Tigers and Sheep

Meg was early that morning. She’d spent the night at Paul’s place and he dropped her at the factory gate on his way to the building site. It had been a night of raw passion and a morning of sleepy love. Still feeling romantic she skirted the machines and unwittingly walked into the canteen. What she saw made her feel physically sick. Lubo, the foreman, was pinning Nardia against the coke machine with the fingers of his big fist rapped around her breast. His other hand was between her legs.

When he saw Meg he relaxed his grip allowing Nardia to break free and scurry away like an injured rabbit. He turned to Meg and stared. She would not be intimidated and while no words were exchanged she left him with no doubt that said the matter was not over.

She found Nardia sobbing in the toilet. ‘Why did you let him to do that?’

‘What else I can do?’

‘I can’t believe you said that.’

‘You do not understand.’

‘I understand. He has power and he’s using it. He won’t get away with it.’

‘No! Please say nothing. My husband, he kill me if he find out.’

‘It should be that creep he’s killing.’

‘He’d say I let him do it.’

‘You did!

‘I did not want to. I never want to’

‘Never?!’ Nardia doesn’t respond. ‘You mean this isn’t the first time?’ Nardia checks the buttons on her overall. ‘When has he done this before?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘Tell me, Nardia.’

‘When he feel like it.’

‘When he feels like it! How long has this been going on?’

‘Please forget. Say nothing!’ Nardia runs off to her work station.

On the hour the machine’s rattle into action and Nardia works stiffly, neither looking left nor right. She is rigid with fear while Meg seethes. Lubo doesn’t appear on the factory floor to bully the women through the morning’s work as usual. Instead he glares from the window of the office, wondering what will be.

At lunchtime Meg does her own bullying, firmly persuading Nardia to walk to the local coffee shop. It’s the first time Nardia has ever left the factory before the end of a shift, always being delivered and collected by her husband: being away from the factory now, she feels as if she is on the run; an escapee from and the way it must be.

They push their way through the string beads hanging in the doorway of the coffee shop, and sit at a table in the farthest corner. Meg removes her coat and orders coffee. Nardia sits as if about to be interrogated. ‘Tell me what sort of hold this man has over you.’

‘It is best left. I do not want to cause any trouble. He is Forman.’

‘Nardia, Lubo is an employee like you and me. His job is to supervise the work we do, that’s all. He’s not some Evil God to be feared.’ Cups of coffee are placed in front of them. Nardia sits with her hands resting in her lap staring at the cup as if waiting for permission to drink while Meg spears the spoon into her coffee and stirs vigorously. ‘How long has he been ¾ doing whatever he does to you?’

‘Since I first came to work at the factory.’

‘An what exactly does he do to you?’

‘Whatever he like!’

Nardia is now feeling annoyed as Meg sits back in her chair trying to comprehend what she has just said, knowing she is one of the longest serving employees. Meg looks about the coffee shop noticing only the men. Suddenly, they are all veneers of something more sinister. Nardia fractures the moment.

‘We owe him for everything.’

‘Who?’

‘Lubo.’

‘We don’t owe him anything!’

‘No. I mean me and my family.’

‘Explain it to me Nardia.’

‘He is friend of Yanko, my husband, and he get me this job. We need my job’

‘Get another. Doesn’t your husband work?’

‘When we first came to Australia we could not speak the language and it was very hard. Yanko went everywhere to find work and everywhere they told him to go away until he could speak English. He got only small labouring jobs and would always fight with the foremen. He was an educated man in our country and it was not right that he had to work with his hands. His fingers blistered and cut and he got little pay. He should not be so humiliated. I am not educated. I am his wife. It is my place to do this kind of work.’

It’s as if Nardia’s little speech has helped her rationalise her thinking and her role in the situation. It seems the only thing different to the horrid start of the day is that she now has yet another who wants to bully and control her destiny; but another woman does not inflict the same cultural strangulation.

‘You have brought me here to make an issue: I have come to so say no.’

‘There’s a saying Nardia, that it’s better to spend one day as a Tiger than a thousand years as a sheep. You’ve got to stand up for yourself. You’ll only need to do it once. You can stop this man from abusing you. You just have to be a tiger for a day.’

‘But when you are born a sheep you cannot be a tiger and when you are born a tiger it would destroy you to be a sheep for any time at all.’

‘What this man is doing to you is against the law. You have rights, Nardia. You can have him removed. Sacked! He should be put in jail!’

‘You ask me to be a tiger for a day, but what about tomorrow?’

‘You can’t allow this to go on. No matter how long he’s been doing it, it has got to stop. I’ll help you.’

‘Help? Can you stop my husband and children from being shamed and humiliated when they find out? Can you stop my husband from ... well, can you?’ Meg couldn’t answer. ‘I must go now back to work. You cannot help me. Please forget what you saw. I have a nice house and I love my husband and our children. I have to think of them.’

‘How do you even know if the children are his?’

Nardia throws her coffee into Meg’s face and leaves the coffee shop.

End.