When Women Were Dragons(20)
You see? Lying is easy. When we’re awake, that is.
But at night my dreams could not lie. In dream after dream I saw my dragoned aunt, living with other dragons—in the ocean, or the mountains, or the jungles, or the moon. Sometimes I dreamed she was one of the dragons who simply flew skyward, and traveled through the far reaches of deep space, swallowing the universe with her eyes.
Beatrice did not know. My mother never told her. And anyway, it didn’t really matter. Beatrice and I are sisters, I told myself. Beatrice and I are sisters, I informed anyone who would listen.
We have always been sisters.
We will always be sisters.
And that is that.
BETHESDA, MD
POLICE DEPARTMENT
DIVISION_____ PATROL__________
POLICE OFFICER(S) N. Scofield and B. Martinez
DATE OF THIS REPORT: June 15, 1957 TIME: 10:25 AM
The officers were dispatched to 309 Marigold Lane in regards to a warrant issued earlier that morning. This officer made contact with two individuals, one male, one female, both determined to be non-residents, and both in “beatnik” dress. The individuals attempted to prevent the officers from entering the premises, but fled after a brief scuffle. Upon entrance, the officer observed several boxes haphazardly filled with documents, and many shelves were empty. It is unknown at this time how much material had been removed from the premises. Six other young individuals, presumably students, attempted to position themselves between the officers and the remaining boxes. This officer then made contact with Dr. Henry Gantz, a physician formerly at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He is a known person of interest in the department, and has been interviewed by officers many times. The officers informed Dr. Gantz of the warrant, which gave permission for the officers to seize evidence. Several of the young people protested, and appeared to present a clear threat to the officers, but this was de-escalated by yet another individual, an elderly woman named Mrs. Helen Gyzinska, who identified herself as a librarian from Wisconsin. At an order from Mrs. Gyzinska, the young people vacated without incident. The officers then collected the material in the house as evidence, and arrested the doctor for the possession and dissemination of lewd and obscene materials. The librarian refused to vacate, and the officers were forced to arrest her as well. She waived her right to remain silent, saying that she wanted the following to be recorded in this report, verbatim: “There is nothing lewd about biology, research, or basic facts, gentlemen, and you make yourselves fools when you try to classify the quest for understanding as obscene. The only thing more patently obscene than ignorance is willful ignorance. Arrest yourselves.”
11.
Time passed, and eventually I found myself in the fifth grade. My family presented itself to the world as normal, nuclear, and fully intact—a mother, a father, and two little girls.
No one ever mentioned my aunt. She was unmentionable. Instead, they admired the finely detailed dresses that Beatrice and I wore each day, each lovingly sewn by my mother, and the crocheted cardigans she had knotted by hand. They admired my mother’s delicacy and beauty—that pale skin, that red lip, that figure so light it looked as though she might blow away in a stiff wind. They admired her hats embellished with handmade lace and macramé flowers, and the shine of her shoes. They admired my father as the stern and reliable provider for the family. They admired the marigolds my mother had planted in perfectly straight rows along the walkway and the meticulously pruned rose bushes contained under the window boxes. Outside, my mother smiled and my father smiled, and Beatrice and I learned how to beam happily while thinking of nothing. My parents never smiled at each other while inside the house. Indeed, I don’t recall them speaking much. Not unless it was absolutely necessary.
As for the rest of the world, it shifted, yet again. Enough time had passed since the Mass Dragoning that mentions of dragons had become, once again, simply out-of-bounds, an off-limits topic for any polite conversation. This was true not just in my home. Dragons were a subject avoided in any context. One would sooner arrive at church in one’s underpants or discuss menstruation with the mailman or chat about sex on the radio. It simply wasn’t done.
Once it became clear that the Mass Dragoning was not caused by any sinister external forces (the Russians, the Chinese Red Army, domestically radicalized Trotskyites who had failed to be rounded up by Senator McCarthy’s hearings, and so forth) but were, in actuality, a seemingly biologic process specific to certain women (it was yet unclear how widespread the mutations were), any further discussion of dragons or dragoning or the practical considerations of a post-dragoned world became much more, well, embarrassing.
Adults turned red in the face when children raised their hands and asked questions about it.
The topic of dragons suddenly vanished from the evening news.
At the end of September that year, my teacher, Sister Saint Stephen the Martyr, informed us that we would be having a guest coming to class. His name was Dr. Angus Ferguson, and he had an ample beard and dull grey eyes and wore a long, heavy wool coat, even though it was quite warm out. He carried a doctor bag in one hand and a very large leather portfolio pouch in the other, which we would soon learn was filled with visual aids. He gave my teacher a brief bow and proceeded to gaze imperiously over the tops of our heads without meeting our eyes.
We were divided into two lines, one for the girls and another for the boys. While the boys met the visitor, the girls were taken to the home economics room to work on their desk caddies—a project in which we had to fashion sturdy boxes out of pressboard and hand-sewn fabric covers, and assemble each one into a charming little tray. A square box for paperclips and a long rectangular box for pencils and a broad box to hold larger objects like scissors and protractors and the like. We had been instructed to make two—one for ourselves and one for a “friend.” The friend, in this case, was a boy from our class. We were each assigned a boy to work for. He would be our assigned friend. I can’t even remember which boy I was assigned. All I know is that I did a wretched job on purpose.