A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [19]
“The attraction of opposites, I see that. Veronica is softer and more generous than is good for her, which I doubt would be said about you. The hard and the soft, power and love, tug strongly at each other, do they not?”
It was said in a mode of casual conversation, and followed by a pull at her glass, but the devastating simplicity of her observations immediately raised my defences. However, it seemed that attack was not her intention, because she went on.
“That is the basis of our evening cycle of services, you might say.” She reflected for a moment. “And of the daytime work, as well.”
“A cycle?” I asked carefully.
“Ah, I see Veronica did not explain much about us.”
“Nothing very coherent. A lot of talk about love and the rights of women.”
She laughed, deep and rich.
“Dear Veronica, she is enthusiastic. Let me see if I can fill in the gaps.” She paused to crush out the cigarette and immediately light another one, squinting through the smoke at me. “The evening services are what I suppose you might call our public events. Quite a few of our members came in originally out of curiosity, and stayed. Mondays, the topic is left general. I talk about any number of things; sometimes we have Bible readings, silent or guided prayer, even a discussion of some political issue currently in the news—I let the Spirit lead me, on Mondays, and it’s usually a small, well-behaved group of friends, like tonight. Thursdays are different. Very different.” She thought about Thursdays for a minute, and whatever her thoughts were, they turned her eyes dark and put a small smile on her full lips, and the magnetically beautiful woman I had seen earlier was there briefly. Then she reached down and flicked her cigarette over the ashtray and looked at me.
“Thursdays, I talk about love. It’s a very popular night. We even see a fair number of men. And then on Saturdays, we talk about the other end of the spectrum: power. Sometimes Saturday meetings get quite political, and a lot of our hotter heads are given free rein. We don’t get many men on Saturdays, and when we do, it’s usually because they want a fight. Saturdays can get very exciting.” She grinned.
“I can imagine,” I said, calling to mind the shouts of the “quiet evening” I had witnessed. “And you have other activities, as well?”
“Oh heavens, the evening services are just the tip. Our goal, simply stated, is to touch everything concerned with the lives of women. Yes”—she laughed—“I know how it sounds, but one has to aim high. We have four areas we’re concentrating on at the moment: literacy, health, safety, and political reform. Veronica is in charge of the reading program, in fact, and she’s doing fine work. She has about eighty women at the moment learning to read and write.”
“Teaching them all herself?” No wonder she was exhausted.
“No, no. All Temple members volunteer a certain amount of time every week to one or another of our projects. Veronica mostly coordinates them, though she, too, does her share of actual teaching. It’s the same in each of the four areas. In the health program, for example, we have a doctor and several nurses who give time, but it’s more a matter of identifying the women in the community who need help and putting them into touch with the right person. A woman with recurring lung infections will be seen by a doctor, but also by a building specialist who will look at her house to see if the ventilation might be improved. A woman with headaches from eyestrain will be given spectacles, and we’ll see if we can find way to put more light into her working area—laying on gas, perhaps, or even electrical lights. A woman ill from exhaustion and nerves who has eleven children will be educated about birth control and enrolled in our nutritional-supplements program along with her children.”
“You haven’t had any problems with the birth-control thing? Legally, I mean?”
“Once or twice. One of our members spent a week behind bars