulrike, in feigned humility, and then Shlomith turns her back, motioning impatiently with a hand and beginning to walk. As one might say, Shlomith begins to move forward.
DYING IS GOD’S REVENGE. In that moment when Shlomith turned her back, that thought, precisely that thought and no other, flashed across Ulrike’s mind. Fear filled her being because she wasn’t in the habit of thinking about God. God, one might say, did not speak to her. God was not a joke, not an injunction, not a subject for argument, not anything at all except an event on the calendar. God definitely was that—a magic something that
