Women's Barracks

by Tereska Torres

  We had known so little of these matters when we came to the barracks, and now we were able to distinguish between the various grades. Through Ann, I realized that Claude made love with women not because of an absolute physical necessity, but through snobbism, and in order to excite her masculine lovers. She also felt that she was revenging herself on them, through feeling that she was just as strong as they in winning women. Several times in her life she had found men unfaithful to her. As soon as she discovered herself in such a situation, Claude sought out her rival and appropriated the girl. It was then she who became the lover, the taker. This was her strength, in the face of men.

  Moreover, she was fond of her role as a dangerous woman. Love-making with women, opium-smoking, group love-making—all this was part of her role. She had learned to be a Lesbian, just as she had learned to smoke opium. For her it was the same sort of excitement. Claude had never suffered from this condition as Ann and Petit had suffered. She was married, she had numerous lovers, and she could have lived a normal life as wife and mother if she chose. As for the rest, it was nothing but a game that satisfied her vanity and provided her with amusement. She played being the man. The women of her circle, before the war, all played at that game. And the men of their acquaintance took them seriously, being unable to perceive that it was only a game. The men believed that they were making love with real Lesbians, and felt flattered and proud. What a man I am! they would think. I can even arouse a Lesbian! In the great comedy of love, in which everybody lied, this was only one more lie.

  But to Ann, the love of women was no game. Ann had memories of her solitary childhood, when she had continually been reprimanded for not conducting herself like a good little girl who plays with her dolls. She remembered when all of her girlhood friends started going out with boys, and her own shame at being always alone with nothing but a secret love for her teachers, or for her mother's women friends.

  One summer she had visited Sweden, and there she had met a woman for whom she had felt an instant adoration. Soon enough the woman had called Ann into her room and explained certain things that Ann had not yet known about herself. She had listened in fear, and yet with a terrible joy. For at last she knew that she was not alone, and that there was a way in which she too could love. The woman had become her mistress and her lover. It was an exhausting love, compounded of jealousies, of quarrels, of petty intrigue, but nevertheless it brought her the possibility of loving someone.

  Ann was then seventeen. She had her hair cut, and looked absolutely like a boy. She had never experienced any desire for a man. For her, men were good comrades; she felt herself their equal. She was never in need of their help or of their presence.

  Since that time, Ann had come to know well the contempt, the closing doors, and the hardening faces of respectable people. But most intensely she had known that exhausting love which dies of its own sterility between brief flashes of passion. It was a love that circled on itself, like a cat chasing its own tail. But that was how she was made. And Petit also. And the childhood of Petit had been the same. And the youth of all these women had been the same, and no one could ever change things for them.

  At Down Street there was never any question of a true Lesbian pursuing a normal woman. Normal women were rarely interested in the real Lesbians. Claude could play at such games, for the subject of her attachment was of little interest to her. It was not the woman that she desired, but her own self-excitement; or, as in the case of Ursula, it was the child that she desired.

  Ann and Petit enjoyed passing an occasional evening with Claude, for at least with her everything was clear. They could be their own selves, without having to hide anything. Claude served as a bridge between the Lesbians and the other women. Only by this bridge could the Lesbians approach other women, and in this way come to feel themselves less isolated in the world.

  There were several other Lesbians in Down Street. In their group, every slightest incident became exaggerated into immense proportions, and there were the most violent discussions of the smallest bits of gossip, the mildest adventure. The taste for intrigue was the one feminine trait that seemed to remain with them, and it was developed to the maximum.

  There were also Lesbians from outside, Englishwomen, ambulance drivers, women from the ARP and ATS, who came to visit the bar that had been set up in the main assembly room of our barracks.

  The rest of the girls, the "real" girls, dancing to the eternal "Violetta" in the arms of sailors or soldiers from the Free French Forces, laughed among themselves as they watched the Lesbians.

  It was at the bar that Ann met Lee. We all saw this happen. A tall Englishwoman, thin, long-limbed, with a very pale unreal white face and yellow catlike eyes, she had the air of a young Oxford student. Lee belonged to an aristocratic Scottish family. She was working as an ambulance driver. She had come to Down Street that evening wearing navy-blue trousers; her short hair glistened; her long hands trembled a little as she raised one glass of whisky after another. Ann, too, was standing at the bar, and it was plain to us all that she was intensely attracted to the Englishwoman.

  Chapter 16

  My long talk with Ann on the night of the fire of London had given me a deeper insight into the behavior of my comrades—of Claude and Mickey as well as of Ann herself.

  There were many ways in which Mickey resembled Claude. She, too, liked to play the dangerous woman. But while Claude knew exactly when she was doing good or evil, and while she called her actions by their right names, Mickey didn't have the least moral sense. It had little to do with her youthfulness; she simply knew no wrong. Occasionally she liked to offer some of the girls what seemed to her to be serious advice and moral counsel. She would rattle off any number of catch phrases, platitudes, and it could be seen that they had no significance whatever to her, and that she never related these precepts to her own behavior. In her own life, Mickey was always carefree and gay. She was not a very demanding girl and life was easy for her. She liked novelty, adventure, and a little danger. If she burned herself, she cried for a few minutes and then began again. Moreover, she was quite practical and realistic and didn't get mixed up in things for the sake of ideas.

  She was immensely taken with Claude, for in her eyes Claude represented the ideal woman. She wished she could be like Claude.

  Before long Mickey was chattering to us about her unfaithfulness to Robert, and for a time she made love haphazardly with one man or another. Each time she wanted to feel more and more ravished, and so she would come back and tell us that her new lover was "handsome as a god!" She was learning the technique of love, like a dutiful student. Presently she began to report to us that men were telling her she was an excellent mistress, and in the end Mickey even believed that she was happy.

  Claude and Mickey made an excellent pair, and went out a good deal together. Claude began to see less of Ursula. She sensed that Ursula was not really made for Lesbianism, and even felt a little guilty about having started the girl toward perversion. Lately, when Ursula had come to her, this feeling of guilt toward the girl had made Claude ill-tempered and petulant. Often she had sent the child away. Ursula would suffer, without understanding these changes of mood in the woman she adored. But with Mickey, things were easier for Claude; with Mickey she had no feelings of guilt. Mickey was made of the same stuff as she was, and so Claude got into the habit of taking Mickey along on her dates. The blonde and blue-eyed youthfulness of Mickey contrasted attractively with Claude's air of the mature femme fatale. Mickey was amusing, very gay, and universally pleasing.

  One day, when Claude was drunk, she made a little game of kissing Mickey on the mouth in front of her current lover, and from Claude's mouth Mickey passed to the mouth of the lover.

  That evening Mickey described her afternoon to me. Ursula was sitting on her cot, in her pajamas, and Mickey somehow included her, though not speaking directly to her.

  Mickey had gone with Claude to visit a colonel whom Claude had met at the house of some friends, a
nd who had invited her to come to his place for a drink. Mickey, as a second-class private, had felt flattered and impressed at going along to the house of a real ranking officer.

  After a few whiskies, Claude began to undress. Her eyes grew quite small, as always when she was drunk. The colonel was what is known as a fine specimen of a man, according to Mickey's description: about forty, graying elegantly, fairly large and tall. He was a good officer and probably a good family man. But his family was in France, and there was no end to his exile. Besides, here was a woman undressing in front of him without even having to be asked. He studied her, nude. Claude was very beautiful. She was rather large, with fully rounded muscular shoulders and magnificent breasts, round and firm. Her skin was soft as though polished by years of caresses. She had a hard belly and a long back. Only her legs were a little short, but altogether, for a woman of forty, she was extraordinary. Seeing Claude nude, Mickey said she considered that she ought to keep her company, and began to undress in her turn. The colonel kept on only a funny little undershirt that reached to his thighs. One could sense that actually he was a little shocked by Mickey's youthfulness, for, as he told them, he had a daughter of Mickey's age. But Claude gave him no time for recollections.

  A brief spring sunlight came through the windows. Mickey remembered a photograph of a woman, smiling in a frame. A man's glove lay open-handed on the floor.

  In spite of everything, it was Claude whom the colonel preferred. Mickey probably reminded him too much of his daughter.

  But, "He's handsome as a god!" Mickey declared. "He makes love marvelously. It was very amusing."

  Ursula had listened without saying a word, sitting there with her bare feet swinging a little above the floor. She lowered her head, watching her feet so that we might not see anything in her eyes. But one could see into her heart. Ursula was pained, unable to accept this abandonment.

  Ginette recounted the tale of her latest love, a Canadian. Two women whispered together, laughing. From the hall below came the sound of the record that was most often played after "Violetta," "Mon coeur a besoin d'aimer." Ursula too went to bed. She buried her head in her pillow. Her heart beat fast. She told herself: She just used me for amusement. And all at once she recalled the black eyes, the melancholy eyes of Michel, and the thought came to her that Michel would never have made use of her. But he had left, gone out of her life. She herself had driven him away. A longing rose in her for the calm voice of a man, and for the security that a woman feels because of a man's being in love with her—a man like Michel. Until now she had been a little girl all alone. But after her experience with Claude, Ursula had come to know the need of another being. She no longer knew how to be alone; she was afraid to be alone. And yet she was not resentful of Mickey. It was not in her nature to be resentful, and she liked Mickey very much.

  The idea of evil arose in Ursula's mind. No one had ever taught her what was right. Whatever morality she possessed was instinctive. When she felt happy, she had told me once, it seemed to her that her actions were good, and when she felt unhappy, she thought of evil. And it seemed to her that the fear and the sense of solitude and the suffering within her were the result of evil. She did not know how to cry. Her tears never emerged, but seemed to remain at the bottom of her throat. Once again Ursula felt herself crushed by this world of grown-up people who took little girls and covered them with lies that were disguised as shining words, and then discarded them. She felt no resentment against either Claude or Mickey. She resented only the gestures, the false gestures that were made in the name of love, and that were used by grown-up people in life as in a play. Every gesture she had made had been pure, but now her own actions were tarnished, because all that people did was tarnished.

  Chapter 17

  The following evening we had gas-mask practice. We were all assembled in the dining room, and there was a great deal of whispering and laughing and nudging back and forth while a handsome officer, young and blond, solemnly explained how to make use of a gas mask, as though we had never been told before.

  Each of us had to put on her mask and keep it on for half an hour. There were two hundred women in the large hall, and we might have been taken for a school of monsters from beneath the sea. The rubber tubes slanted comically in all directions. We talked to each other with our hands. Inside the masks, we felt hot, and a fine haze covered the glass panes.

  Claude was sitting next to Mickey. It was one of her days of remorse in regard to Ursula. She had again decided not to have any more to do with the girl, and she had not even looked at her all through the evening.

  Behind the little window of her mask, Ursula saw Claude and Mickey, pressed one against the other on a single chair. Their rubber tubes kept bumping, their masks had an air of laughter. Claude's arm was around Mickey to keep her from falling off the chair.

  Ursula was sitting behind them, and it seemed to her that she was entirely enclosed and locked in a huge grotesque mask that isolated her from the rest of the world. She didn't know what to do, but she had to do something. She couldn't remain abandoned like this. She was too miserable. And then all at once, as she afterward confessed to me, Ursula had the idea of pretending to lose consciousness. If she fainted, the way Jacqueline used to faint, then Claude would be forced to notice her, to run to her, to pay attention to her. At the thought of such an action, she blushed in her mask. What if everybody understood that it was a fraud? What if everybody made fun of her? Worst of all, what if Claude didn't even come to her?

  It doesn't matter, she told herself. I have to try. And overcoming all of her inner resistance, Ursula suddenly caused herself to slip from the bench to the floor. There was a turmoil around her. All the masks pressed against her, pulling and pushing at her. Petit roared in her commanding voice, "Quiet! Return to your places!" Ann had removed her own mask and was pushing away all the women who were crushing Ursula. Finally Petit leaned over and undid her mask.

  Ursula immediately opened her eyes. Ann held Ursula's head in her lap and said, "It's nothing, baby. You were too hot, that's all. There, it's all over."

  And Claude, Claude was there, her anxious face bent over her. It was marvelous. It had succeeded after all. Claude was there.

  We helped Ursula upstairs to the dormitory. She lay down on her bed. Claude followed us and sat down by Ursula, calling her Ursulita and stroking her forehead. Ursula looked at her without saying anything. She felt tranquil, almost happy, but with a tiny point of contempt for Claude within her happiness. For it had been necessary to deceive her, and Claude had let herself be taken in the trap.

  But at least Claude was paying attention to her. Ursula sighed and closed her eyes. For the first time in her life, she felt as though she had accomplished a grown-up action.

  Nevertheless, this brought only a short respite. Several times Claude took Ursula out with her in the evening, but Ursula felt lost in the night clubs. Unlike Mickey, she didn't explode into laughter over the jokes of Claude's friends. She was not talkative. She didn't know how to drink. Men found her nice but dull. They rarely found her pretty. Her pale little face with its huge brown eyes had a sort of style, it is true. But in those years in London, what men wanted of women was to make them forget the war, forget their problems and their nostalgia, and Ursula, without wishing to, reminded them of all those things. They much preferred Mickey.

  And for Ursula, these excursions were a torture. One evening, in a bar near Grosvenor Street, when a drunken soldier seized her in his arms and tried to kiss her, she let out a cry of terror that brought laughter to the entire club.

  Summer had come, another rainy London summer. The only hope for breaking the tension and the monotony was to go on leave. But where? Some of the girls went as guests of English families. Ursula dreaded going to stay with strangers. And Claude was becoming more and more nervous. Claude had spells of violent rage for no reason at all. In the switchboard room the atmosphere was always tense and stormy. She swore at the other women. One day, in the middle
of the dining room, Claude started an argument with Ginette and called her a slut. Ginette slapped Claude's face.

  Every day Ursula told me that she was going to ask for her eight-day leave, and every day she held back, hoping there would be a change in Claude.

  One evening it seemed to Ursula that the change had arrived, and that everything would be again as it had been. And as always, it was not because of a sexual need in Ursula for Claude; it was simply a thirst for tenderness, in which the sexual aspect was only incidental.

  It was a Saturday evening, and Claude was off duty. A group of us had decided to go out on a hen party, just by ourselves, to have dinner somewhere and then go to a movie. Claude had invited Mickey and Ursula to come and spend the night at her place afterward. Ursula asked for week-end leave. Claude was in excellent humor, and as always when a party was in sight, she seemed to regain her youth.

  The beginning of the evening passed well. We went to dinner at a place called Rose's, a little restaurant in Soho kept by a sort of witch—a fat Belgian woman who never served anyone she didn't like. At her place, the only dish was horse-meat steak with fried potatoes. Fifteen people at most could get into the restaurant. Most of the clientele consisted of sailors of Free France; sometimes there were a few Belgian officers, and occasionally there was a party of high society people in search of exotic atmosphere. The radio played, and people yelled and sang. On the wall there was a photograph of King Leopold, covered with grease spots. Rose served everybody herself, growling continuously. Beer had to be fetched from the pub across the street; it cost two shillings six. And the meal was finished off with a dish of apple sauce. It was always very gay there, and the food was quite good.

  Claude performed imitations and sang "Ah, que c'est done bete un homme!" and Rose's large ill-tempered face wrinkled up in a smile. When Claude was in this mood, there was no one on earth who could resist her charm. Ursula ate with great appetite, and laughed with all her soul. And Claude was full of attention for her, refilling her plate with fried potatoes, asking her opinion about everything, treating her like an intimate friend.