Chapter Seven
The chapter opens with the narrator declaring the night as her private time, insisting on absolute quiet and stillness. She muses on the distinction between “lie” and “lay,” imagining past male expressions about “getting laid” or “laying her,” acknowledging she only knows these phrases from hearing them. She then visualizes herself lying in a room under a plaster eye, surrounded by curtains and sheets, feeling “out of time.”
A vivid memory surfaces of Moira sitting on the edge of her bed in purple overalls, smoking a cigarette, and suggesting they go for a beer. Their dialogue shifts to an academic assignment: the narrator mentions a paper on date rape, Moira jokes that the term sounds like a dessert (“Date Rapé”), and Moira tosses her a coat while borrowing money. The conversation blurs, mentioning a possible meeting in a park with the narrator’s mother and hesitating about their ages.
The scene transitions to a cold outdoor setting with ducks in a pond; the narrator and Moira plan to feed the ducks but become aware of a nearby fire where women are burning books. The fire is described in detail: women (and some men) dump gasoline on magazines, chant, and watch the flames with ecstatic faces. The narrator’s mother appears, her complexion unusually ruddy, and a large woman with soot on her cheek and an orange knitted cap offers the narrator a cap. The mother asks if something is okay; the narrator receives a magazine depicting a nude woman suspended by a chain, which she briefly examines before her mother urges her to throw it into the fire. The burning magazine releases flaming paper fragments that turn into ash, evoking images of women’s bodies disintegrating.
Following this chaotic vision, the narrator experiences a disorienting shift, feeling a loss of time, a shock, and a mixture of calm and screaming. She hears voices questioning a missing woman, “Where is she? What have you done with her?” The narrative then describes a sequence of chairs, a bed, and a window, followed by a statement that “She’s in good hands… You are unfit, but you want the best for her.” A picture is shown of a woman standing on a lawn, her face a closed oval, hair pulled tight, held by an unknown short woman. The narrator declares, “You’ve killed her,” describing the woman as an angelic figure in a white dress.
The chapter concludes with a self‑referential meditation: the narrator insists she must believe the story she is telling, asserting that if it is a story she controls its ending. She reflects on the act of storytelling as a letter addressed to “you,” noting that naming attaches one to reality and is risky. She declares she is not in immediate danger, pretends the listener can hear her, and acknowledges that the listener cannot actually hear her.