25.5.2009


4






4

    By the time for the party, John had changed clothes, gotten out of his red pants and put on shiny, new American-style clothes and a very starched shirt with a large, plaid bow tie. He even had gone to see his parents. Now he had stood for a long time talking to Bertha, his classmate and friend. By nature, Bertha was shy, blushing for the least reason, and she was attractive to men without realizing it. Bertha was rather tall and thin with a mild, graceful smile that she kept behind her eyes. She never used make-up and used only a special cream soap when she bathed to keep her body soft. Bertha, however, was also neurotic. She feared death more than anything and was completely at sea in spiritual matters. There she was completely lost. When it came, on the other hand, to women's rights, she was really with it. She was an energetic supporter of the women's movement. She was insulted at the least provocation and then, usually, became speechless and broke into a sweat all over. All discussions in which Bertha took part ended up as discussions about women's rights, the cause of peace in the world, the freeing of political prisoners and regular convicts, the fight to protect whales and the battle against rapists.

    "How is America?" asked Bertha. She looked at John. A slight blush colored her cheeks when she spoke.

    "America is tops, the best."

    "But what about crime?"

    "Right, crime is a big problem."

    "Don't they have too much freedom?"

    "Where freedom flourishes, there is the best of everything. There's no place like America. I could consider settling there. I'm just such an Icelander, I guess."

    Berta switched topics: "Don't you think Didi Stina's done a great job?"

    "Sure, that goes without saying. She is a housewife through and through."

    "I could never settle for being a housewife."

    "You would be an exemplary housewife."

    He lifted her chin with his hand and kissed her lightly on the lips.

    "That's old-fashioned. It isn't like that anymore. It's a new age."

    "I hear that you haven't changed."

    Her face flushed, and she started to stammer: "John, everyone acknowledges injustices against women. We have to employ certain measures to set things right."

    "Women have started to stream into all the most important offices in the country."

    "We've a long way to go."

    Kalli Sandfeldt had been half-listening to their conversation when he got into the discussion: "Dear Bertha, you're still grinding the same ax." He was feeling his cups. "If you weren't so silly, you would have been married long ago, mother of a large brood as pretty as you are now." He glanced at John. "Don't you agree?"

    Then, he continued, holding John's shoulder with one hand and hooking the other around Bertha's waist: "I have a strategy." They showed their host all due courtesy, although they knew from experience that this would be a long speech. Some of the guests perked up their ears:

    "Laws should be passed to solve all women's rights issues. We have to put a stop to women being stuffed into responsible positions just because they are women. This is in their own interest and, at the same time, in the interest of the whole nation. If women have talents, then OK, but if they don't, then not OK. It makes no difference whether almighty God created man or someone else. The fact is that women are different from men; they are different inside. Nature has created women to bear children, carry them in their bodies for nine months and take care of them with the mother-love given to them. In other words, women are designed with a special, limited goal in mind. She comes thus from Nature, or from the Creator if we prefer to express it that way. For this reason it is clear that a woman does not have the same flexibility as a man to establish herself in the business community. For this reason I say again and again: the Government should pay every woman, from birth, a special benefit from the treasury to compensate for the biological hindrances with which women are created. We can call this women's compensation."

    At this point in the speech, Bertha had escaped from her host's embrace and disappeared into the bathroom and later into the kitchen where she stood sweaty and flame-red in the face and denounced Kalli Sandfeldt's fanaticism.

    John secretly got a kick out of this, but pointed out to Kalli Sandfeldt that he should not speak that way to little Bertha, their classmate and friend.