622
PARTISAN REVIEW
It used to be that men fought in wars against other men. The stronger
was victorious. In this war women don't stand facing each other, because
they don't know about each other, and yet it is perhaps the last human bat–
tle on earth. Femininity will triumph as the last remaining truth.
"She'll get an incurable disease," I said. "She already has it, but she
doesn't know it."
"She had an operation," said Gabina. "He moved in with n1.e and said
that he'd decided. He had left his wife and was going to stay with me. I
was happier than I'd ever been in my life. We were both happy. When they
let her out of the hospital he packed his bags and left. I thought I wouldn't
survive it. I called to get him to explain and he told me that I had the
wrong number to get rid of me. Can you imagine? What would you do in
my place?"
Gabina burst into tears again. Crying, her face changed into some
prematurely-aged organ that shouldn't be displayed. It seemed very wrong
to me. Fanda should be the one to die. I stood up and picked up the cup.
Slowly I walked with it into the kitchen and rinsed it out wi th water. I
had an ugly feeling that I had once again toyed with fate. Why didn't God
just create one-sexed creatures who procreate by dividing in half?
"We'll all get there one way or another," Sonya sang. "Some sooner
and some later. ..."
"Love and death are mysteriously connected. And yet people still want
to love."
"It's a pain living with men," said Jana. "I've already lived with so
many, but I always realize eventually that I'm better off alone. I've got
everything at home neat and orderly, and I know where things are. A man
makes a tool shed out of your house."
She's very mousy, it occurred to me. Gray and worn out. Perhaps she
is constantly making greater and greater concessions and always getting
less. Maybe she is already not giving herself fully. She satisfies herself wi th
less and disappoints even herself. Again I submerge in the depths of the
green pond. I have weeds instead of hair and my hands and feet are grow–
ing webs. I'm a frog, sitting over a spring. I would like to turn into a tree.
I would stand by a path in a field somewhere near Vysocina . Another tree
would stand next to me and our crowns would intertwine. The same
wind would blow our leaves. And all around us would be a landscape
empty of humans, interwoven with paths and bordered with thyme and
juni per.
"You're married," said Jana, who had in the meantime taken up my
coffee cup. "You've been married a long time and your husband has fallen
in love wi th someone else."
I assented, my chest contracting as if I was actually surprised by this.
