Nicola Griffith - Always

“Okay. Stop. Thank you. Take a moment to stretch.” More to shed the role than anything. I turned to the rest of the group. “Did you see the difference? ”

Everyone nodded. “It was creepy,” said Christie. “He—she—had a gun in his pocket.”

“Nina?”

“A knife,” she said. “Short and wicked.”

“Man, you had me convinced,” Pauletta said. “You are scary for a little round white person.”

“So,” I said. “We all knew before he even opened his mouth that it was different, that this time he was starting out serious and the first time he wasn’t. It could have become serious, but it didn’t start that way, and right at the beginning Pauletta could have stopped him without laying a finger on him.”

“No touching?” Pauletta said.

“The force is with you, Luke,” Nina said.

Everyone smiled very hard.

“You can think about it that way if you like. I see it more as taking up space. Imagine I’m the woman on the platform. I’m looking for the train. The man, the first man, enters. Now, instead of turning away, putting my hands in my pockets—which is basically taking up less space, pretending to be invisible and hoping he’ll just go away—I turn towards him, look him in the eye, and nod calmly. I’m saying, I see you, we’re alike, you and I: two people waiting for a train. Equals going about our business.”

“Yeah, but you’re six feet tall,” Kim said. Lots of nods.

“It’s not about how tall you are.”

“Right.”

“I was Atlanta PD. I’ve met carjackers and muggers and psychopaths. They all go for someone who looks like a victim: who doesn’t take up space, who apologizes, who doesn’t want to appear rude, who tries to pretend nothing’s happening. All of them go for the low-hanging fruit.”

“Fruit?” Pauletta said.

“Wait, wait.” Therese. “Clarify your statement for me, please. Are you saying we have to act the way you do, marching about like some, some…” She searched for the right word, couldn’t find it. “That we have to deny our femininity?”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Yeah,” Kim said. “Why should we have to cut our fingernails, then cut our hair even shorter?”

“No shoulds from me. Only information to help you make choices. For example, Kim, do you cut your nails and have a wider arsenal of possible responses to attack or do you choose to keep them long and either spend a bit more time learning palm strikes or accept the fact that one day something could happen where having shorter nails might have made the difference?”

“They’re my nails!”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see why I should cut them.”

“Then don’t.” I wasn’t seeing the problem.

“What about short hair, and always wearing pants?” Therese said.

“Not everyone could wear it like that,” Jennifer said, with an ingratiating smile in my direction, “but it does look super nice on you. And there’s nothing wrong with pants as a personal choice.”

They all shifted, reminded that it wasn’t nice for southern women to insult another’s appearance.

“And, hey,” Nina said, “maybe she doesn’t wear pants when she’s not in class.” She looked at Kim. “You sure stopped wearing skirts quick enough.”

“No point flashing booty just for sisters.”

“Only makes sense,” Pauletta said.

She and Kim and Nina eyed each other, then nodded, allies.

“Besides, short hair is very attractive in its own way,” Nina said, stroking her own carefully shaped grey cut.

“Totally,” Christie said. “I think about cutting mine all the time.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Tonya said. “It’s lovely. So long and straight.”

“No one has to cut their hair, no one has to wear pants, no one has to trim her nails. It is in your best interests to know what all your choices mean. Looking as if you’re afraid means you’re more likely to be attacked. Statistically.”

“Cite your sources,” Therese said.

“My own personal experience as a police officer. The Women Against Rape survey published in London in 1985. Ongoing U.S. Department of Justice statistics.” The WAR survey had held up remarkably despite the intervening twenty years and four thousand miles.

“She was a cop,” Pauletta said.

“She’s our teacher,” Jennifer said, nodding.

“Trust or don’t trust, just don’t question?” Therese put her hands on her hips.

“What is your problem?” Suze said.

“I’m curious about what she’s trying to teach us here, exactly.”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I think that’s what she’s trying to do,” I said, and gestured for Therese to go ahead.

She struggled for a moment. I could guess what her essential problem was, but it took her a while to get there. “It’s not fair.”

“No,” I said.

“We shouldn’t have to act differently, just to not be attacked in the street. It’s not fair.”

“No. But that doesn’t matter.”

She looked puzzled.

“What matters is what happens. The strong attack the weak.” I wasn’t sure how I could make it more plain. “Big countries invade little countries, the alpha hippo savages the beta hippo, the jock beats the nerd. Why? Because they can. Because they believe they don’t have a lot to lose but a great deal to gain. In economist-speak, they have strong incentives.”

Tonya looked interested. “So what we’re doing is learning to disincentivize them?”

“Yes.”

“But we shouldn’t have to,” Therese said.

“No. But shoulds and shouldn’ts don’t matter.”

The corners of Therese’s eyes and mouth pulled away from the center and her head moved back half an inch, as though someone had shoved a bucket of raw tripe in front of her and suggested she eat it. It was the way of the world. There was nothing I could do to change it. The only way to help her was to continue with the lesson.

“Now, where were we with the role play?”

“Not looking like a victim,” Tonya said. “Disincentivizing.”

“Pretending we’re six feet tall,” Pauletta said.

“Yeah, you do it with mirrors,” Nina said. Everyone except Katherine smiled, relieved that we were all on the same side again. I raised my eyebrows at her.

“It’s okay for everyone to make jokes,” she said. “But what if you’re really not six feet tall? What do you do if a man at the MARTA station starts talking to you?”

“Would you want him to talk to you?”

“No!”

“Then say so.”

“Say so?”

“Clearly and simply: I won’t talk to you.”

“Isn’t that kind of rude?”

Rude. To a man who had invaded her personal space, made her afraid, and was testing to see what kind of victim she’d make.

“It’s neutral. A statement of fact.”

“Wouldn’t it provoke him?” Jennifer.

“Nina, would it have provoked you?”

“No-o,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. It would’ve made me shrug, maybe, and think, Bitch. Maybe I would’ve said that to her face.” Jennifer flinched.

“Something to add to your list: would you rather be called a bitch or put up with an hour’s harassment by a drunk at a MARTA station who may or may not be working himself up to jump you? Bear in mind that if you do tell him to go away, you need to also make sure your body is saying the same thing as your words: everything in line, no ambiguity.”

“But if he’s drunk he won’t listen,” Jennifer said.

“He certainly won’t if you don’t say anything. No one is a mind reader.”

Blank looks. There were times when I felt that although we had arrived in the same room, we had traveled through different dimensions.