Mercy Read online

  Mercy

  Andrea Dworkin

  FOUR WALLS EIGHT WINDOWS

  NEW YORK

  Copyright © 1990, 1991 by Andrea Dworkin.

  A F o u r Wa l l s E ig h t W in d o w s F i r s t E d it io n .

  First Printing August, 1991.

  First paperback printing September, 1992.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

  system, or transmit ed in any form, by any means, including

  mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

  without the prior writ en permission of the publisher.

  Excerpts from this novel have appeared in The Michigan Quarterly

  Review, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, Fall 1990 and The American Voice,

  No. 21, Winter 1990.

  Mercy was first published

  in Great Britain by Seeker & Warburg in 1990.

  The author and publisher are grateful to the fol owing for

  permission to quote from copyright material: Olwyn Hughes for

  “Daddy, ” in Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, published by Harper

  & Row, Publishers, © 1965 1981; Pantheon for Anna Cancogni’s

  translation of Sartre: A Life by Annie Cohen-Solal, © 1987

  Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Dworkin, Andrea.

  Mercy: a novel / Andrea Dworkin.

  p.

  cm.

  I. Title.

  PS3554. W85M4 1991

  813'. 54—dc20

  91-18157

  (Cloth) ISBN: 0-941423-69-7

  CIP

  (Paper) ISBN: 0-941423-88-3

  Four Wal s Eight Windows

  P. O. Box 548, Village Station

  New York, N. Y 10014

  Printed in the U. S. A.

  F o r Judith Malina

  For Michael M oorcock

  In M em ory o f Ellen Frankfort

  D addy, daddy, you bastard, I’ m through.

  “ D ad d y, ” Sylvia Plath

  For a small moment have I forsaken

  thee; but with great mercies will I gather

  thee.

  In a little wrath I hid my face from

  thee for a moment; but with everlasting

  kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith

  the Lord thy Redeemer.

  Isaiah 54: 7-8

  Contents

  Not Andrea: Prologue

  i

  o n e In August 1956 (Age 9)

  5

  t w o In 1961 and 1962 (Age 14, 15, 16)

  29

  t h r e e In January 1965 (Age 18)

  35

  f o u r In February 1965 (Age 18)

  56

  f iv e In June 1966 (Age 19)

  74

  s ix In June 1967 (Age 20)

  100

  s e v e n In 1969, 1970, 1971 (Age 22, 23, 24, 25)

  134

  e i g h t In March 1973 (Age 26)

  164

  n in e In October 1973 (Age 27)

  214

  TEN April 30, 1974 (Age 27)

  273

  e le v e n April 30, 1974 (Age 27)

  308

  Not Andrea: Epilogue

  334

  Author’s N ote

  343

  Not Andrea: Prologue

  N o w I’ve come into m y ow n as a wom an o f letters. I am a

  committed feminist, o f course. I admit to a cool, elegant

  intellect with a clear superiority over the ape-like men who

  write. I don’t wear silk, o f course. I am icy and formal even

  alone by myself, a discipline o f identity and identification. I do

  not wear m yself out with mistaken resistance, denunciation,

  foolhardy anguish. I feel, o f course. I feel the pain, the sorrow ,

  the lack o f freedom. I feel with a certain hard elegance. I am

  admired for it— the control, the reserve, the ability to make

  the fine point, the subtle point. I avoid the obvious. I have a

  certain intellectual elegance, a certain refinement o f the mind.

  There is nothing w rong with civilized thought. It is necessary.

  I believe in it and I do have the courage o f m y convictions. One

  need not raise one’s voice. I am formal and careful, yes, but

  with a real power in m y style i f I do say so myself. I am not, as

  a writer or a human being, insipid or bland, and I have not sold

  out, even though I have manners and limits, and I am not

  poor, o f course, w h y should I be? I don’t have the stink on me

  that some o f the others have, I am able to say it, I am not effete.

  I am their sister and their friend. I do not disavow them. I am

  committed. I write checks and sign petitions. I lend m y name.

  I write books with a strong narrative line in clear, detailed,

  descriptive prose, in the nineteenth-century tradition o f

  storytelling, intellectually coherent, nearly realistic, not

  sentimental but yes with sex and romance and wom en w ho do

  something, achieve something, strong women. I am

  committed, I do care, and I am the one to contend with, if the

  truth be told, because m y mind is clear and cool and m y prose

  is exceedingly skillful if sometimes a trifle too baroque. Every

  style has its dangers. I am not reckless or accusatory. I consider

  freedom. I look at it from many angles. I value it. I think about

  it. I’ve found this absolutely stunning passage from Sartre that

  I want to use and I copy it out slow ly to savor it, because it is

  cogent and meaningful, with an intellectual richness, a moral

  subtlety. Y ou don’t have to shout to tell the truth. Y ou can

  think. Y ou have a responsibility to think. M y wild sisters revel

  in being wretched and they do not think. Sartre is writing

  about the French under the German Occupation, well, French

  intellectuals really, and he says— “ We were never as free as

  under the German Occupation. We had lost all our rights, and,

  first o f all, the right to speak; we were insulted every day, and

  had to keep silent.. . . and everywhere, on the walls, the

  papers, the movie screen, we were made to confront the ugly

  mug that our oppressor presented to us as our own: but this is

  precisely why we were free. As the German poison seeped into

  our minds, every just thought we had was a real conquest; as

  an omnipotent police kept forcing silence upon us, every word

  we uttered had the value o f a declaration o f rights; as we were

  constantly watched, every gesture we made was a commitm ent. ” This is moral eloquence, in the mouth o f a man. This

  applies to the situation o f women. This is a beautiful truth,

  beautifully expressed. Every just thought is a real conquest,

  for women under the rule o f men. They don’t know how hard

  it is to be kind. Our oppressor puts his version o f us

  everywhere, on walls, in the papers, on the movie screens.

  Like a poison gas, it seeps in. Every word we utter is a

  declaration o f our rights. Every gesture is a commitment. I

  make gestures. I experience this subtle freedom, this freedom

  based on nuance, a freedom grotesquely negated by a vulgar,

  reckless shout, however sincere. He didn’t know that the Je w s

  were being extermi
nated, perhaps, not then. O f course, yes,

  he did know that they had been deported from France. Yes.

  And when he published these words much later, in 1949, he

  did know, but one must be true to one’s original insights,

  one’s true experiences, the glimpses one has o f freedom. There

  is a certain pride one takes in seeing something so fine, so

  subtle, and saying it so well— and, o f course, one cannot

  endlessly revise backwards. His point about freedom is

  elegant. He too suffered during the war. It is not a cheap point.

  And it is true that for us too every w ord is a declaration o f

  rights, every gesture a commitment. This is beautifully put,

  strongly put. As a wom an o f letters, I fight for m y kind, for

  women, for freedom. The brazen scream distracts. The wild

  harridans are not persuasive. I write out Sartre’s passage with

  appreciation and excitement. The analogy to the condition o f

  wom en is dramatic and at the same time nuanced. I w ill not

  shout. This is not the ovens. We are not the Jew s, or, to be

  precise, the Je w s in certain parts o f Europe at a certain time.

  We are not being pushed into the ovens, dragged in, cajoled in,

  seduced in, threatened in. It is not us in the ovens. Such

  hyperbole helps no one. I like the w ay Sartre puts it, though

  the irony seems unintended: “ We were never as free as under

  the German O ccupation. ” Actually, I do know that his

  meaning is straightforward and completely sincere— there is

  no irony. This embarrasses me, perhaps because I am a captive

  o f m y time. We are cursed with hindsight. We need irony

  because we are in fact incapable o f simple sincerity. “ We were

  never as free as under the German O ccupation. ” It gives the

  right significance to the gesture, something Brecht never

  managed incidentally. I like the sophistication, the unexpected

  meaning. This is what a writer must do: use w ords in subtle,

  unexpected w ays to create intellectual surprise, real delight. I

  love the pedagogy o f the analogy. There is a mutability o f

  meaning, an intellectual elasticity that avoids the rigidity o f

  ideology and still instructs in the meaning o f freedom. It

  warns us not to be simple-minded. We were never as free as

  under the German Occupation. Glorious. Really superb.

  Restrained. Elegant. True in the highest sense. De Beauvoir

  was my feminist ideal. An era died with her, an era o f civilized

  coupling. She was a civilized woman with a civilized militance

  that recognized the rightful constraints o f loyalty and, o f

  course, love. I am tired o f the bellicose fools.

  O N E

  In August 1956

  (Age 9)

  M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe

  only boys are named it but I live in America. Everyone says I

  seem sad but I am not sad. I was born down the street from

  Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street, in Cam den, in 1946,

  broken brick houses, cardboard porches, garbage spread over

  cement like fertilizer on stone fields, dark, a dark so thick you

  could run your fingers through it like icing and lick it o ff your

  fingers. I w asn’t raped until I was almost ten which is pretty

  good it seems when I ask around because many have been

  touched but are afraid to say. I w asn’t really raped, I guess, just

  touched a lot by a strange, dark-haired man w ho I thought was

  a space alien because I couldn’t tell how many hands he had

  and people from earth only have two, and I didn’t know the

  w ord rape, which is ju st some awful word, so it didn’t hurt me

  because nothing happened. Y o u get asked if anything happened and you say well yes he put his hand here and he rubbed

  me and he put his arm around m y shoulder and he scared me

  and he followed me and he whispered something to me and

  then someone says but did anything happen. And you say,

  well, yes, he sat down next to me, it was in this m ovie theater

  and I didn’t mean to do anything w rong and there w asn’t

  anyone else around and it was dark and he put his arm around

  me and he started talking to me and saying weird things in a

  weird voice and then he put his hand in m y legs and he started

  rubbing and he kept saying ju st let m e.. . . and someone says

  did anything happen and you say well yes he scared me and he

  followed me and he put his hand or hands there and you don’t

  know how many hands he had, not really, and you don’t want

  to tell them you don’t know because then they will think you

  are crazy or stupid but maybe there are creatures from Mars

  and they have more than two hands but you know this is

  stupid to say and so you don’t know how to say what

  happened and if you don’t know how many hands he had you

  don’t know anything and no one needs to believe you about

  anything because you are stupid or crazy and so you don’t

  know how to say what happened and you say he kept saying

  just let me. . . . and I tried to get away and he followed me

  and he. . . . followed me and he. . . . and then they say,

  thank God nothing happened. So you try to make them

  understand that yes something did happen honest you aren’t

  lying and you say it again, strained, thicklipped from biting

  your lips, your chest swollen from heartbreak, your eyes

  swollen from tears all salt and bitter, holding your legs funny

  but you don’t want them to see and you keep pretending to be

  normal and you want to act adult and you can barely breathe

  from crying and you say yes something did happen and you

  try to say things right because adults are so strange and so

  stupid and you don’t know the right words but you try so hard

  and you say exactly how the man sat down and put his arm

  around you and started talking to you and you told him to go

  away but he kept holding you and kissing you and talking to

  you in a funny whisper and he put his hands in your legs and he

  kept rubbing you and he had a really deep voice and he

  whispered in your ear in this funny, deep voice and he kept

  saying just to let him. . . . but you couldn’t understand what

  he said because maybe he was mumbling or maybe he couldn’t

  talk English so you can’t tell them what he said and you say

  maybe he was a foreigner because you don’t know what he

  said and he talked funny and you tried to get away but he

  followed you and then you ran and you didn’t scream or cry

  until you found your m omma because he might hear you and

  find you so you were quiet even though you were shaking and

  you ran and then they say thank God nothing happened and

  you don’t know w hy they think you are lying because you are

  trying to tell them everything that happened ju st the right w ay

  and i f you are a stubborn child, a strong-willed child, you say

  the almost-ten-year-old version o f fuck you something happened all right the fuck put his hands in m y legs and rubbed me

  all over; m y legs; my legs; me; m y; m y legs; m y; m y; m y legs;

  and he rubbed me; his arm was around m y shoulder, rubbing,


  and his mouth was on m y neck, rubbing, and his hand was

  under m y shirt, rubbing, and his hand was in m y pants,

  rubbing, and he kept saying ju st let me. . . . and it was a

  creepy whisper in some funny language and he was saying

  sounds I didn’t understand and then they say the child is

  hysterical, something must have happened, the child is

  hysterical; and they want to know i f anything came inside or

  was outside and you don’t want to tell them that he took your

  hand and put it somewhere wet on him in his lap in the dark

  and your hand touched something all funny and your hand got

  all cold and slim y and they say thank God nothing happened;

  and they ask i f something went inside but when you ask inside

  where they look aw ay and you are nearly ten but you are a

  fully desperate human being because you want to know inside

  where so you w ill know what happened because you don’t

  know what he did or what it was or how many hands he had

  but they don’t ask you that. And your mother says show me and

  you don’t know if you should put your arm around her

  shoulder, rubbing, or rub your head into her neck, and she says

  show me and you try to whisper the w ay he whispered in a deep

  voice but you are too far away from her for it to be like him and

  you don’t know what he said so you are crying and a little sick

  and you point to your legs and say here and she says show me

  where he touched you and you say here and you point to your

  legs and she says did he put anything in and you say his hands

  and she says anything else did he put anything else in and you

  don’t know how many hands he had or if he put them in or in

  where and you are wearing bermuda shorts because it is hot,

  hot summer, August, black ones, too grown up for a girl your

  age she told you but you are always fighting to wear black

  because you want to be grown up and you are always fighting

  with her anyway and this time she let you because she didn’t

  want to fight anymore, and she wants to know i f he touched

  your knee and she points to your bare knee and you say yes and

  she wants to know if he touched higher and you don’t know