Andrea Dworkin - The New Womans Broken Heart

she was slit in the middle, a knife into the abdomen, his head rose up

from the bloody mess, indistinguishable from her own inner slime,

this was his birth, success at last, her 40th birthday came and went.

at first she had been sick, like the last time but not so bad. nausea,

food welling up, dizzy, weak, embarrassed, annoyed, ashamed, no

cramps, like when she wasnt pregnant, thank God for that, 9 months

of freedom, it didnt seem mythic, she was fat and she would get fatter, well, that was ok. her blood, sharing it. some glob of mucous membrane eating it up. remember, egg and sperm, egg and sperm,

not a glob, egg and sperm, not like the last time, this wont be like the

last time.

she taught voice, how to use it and what it was, to young actors,

how to stand, how to breathe, how to pretend, how to convince, be an

ocean, she would say as she pressed in on the bellies of ripe young actors, be an ocean, she would say. presumably a person who could be an ocean could be anything.

she had become pregnant this last time on the Continent, his

name, she would not say it, who he was, she would not say it, why or

where or how, she would not say it, who he was, no, she would not

say it. short and sordid, she seemed to say. unimportant, she wanted

to believe, bitter, was the truth, contempt, abrupt and brutal, was

the truth, the one she loved had not been the father of that child.

her own father was dead, she had killed him herself, her only gift

to her mother, killed him and left her Scottish home, a small cold

house on the wet Scottish earth, taken the pills and put them in his

whiskey, at the behest of her mother who would never again look her

in the eye. at the behest of her mother who would spit out, look how

hes suffering, as she cleaned up his slop and excretion, this mother

of hers who was hard and shriveled, this mother of hers who was big

and fleshy, this mother of hers who had lost son after son in miscarriage and who had succeeded with her at last.

this mother of hers, what was her life, what had it been, laundry, it

had been laundry, rough clothes soaked in a tub, then rubbed and

rubbed by those driedout muscular hands, food it had been food,

always made in one large pot, everything thrown in together,

potatoes and greens, sometimes with a little lard or meat, cooked on

a small flame from morning until evening when he came home, wash

and scrub and clean, it had been that.

her life before she had married him, blank, she had been a

schoolgirl once, but not for long, had her mother ever played a game,

or laughed at a joke, she tried to remember, she remembered

nothing, only that bitter grimace, only that mouth full of criticism

and orders, do this do that be quiet fetch and carry and clean and

comb sit still, there must have been something else, was it possible

that a woman could be bom, only for this, she remembered only one

kindness, the penny for candy, for candy not meat, it must have been

more complicated of course, she must have done it for a reason, m arried him. there must have been some hope or promise of hope, there must have been some light or promise of light, but the poverty had

worn her mother down, year after year, until there was no outer sign

of inner life, by the time she was old enough to know or notice her

mother as someone separate from herself, there had been only that

bitter, quiet, hard woman who scrubbed and cleaned and cooked

and gave orders, leam to fetch and carry be quiet be good do whats

expected.

after her father died, her mother left that house, she went to the city

and got work, first cleaning and scrubbing, then as a saleslady in a

department store, her mother bought a new dress, wore lipstick,

bought a hat. after a few years, her bed-sitting-room had plastic

flowers and a sofa, a table for eating, an old television set. this is a

better life, she seemed to say, quiet and neat, but still her mother

would not look her in the eye.

she had killed her father for her mothers sake, he had been sick for

so long, his lungs weak and scarred, his digestion wrecked, for over a

year he had lain on that bed vomiting, shitting, drinking, always

drinking, look how hes suffering, her mother would say.

the doctor would come once a week, hes got to stop drinking, the

doctor would say. her mother would say nothing, just look at the

man on the bed in a stony silence, give him these pills, the doctor

would say.

after the doctor left, this man who was too weak to rise from his

bed to shit would suddenly bolt up and stumble out the door,

whiskey, he was strong enough for whiskey.

she thought that her mother agreed, she put the pills in his

whiskey, drink this, dad, she said, here, drink this, he had fallen

asleep and then he had died, mercy killing they called it. mercy for

the living.

her mothers expression did not change, did not soften, did not

harden, there was no grief, there was no relief, there was nothing, except that her mother would not look her in the eye.

for a while the fetching and carrying continued, nothing had

changed, the pot cooked all day long over the small flame, the laundry soaked in the tub. her mother scrubbed and scrubbed, as if there was some sense in that.

she left finally, after a few weeks or months, soon after, her mother

left too, went to the city and found work.

first she had gone to London.

there were men there who would pay her way, she was sure of that,

she had a look that they liked, like broken glass, she thought, a

frame filled with broken glass, it made her hard and soft at once,

shiny and dense, easy and dangerous.

she wanted to be an actress, she thought that would be best, to pretend, to pretend to be someone else, to look a certain way, this way or that, to be powerful yet hidden, someone but not herself.

she knew about men. she had seen her mother please her father,

anticipate his every wish, his every intention, her mother had done it

gracelessly, stupidly, never getting anything in return, a cold, hard

life full of senseless work, she had other ambitions, not to be her

mother, that was her ambition, never to be her mother.

she was in London, a warrior on a mission, never to be her mother. -

she watched other women, she saw how they dressed and how they

talked and how they kept silent, she watched them advance and

retreat, like dancers with measured, predetermined steps, this was

her first acting exercise, how to be this one or that one.

she watched men, what they liked, what pleased them, how they

smiled, what made them smile, how they drank, how they danced,

how their arms moved to claim a womans whole life, every breath

within her.

she learned to judge men without sentiment or desire, she learned