Living for Disco

We stood in front of a classroom full of 14 year olds, talking to them about rape.  We asked some questions, and received some well thought out answers; the class was a mixture of boys and girls, and they all enthusiastically joined in the debate.  One commonly held view seemed to be that if two adults have consenting sex, it is still rape if one is much older than the other.  We managed to sort out the confusion surrounding this, and move on.

“So”, asked Charmaine.  “Do you think that a husband can rape his wife?”

When the shouting subsided, various kids were allowed to speak.  I was more interested in the ones that said no, honestly, and so I pointed to a short, cocky boy in the middle.

“Why do you say no?”  I asked.

“Because they are married” he answered, predictably.

“But she still has the right to say no, doesn’t she?”

“No, because her husband is working, and paying for her food and everything, and she has to have sex with him whenever he wants because she owes him for that.”

“So, what you’re saying”, I said, when the shouting died down, “is that a wife is basically a prostitute?”

He was at pains to say that this was not what he meant, “because the wife does not sleep with many different men, only with her husband.”

“But, you’re saying that he pays her, so he has the right to force her to have sex, even when she doesn’t want to?”  I asked.

More shouting originated from a group of outraged girls at the back.

“Yes,” said my little interviewee, as if explaining some obvious fact to an imbecile.  “Because if a wife does not give her husband sex whenever he wants, that is why he turns to his children instead.”

It’s a sunny Saturday morning, which means that at 10am the heat belts off the tarmac, and the breeze coming in through the open car window is less cool and refreshing, than like using an industrial hairdryer during a heat-wave.

The sky seems to be getting wider and deeper with every day. Mornings start fresh and clean, the sky wiped free of blemish. Gradually, small wispy clouds start to form, and by early evening, thunderheads crowd over the city.

It’s still early though, and the sky is clear and filled with sun. Despite the heat it is a beautiful morning. I’m driving in my borrowed car, through this city that I love, the stereo cranked up with Cyndi Lauper warbling Time after Time, and I’m feeling desperately nostalgic for something I can’t put my finger on. Is it possible to feel nostalgic for the moment you are in?

Something high up catches my eye, and I see two planes, white flecks in the sky, close together. It is a glider, still attached to its host. I stop at the lights, and watch as the plane releases the glider and slowly, slowly they draw apart. The glider turns its long wings and heads away, and soon I can see nothing but blue. I wonder what it must be like to be up there in that vastness, looking down, past the ring of mountains and seeing the land laid out beneath you, in total silence.

For a second, I feel as if I’m out of the world, up there with them. Then the lights turn green again, and I’m shaken back down to earth by the sound of car horns. I have prickly tears in the back of my throat, but I don’t know why.

I drive on into the crowded, sweaty, blaring city, and try in vain to find a parking space in the shade.