All the instructions had come from Brigitte who said she had learned about them during the war, when she had to help out friends in the nursing corps of the German army. “Darlink, this is nothing at all to perform.” Bernice and Estelle had both heard something about German technology even while they were growing up in the West Indies.
“Would I be right, Bernice,” Dots said, “to call myself your friend? Right?” She did not permit Bernice to answer. “And not only are we friends, Bernice, but we are from the same place, hundreds o’ miles down in the Wessindies, to come up here to work in white people kitchens as domestics? Right? Well, tell me now, Bernice, what kind o’ Black Muslim, or black nationalist-woman you walking ’bout Toronto telling people you is, what kind o’ conscience-thinking woman you admit yourself to be, to me, that you would leave me, a friend, the same black woman as you, and go ’cross that road there, and present your problems to a woman like Brigitte? Eh? Are you drunk as hell, Bernice? You think that because the same Brigitte smiles with you today, that tomorrow morning you have any guarantee she is going to smile again with you? Bernice, do you call that wisdom?”
“But I still don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean Estelle!”
“Estelle?”
“The abortion.”
“What abortion?”
“You had no right at all, at all, at all, whatever, to go to a woman like Brigitte and ask her cooperation in a abortion for Estelle! Jesus Christ, Bernice, are you out of your blasted mind, or something? Suppose me and my husband Boysie had a man-woman fight, and I call-in the police, and the police come. Knowing the police in this place is white mens, don’t you see that I would be bringing a foreign body in a black-man black-woman secret? That police cease to be a police, in my mind, the minute he tamper in my man-woman affair with my husband! You don’t see it that way? Going to a white woman with a thing as personal as that? A blasted white woman?”
“Now, listen to me, Dots. Brigitte isn’ no blasted white woman! Brigitte is a friend.”
“A white woman?”
“I regards Brigitte as my friend. And when I look at Brigitte I do not see a white person, I sees a friend.”
“With a abortion?” Dots was on her feet. She was shaking with rage. She was standing close to Bernice now. “You mean you couldn’ call me? And you calling her your friend? When it is that same DP-whore who just done telling me all your nasty business? You still regard the Germans as your allies? Your friend?”
“But what did Brigitte tell you? Anyway, the fact that Brigitte tell you about it don’t mean that she betrayed me. Do it?”
“You really want to know? Well, I will only tell you only the best things ’bout yourself that she told me. The best. Not the worst. I will leave the worst for you to imagine.”
Tears had already formed themselves in Bernice’s eyes. This was a complete shock, a complete shock of fear and isolation.
“Your friend just tell me again that Estelle breeding for Mr. Burrmann.” And she added, “that Mistress Burrmann gave Mr. Burrmann five hundred dollars to get the abortion. And that he gave it to you. Brigitte told me that, those very words, so help me God! That not once or twice, nor three times, Mr. Burrmann took Estelle down in Jarvis Street where the worst whore in Toronto won’t go, and there he screwed her. Every time he do it, every time he fooped Estelle your sister, your friend told me that he give Estelle fifty dollars for her body, and you and she benefit therefrom. Your sister! Breeding for Mr. Burrmann. Your employer! Your friend. Exposing you to me. Jesus Christ, Bernice, have Canada turned your blasted head behind your back? It do these things to you, so quick, to make your eyes blind and your ears deaf?” Dots began to cry.
“Mr. Burrmann do that? Mr. Burrmann give her money?”
“You know how I feel right now? You know what I feel like doing with you? I have a blasted mind to knock you down to the ground! With my hand! You don’t know that?” She grabbed Bernice’s dress, and shook her, as if she wanted to shake sense into her that way. Bernice grabbed her as a means of protecting herself, as a means of lessening the power in Dots’s arms. But Dots continued to shake her. The fear in Bernice’s mind brought out her aggression and her passion.
And as Dots continued to shake her, and pull her across the room, the fear changed into a kind of madness. Bernice now grabbed Dots with her free hand, and she shook Dots and lashed out at Dots and grabbed her, until the two of them were locked in a violent, panting, hissing
