The Female Man

The baby rooms are full of people reading, painting, singing, as much as they can, to the children, with the children, over the children… Like the ancient Chinese custom of the three-years' mourning, an hiatus at just the right time.

There has been no leisure at all before and there will be so little after- anything I do, you understand, I mean really do-I must ground thoroughly in those five years. One works with feverish haste… At sixty I will get a sedentary job and have some time for myself again.

COMMENTATOR: And this is considered enough, in Whileaway?

JE: My God, no.

X

Jeannine dawdles. She always hates to get out of bed. She would lie on her side and look at the ailanthus tree until her back began to ache; then she would turn over, hidden in the veils of the leaves, and fall asleep. Tag-ends of dreams till she lay in bed like a puddle and the cat would climb over her. On workdays Jeannine got up early in a kind of waking nightmare: feeling horrid, stumbling to the hall bathroom with sleep all over her. Coffee made her sick. She couldn't sit in the armchair, or drop her slippers, or bend, or lean, or lie down. Mr.

Frosty, perambulating on the window sill, walked back and forth in front of the ailanthus tree: Tiger on Frond. The museum. The zoo. The bus to Chinatown.

Jeannine sank into the tree gracefully, like a mermaid, bearing with her a tea-cosy to give to the young man who had a huge muffin trembling over his collar where his face ought to have been. Trembling with emotion.

The cat spoke.

She jerked awake. I'll feed you, Mr. Frosty.

Mrrrr.

Cal couldn't afford to take her anywhere, really. She had been traveling on the public buses so long that she knew all the routes. Yawning horribly, she ran the water into Mr. Frosty's cat food and put the dish on the floor. He ate in a dignified way; she remembered how when she had taken him to her brother's, they had fed him a real raw fish, just caught in the pond by one of the boys, and how Mr. Frosty had pounced on it, bolting it, he was so eager. They really do like fish. Now he played with the saucer, batting it from side to side, even though he was grown up. Cats were really much happier after you… after you… (she yawned) Oh, it was Chinese Festival Day.

If I had the money, if I could get my hair done…He comes into the library; he's a college professor; no, he's a playboy. "Who's that girl?" Talks to Mrs.

Allison, slyly flattering her. "This is Jeannine." She casts her eyes down, rich in feminine power. Had my nails done today. And these are good clothes, they have taste, my own individuality, my beauty. "There's something about her," he says. "Will you go out with me?" Later on the roof garden, drinking champagne, "Jeannine, will you-"

Mr. Frosty, unsatisfied and jealous, puts his claw into her leg. "All right!" she says, choking on the sound of her own voice. Get dressed quick.

I do (thought Jeannine, looking in the precious full-length mirror inexplicably left by the previous tenant on the back of the closet door) I do look a little bit like…if I tilt my face. Oh! Cal will be SO-MAD-and flying back to the bed, she strips off her pajamas and snatches at the underwear she always leaves out on the bureau the night before. Jeannine the Water Nymph. I dreamed about a young man somewhere. She doesn't quite believe in cards or omens, that's totally idiotic, but sometimes she giggles and thinks it would be nice. I have big eyes.

You are going to meet a tall, dark-Placing Mr. Frosty firmly on the bed, she pulls on her sweater and skirt, then brushes her hair, counting strokes under her breath. Her coat is so old. Just a little bit of make-up, lip pomade and powder. (She forgot again and got powder on her coat.) If she got out early, she wouldn't have to meet Cal in the room; he would play with the cat (down on his hands and knees) and then want to Make Love; this way's better. The bus to Chinatown. She stumbled down the stairs in her haste, catching at the banister.

Little Miss Spry, the old lady on the bottom floor, opened her door just in time to catch Miss Dadier flying through the hall. Jeannine saw a small, wrinkled, worried, old face, wispy white hair, and a body like a flour sack done up in a black shapeless dress. One spotted, veined hand round the edge of the door.

"How do, Jeannine. Going out?"

Doubling up in a fit of hysterics, Miss Dadier escaped. Ooh! To look like that!

There was Cal, passing the bus station.

XI

Etsuko Belin, stretched cruciform on a glider, shifted her weight and went into a slow turn, seeing fifteen hundred feet below her the rising sun of Whileaway reflected in the glacial-scaur lakes of Mount Strom. She flipped the glider over, and sailing on her back, passed a hawk.

XII