Sisters
(Abiko Quarterly, 1993)
Carolyn Findlay bent lower over her work. This stain here – what was it? No matter how vigorously she scrubbed, no matter how much soap she applied, it remained. It did not even fade. It seemed to mock her labors. Meanwhile, all around her in the staircase, the other women were whispering, murmuring, chortling. Now and then a burst of applause, or a cackle of approval, echoed off the walls and ceiling. If only they would shut up! Carolyn knew what they were talking about. There was, indeed, only one subject of conversation among them, ever since Susan Proctor had come up with the idea of forming a union. "Can't you see," she exhorted them, "that as individuals we're helpless but united we can shake the ground under their feet?" And all of a sudden this army of women in their blue smocks, with white kerchiefs tied around their heads – these poor wretched women who toiled from dusk to dawn with their buckets, mops and rags – were fired with a single desire: to "shake the ground under their feet."
"Look at us!" Susan cried. "Look at the way we live! On our knees for ten hours at a stretch, our noses in the dirt, while the rest of the world sleeps. Sisters! This has been happening for so long we think it's natural – but it's not natural! Are we human beings, or not? We must organize!"
"Yes, yes!" the others chorused. "Organize!"
"We'll let the world know we exist!"
"Hooray!"
"And if the world won't listen, we'll have to shout louder! And louder still! We'll shout with one voice, sisters!"
"Cackle away, cackle away," Carolyn Findlay muttered to herself angrily. "Organize! What next?"
She turned her attention to what interested her more: the dark unsightly stain on the third step between the ninth and tenth floors. How was it that her most persistent efforts were of no avail against it? Of course she was not getting any younger. Was her strength waning? The thought goaded her to more furious scrubbing. The real question was, though, what could have caused such a stain that so resisted her soap and scouring pad? What was it made of? How had it gotten here?"
"Look at her scrubbing away, ha ha!"
"Scab!"
"Doesn't care who exploits her."
"You're wrong, sister, She doesn't even understand she's being exploited."
"We must raise her consciousness."
"May as well talk of raising the dead."
Carolyn was aware of this murmuring around her, and knew it was about her, but she was not resentful. She only wished they would keep quiet, for she didn't like being distracted while she worked. She noticed, with some satisfaction, that the stain was a little fainter now. She glanced at her watch. Good heavens, it was almost three already! She must hurry. There were still the eleventh and twelfth floors to do, and with the other women preoccupied with their union business, it meant more of the burden must fall on her.
Emerging from the staircase, she used her pass key to enter the offices of Bradshaw & Bradshaw, Attorneys at Law.
So much dust everywhere! Where did it come from? It was maddening, her inability to come to any kind of conclusion. The question had haunted her for years – sometimes more insistently, sometimes less, but always to some degree. What caused it? Why did it exist in the world? She swept and swept, vacuumed and vacuumed; it seemed to be gone, but then next night, there it was again, as thick as ever. She could understand it in a factory, but these were offices, where men in business suits and women with long red nails did nothing but tap computer keys all day long.
Once she had come up with a tentative solution. It occurred to her when she noticed particles of dust dancing in a sunbeam. Dust was carried by waves of light, and thus could penetrate closed windows. In high excitement, she communicated this hypothesis to her husband, who immediately poured cold water on it.
"Don't be ridiculous. Sunlight doesn't carry dust, it only illuminates it."
"You're always saying I'm wrong," she grumbled, "but most of the time I'm proved right."
It was, of course, impossible to take the matter up with her colleagues, whose natures were such that abstract questions never entered their heads. For twenty years she had worked side by side with them without ever being one of them, and it was this – her compulsive questioning of everything in creation, and their inability or unwillingness to do so, that separated them. All they knew how to do, she thought contemptuously, was to complain and conspire. "Those crones are going to change the world. Ha!"
She stiffened – someone had touched her shoulder. Wheeling around, she found herself face to face with Susan Proctor.
Susan was some years younger than Carolyn – she was probably no more than forty. Though she was missing a front tooth, she was rather pretty. Her skin hadn't dried up, her flesh hadn't sagged, and, unlike many of the others, she was neither obese nor deformed in any way. (Carolyn herself was slightly hunchbacked.)
"I'm sorry, did I scare you?" Her voice was soft, and not unfriendly.
Carolyn regarded her warily, and said nothing.
"Let's sit down for a moment. I want to talk to you."
As though she were quite at home, she threaded her way between the desks, stepping pertly over telephone wires, computer terminal hook-ups and the like, making for the private offices at the far end of the room. Numbly, Carolyn followed. Where was she being taken? The desks were placed in such a way that there was no clear path between them, and she was continually knocking her hip against a desk corner. Once she tripped over a cable running along the floor, and almost fell flat on her face. To her astonishment, she saw Susan open the door to one of the offices, switch on the overhead light and brazenly plant herself in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk. There was a chair, slightly less imposing, on the other side of the desk, and Susan breezily waved Carolyn into it.
"We're not supposed to sit here," Carolyn mumbled under her breath, scarcely audibly.
"Why not?" Susan said gently. "We're people, aren't we? People have a right to sit wherever there are chairs."
"No." Carolyn shook her head firmly. "I'll stand."
"Suit yourself." Susan leaned forward, her elbows planted on the teak desk and her chin balanced on her knuckles. She did not speak immediately, but regarded Carolyn through narrow eyes. Carolyn stood looking down, her heart beating rapidly – not with excitement or curiosity about what Susan wanted to say to her, but because she felt so clearly that she was occupying space that was not hers to occupy, and no breach in the universal order could have struck her more forcefully. Any minute now, one of the Messrs. Bradshaw would come storming into the office – and what would she say? For though Susan was the instigator, clearly Mr. Bradshaw would turn to her, as the older woman, and it would be up to her to explain.
"Do sit down, sister," said Susan, breaking the silence at last. There was genuine sympathy in her voice. "You're tired."
"No."
"All right. Listen. Do you believe that every human being everywhere has the right to dignity, to a measure of happiness, to a share in civilization?"
It was a pointed question, and Carolyn did not shrink from it. "Of course I do!"
This visibly surprised Susan, who seemed to have expected Carolyn to stare back at her in blank incomprehension.
"I see." She paused, considering. "Well then," she went on, "why are you opposed to our forming a union?"
"I'm not opposed. You can do whatever you like."
"But you won't join us?"
"No."
"Why?"
Carolyn shrugged, and said nothing.
"You see, with a union, it has to be unanimous. If it's not unanimous, even if only one person holds out, then... it's not the same."
"I have to get back to work."
"Give it some thought, sister. Think it over. Ok?"
Carolyn's eyes blazed with hatred. Rage choked her. For a full minute she could not speak. At last she brought out in a strangled whisper, "I... am... not... your... sister!"
Susan's eyes widened. "But of course you are! We are all sisters, because we are all women, we are all human beings..."
Carolyn turned abruptly and rushed out of the office. There was a strange look in her eyes – a frantic, hunted look. She confronted once more the maze of desks and chairs, the treacherous clutter of wires and cables. She turned first one way, then another. Though she had been in this office any number of times, nothing in it looked familiar.
"Help! Help!" she cried.
Five or six of her colleagues, hearing her scream, rushed up to her, and Susan ran up from behind.
"What is it, sister? What?" they asked, very much alarmed.
"She's just tired, that's all," Susan said. "Go on home, sister, we'll manage without you for one night. Get a good rest."
They led her out of the office.
"Good night, sister."
"No, I'm all right. Where's my duster? Ah – here. So much dust! Good Lord, where does it come from?"
And ignoring the bewildered murmuring of the others, she set to work with a will.