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 exterminated, 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