Mercy

put her hands up you again and search your vagina again and

search your rectum again and I asked her w hy do you do this,

why, you don’t have to do this, and she said she was looking

for heroin, and then the next day they took me to the doctors

and there were two o f them and one kept pressing me all over

down on my stomach and under where m y stomach is and all

down near between my legs and he kept hurting me and

asking me if I hurt and I said yes and every time I said yes he did

it harder and I thought he was trying to find out if I was sick

because he was a doctor and I was in so much pain I must be

very sick like having an appendicitis all over down there but

then I stopped saying anything because I saw he liked pressing

harder and making it hurt more and so I didn’t answer him but

I had some tears in m y eyes because he kept pressing anyway

but I wouldn’t let him see them as best as it was possible to turn

m y head from where he could see and they made jokes, the

doctors, about having sex and having girls and then the big

one who had been watching and laughing took the speculum

which I didn’t know what it was because I had never seen one

or had anyone do these awful things to me and it was a big,

cold, metal thing and he put it in me and he kept twisting it and

turning it and he kept tearing me to pieces which is literal

because I was ripped up inside and the inside o f me was bruised

like fists had beaten me all over but from within me or

someone had taken my uterus and turned it inside out and hit it

and cut it and then I was taken back to m y cell and I got on m y

knees and I tried to cry and I tried to pray and I couldn’t cry and

I couldn’t pray. I was in G od ’s world, His world that He made

H im self on purpose, on my knees, blood coming down m y

legs; and I hated Him; and there were no tears in me to come as

if I was one o f G o d ’s children all filled with sorrow and

mourning in a world with His mercy. M y father came to get

me weeks later when the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I had called

and begged and he came at night though I had shamed them

and he wouldn’t look at me or speak to me. I was afraid to tell

the woman about the blood. At first when she made me talk I

said I had m y period but when the bleeding didn’t stop I didn’t

tell her because a peace boy said I had a disease from sex and I

was bleeding because o f that and he didn’t want me around

because I was dirty and sick and I thought she’d throw me

aw ay too so I said I had called m y parents. I f you tell people in

apartments that you called your parents they think you are fine

then. M y mother said I should be locked up like an animal for

being a disgrace because o f jail and she would lock me up like

the animal I was. I ran aw ay for good from all this place—

home, Amerika, I can’t think o f no good name for it. I went far

away to where they don’t talk English and I never had to talk

or listen or understand. N o one talked so I had to answer. N o

one knew m y name. It was a cocoon surrounded by

cacophony. I liked not knowing anything. I was quiet outside,

never trying. There was no talking anyw ay that could say I

was raped more now and was broke for good. If it ain’t broke

don’t fix it and if it is broke just leave it alone and someday it’ll

die. Here, Andreus is a m an’s name. Andrea doesn’t exist at

all, m y m om m a’s name, not at all, not one bit. It is monstrous

to betray your child, bitch.

F IV E

In June 1966

(Age 19)

M y name is Andrea but here in nightclubs they say ma chere.

M y dear but more romantic. Sometimes they say it in a sullen

way, sometimes they are dismissive, sometimes it has a rough

edge or a cool indifference to it, a sexual callousness; sometimes they say it like they are talking to a pet dog, except that the Greeks don’t keep pets. Here on Crete they shoot cats.

They hate them. The men take rifIes and shoot them o ff the

roofs and in the alleys. The cats are skeletal, starving; the

Cretans act as if the cats are cruel predators and slimy crawling

things at the same time. N o one would dare befriend one here.

E very time I see a cat skulking across a roof, its bony, meager

body twisted for camouflage, I think I am seeing the Jew s in

the ghettos o f Eastern Europe sliding out o f hiding to find

food. M y chere. Doesn’t it mean expensive? I don’t know

French except for the few words I have had to pick up in the

bars. The high-class Greek men speak French, the peasants

only Greek, and it is very low -brow to speak English, vulgar.

N o one asks m y name or remembers it if I say it. In Europe

only boys are named it. It means manhood or courage. If they

hear m y name they laugh; you’re not a boy, they say. I don’t

need a name, it’s a burden o f memory, a useless burden for a

woman. It doesn’t seem to mean anything to anyone. There is

an Andreus here, a hero who was the captain o f a ship that was

part o f the resistance when the Nazis occupied the island. He

brought in guns and food and supplies and got people o ff the

island who needed to escape and brought people to Crete who

needed to hide. He killed Nazis when he could; he killed some,

for certain. N o occupier has ever conquered the mountains

here, rock made out o f African desert and dust. Andreus is old

and cunning and rich. He owns olive fields and is the official

consul for the country o f N orw ay; I don’t know what that

means but he has stationery and a seal and an office. He owns

land. He is dirty and sweaty and fat. He drinks and says dirty

things to women but one overlooks them. He says dirty

words in English and makes up dirty limericks in broken

English. He likes me because I am in love; he admires love. I

am in love in a language I don’t know. He likes this love

because it is a rare kind to see. It has the fascination o f fire; you

can’t stop looking. We’re so much joined in the flesh that

strangers feel the pain if we stop touching. Andreus is a failed

old sensualist now but he is excited by passion, the life-and-

death kind, the passion you have to have to wage a guerrilla

war from the sea on an island occupied by Nazis; being near

us, you feel the sea. I’m the sea for him now and he’s waiting to

see if his friend will drown. M venerates him for his role in the

resistance. Andreus is maybe sixty, an old sixty, gritty, oiled,

lined. M is thirty, old to me, an older man if I force m yself to

think o f it but I never think, no category means anything, I