mail? Is it how old he is— he’s a real adult, straight and narrow,
from the 1950s unchanged until now. Is it that it is hard to
believe he is a doctor? When he started talking to me on the
street he said he was near where I live taking care o f a Cretan
child who was sick— with nothing no less, just a sore throat.
He said it was good public relations for the military to help, for
a doctor to help. Is it that he doesn’t know anything about
writing or about novels or about his own novel or even about
The Naked and the Dead or even about Norm an Mailer? Is it
that he is in the military, must be career military, he certainly
w asn’t drafted, and keeps saying he is against the War but he
doesn’t seem to know what’s wrong with it? Is it that he is an
officer and w hy would such a person want to talk with me? O r
is it that no man, ever, asks a woman what she thinks in detail,
with insistence, systematically, concentrating on her answers,
a checklist o f political questions about the War and writing and
what I am doing here on Crete now. Never. N ot ever. Then I
grasp that he is a cop. I was an Amerikan abroad in troubled
times in a country the C . I. A. wanted to run and I’d been in jail
against the War. I talked to soldiers and told them not to go to
Vietnam. I told them it was wrong. I had written letters to the
government telling them to stop. The F . B . I. had bothered me
when they could find me, followed me, harassed me, interfered with me, and that’s the honest truth; they’d threatened me. N o w a tall man with a square face and a red neck and a
crew cut and square shoulders, a quarterback with a Deep
South accent, wants to know what I think. A girl could live
her whole life and never have a man want to know so much. I
love m y country for giving me this unique experience. I try to
leave it but it follows me. I try to disaffiliate but it affiliates.
But I had learned to be quiet, a discipline o f survival. I never
volunteered anything or had any small talk. It was a w ay o f
life. I was never in danger o f accidentally talking too much.
Living outside o f language is freedom and chattering is stupid
and I never talked to Amerikans except to tell them not to go
to Vietnam; from m y heart, I had nothing else to say to them. I
would have liked to talk with a writer, or listen actually; that
was the hook; I would have asked questions and listened and
tried to understand what he was writing and how he was
doing it and w hy and what it made him feel. I was trying to
write m yself and it would have been different from regular
talk to talk with a writer who was trying to do something and
maybe I could learn. But he wasn’t a writer and I hadn’t
gibbered on about anything; perhaps he was surprised. N o w I
was alone with him in a ranch-type house and I couldn’t get
home without his help and I needed him to let me go; not keep
me; not hurt me; not arrest me; not fuck me; and I felt some
fear about how I would get away because it is always best to
sleep with men before they force you; and I was confused,
because it wasn’t sex, it was answers to questions. And I
thought about it, and I looked around the ranch-type house,
and considered how strong he was and it was best not to make
him angry; but I felt honor bound to tell my government not
just about the War but about how they were fucking up the
country, the U . S . A ., and I couldn’t act like I didn’t know or
didn’t care or retreat. M y name is Andrea I told him. It means
manhood or courage. It is a European name but in Europe
only boys are named it. I was born down the street from Walt
Whitman’s house, on Mickle Street in Camden in 1946. I’m
from his street. I’m from his country, the country he wrote
about in his poems, the country o f freedom, the country o f
ecstasy, the country o f jo y o f the body, the country o f
universal love o f every kind o f folk, no one unworthy or too
low, the country o f working men and w orking women with
dignity; I’m from his country, not the Amerika run by war
criminals, not the country that hates and kills anyone not
white. I’m from his country, not yours. Do you know the
map o f his country? “ I will not have a single person slighted or
left away. ” “ I am the poet o f the B ody and I am the poet o f the
So u l. ” “ I am the poet o f the woman the same as the m an. ” “ I
too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, / 1 sound m y
barbaric yaw p over the roofs o f the w o rld . ” “ Do I contradict
m yself? /V ery well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I
contain multitudes. )” He nursed soldiers in a different war and
wrote poems to them. It was the war that freed the slaves.
Who does this war free? He couldn’t live in Am erika now; he
would be crushed by how small it is, its mind, its heart. He
would come to this island because it has his passion and his
courage and the nobility o f simple people and a shocking,
brilliant, extreme beauty that keeps the blood boiling and the
heart alive. Am erika is dead and filled with cruel people and
ugly. Am erika is a dangerous country; it sends its police
everywhere; w hy are you policing me? I loved his America; I
hate m y Am erika, I hate it. I was the first generation after the
bomb. D idn’t we kill enough yellow people then? M y father
told me the bomb saved him, his life, him, him; he put his life
against the multitudes and thought it was worth more than all
theirs; and I don’t. Walt stood for the multitudes. Am erika
was the country o f the multitudes before it became a killing
machine. In m y mind I know I am leaving out the Indians;
Am erika always was a killing machine; but this is m y
statement to the secret police and I like having a Golden A ge
rooted in Whitman. I put his patriotism against theirs. The
War is wrong. I will tell anyone the War is w rong and suffer
any consequence and if I could I would stop it right now by
magic or by treason and pay any price. I don’t think he know s
who Walt Whitman is precisely, although Walt goes on the
list, but he is genuinely immobilized by what I have said—
because I say I hate Am erika. I’ve blasphemed and he doesn’t
recover easily though he is trained not to be stupid. He stands
very still, the tension in his shoulders and fists m aking his
body rigid, he needs his full musculature to support the
tension. He asks me if I believe in God. I say I’m Jew ish— a
dangerous thing to say to a Deep South man who will think I