Women Talking

This story ends before you were born.

Mother.

Again.

When we woke up

feeling hands that were no longer there,

the elders told us that it was the work of ghosts

or Satan.

Or that we were lying to get attention.

Or that it was an act of wild female imagination.

It went on for years.

To all of us.

It felt like weightlessness.

It felt like drifting over what used to be real.

It felt like a banishment,

as though we had no invitation anymore

to be a part of the real.

I used to wonder who I would be

if it hadn't happened to me.

I used to miss the person I might have been.

I don't anymore.

Because it's doomsday

and a call to prayer.

It's both.

We caught one of them.

I saw his face.

And then he named the others.

Come on.

Eventually the attackers

were taken to the police in the city

for their own protection.

Almost all of the men of the colony

went to the city to post bail

for the attackers.

We were given two days

to forgive the attackers before they returned.

If we did not forgive them

we would be ordered to leave the colony

and be denied entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Do nothing.

Stay and fight.

Leave.

Girls in our colony had very little schooling.

We hardly knew how to read or to write.

But that day,

we learned how to vote.

The vote was tied between

staying and fighting, or leaving.

So three families including yours and mine

were elected to decide

what the women of the colony would do.

Your mother had asked, August, the school teacher,

to take the minutes of our meeting.

August came back to the colony just recently.

His family had been excommunicated years ago.

August had loved your mother since he was a boy.

Before we began,

your grandmother, Agata,

told us we had to honor our service to each other.

We had to represent it.

Just as the disciples were washed

by Jesus at the Last Supper,

knowing that his hour had come.

We only had 24 hours

to imagine what world you would be born into.

It is a part of our faith to forgive.

We have always forgiven those who have wronged us.

Why not now?

Because now we know better.

We will be excommunicated,

forced to leave the colony in disgrace

if we do not forgive these men.

And if we are excommunicated,

we forfeit our place in Heaven.

How could any of you live with the fear of that?

These are legitimate fears.

How can we address them?

The only important thing to establish

is if we forgive the men.

So that we will be allowed to enter the gates of Heaven.

You can laugh all you like, Salome,

but we will be forced to leave the colony

if we don't forgive the men.

How will the Lord when he arrives

find the women if we aren't in the colony?

Jesus is able to return to life,

live for thousands of years

and then drop down to earth from Heaven

to scoop up his supporters,

surely he'd also be able to locate

a few women who left their colony.

Let's stay on track.

All right. I'll stay on track.

I cannot forgive them.

I will never forgive them.

I can't either.

But we want to enter

the Kingdom of Heaven when we die.

We have everything we want here.

No.

Want less.

Does entering the Kingdom of Heaven

mean nothing to any of you?

Surely there must be something

worth living for in this life, not only in the next.

Autje!

- See you soon. It's all right. - Sorry.

It's all right. It will be all right.

Your grandmother used to say,

"Find out where you can be of help"

"and leave what you can't help behind."

I think that's easier

when you're old like her.

So we must decide now

to stay and fight, or leave.

Those are the options in front of us.

We will not do nothing.

I want to talk about my horses Ruth and Cheryl.

When Ruth and Cheryl are frightened by Dueck's dogs

on the mile road that leads to the church,

their initial instinct is to bolt.

Whoa!

These horses don't organize meetings

to decide what they will do.

They run.

But, Greta, we are not animals.

We have been preyed upon like animals.

Maybe we should respond like animals.

In my lifetime, I have seen

horses confront angry dogs

and try to stomp them to death.

Animals don't always flee.

Is this how we want to teach our daughters

to defend themselves?

By fleeing?

Not fleeing but leaving.

I was just talking about leaving.

I would rather stand my ground

and shoot each man in the heart

and bury 'em in a pit than flee.

And I'll deal with God's wrath if I have to.

Salome, Aunt Greta is talking about leaving not fleeing.

The word "fleeing" wasn't what she meant.

Yeah. Please forgive my mother for using the wrong word.

It's a sin so outrageous

that Salome has taken it upon herself

to rectify for the sake of all humanity.

"Leaving" and "fleeing" are different words

with different meanings.

They each say something about us.

August,

what do you make of all of this?

Do you have an opinion too?

I think...

I think that it is possible

to leave something or someone...

in one frame of mind

and arrive elsewhere in another

entirely unexpected frame of mind.

I want to stay and fight.

But won't we lose the fight to the men

and be forced to forgive them anyway?

I want to stay and fight too.

No one's surprised that you do.

All you do is fight.

Is this really how we are to decide

the fates of all the women in this colony?

Just another vote

where we put an X next to our position?

I thought we were here to do more than that.

You mean talk more about

forgiving the men and doing nothing.

Everything else is insane.

But none of you will listen to reason.

Well, why are you here with us?

Why are you still here with us if that is what you believe?

Just leave with the rest of the do nothing women.

She is my daughter and I want her here with us.

Is forgiveness that's forced upon us

true forgiveness?

Keep nonsense like that to yourself please.

Autje, get down!

Autje, listen to your mother!

Behave yourself.

Don't you hear the rafter's creaking?

Do you want the roof to cave in?

Many of us saw ourselves from above.

I'm not sure if it was God

and we were seeing ourselves through his eyes.

Or if we just couldn't be there.

In our own bodies.

How'd you get up there?

It was a miracle.

A miracle from God.

- Of course. - What else?

Where I come from,

where your mother comes from,

we didn't talk about our bodies.

So when something like this happened

there was no language for it.

And without language for it, there was a gaping silence.