Andrea Dworkin - The New Womans Broken Heart

again, vivid, clear, magnified a hundred times, sometimes it would

be on the edge of her vision, almost out of view, but not quite, as if its

shadow was falling over her face.

she would be in a room, she would see everything in the room as

surely it was, chairs, walls, radio, clock, television, books, all truly as

they were, but the tarantula would be there too, just behind her or

just to her side.

now, in bed, in grief, in her sorrow and shame, having been thrown

out, having failed, he did not love her, banished in shame, cut out,

told to leave, his eyes cold and indifferent, he could not look at her

anymore, he could not stand the sight of her, it was there again, over

her left shoulder, a chill went through her. she blinked, she stared,

she closed her eyes, still it was there.

the next months were cold and sweaty, filled with nightmares,

desperation, phone calls in the middle of the night just to hear his

cold cold voice.

she had known now for a while about his other women, women just

like her. how had God made so many women just like her. smart,

strong, killers every one. this one and that one. she hated them all,

all of them, she hated them and she hated anyone like them, anyone

who reminded her of them, any woman with ambition, she hated,

any woman with strength, she hated, his woman if he ever finds her.

get rid of her now.

she curled up in bed for days, for weeks, sometimes it was there,

just around the comer behind her ear, sometimes it was on her,

somewhere, crawling, hanging as if in midair, just as she went to

sleep it would brush past her.

she wanted to be dead.

that summer she went to Europe and there she had become pregnant

for the third time,

who he was, she would not say.

what it had been like, she would not say.

bitter, was the truth,

short and sordid, was the truth,

unimportant, she wanted to believe.

the one she loved had talked with her often about having a child,

he wanted one, a son. it would be his. it would be nice to have a little

Che Guevara, he would say, I want a little Che.

she had seen herself as the mother of this little Che, honored,

special, different, that holy one honored through the ages, not

touched, not soiled, useful at last, the one who could give what was

wanted, they together would have this little Che and he would be different from all the others.

now this little Che was inside of her, not his, hers, she would have

this little Che. she would have this little Che and that would make

her different from all the others.

together, even though they were not together, for him, even though

he could not stand to look at her. for him, no matter what.

a woman who has killed her father can do anything, she thought. I

am such a woman, she thought, holding on to that, he doesnt know,

none of them know, wobbly inside, teetering inside, shrill and

screaming inside, festering, silent, lonely inside. I will have this

child, inside. I will make him sorry, inside. I will make him love me,

inside, this little Che will be mine, inside.

then, the bleeding started and the pain in her gut. each day,

nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, a running stream of diluted blood, runny, watery, whose blood, she wondered, mine or his. what is mine and what is his. his blood, his blood is seeping out of me, flowing

out. I will bleed him to death.

she continued working, growing weak, bleeding, then, like a leaking faucet, sometimes the blood sputtering out.

she went south to a university to teach a special class, alone in a

rooming house, blood, cramps, her whole midpart a solid aching

heaving mass, would she die, here alone, would she die. a woman

who has killed her father can do anything, she thought. I can do

anything.

who would be with her, someone, she must have someone with her.

his friends, this one and that one. one by one. she tried them out.

seduction, on her knees in front of this one and that one, smiling

prettily, smiling her seductive smile. I want you, she would smile,

you are different, she would smile.

I am a woman, she would seem to say. then, she would get down on

her knees and smile up at him, whichever one it was. I will be yours,

she seemed to promise, then, he, whoever, this one or that one,

would be on top of her. afterward she would whisper just barely, I

am pregnant but you are the one I love, no, they would say. each one

would say no.

alone now in her room down south, refused over and over again,

her insides seeping blood, her insides coming out slowly, bit by bit.

then, she called him. I am pregnant, she said. I am in trouble, she

said, oh, he said. I am going to have this little Che, she said, trying to

tease, maybe I will die, she said. I am bleeding, she said, no, he said

coldly, you will not die. please let me call you, she asked in a whisper,

all right, he said.

she would work in the day, distracted, sick, bleeding, at night she

would hide away in her room, bleeding, nauseous, her heart dark

and sad, the taste in her mouth bitter without end.

she would call him at 7, before he went out for the evening, she

would call him after midnight when he returned, she could hear the

man or woman he had brought home with him mulling around,

touching his neck, holding his hand, he kept his voice low and their

conversations short. I have found a way into his life, she thought,

now I am back in his life.

then it stopped, she did not call him. she did not answer the phone,

she did not go to classes, she did not go to the doctor. I will die here

alone, she thought.

she sat in her room, not sleeping at all. she bled, then, it was over,

she had vomited and bled and gagged and then it was over, she was

weak and alone, her insides cast out. no more little Che.

now she was pregnant again, her cup runneth over.

this time she would come to term, this time there would be a man

beside her. this time she would have a baby and a man and a place.

she was almost 40, no longer young, her face was taut and bitter,

now there were deep wrinkles around her eyes, her mother had died

the year before, sad, bitter mother, I have not become you.

she had died alone in her bed-sitting-room, she had died, her hat

on the sofa, she had died never looking her daughter in the eye. who

had that woman been, they had not seen each other in nearly 15

years, there was nothing between them, nothing, tons of food cooked

in a pot, tons of laundry washed in a tub, nothing, pennies for candy,