The Vintage Book of International Lesbian Fiction

by Naomi Holoch

  She listened to me but she refused to believe me.

  “Where did you put your umbrella?”

  It was becoming serious. I fiddled with another answer.

  “I don’t know. I lost it.”

  Emotion made me hoarse.

  “You don’t know where you lost it, you little beast?”

  She had thrown herself at me. It was the beginning of deliverance. The catastrophe was finally being born. I had pulled it out of myself. To have it there was a relief. Anguish would soon be packing up its bags. I heard a grandiose orchestra full of cymbals and gongs traveling ominously from one end of the horizon to the other.

  At this point, her hands were screaming at me. It was soothing. But the weather was becoming agitated. The light, growing weak, had rolled itself up into a ball. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t do anything. She flung an inferno of words into the middle of the room.

  “To think that I’m killing myself for that. She’s going to land us in the street. A brand new umbrella. The finest one in the whole city. That creature doesn’t deserve half of what’s done for her. Anybody else would dump her at the orphanage. She’s got no feelings, no guts. Numbskull! A real numbskull!”

  She was shaking me by the shoulders, by the arms. She jerked me forward, then backward. She threw me on my side. With every gesture, she sent me to the orphanage, but she didn’t let go of my arm….

  The first bolt of lightning brought some relief to the room.

  I hadn’t put down my satchel: it was all I had. She tore it from my arm. It fell. I cried out.

  “Are you going to shut up? She’ll do anything for attention, this kid. If the neighbors hear you, you’re going to get it….”

  She was roaring at me.

  My pencil box fell open and everything inside scattered across the floor. This little chaos annoyed her more. I tried to pick the things up. She grabbed my wrists.

  “If you move, I’ll beat the living daylights out of you.”

  A nasty rain stabbed at the earth.

  She let go of me. From a distance, her gaze destroyed my face. Her features took on greater definition. Anger highlighted her bone structure.

  She had me under surveillance. She didn’t ask for any explanation. She didn’t have the time for that. She closed the window that had no curtains.

  “This time, you’re going to get it. Get over here!”

  I went. She was waiting, as peacefully as a police commissioner who’s toying with abominations….

  She began her same task over again. She kept saying words, words, words, and I died in between each one. Or, in the spaces between the words, I became the worst of assassins: the imaginary assassin.

  I fell at her feet, my cheek resting on the tip of her patent leather shoes.

  “Don’t touch me, you idiot….” My cheek drew comfort from the smooth tile. A passionate rain was falling. In the gutters, the water was exulting.

  She had lifted me up by the lapels of my dress, rather than stooping to my height. I became her own personal scoundrel. “Tell me what happened. If you don’t …” “Stop it!”

  “She’d be the death of you, this one would….”

  The orchestra made up of cymbals and gongs was circling the house. In between our cries, you could hear a whole rumble of arguments from the sky.

  “To think that I’m making myself sick for that!”

  I was responsible for her agitation.

  “Stop!”

  Finally, my tears reached a decision.

  She made me turn and twist like our little lilac bush at the end of the garden, caught in the storm. I bent over and straightened up in time to the movements of the plant. My tears were everywhere, like the drops of water falling from the lilac leaves in the form of a heart…. I was exhausted. She who receives the blows suffers in addition the infernal fatigue of the one who delivers them.

  The orchestra of cymbals and gongs was no longer a ribbon stretched across the horizon. It was in front of us, all-powerful with explosions that resembled imprecations, arguments that lashed at our ears….

  I didn’t dare look at her. She might have been disheveled….

  We were attending a tournament of lightning bolts. In the roof gutters, it was an orgy.

  I didn’t see the lilacs straighten up. I no longer saw anything at all. Her task was timeless. The downpour became eternal. Light was hanging by a thread…. Then sorrow took me in hand. It was a sap that circulated inside me like the water in the gutters…. I forgot my mother and myself by crying for both of us with all my strength. I was swollen with sorrow. I was being born once again.

  Something else had escaped. A ray of new light illuminated the corner cupboard. The orchestra of cymbals and gongs was on its last legs. The storm was already falling to pieces.

  Grandmother arrived in the company of the fresh air.

  Had I forgotten about her? No, but in the worst moments, I didn’t think about her. When she would come in one door, bad things would leave by the other…. That day nothing could stop my mother. She was still shaking me. Grandmother separated us. Consternation ran over her face, her skin like an exposed nerve. Her sadness was too big for her.

  Looking at me, she apologized. “I was waiting for the end of the storm. We were writing down the recipe for rabbit pâté….”

  My mother shrugged.

  “Do you know what this numbskull did?”

  “No. I just got here.”

  “She went and lost her umbrella. Don’t you think she should be hanged?”

  I stared at Grandmother. I waited. My tears were flowing and were not noticed.

  “You buy her things that are too fancy for her age. You’re going to make her sick. Go lie down. You’re going out for lunch…. You look awful.”

  This song of common sense rose up like a stream of water from a fountain. It covered me in light. Grandmother understood. My mother was looking at me, her face inscrutable.

  “Are you telling me that she’s not crazy, and are you telling me that she has feelings….”

  The bell rang.

  “I’m not here for anyone,” my mother said, exasperated.

  “What if it’s him?”

  “I’ll meet him downtown.”

  It was him.

  “I’m going upstairs to dress. I’m getting out of here. This place disgusts me….”

  She slammed the door, telling my grandmother that the chicken was burning in the oven.

  Grandmother opened the window.

  “The lilac bush is broken.”

  “How do you know?”

  I showed her my little finger. I loved her. I didn’t tell her everything.

  “You’d better look at the chicken.” I wasn’t hungry but I was afraid of another explosion…. She was taking her time. “Tell me where it hurts.” “Let’s not talk about it.”

  I didn’t tell her everything. Neither did she. There was restraint between us. It was almost perfect. She ran her hands over me anyway. I said no everywhere.

  “I don’t think things are going well with him. It’s because of that…. She’s not getting what she wants….”

  During the storm, I had thus served as a double for the man who would not give in.

  “I’m going to take care of the bird….”

  It was true that the smell from the kitchen was demanding attention. Alone, I picked up my pencil box. It seemed to belong to a past world. I wasn’t listening to the end of the storm, which was dragging itself away. In the corner by the cupboard, there was a large pool of light. I was becoming feverish the way one does before leaving on a trip…. Grandmother came back.

  “You’ll go back to school at three o’clock. When she’s gone, we’ll eat whatever you want outside.”

  “…”

  “Pull your chair closer.”

  We turned our back on the garden. She said that we’d take advantage of it later. For the moment, we listened, we took deep breaths. Scoured, the sky was a tapestry woven with the so
ngs of birds. One of them was holding its little service at the edge of a tree trunk…. The convalescent sun warmed the back of our necks. I pressed my cheek against her shoulder covered in shiny black cotton. I rested my hand on her worn-out woman’s knee. Time flowed like milk.

  She appeared and disappeared. She had rearranged her face. She was pleased with herself.

  “You’re sitting in a draft.”

  She slammed the door. That’s what we were waiting for. We could allow ourselves anything. I took Grandmother by the hand.

  “Promise me that you’ll go along with me.” “Promise me that you’re all right.”

  She was my savior and my companion. I led her into the garden. Her hand trusted mine. I led her to the shed. I took out the tools and told her to wait for me. I came back with a chair. She settled into her kingdom. I had turned several flower pots upside down. I rested her feet on them. This way, she wouldn’t get wet if another storm drenched our vegetables….

  I saw the strawberries that were arching their backs like a cat under the curve of the leaves. I picked a lot of them. I sliced some bread, I crushed the fruit on the bread. I sprinkled some sugar and arranged the slices on a fancy plate. Holding it, I ran.

  “If you break it, we’re finished!”

  But happiness isn’t clumsy.

  We ate looking at the garden. It looked worn out. As for the earth, the storm had made it plump. It was spilling over onto the teary-eyed lettuce. Two newborn worms decorated a cabbage. The green peas and their leaves looked like a carefully destroyed forest. The stalks of the onions were prostrate. The shallots’ braided stems were crawling in the mud. Invincible, the thyme, safe and sound, tickled our sense of smell.

  We quenched our thirst with clusters of currants.

  It wasn’t enough.

  The garden path was lined on each side with rose bushes. Their red flowers would still be in bloom on All Saints’ Day. At the height of a frost, while the grass in the lanes was begging for pity, the thorny leaves would fight on…. Today, I saw drops of brightness on the roses. The rain had tired them out a little.

  “Will you let me do what I want?”

  “Yes.”

  “Completely?”

  “Yes.”

  Before beginning, I kissed her: I threw myself into an adventure.

  “Come back quickly.”

  She followed me with her eyes. I was as light as a feather….

  First I picked the biggest flower. I held it like an altar candle. I was careful to give it to her with its shining drops of rain still on it. She looked at it and rested it on her lap.

  “Put it on, Grandma!”

  “I’m too old….”

  I thought she was younger than the whole world, but I didn’t know how to tell her.

  I picked them with the same fierceness that would grip me when I stole alfalfa for our rabbits…. I left only the saddest. I had placed them in my petticoat in order not to soil my dress. I prepared my move. I managed to throw them all at once into the hollow that she had readied between her knees.

  We bent down at the same time. I rubbed my face against the petals. All she did was lean her head on mine. From under this tender protection, I breathed in the perfume that threaded its way deep inside me. The sparkling wetness refreshed my lips, my eyelids, the lobes of my ears…. My idea exploded.

  “Let’s run away, Grandma.”

  She didn’t say no. Her breath full of illness fanned my hair.

  “Someone’s at the door!”

  “Go open it! I can’t move with all this….”

  She called after me. “Ask who’s there.”

  It was the neighborhood dwarf.

  Grandmother had closed the door to the shed and arranged the flowers on the ground. She was protecting our kingdom.

  “I came to tell you that my rabbit pâté is in the oven. If you want to take a look….”

  “Not really,” Grandmother answered, perhaps thinking of our impossible escape.

  “You seem strange…. It’s true that storms affect people of our age….”

  The dwarf denied the idea of her own with grotesque coquettishness.

  “You’re not saying a word. It’s clear that the storm has upset you.”

  Grandmother was contemplating the ballet being performed by the laundry that was drying, dancing, supplicating in our neighbors’ garden.

  “Grandma, she’s talking to you.”

  Would the dwarf give birth to yet another sentence belonging to the world of women?

  “… I was thinking about the most beautiful day of my life….”

  “Tell us about it,” pleaded the dwarf. “Was it a long time ago?”

  “Today.”

  “You’re not going to try to make me believe that a recipe for rabbit pâté will have been the best day….”

  The dwarf wavered between frustration and pride. “It’s true that a recipe like this can’t be found just anywhere.”

  “I had forgotten it,” my grandmother confessed.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. The tiny woman remained still. Time grew thin. Grandmother was dreaming and was keeping nothing back. I didn’t understand that I had transfigured her.

  “Today, I have been completely fulfilled….”

  “You’re raving…. You’re too old for….”

  “Today I have no age.”

  The dwarf stamped her foot.

  “You’re getting on my nerves with your mysteries.” Our happiness inspired me. “We picked these for you.” She kissed me. Her soft mustache made me gag. “You emptied your garden for me?”

  “Your recipe was worth it,” my grandmother added, finally giving me a hand.

  “… Flowers. This is the first time it’s happened to me….”

  I looked at her face, transformed by a secondhand gift. I had just sown happiness everywhere.

  “I have to run. I can smell the pâté from here.”

  The dwarf carried away the flowers. She looked like a florist’s assistant setting off to make a delivery in town.

  We went back inside. Memories simmered in the room. The cherry cupboard was radiant, an example to follow. I thought about school. Grandmother said she would come wait for me when it was over.

  On the way, I avoided the Mons plain. In the sky, in the air, there were only peaceful victories. Awnings threw their shade on the sleepy stores. The afternoon was resting on its laurels.

  I was questioned. I said that I had had to pick up medication for the dwarf. I didn’t see Mandine. Was the “one little minute” I had asked for responsible for her absence? The thought didn’t disturb me in the least. Another pupil had been put in my place.

  “You, the twins, move apart. She’ll sit between you…. You’ll keep an eye on her….”

  I settled down between my two police agents. I was in equilibrium like a clock between two candle sticks. One shined with intelligence and effort, the other with an extraordinary gift for drawing. We were reviewing the Crusades. I simply crossed my arms across my chest. The brunette noted my red eyes. She pressed herself against me. She didn’t ask me anything but made horrible faces to cheer me up. When she stopped, she followed the effect of her remedy on my face.

  “You’ve just dropped down six places,” the teacher announced.

  It was a matter of indifference to me, since I was roaming through other worlds….

  The blond twin, with her face like a poem, her clear, moonlit skin, was better behaved. The historic dates that came from her lovely lips disgusted me even more….

  The brunette had turned a visiting card over on her book. While the teacher wrote on the board, she drew. She didn’t hold her pencil as we did. She didn’t suck on it. She used it for quick, catlike scratches. Those jolts, those stormy gusts of lines created an elegant lady whose feet were smaller than an accent mark. At times, the pencil skipped over the page with fervor, at times it slipped into the pleats of the skirt only to reappear impassioned.

  She turned
the background into velvet with an intense blue and put the card in my pocket. I was overwhelmed, as my grandmother had been. I saw clouds made of fluffed-up egg whites. Chubby-cheeked, fringed with a paler froth, they recalled a band of young boys off on an escapade in the sky. If only I could offer her that on a visiting card! I was able to thank her out loud, under cover of the chorus braying historical dates….

  “Who goes by Mandine’s house?”

  I raised a finger.

  “You’ll go ask for news.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? You want to know why? You’re not going.” Another girl raised her hand.

  We went out. Not a single student to give me information. They were running off to kill time with art lessons…. Grandmother wasn’t there. The caretaker was supervising everyone as they left.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  He turned his back to me.

  “Can you tell me what happened to Mandine?”

  “Oh, that girl! … She was always running for no reason. Now she’s learned her lesson.”

  Grandmother was coming.

  “I have to go, sir. Tell me what happened to her.”

  “You’re giving me orders? Don’t bother me, I’m working.”

  “I’ll tell you,” said Grandmother.

  She had brought our afternoon snack in a closed basket.

  “What happened was she was run over. They may be able to save her leg….”

  Stupefied, I became stupid. “She won’t be able to run anymore?”

  “Don’t ask questions like that….”

  It was the one and only question for Mandine. We were headed toward the Rhonelle Gardens.

  “We’ll think of her as we walk,” said my grandmother, who, being late, had put her hat on crooked, an old nest of shining straw.

  I held the basket. She carried my school bag under her arm.

  Translated by Naomi Holoch

  Anchee Min

  Anchee Min’s Red Azalea (1994) is a unique exploration of homoerotic relationships between women in modern-day China. Born in Shanghai in 1957, Min was sent to a labor collective, where she was discovered by talent scouts and recruited to work as a movie actress at the Shanghai film studio. She came to the United States in 1984 with the help of the actress Joan Chen. Min’s writing is not only an historical breakthrough but a powerful testimony to the complex confluence of desire, culture, and history. Written in an often stark, always compelling language, the novel tells the story of a young woman sent from Shanghai to work on a near-barren farm during the turbulent Cultural Revolution. Amid the paranoia, Red Guards, mandates, and misinformation of the time, the narrator finds herself drawn to her female commander.