There was an attempt at music on the first evenings—a couple of the more optimistic and energetic women styled themselves singsong leaders, and attempted versions of “We Shall Overcome” and similar archaic chestnuts recalled from vanished summer camp experiences. There were problems remembering the words, but at least it added variety.
No guards put a stop to these efforts. However, by day three the perkiness was fading and few were joining in, and there were mutterings—“Quiet, please!” “For God’s sake, shut up!”—so the Girl Scout leaders, after a few hurt protests—“I was only trying to help”—ceased and desisted.
I was not one of the singers. Why waste your energy? My mood was not melodious. It was rather one of a rat in a maze. Was there a way out? What was that way? Why was I here? Was it a test? What were they trying to find out?
Some women had nightmares, as you’d assume. They would groan and thrash about during them, or sit bolt upright with modified shouts. I’m not criticizing: I had nightmares myself. Shall I describe one for you? No, I will not. I’m fully aware of how easily one can become fatigued by other people’s nightmares, having heard a number of recitals of these by now. When push comes to shove, only one’s own nightmares are of any interest or significance.
In the mornings, wakeup was perpetrated by a siren. Those whose watches had not been taken away—watch removal had been spotty—reported that this happened at 6 a.m. Bread and water for breakfast. How superlatively good that bread tasted! Some wolfed and guzzled, but I made my portion last as long as possible. Chewing and swallowing distracts from abstract mental wheel-spinning. Also it passes the time.
Then, lineups for the foul toilets, and good luck to you if yours was clogged, since no one would come to unclog it. My theory? The guards went around at night stuffing various materials down the toilets as a further aggravation. Some of the more tidy-minded tried to clean up the washrooms, but once they saw how hopeless it was they gave up. Giving up was the new normal, and I have to say it was catching.
Did I say there was no toilet paper? What then? Use your hand, attempt to clean your sullied fingers under the dribble of water that sometimes came out of the taps and sometimes did not. I’m sure they arranged that on purpose also, to raise us up and hurl us down at random intervals. I could picture the glee on the face of whatever kitten-torturing cretin was assigned this task as he flipped the power switch on the water flow system back and forth.
We had been told not to drink the water from those taps, but some unwisely did. Retching and diarrhea followed, to contribute to the general joy.
There were no paper towels. There were no towels of any kind. We wiped our hands on our skirts, whether those hands had been washed or not.
I am sorry to dwell so much on the facilities, but you would be amazed at how important such things become—basics that you’ve taken for granted, that you’ve barely thought about until they’re removed from you. During my daydreams—and we all daydreamed, as enforced stasis with no events produces daydreams and the brain must busy itself with something—I frequently pictured a beautiful, clean, white toilet. Oh, and a sink to go with it, with an ample flow of pure clear water.
Naturally we began to stink. In addition to the ordeal by toilet, we’d been sleeping in our business attire, with no change of underwear. Some of us were past menopause, but others were not, so the smell of clotting blood was added to the sweat and tears and shit and puke. To breathe was to be nauseated.
They were reducing us to animals—to penned-up animals—to our animal nature. They were rubbing our noses in that nature. We were to consider ourselves subhuman.
The rest of each day would unfurl like a toxic flower, petal by petal, agonizingly slow. We were sometimes handcuffed again, though sometimes not, then marched out in a line and slotted into the bleachers to sit under the blazing sun, and on one occasion—blissfully—in a cool drizzle. We reeked of wet clothing that night, but less of ourselves.
Hour by hour we watched vans arrive, discharge their quota of women, depart empty. The same wailings from the new arrivals, the same barking and shouts from the guards. How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment. It’s always the same plot.
Lunch was the sandwiches again, and on one day—the drizzle day—some carrot sticks.
“Nothing like a balanced meal,” said Anita. We had contrived to sit next to each other most days, and to sleep in proximity. She had not been a personal friend before this time, merely a professional colleague, but it gave me comfort simply to be with someone I knew; someone who personified my previous achievements, my previous life. You might say we bonded.
“You were a damn fine judge,” she whispered to me on the third day.
“Thank you. So were you,” I whispered back. Were was chilling.
Of the others in our section I learned little. Their names, sometimes. The names of their firms. Some firms had specialized in domestic work—divorces, child custody, and so forth—so if women were now the enemy I could see why they might have been targeted; but being in real estate or litigation or estate law or corporate law appeared to offer no protection. All that was necessary was a law degree and a uterus: a lethal combination.
The afternoons were chosen for the executions. The same parade out to the middle of the field, with the blinded condemned ones. I noticed more details as time went on: how some could hardly walk, how some seemed barely conscious. What had been happening to them? And why had they been selected to die?
The same man in a black uniform exhorting into a microphone: God will prevail!
Then the shots, the toppling, the limp bodies. Then the cleanup. There was a truck for the corpses. Were they buried? Were they burned? Or was that too much trouble? Perhaps they were simply taken to a dumpsite and left for crows.
On the fourth day there was a variation: three of the shooters were women. They weren’t in business suits, but in long brown garments like bathrobes, with scarves tied under their chins. That got our attention.
“Monsters!” I whispered to Anita.
“How could they?” she whispered back.
On the fifth day there were six women in brown among the shooters. There was also an uproar, as one of them, instead of aiming at the blindfolded ones, pivoted and shot one of the men in black uniforms. She was immediately bludgeoned to the ground and riddled with bullets. There was a collective gasp from the bleachers.
So, I thought. That’s one way out.
During the days new women would be added to our group of lawyers and judges. It stayed the same size, however, since every night some were removed. They left singly, between two guards. We did not know where they were being taken, or why. None came back.
On the sixth night Anita was spirited away. It happened very quietly. Sometimes the targeted ones would shout and resist, but Anita did not, and I am ashamed to say that I was asleep when she was deleted. I woke up when the morning siren went off and she was simply not there.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” one kind soul whispered to me as we stood in line for the pullulating toilets.
“I’m sorry too,” I whispered back. But I was already hardening myself for what was almost surely to come. Sorry solves nothing, I told myself. Over the years—the many years—how true I have found that to be.
On the seventh night, it was me. Anita had been noiselessly abstracted—that silence had had a demoralizing effect all its own, since one could vanish, it seemed, with nobody noticing and not even a ripple of sound—but it was not intended that I should go quietly.