The Vintage Book of International Lesbian Fiction

by Naomi Holoch

  There now I’ve done it, gone and made a mistake, made me hand shake even after all this time and there’s one’ll have to go in the can unless I can rub it down a little on the other edge to even it up. Funny how you can bring it all back and what happened, nothing really, just what’s normal for kids that age but it wasn’t normal for me and I sat on my bed and cried when I got in, rubbing me mouth with me hanky till it was sore, half afraid I’d get a dose or something just from a kiss. Silly little bitch I was then. That’s better. The numbers are coming up right now. Slip it in with the rest and no one’ll know the difference. Now you try to keep your mind on your work my girl stead of rambling on through what’s over and done with and no good crying over unspilt milk. If that was what you wanted you could have had it, still could now come to that so where’s the need to get so worked up. Funny how you can get excited just thinking about sex, any sort of sex, but when it comes to the pushover then something doesn’t click as it should and stead of going all weak at the knees you feel sick, sick as a dog right down through you, a real griping gutsache if it’s a man. A woman’s different though. That Matt now that time in them leather pants with that little purse slung from her belt in front. When we danced and she held me I could feel it hard pressing and the leather like another skin and I could have, right there on the floor I could have, if she’d asked me. And she knew it too. Don’t tell me she didn’t know and strong that one, all butch not like some of these half-time change ends and wanting you to kiss their fanny and things no real butch should want a girl to do. And that’s another thing I like about my Jonnie. When she wants you it’s a woman she wants not a little boy; playing winkles together in the boys’ lavatories and all the girls giggling round the door. “I’m telling sir of you.” “Go on, only jealous cos you haven’t got one.”….

  Oh the time drags; think it was running backward when you weren’t looking. Seems like hours gone and gawd the morning’s hardly under way yet. They’ll be swinging down the rise now to the market. Not too many yet, just enough to make a bustle and give you a feeling of, oh I don’t know, what would you call it? A sort of excitement as if you was all going to a big party. I miss my Saturday morning. If it wasn’t that we need the extra, that you got to take every chance when it’s offered cos what they pay you come the end of a normal week ent enough to keep little Mitzi in biscuits hardly, let alone pay for Jonnie’s new suit and paper and paint for doing up the sitting room. Then there’s the holidays coming along and nothing in the kitty for that. No holiday at all last year just kept on from day to day cos we wanted to move so bad from that basement with the walls all running water and all the work she put into it, those hours every evening when she come in just so much you might as well have gone out in the gutter and poured down the drain. It wearies her I know it does, not so much the actual work but the coming to nothing and the starting all over again.

  Going shopping now, that’s what I’d be doing with a pocket full of money and Jonnie egging me on. “Go on, get it if you want it.” And then back home with the bags stuffed to bursting and we’d stand emptying it all out on the kitchen table and gloating over what we’ve bought. Oh I’m an extravagant bitch I know but it does you good a treat of a weekend and I love looking in all the windows like when we was kids me and Georgie only we couldn’t buy then. Wonder how he’s getting on and who his latest affair is. They’re not like us though the boys, don’t seem to stick for long most of them though when I get down the House sometimes and you don’t know who’s going with who this week cos you missed a couple of Saturdays I start to wonder about us and how long we can last. Four years this June which is pretty good going. And think I might never have got started if I hadn’t decided to leave home and take that job at that holiday camp in St. Brigid’s Bay. Still, as I said to Matt, if it’s in you it’s got to come out and if it isn’t it won’t. Look how I fought it for months, saying to Larry, “I’m not like that, no I’m not,” but even with him and I was fonder of him than anyone I was trembling before we even got to his bedroom door. And then he just turned and said he couldn’t. Couldn’t force me he meant cos he was fond of me too.

  All because of them two I saw in the pictures, never forget it.

  Give me their tickets she did and as I was showing them down the center gangway with me little torch she asked if they could sit in the back row. That was it; asked if they could sit in the back row so I found them a couple of seats. Then I’m swinging me torchlight along a bit later to see if there’s any seats going spare and I catch them in it for a second and I see they’re holding hands. I can see it now; their two hands joined and I flicked the torch off them quick and leant against the wall at the back shaking and ill with shock I suppose. I felt I couldn’t go past them again I was so frightened. I opened the door and went out into the light. Just stood there a minute taking deep breaths when up come the manager and asked me if I was alright. It all come out in a rush, always does with me, just like me dad. He laughed. “So what. They won’t hurt you. Just a couple of leses.” And it hit me he was using the same word the kids had shouted after me at school. Was that what it meant? No not me. I wasn’t like that. Yeah that was it and how I come to ask Larry. I have to laugh when I think of it now….

  The next evening I’m there on time and she doesn’t come. It’s raining and wind that blows through you like a knife. I walk up and down to try and keep from freezing to death and I’m just giving her up and deciding it’s a damn good job I haven’t built nothing on it and how they’re all the same people not to be trusted when I see her hurrying along toward me and I’m so glad to be getting out of that perishing street that I hardly bother with what she’s saying about how come she’s so late. We go in and she’s not like some she lets you watch the picture and she never makes a move to hold your hand even. I like her better for that cos she’s treating me as a human being with feelings not just a lump of meat in the butcher’s window, something to be gobbled up to satisfy your appetite. When the pictures come out we go to a coffee bar and have coffee and them Danish pastries cos she says I look half starved. I tell her about losing me job and having to get out of me room and how I’ve got this job but the money isn’t brilliant and I’m trying to get enough together for a week’s rent in advance before I look for a place of me own. Then there’s a misunderstanding cos she thinks I’ve been living with this butch and I’m just looking for out so I have to tell her all about that night and she goes very quiet so I’m frightened she thinks I’m just a tart and she won’t have no more to do with me but it seems she’s only picking her words careful. “You can’t stay there,” she says. “You can come and stay with me for a bit if you like. No strings attached and I won’t lay a finger on you till you really want me to. That’s a promise and I don’t break my word.” I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her all dark and serious sitting there opposite me and I thought I’ll risk it cos I can’t be much worse off. “I’ll go back and get me things,” I said and she said she’d come too and wait for me outside because she didn’t want to see that other one for fear she might get wild knowing what she’d done to me and she’d learnt one or two tricks in the army that could hurt so it wasn’t worth the risk.

  She didn’t want me to go the other one when I got inside and she said again she was sorry and couldn’t we give it another try. I said there never had been nothing so how could we give it another try. I put me few clothes back in me case and away we went. I never speak when I see her down the House cos I know Jon’d go wild. It wasn’t a bad room with a bed and a couch and she slept on the couch so it was just like she’d said. I kept it up for a fortnight and every day I loved her more and I wanted her to want me till I couldn’t stand it no longer and thought if she didn’t I’d have to go cos it was making me ill. At last she come back from the House one night when I’d been egging her on to get us quite a few drinks to screw me courage up and when it’s time for bed I say, “You can come in here if you want.” “You sure?” she says. “Oh yes, I’m sure,�
�� and I put the light out quick and lie there waiting me heart going crazy till I think I’ll choke and I feel her get in beside me and then I put me arms round her and …

  God make it soon. God let it be alright. Not too late. Don’t let there be anyone else. Never too late to mend, mum’d say. All his fault the old bastard, never give any of us a chance, but mine too for not knowing when I’m well off. How could she go with a woman like that after the things she’s told me, things it makes you sick to think about, my Jonnie? Swears she never had her but how could she be in the room while she was doing all them things for them men all standing round watching and afterward not do nothing? But I mustn’t say it, must keep me big trap shut or we’ll be rowing and the evening spoilt since she won’t hear a word against her as if she was the bloody queen or Lady Muck herself. Gawd help me to keep me mouth to meself and hang on to what I’ve got with both hands till I know I been crossed, hear it from her own lips. Move round the hands of the damn clock the last five minutes. Some of ‘em sitting back already, packing it in. Poor old Edna looks as white as a ghost. Be lucky to see her in on Monday morning. Well that’s one thing we’re spared, and all this about what’ll happen when you’re old and alone, I don’t reckon we’re any worse off than anyone else. I mean how much will her kids care for her then? Besides who makes their life as if they was laying up for their old age? It’s enough just trying to get by from day to day for most of these so where’s the difference? See you soon, Jonnie, meet you outside and we’ll walk to the bus stop together. Can you hear me Jon? Soon be home with Mitzi jumping all over you, glad to see us back. And I’ll try, I will try to keep me and the place looking decent so you need never be ashamed of us, never let you down. She lifted her head up then just as if she could hear. Laying her things neat like she always does. Nearly time. Wonder what’s on this afternoon while we’re having our dinner. Nothing but sport I suppose. A lot of silly schoolboys chasing a ball about. It’s films I like best. Old films though all them lovely women do spoil you for yourself. Have to find something to cheer meself up after sitting here all morning. Maybe there’ll be something later while we’re getting ready to go out before Rick comes with the car. Unless there’s anything more interesting going on. But I won’t think about that, won’t bank on it and then I can’t be disappointed. Hallo Nan’s had enough, jacking it in, first on her feet. Now the others all following suit, all standing up, pushing their chairs under the benches, stretching, the tongues unloosed starting to wag. Who’s for home then eh? Open the cage man, we’re coming out.

  Jeanne d’Arc Jutras

  In Georgie (1978), the French-Canadian author Jeanne d’Arc Jutras depicts the dramas of daily life when material survival is both difficult and monotonous. Jutras, who died in 1993, was a working-class Quebecois lesbian writer—author of three novels—whose work is known for its originality and directness. As is evidenced in Georgie, Jutras focused on those women marginalized not only by their sexuality but by their place in society. In her writing, Jutras showed particular concern with the interplay of violence and tenderness in the lives of women “on the edge.”

  from GEORGIE

  I insert the key into the cash register. The drawer opens. I break open the rolls of coins and let them fall into their respective compartments. I let out a long sigh. A busy day is ahead because of all the sales. My headache is still there; I rub my hands over my eyes. In spite of a strong, cold shower, I can feel myself getting older. Too much older. I realize that I can’t always keep up the pace. At times, it’s really too fast, swallowing up energy that I don’t always have in reserve. There’s a time for screwing like rabbits. The day hasn’t even begun and I already want it to be over. As I break open the rolls of coins, my mind stays hooked on last night’s adventure….

  Longing for love, swept up in a violent fit of discouragement, I had headed out looking for someone. It was still pretty early when I went into the bar Au Champ de Velours. There was a small blond woman sitting near the piano. She looked vaguely familiar. I waved. She answered with a smile. The jukebox exploded with a new song. I took a chance and went over to ask her to dance. The dance over, she agreed to go back to my table with me.

  At first, I found her kind of colorless. After a few drinks, she was less and less colorless, more and more to my taste. Once again, I signaled to the waiter. Looking into the blonde’s eyes, I asked if her name was Brigitte Bardot. She leaned toward me and confessed that, just between the two of us, it was. I congratulated myself. What an extraordinary meeting! I never would have believed that luck would shine on me to such an extent.

  I invited her home. After some hesitation, Brigitte accepted.

  Euphoric, we leave the bar arm in arm, promising ourselves the delights of Seventh Heaven. In the cab, Brigitte, also hungry for love, leans her head on my shoulder. I kiss her. The driver, all eyes, adjusts his mirror, blows his nose, and turns the radio up louder. Frank Sinatra is singing “Strangers in the Night.”

  But this morning, I’m sober. So is she. Geez, she’s sure no Brigitte Bardot! Politely, we promised to see each other again. I took a Bromo Seltzer to calm the butterflies doing acrobatics in my stomach along with a couple of aspirins to give the thoughts in my head—which was about to explode—a chance to line up. The little blonde got dressed after a quick morning pick-me-up. She left regretfully. Her lover works nights. She has to be home when he gets in to cook his bacon and eggs. Her darling boyfriend certainly doesn’t know about her little love games. I’m convinced that if he caught the beautiful Brigitte at it, she’d have some serious financial problems, not to mention a possible solid beating. It’s no joke to play hide-and-seek.

  I remember the story of Claudia, who made a cuckold of a well-known lawyer from Montreal. The lawyer went hunting for his wife. He found her in Claudia’s arms, on the seventh floor of the Château Champlain. Jealous and furious, he made a terrible scene. How dare you do this to me! The lawyer tried to bury the whole business—along with his wife—not wanting to appear the fool.

  Claudia doesn’t work, her exceptional talents in bed free her from it. Claudia is “in-love available,” like thousands of others throughout the world. I am more and more surprised and delighted by the number of women who look for lesbian love.

  There are young women who want to be initiated and try for a first experience with an experienced and tender lesbian, others who swing on the side, those who dream, who go to movies, read magazines, newspapers, answer personals, eye the neighbor, the sister-in-law, the cousin, the mothers of their friends, trip out on women stars; others who, at least once in their lives, dare to sleep in the arms of another woman and find themselves confronting the confusion of the male/female choice.

  Knocked around by life, fashioned like the hammer shapes a nail on the anvil … All those years of personal struggle. Guts mixed with aggression. My savage desire to live free, my desire for independence … Discriminated against as a woman, colonized, labeled in every possible way as a lesbian … Always rules, definitions, social classes, ranks … To be a woman, what does it mean? To live one’s life just surviving? And for a lesbian, what does living mean?

  To refuse shackles in theory is easy. But in practice?

  To live, maybe that will be the day when the pain will stop in the pit of my stomach, when I’ll give up getting drunk the days that I’m at the end of my rope. Maybe that will be the day that people stop giving me icy stares. To live is maybe when people give us a look that’s just a look, a look of understanding, a look of love…. Oh yes, the look of love! Maybe that’s what it will be like to live, or something like that. But when? In what era? I wonder. From tolerance to acceptance, there is deliverance and liberation.

  The thoughts spin in my head while I stare at the coins. Already, a client is in front of me. A steady customer. He’s a shriveled old guy who has laid claims on me. He has adopted my cash register. Hands shaking, he pulls a bottle of mineral water out of his cart, a small package of soda crackers, two cans of chicken
noodle soup, three packages of cherry-flavored Jell-O, and a small bottle of Sanka, along with his Playboy and Penthouse. This afternoon, he’ll come back to buy two or three things. He’ll say to me, with his vocal cords stiffened by trembling sexual obsessions, devouring my breasts with his little squinting eyes,

  “You sure got beautiful peepers, Georgie!”

  I’m fuming, fighting my daily dose of nausea, feeling myself turned into an object. I stab hard at the button that lets the conveyer belt roll. The old guy’s items wobble along. One day, though … Yes, one of these days, I’ll lose my patience. I’m disgusted watching him lick his chops. In the meantime, I keep punching in the price of each article. I know what he’ll do when he pays: he always tries to squeeze my hand. He’ll do the same thing when I give him his change. A round-trip ticket. A drooling old geezer, as Thérèse would say.

  Translated by Naomi Holoch

  Suzana Tratnik

  “Under the Ironwood Trees,” by the Slovenian writer and lesbian-rights pioneer Suzana Tratnik, is a contemporary prose poem that uses a dark, feverish language to express a time of loss. Marked by severe images of disintegration, Tratnik’s story creates a Gothic atmosphere to depict the narrator’s rendezvous with a long-dead lover. In the context of a wartorn region, these images take on new levels of meaning. Tratnik, a writer and sociologist, was born in the small Slovenian town of Murska Sobota in 1963 but now lives in the much larger Ljubljana, a center of feminist and gay organizing. Since 1984, Tratnik has been the most outspoken lesbian voice in her country.

  UNDER THE IRONWOOD TREES

  I still remember how it once was, dancing under the iron-wood trees. Magical, with you. Now I walk alone into the steely silence of the cemetery. In the darkness I grope for the door hidden in the tall grass and then … No, I can’t forget so easily! Three more steps to the left, when the cemetery gate has squeaked three times, and then straight forward till the patch of violets. The smell is heavy, of you. Then four steps to the left and four steps back. I turn around on my heel and now feel the hard edge of the grave marker at my right foot. I walk onto the grave and jump up onto the highest marble column. This is the tradition: whoever, in the third new moon of the year, with breath held, jumps upright onto the highest column will sink into the new moon and look down from afar on the radiant woods. Thus I sink in timeless time into the black new moon, in which the living are blinded and the dead can hear the salt of their tears.