Christine

CHAPTER 4

  Armed with placards, Christine and the other women stood by the red door waving their symbols into the air whilst chanting aloft at the top of their lungs, punching their signs into the air like unyielding wooden fists.

  The women were chanting in and out of succession, most unsure of what is was they were actually protesting until Christine took the reins once more and led them; with her will and with her rage, into a simple repeating cant.

  “A woman’s place is not at home, by a stove or on a phone. Women’s rights, just and fair, every woman, everywhere.”

  The women, led by Christine chanted the simple song at the height of their voices, shouting over the sound of passing trucks and cars; revving their engines and honking their horns and the nearby workmen; grabbing their crotches and whistling their profanity.

  In truth, nobody saw them outside of what they were.

  Nobody heard them, outside of what they wanted to hear.

  The only fight that they had was with the afternoon sun blazing over their heads. The women were smiling and pacing in circles; some looking at the backs of the women to their front while others stared outwards to the bustling street; raising their voices as their heads passed the sidewalk then quieting, only to heighten again when they passed the infamous red door, shouting at the tops of their lungs in childish rebellion, for the most part, in a sense of joyous glee.

  The women were having fun and were singing along as if they were humming along to a foreign song; not quite connected to the words, completely foreign to any meaning and their emotion, lacking any definition.

  There was no fight in their intention whatsoever. They could have been singing Russian for all it mattered. There was no conviction in a single word that they sang and Christine knew this; she could feel it and she could see it in every eye that was absent to their every step and in every absent ear with its hungering deaf applause.

  “What’s right for you is right for me, the right of woman, the right to be” they chanted.

  “Mother, daughter, sister, friend, a woman is more than a means to an end” they chanted, roaring the words in heightened appeal like a young child; fervently shouting a word they just learned as loud as they could, over and over and until eventually they tired or accidentally came across the context and then found themselves another word.

  Some of the women yelled, some of them whispered and some of them giggled as they fought to undo their shackle of shame, preferring maybe to silently support this kind of idea and not make an unfortunate scene by being the nail that stood out.

  And the people which passed them on the street either walked through them or; unperturbed and unchallenged, around them with none seeming any more affected than they would be by a foul odour or a sounding alarm.

  “It’s not working,” thought Christine.

  She stopped her marching and rested her placard on the floor. The other women; in her attention, did the same, following her every command, resting their feet and laughing out loud as they dismissed; one by one, every word they had sung and then mocked the manner in which it had been done; themselves saving face so as not to lessen themselves with the queer looks of strangers passing by.

  “We need to think differently,” said Christine.

  “This is ridiculous,” said one of the women.

  “She’s right,” said another.

  “I can’t even hear myself. Who’s going to listen?” said another woman.

  ‘We just need to be louder, angrier. They will listen. Shout like you mean it like you’re actually offended” said Christine.

  “But I don’t know if I am. I mean, are you offended dear?” said an old woman to another.

  “We look silly,” said another woman.

  “You should be offended. You have every right to be and that’s the point. You have every right to every right that men have. This is not the Stone Age, we shouldn’t be told we can’t do something or we can’t be somewhere or we can’t be someone, just because we’re women. It’s not fair” said Christine.

  The other women all looked to one another for someone to agree or disagree so that they could agree with that person.

  “What’s the point, really? Look around, nobody is noticing, nobody is listening. We are protesting to ourselves, for what? We could be sitting here quietly, not making a fuss. They’ll be bringing out crackers soon” said The Old Woman.

  Christine thought about all those sexing sneers and winks and patting and touching and rubbing and squeezing and all of the other bonding to which she had given herself; smiling and nodding at lewd remarks, laughing at their amentiferous wit, shaking their hands and then swallowing and repressing every inch of her pride just to be like them so that one day; maybe, she would be enough like them to get away with being able to be somewhat like herself.

  A fire roared in her mind when she thought of her friend and the way he looked at her and the way he looked at other women; the way he reduced them to vaginas and mouths.

  The fire ignited throughout her veins when she heard his voice calling out to her; calling her by a man’s name, not seeing her in any way as the woman that she was; the successful and diligent professional, the daughter to her mother and in their office and what appeared to be the whole world, an exception to the rule.

  But no, to him, to her friend and to her superiors, and to her subordinates, she wasn’t Christine; the sister or daughter of anyone, she was just Chris; one of the guys.

  Christine clenched her fingers into the palms of her hands, squeezing until the tips of her nails broke off against her callousing skin; hardening by the cementing rage and castigation sweating from her pores.

  As The Old Woman turned, her eyes almost popped out of her head in shock. Before her; on the floor, lay an expensive jacket that had cost Christine a month’s salary when she first started working at the company.

  Beside it; crumpled in a heap in a puddle of murky water, was her white blouse, the one she first wore to her mother’s funeral and to every significant meet after that, piling mound upon mound of other people’s shit onto her own plate and smiling as she looked the part, scoffing it all down. And beside her crumpled, dirtying blouse was the last bind of her womanly self; her ordinary cream bra.

  Christine stood strangely serene, painting words onto her bare chest; angry, defamatory words; vile repulsive words that would sound out like the feigned kindness and deficient pigeonholing she had heard her whole life. The resplendent marginal echoing from her brother, never being set upon and baggaged with curfew and exception like she, to her lovers; for the sake of her sex, making an invalid of her by setting out the most trivial tasks; with their gentlemanly honour, to take from her. But when it mattered; when she really deserved to feel like a woman, they would lick of their own plates and tire of her converse; rolling off of their chivalry and leaving her empty and unattended.

  “Put your clothes back on, have you no shame? You’re making everyone uncomfortable” said The Old Woman, shocked and dismayed for her; turning away in revulsion from Christine’s near naked body.

  The women felt strange and awkward and Christine felt empowered and undefeatable; putting tiny slithers of black tape in an x, over her nipples.

  “If we want to fight men then we have to think like men. If we want anyone to hear us then we have to make them see us first. And what gets a man’s attention? Sex. They see us as objects, as things; something to fuck and something to feed their children and something to clean the house and something to suck their cocks and something they can make feel useful only when it appeases them. I’m not just my tits, I’m not just my pussy” screamed Christine.

  “Then put them away,” said The Old Woman. And stop with that profanity. It’s not lady like.”

  Christine cut strips of black tape and then took a thin paintbrush and dipped its bristles in black paint and with her eyes locked, she approached each woman with a predatory stare, pinning their restraint and defenses, submitting one and all to her will and to the
duce of her tremarious want.

  One by one, she helped them out of their bondage; their prettying garments that only enslaved their bodies with subservient reward. Over their nipples, she placed the x of their defiant censorship and on their bodies she painted abrasion; strong, short, blunt, fighting words.

  “Now they will see us” she screamed.

  The women stood side by side, their naked breasts exposed into the afternoon sun, obscenities scrawled across their chests; abrasive, ironic obscenities.

  Christine was a pith of rage. Her mind was red and it was not so much about that door anymore. That was just a catalyst to something far deeper; a repression that she had assumed as a baggage that she had to quietly command so that she could have success, so that she could claim it as her own and so that she could lead others to it; other women like her, other women who just wanted what was fair.

  And now she was leading others as she had never imagined, as maybe her plight had prepared her for; to take the cause of righteousness and attack the monster head on, to bow no more service, to play no more the moral chord and to stand toe to toe with her oppressor; it, that bedded in the culture of man, that spoke in through his tongue and encouraged him to repress women with his open hand and his considerate heart.

  She was by the fore of her droughted isle, leading her women to water; to their right to feed themselves. And as she stood toe to toe with man; the image of Devin scolding in her mind, she looked long into his cavernous eyes; into the abyss, and when she did, the abyss looked long into her and there she found her own reflection.