Hostile Environments

You are a nurse at a hospital in the United States who crosses the border between the United States and Canada every day. The traffic at the border has got worse and worse, because of the events of September 11, 2001, that black Tuesday. So you have to get up early in the mornings. There are so many cars, so many trucks each morning, everybody has to show three pieces of identification. They will have to show a passport. Always, there are those who are searched by customs, taking more time.

You live in Ontario with your husband and your baby, who's only one year old. Tall, with dark skin, brown frizzy hair, brown eyes, you are very pretty, in your twenties, with a Tutsian beauty, but with a haunted look. Several members of your family have been massacred by the Hutus in Rwanda. You lack confidence in yourself, it seems, maybe because you were born in a little village in Rwanda, not a large city in the United States where you work, I don't know. What have you experienced during the massacres of the Tutsis by the Hutus? I don't know, me, being unable to comprehend the horror. I visualize the angry crowds, drunk on blood and alcohol. I see the repeated machete blows and hear the cries of the victims, but you don't talk about it. I can't comprehend the horror, neither the hate of the murderers nor the inaction of the world.

At work, you take the elevator to the nurses station on your floor, greeting the other nurses there. You are pleasant to them, they are pleasant to you in return, but the others don't like you very much: they think you are conceited, not very sociable. You prefer to be alone, it seems, so they don't talk with you much. Then you find on the counter a pretty bouquet of flowers with a little note attached. You smile, thinking at first that the bouquet is from your husband. But you read the note without recognizing the writing: it's an anonymous love letter. As you see it, nothing will come of it, you, being married and the mother of a child. But you read the note again: "My sweet Angela, I'm really attracted to you. If you are as nice as you are beautiful, maybe we can be more than just friends..."

From the feminine writing, you understand right away that the flowers are from another woman. You know very well that there are certain women at the hospital who prefer the society of other women. But this is something new: no woman has ever written a love letter to you before, though you have received them from boys at school, when you were young. You smile, shaking your head in an attempt to appear nonchalant: maybe it's only a joke, you, being new at the hospital. Maybe the other nurses are amusing themselves at your expense. This is your first position as a registered nurse since the nurses college. You work in the United States, new to the profession, unable to find a position in Canada, perhaps, because of budget cuts for health care there. Many Canadian nurses work in the United States, you know. It's possible that you will need more experience before working in Canada, I don't know.

You read the love letter one time more before you throw it in the waste basket. That woman, the anonymous one, she's never going to be any importance, you think.

*****


At home in the kitchen you talk about it with your husband. He smiles and says: "Hey, I have some competition. I'll have to treat you right..."

He holds you in his arms, you kiss in the middle of the kitchen. You laugh as well and put you head on his shoulder. Then you frown and look up at him: "It isn't funny, Alain. She thinks she loves me..."

"Her identity is unknown, right?"

"Yeah, that's right...

"Then don't worry about it. Until she reveals herself, it's no big thing. It's just a crush, she'll get over it."

You laugh to yourselves, then you kiss. He cooks supper while you feed the baby. Then everybody sits down for supper.

*****

You receive a second love letter, also anonymous. The author writes that she thinks about you all the time. She writes: "I see you every day in the cafeteria. I'm waiting for you, my love..."

You roll your eyes. But, out of curiosity, perhaps, you sit in the cafeteria to eat lunch. A little while later, a black woman sits at a table some tables across from you. You see each other, and the black woman smiles at you. The woman is perhaps thirty years old, with dimples on the cheeks of her round face. She is of medium height, with brown skin, light, like your skin, with brown hair cut close to the scalp. She isn't very pretty, but ordinary in appearance. Her body is round, with large breasts, thighs and hips. She has a belly. You are perhaps disappointed in the lack of beauty in this woman, if she is the one, but you like her smile. Her smile is pleasant, serene: you like her smile, despite yourself.

So you decide to ignore her and begin to eat lunch, but when you raise your eyes, you notice her looking at you still; the woman smiles again. You're ill at ease, but you try to smile at her out of politeness and begin to eat lunch again. Then the black woman stands up, takes her tray, and returns to work. From behind, this woman has a slow and sexy walk, but that bothers you too. You wait for the woman to leave the cafeteria before doing the same.

*****

Some days later, you receive a basket of fruit with another love letter attached that reads: "Remember me and eat!"

You can't believe it! You think: "This is really bizarre!"

Just then, the black woman that you had seen in the cafeteria arrives at your station. You can't discern the reason for her visit, but she sees you and and introduces herself: "My name's Sophie, how are you doing?"

Her manner is relaxed, very assured. She smiles broadly while showing white and perfect teeth. Her voice is calm, a musical contralto; you like her voice. She seems to be friendly, but you don't trust her. But you smile back at her with a forced smile, almost a grimace: you introduce yourself too. "Ah, your accent," she exclaims. "You're French-Canadian, aren't you? There are several nurses from Canada here..."

Then her eyes, which are almost black, focus on the basket of fruit.

"Ah," she exclaims, "somebody has given you a basket of fruit!

Before she leaves, she looks at you one more time and says: "Bon appétit!"

In anger, you throw the basket in the waste basket after she has gone.

*****

The next day, at lunch in the cafeteria, you hear somebody address you. It's Sophie. You look at her and see her standing in front you, holding a tray as she smiles at you. She asks pleasantly: "Is it okay if I sit with you?"

You're really ill at ease, but you reply: "Not at all, please sit down!"

She sits at your table across from you, you talk. She listens to you very attentively while you talk, smiling mysteriously. It seems that she's checking you out. You try to avoid all eye contact, but she has a beautiful, mysterious smile as she talks about herself. You learn that she has a son, that she sings in a church choir. She says: "I love to sing, I have sung my whole life! I feel closer to God. Black people have always loved the church. They know how to praise God..."

She has a certain charm. You are attracted to her despite yourself, or maybe because of yourself; you like her. Then you notice that she's wearing a plastic necklace with the small letters: "wwjd." Of course, you know very well what those letters mean: "What would Jesus do." She believes that Jesus would serve others, like you. That's the reason why she's a nurse, like you.

You tell her: "My son's going to go a Catholic school when he's older, but he's just a baby now. The provincial government pays for Catholic instruction. He's going to go to a French school; there are many French schools in my province. My husband was born in France, in Grenoble. We met in France, but he followed me back to Canada to propose marriage. After six months, we got married. That was three years ago..."

But she replies: "That's interesting. My son's going to go to a religious school too..."

This is really strange, like she hasn't been listening what you were saying. So you decide to avoid her in the future. You decide to no longer eat in the cafeteria.

*****

It's early in the afternoon. You drive to a café downtown near the hospital for lunch. Through the window of the café, you can see two women walking arm in arm down the street, a blonde and a brunette who are talking, really laughing. They are between twenty-five and thirty, these women. The tall one, the blonde, has fair features: long and blond hair, blue eyes, rectangular face, and a straight and thin nose. She's very pretty, her cheeks pink, since it's winter. She's wearing a long light brown coat and a white woolen tuque on her head. Her friend, the brunette, the small one, has dark features, wearing a black down coat down to her waist and a black tuque on her head. She has a round body, a round face. She has olive-coloured skin and black hair, not very long. Her nose is curved, like that of an eagle, like she's Mediterranean, Italian or Lebanese. She isn't very pretty, the brunette; the blonde is the more attractive of the two.

At one time, maybe you wouldn't have thought of them as lovers, but just friends. If you thought of them at all. While on vacation in Europe with your best friend, Denise, you often saw two women in the streets, strolling together arm in arm: it was no big thing. It was to avoid being jostled in crowds, they say, for protection against men who would throw them to the sidewalk and steal their handbags. Eventually, you and Denise did the same, so that nobody would jostle you. You have walked arm in arm with Denise in Toronto too, Denise and you. The experience wasn't dreadful, arm in arm with her. Of course, you didn't think that others in the street would think of you as saphiennes, not at all! But now...

As you see the two women walking along the street together, as you think of Sophie, you wonder about them. You ask yourself now if the others in the street in Toronto weren't wondering about Denise and you. Or maybe they were making assumptions. But the blonde and brunette pay no attention to the others in the street: the others, they have to step aside to avoid colliding with them.

*****


You have a dream at night where you are walking with your friend Denise while window shopping along the Champs-Elysées in Paris. You and Denise laugh as you point at the beautiful merchandise in the windows. Then someone shouts something cruel: "You dikes!"

Denise quickly turns around and shouts at them: "Go fuck yourself!"

But you are more sensitive than Denise: these words hurt you very much, and you start to cry...

*****

You receive a basket loaded with toiletry articles: little scented soaps, a bottle of shampoo, a bottle of creme rinse. The author writes: "Ah, my sweet Angela! Let us take a bath together! I will wash your back, you will was mine. I like a woman who is all woman. It's your voice, your accent like brown sugar, like your skin, like your eyes. I have so sugar to give too..."

You throw the basket in the waste basket while cursing. The other nurses on your floor stare at you, astonished.

*****


You sit a table in the café downtown, next to the window. You see the two women strolling arm in arm across the street from across. Nobody walks like that, except these women. You stare at the women. They show no open affection, except in walking arm in arm; they don't even look at each other. You look for signs that they are lovers, but they show no signs : no kissing, no flirting, nothing. They are only walking arm in arm. When they approach a corner, the one looks to the right, the other to the left. Then they cross the street together, still arm in arm. Then they're gone. Maybe it's something that two women in a large city in the United States, full of crime, ought to do : maybe they should walk arm in arm for the protection against men.

*****


In another dream, you are walking alone along a city street. You feel really out of place. There are lots of cars, lots of people — the place is really on the move. There are couples that talk, couples that laugh while walking down the street, but you are threatened. Then the two women collide with you while they come out of a café. The women profusely apologize when they see what they have done. Then they laugh at your expense when they see the confused look on your face. You feel really out of place...

*****

You lie down naked on your side in front of your husband, your back to him as you settle into his arms. Your husband touches your left shoulder with his hand and plants a little kiss on the shoulder while caressing the left side of your body. He gets drunk on your long Nubian body, stretched out in front of him like Eve. He gently kisses the nape of your long and elegant neck. But you tense up your body and start to cry. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asks, almost whispering.

He holds you closer to him. "What's wrong, eh?"

You would like to tell him everything, but you can't: there's so much to tell. He cuddles you while you sob. Then you tell him: "Please fuck me, I'm suffering..."

You surrender yourself completely to him. That evening, you really have the demon; you will have the demon every night of the week. The pleasure is very intense, but almost painful as well. You have the need to forget for a while, but what good is it? It's impossible to forget about it, you always remember it later.

*****

You show your husband the last love letter. He asks as he reads it: "The others, where are they?"

"There aren't any others," you reply. "I threw them away."

"At least you saved this one," he says, frowning. "You will need proof, documentation."

You nod.

"You have to show it to somebody."

You nod again.

"You have to show it to somebody," he repeats, believing that you don't understand.

You nod, but you don't understand. You don't understand anything.

*****

You receive another love letter, the fifth, the sixth, an entire series of love letters. However, a nurse has seen who has been leaving them. This nurse is a black woman, like Sophie. Almost everybody at the hospital is black, including you.

You ask: "Do you know who she is?"

The nurse replies: Oh, sure, I know her! I don't know her name, but she works on the eighth floor, in radiology.

Then the nurse adds: "I've seen her before, but this is the first time I've ever seen her leave anything."

You ask the nurse if she would please describe the nurse who has left the love letter. The nurse describes the person. Sophie fits the description perfectly. You thank the nurse.

You're really angry, but you're resolved too. You take the elevator to the floor where Sophie works, but someone tells you that Sophie has already left for the day. So you take a pencil and some paper to write a brief message, telling Sophie to meet you at a certain café downtown.

*****

At home, you tell husband what has happened at the hospital. Angrily, he asks: "How come you haven't talked with somebody about it? With an administrator, for example?"

You shrug your shoulders with resignation and reply: "What's the administrator going to do?"

"Nothing, if you don't tell him about it."

You get angry and reply: "I'm fed up, Alain, really fed up!"

"Then you ought to talk with the administrator of the hospital."

You shout: "No, it's my business. I'm going to talk about it with her myself. I'm going to show her the love letter. I'm going to tell her to leave me alone!"

You have a crazy look in your eyes. Your husband is afraid that you're going to do something stupid. He thinks that you're very naïve, he thinks that you're too trusting. So he tells you: "Look here, it could be dangerous."

He puts his hands on your arms and says calmly: "I'm afraid for your safety, okay? Maybe she's mentally ill. We don't know, nobody knows. So I'm going with you."

You calm down and reply with assurance: "It's okay, Alain. I'm going to meet her in public. What is she going to do?"

You shrug your shoulders and repeat: "What is she going to do?"

"Anything," he replies. "She could do anything. So I'm going with you."

You touch him gently on the arm and say: "Don't worry! I'll be careful, okay?"

Then you add: "Besides, you have to work tomorrow — we need the money. So don't worry, it's okay."

He's doubtful about the whole thing, but he shrugs his shoulders and says: "Okay, but be careful, eh?"

You nod: "Okay then..."

*****

After a white night, you drive to work the next morning as if in a trance, like an automaton, without concentrating on the road. You almost run over a mutt about to cross the road, but you stop the car just in time. At the moment you cross the border, you get very anxious, with the hospital only five minutes from the border. When you enter the building, you repeat to yourself several times the words that you want to say.

You don't have to think about so much at work, so you forget about it for a while. Your work relieves the tension, the anxiety, somewhat. There's even a case of cardiac arrest, where you discharge your duties in a professional manner. You forget about it, before you take your first break of the day.

At the nurses station on your floor, you see the head nurse on your floor, a black woman like Sophie. The director reads the love letter and says, bored: "You'll have to show it to the head nurse on her floor. I can't do anything about the matter..."

You nod, but you don't trust a head nurse who could be a black woman like Sophie, like the head nurse on your floor. You understand that this sentiment is unreasonable, even racist — you, from Africa, a Tutsi from Rwanda. But you're afraid that the people at the hospital will take sides with Sophie : the employees at the hospital are mostly dark like her, many of them black, like the Hutus of Rwanda, the scene of the genocide against the Tutsis, where you were born.

Are you not right? Not completely. At first, many of them might side with Sophie, that's true, but the more reasonable of them will change their minds when the facts become known — reasonable people are always ready to change their minds. Besides, they might think that Sophie is strange like you do.

Then lunch times arrive. You're going to face your tormentor, if Sophie is going to come to the café. You drive to the café downtown, pay the parking attendant, and enter the café. You sit by the door to wait for Sophie, who hasn't arrived yet. Sophie comes about ten minutes later. When she sees you, she smiles and says, very gregarious: "Hi, Angela, how's it going!"

"Bad," you reply angrily. "I'm doing badly."

As you throw the last love letter on the table, you say quietly:

"I've had enough, Sophie, I've had enough! I don't love you, I will never love you — okay? I love my husband and my son. I'm happily married. I don't want to receive any more love letters, flowers, baskets of fruit or soap, okay? I've had enough!"


Sophie smiles at you and says: "Oh, I would take such good care of you, sugar! I would give you a life of peaches and creme..."

You stand up abruptly with your hand bag to leave the café. Standing face to face, you stare each other. Then Sophie smiles at you before she gives a big kiss on the mouth. Furious, you grimace, then you slap her hard in the face. Then you walk fast towards the door. But Sophie calls to you in a hard voice, in a cold voice. You stop despite yourself, despite the sensation of danger, to turn around and face your enemy. You could die, but you don't care: you would rather die in this café than work in a hostile environment at the hospital.

There it is, the discharge of the pistol as you turn around, before the bullet tears into your chest. That's the last thing you remember before you fall to the floor unconscious: the discharge of the pistol.

*****

You work at a different hospital from this one. It's to facilitate the police investigations that those who are shot are sent to this hospital. You have had surgery to remove the bullet, which missed your heart by a few millimetres. If the pistol had been larger, like a 38 Special or a Colt 45, you probably would not have survived, since the assassin was less then ten metres away from you. However, the pistol was a 22 Derringer, almost the smallest pistol on the market. Probably, the police will want to ask a few questions about the crime of which you are the victim.

You wake up at the hospital with you family around you: your husband, your parents and your baby. You smile weakly in an attempt to reassure your family. They tell you what has happened, so that you will understand better, but you are still disoriented. After you cuddle the baby for a little bit, your parents take the baby out of the room so that your husband can talk with you for a while. "She's dead," your husband says. "She shot herself."

You say nothing, you only turn away your head. Your husband says with emotion: "I should have gone with you! I really regret that I didn't go with you!"

You turn your head to him and say without emotion: "It's not your fault, Alain. It's likely that she would have shot you too..."

He holds your hand and says: "I love you, Angela."

You look at him and reply as you rub his hand: "I love you too."

Then you say: "I would like to sleep, eh?"

You fall asleep with your husband sitting in a chair next to the bed, falling asleep too. While you sleep, you have a dream about Sophie making love with you. You kiss each other, murmur words of love. What pleasure! You are at the point of ecstasy, until you sit up in bed and shout angrily: "Go away! I love my husband!"

Then you wake up. You husband is still sleeping in the chair next to the bed. Finally, you ask for a sedative from the night nurse, unable to go back to sleep.


*****


During the following day, the police come to ask some questions. The police officers make their apologies before the ask them, then they leave afterwards. Then the administrator of the hospital where you work come to visit too. She's a black women, from the South of the United States, sincere, full of sympathy as she speaks in the gentle accent of her native region. But you discern an ulterior motive to her visit.

The administrator asks questions to understand better the unfortunate events that have happened, she says. You answer them as well as you are able. The woman says to you: "I'm really sorry, ma'am, but it isn't our fault. We didn't know because you didn't make a complaint."

You turn your head away: "It's my fault..."

"No," the administrator protests. "It isn't your fault either. She was mentally ill, ma'am."

There's a long silence. Then you say with sudden hostility: "In answer to your question..."

The administrator has a confused look. After some moments, she asks: "What question, ma'am? I don't understand..."

"The real question: if there was anything between us...

"Pardon me, ma'am?"

You look at the administrator with defiance and shout: "No, we have never been lovers — never!

Then you weep bitterly, you feel violated by the whole thing. The administrator tries to comfort you, but it's difficult. You calm down eventually, the administrator leaves, having expressed the deepest regrets. You thank her. Then a nurse comes to give you a sedative.

*****

You return home some days later to recover from the wound. You will need a psychiatrist. Each day, you will sit in a rocking chair, holding your son. It's therapeutic for you. You like to watch your son take his first steps across the living room floor to get a toy. Your son rides his rocking horse from time to time. You like to watch the cat sleeping in front of the window in the winter sun, eyes closed, the curtains open. It's therapeutic for you. You feel safe and sound in the living room, behind these four walls with the curtains open or closed to the world. But you have to go back to work eventually, you think. You aren't looking forward to going back to work, but you back to work. It has to be done.

* * * * *

The first day at work, you are never completely at ease. You think that the other nurses aren't at ease either. At times, you think that the others are talking about you behind your back, you feel the eyes of the others checking you out while you walk down the hall. Maybe it's only your fantasy, but nobody greets you warmly, it seems; they are merely polite. So you feel all alone, without friends. You ask yourself if they aren't asking the question: "Was there something between them?"

And: "Is she a lesbian?"

*****

It's the beginning of spring, it's sunny outside. It's perfect outside, the people, joyous. Many people are wearing neither coats nor their tuques. So you go to the café downtown, where there are tables outside. The temperature is about fifteen degrees, so you sit outside.

Then you see the blonde and the brunette, very animated as they talk, as they laugh, arm in arm, walking down the street. It must be that they, always walking together like that, like the society of each other. Maybe they make a good match...

They approach the corner. The blonde looks to the left, the brunette, to the right. The moment that the traffic clears, they almost detach themselves, the blonde, to the left, the brunette, to the right. They stop to sort it out, they argue a little. The brunette is the dominant one, it seems. The blonde shrugs her shoulders, the two women link arms again, and they march to the right, laughing, where the brunette wanted to go. Then they are gone, out of sight. They are always arm in arm, these women.

You think of Sophie now with sympathy, with the feeling of culpability, since Sophie is dead. You wish now that you hadn't got angry like that, because she had nobody, it seems, unlike those women, unlike you. Maybe they call these feelings "survivor's guilt," I don't know.

Then you remember being shot in the café where you are seated. You tremble, about to have an anxiety attack: you are afraid of a nervous breakdown. You would like to call your husband with your cell phone so that he might drive across the border and bring you back home. However, your husband is far away in Canada, where he works, where both of you live with your son.

An old woman, a black woman, notices your turmoil. She touches you gently on the arm and asks: "Are you all right, my child?"

You nod your head and reply: "Thank you very much, ma'am. I'll be fine..."

The woman stays with you until she's sure that you are well, then you leave the café, never to return.

You don't want to work at this hospital anymore, it's a hostile environment. After lunch, you give the hospital a two weeks notice of leaving. It's evident that you aren't ready to return to work now. So you quit the hospital after two weeks. Maybe you will never work at a hospital again. You would rather sit in a rocking chair while you cuddle your son, while he's still a baby. It's what mothers want to do: they want to be with their children.

*****

The house is a harem, somewhere to protect the woman against the eyes of a hostile environment, the world. You can disappear into each other, there, where there are curtains to block out the sun and the moon. In the evenings, your husband and you make love in melding your mouths and your bodies into each other. You, your body is soft, pliant, when it yields to him. Him, the muscles of his arms are taut, like elastic about to break. You want to disappear into each other, you feel yourselves disappearing, perilously close to an abyss, vertiginous, as if ready to fall until you hit the bottom and break into millions of pieces. You disappear into each other more and more while not wanting ever to come back. But you come back. Him, he holds you in his arms afterwards, your back to him. He's still drunk on you, on your body: on your smell, on your taste, on the sound of your breath, on the beating of your heart against his hand. When he buries his face in your hair, he's happy, you are happy too. Together you sigh with contentment, you cuddle.

But you can never disappear completely: there is always the hostile environment, the world. You can never forget her completely, because she wanted you so much.