by Marge Piercy
“How much does a legislator cost?” Victoria asked.
“No fixed price. Depends on the legislation and who’s bidding against you. Most I ever paid was ten thousand.”
“Still, you have to keep on eye on the laws they pass.”
“What do I care for the law? Ain’t I got the power?” He grinned and Victoria could see for a moment the handsome man he must have been in his prime. Tennie beamed warmly at him.
When they went off to the powder room to freshen up, Tennie said, “He’s been hinting how his wife is sickly. He asked me this afternoon if I wanted to be the next Mrs. Vanderbilt.”
Dropping her comb, Victoria turned to her sister. “Shhh. Don’t talk about it in here. But what did you say?”
“That I’d think about it. I sure will. If I said yes and started jumping up and down, I’d be in real trouble with him.”
Victoria turned back, meeting her sister’s eyes in the baroque mirror. “You play it the way you see it, Tennie. You understand him. Just don’t let his family get wind of this or they will do something to put an end to it.”
“They’ll blow up a hurricane, I know it. Besides, his wife’s still kicking, and when I see her she doesn’t look a bit frail to me.”
Victoria felt a chill on the back of her neck, as if a spirit had caressed her. “You think he’s capable of having something done to her?”
“He stuck her in an insane asylum at least once, didn’t he? But I don’t think he’s the murdering type. He’s too scared of ghosts.”
“Put this in the back of the closet for now. It’s too dangerous to talk about.”
They trekked back to the table, all elegance and smiles. They were better dressed these days. They each had some good new gowns and a couple that looked new, obtained through the network of madams. Victoria had no more useful or more intimate friend than Annie Wood. Annie passed on tips to Victoria, who passed them on from the spirits to the Commodore. In return, Victoria gave Annie any information that might be useful. Victoria had little to invest yet—a few dollars.
The next morning she had brunch with Annie in the conservatory. They met at least four times a week to exchange information, gossip, speculation, or just to talk about their lives. After they had discussed the market, Annie said, “Stocks are all well and good, but I put most of my money into real estate.”
Victoria was startled. “Why? There’s plenty of land to be had cheap—dirt cheap, as they say.”
“There’s plenty of land out west, Victoria, but look at Manhattan. It’s a fixed size. Over in Brooklyn, they can make more land when they need it from swamps and marshes, and the same with New Jersey. But Manhattan is rock and there’s deep water on all sides. It can only grow north. So what’s good enough for the Astors—buying land that isn’t developed yet up by Central Park—is good enough for me.”
“I’ve been up there with the Commodore when he’s racing his horses. It’s just barren country and shacks. A few farms, slaughterhouses, squatters’ cabins.” Nothing she could imagine getting excited about, but Annie’s judgment in money matters was something to be respected.
“This city grows every year. The rich people keep trying to get away from the poor people, and north’s the only direction they can go. Madame Restell saw that years ago and bought land on Fifth Avenue near the big cathedral that’s going up.” Annie fanned herself briskly, excitement quickening her. Annie had a whole assortment of fine painted fans, landscapes, flowers.
“Who’s Madame Restell?”
“Ann Lohman. She’s the best abortionist in all of New York. If you ever find yourself in the family way and you don’t need another mouth to feed, you see Restell. She’s saved the wives and daughters of the richest families in New York, the so-called better people. Made a fortune doing it. She built herself a mansion just below where the park starts. You should go look at it. It’s enormous and every window has hangings that match. The rich people moving up there tried to get rid of her, tried to buy her out, but she wouldn’t be moved. She drives in the park every day with her gorgeous horses and her fine phaeton and the respectable ladies pretend they don’t see her.”
Victoria was intrigued. Here was a woman who had gotten rich on her own, nobody’s mistress, no wealthy family. “How can she be so bold? The regular physicians and their A.M.A. have made what she does illegal. When I was a girl, it wasn’t. Until the baby quickened, it was just something women did if they had to. Nobody thought twice about it. Now it’s against the law.” She had suspected her first husband, Dr. Woodhull, of occasionally giving a woman some relief.
“She pays off the police and the chief is a friend. When she entertains, politicians and lawyers and men with money drop in. They say she’s a fine lady with good manners and elegant taste—the finest food and wines and liquors. I’ve never had occasion to use her myself, but if any of my girls needs help, that’s where I send them. She’s reliable. She may lose a patient once in a while, but not often. They’ve tried to get her in court, but she has always escaped except once. I hear she did time years ago on Blackwell’s Island. You keep her in mind if you have to have something taken care of. Although I suspect you have your ways.”
“I do. I had my babies and now I take care of myself.”
“Two. One able and one feeble.”
Victoria drew herself up. Not even Annie was allowed to cast aspersions on Byron. “He’s a sweet boy. There are many worse things that can happen to a mother than to have a boy who never grows up. He’s a baby forever.”
“A rather large baby.”
“I love him, Annie. I would protect him with my life.”
“But you love the girl better. You have to.”
“She’s a bright child.” Victoria could remember her fear with Zulu, that there would be something wrong with her too. How obsessively she had watched over Zulu that first year, until she began to walk and talk. “She sees everything. She’s wise beyond her age. I keep her close to me.”
“Tennie’s never had children?”
“Byron scared her. She’s afraid, as I am, that there’s something bad running in our family. Our mother’s crazy at times. Buck is not to be trusted. I say this although I love both of them dearly. We all stick together. But I think we may have bad blood.” She inched her chair a little closer to Annie’s. “You never wanted to have children?” She wondered if Annie had a child stashed away someplace.
“I didn’t think it a great idea to bring them into this life, darling, although plenty of whores do. I got pregnant once. Now there’s no chance of it. The Virgin Mary is the only one on record who can do it alone. I hardly think I’m in her class.”
VICTORIA WATCHED HER CHILDREN together. Zulu Maud was seven going on eight. She interpreted her brother’s grunts and brought him water or a toy he liked or showed him some bright object that caught his attention so that he reached out toward it, making those strange noises that were all he had for speech. To her, what was he? More pet than brother. Byron felt safe and cared for with his sister and with her. He barely related to anyone else. James had about as much to do with him as he would with a goldfish in a bowl. Sometimes when he spoke of their immediate family, he would slip and refer to them as three—and she would have to remind him gently but firmly that they were four. His indifference to Byron bothered her, but she understood it. It was hard for anyone but herself and Zulu Maud to see him as a person. No other friend or lover seemed able to penetrate that barrier of strangeness to love her son, who could not speak or do any of the things the most ordinary child of paupers could perform. But he had a heart and feelings and probably inchoate thoughts. He reached out to her, his oversized head bobbing on his weak neck. Whenever he saw her, he burbled joy. He loved to be held in her arms. He was a being sent to her to be protected and loved, and she would never fail him. Actually there had been one other person who saw Byron as an individual and not a vegetable, and that had been his father, Canning Woodhull, when he was sober enough to notice anyone else. Ja
mes’s older brother George was sometimes kind and patient with Byron. George often visited them now that they were lodged in a comfortable house which was gradually being well furnished. George was a more emotional man than James, and he loved children. He had a special place in his big heart for those who had afflictions, even keeping as a pet a three-legged dog.
Zulu Maud was spinning a top while Byron swatted ineffectually at it, giggling and drooling. Zulu would very seriously wipe his mouth from time to time with a big white linen handkerchief with James’s initials. Byron held still for these attentions. Other mothers with fourteen-year-old sons had to worry that they would be getting a maidservant pregnant or beginning to drink, to smoke, to gamble, to run with a bad crowd. Victoria was spared those worries. She could find something to be grateful for even in Byron’s affliction. She had been thinking of Lord Byron’s clubfoot when she named her son, for it was evident from birth he would not be a normal child.
Zulu Maud gritted her teeth and concentrated fiercely on the top Buck had given her. Victoria did her best to keep Buck and Roxanne away from the children, but it was hard, living under the same roof. She did not want them to have undue influence over Zulu, and she was afraid of Buck’s cruel streak with Byron. They needed a bigger house than this narrow brownstone, but she did not have the money. Tennie and she could barely manage to support this establishment.
Zulu Maud’s sausage curls bobbed and shook as she played. Her intense blue gaze was fixed upon the top as if to mesmerize it into spinning upright, not wobbling. Zulu had Victoria’s eyes, that intense clear blue that people found fascinating or disturbing, depending on their temperaments. Perhaps the Gaelic strain from Buck, whose people came from northern Scotland, gave Victoria the beauty she found useful: black hair, pale perfect skin and intense blue eyes. Zulu had her bone structure, that chiseled look some admirers called aristocratic. That made Victoria smile. She came out of the dirt, yes, but she had known since the spirits began to single her out that she was indeed special and would, as they promised, achieve wealth and great things. She had finally come to a place where that was within her ken. It only remained to pursue those goals intelligently and without distraction.
Clearly, the first goal had to be wealth. Once she had the wherewithal to keep her extended family, she would be free to pursue the other goals. She was, the spirits said, to lead a great cause. Fame would follow. She could see her path as a golden road unfolding before her, as if she had only to shut her eyes, visualize it and step forward. But she knew better. There was a lot of work involved in paving that road with gold. The best place to start was to keep filling Vanderbilt’s favor bank.
There was a final torchlight parade Sunday night for Grant. The election was Tuesday. Victoria thought she would probably vote for him, if she could. The fact that she couldn’t annoyed her. She was surely the equal of any man. Her first husband had been a smart man but weak-willed. James was much stronger, but if he had never met her and been swept into a storm of passion, he would still be sitting in St. Louis writing secret essays about free love with his boring family closing him in and his boring business on his back. The passion was intermittent by now, but there was enough of it, and they had the bond of common ideas and a common destiny to fulfill.
She talked Tennie into going with her. They pinned their hair up under caps and put on men’s jackets and trousers. It would have shocked just about everyone they knew, perhaps even Annie Wood, but the sisters had discovered several years ago that wearing men’s attire enabled them to fade into crowds and go places ladies would never dare or be permitted, and women not considered ladies would be in danger. They simply passed as youths out together.
The parade was lively, raucous. The smell of the burning torches charred the air. Many of the men were drunk already, but the sisters knew how to handle themselves and nobody did more than jostle them. The parade streamed through the city, stopping traffic, filling Broadway from gutter to gutter. The rally was at Park Row where the newspapers were, so that they would be sure to carry word the next day of the huge turnout the Republicans had in this Democratic stronghold. Tennie wanted to leave, but Victoria didn’t.
“I want to hear the speeches.” She listened to them, not to be moved, not to be persuaded of anything, but to dissect their rhetorical devices, to see what kind of a speech worked and what fell flat. She studied each speaker’s delivery. “I’ll be giving speeches someday soon, Demosthenes told me so,” she whispered to Tennie so that no one would overhear her voice. “I must study how it’s done.” They wormed their way toward the raised platform constructed of planks. GENERAL GRANT IN ’68. HE WILL SET THE COUNTRY STRAIGHT.
She stood attentive through two and a half hours of speeches. The torches flared, the crowd roared and booed on cue. Half the audience were passing bottles around. The whores were working the crowd. They couldn’t take the night off with so many men gathered. They would service as many as they could, one after the other, some in the cold alleys, some back in their own rooms in a nearby tenement or in a cheap hotel friendly to their trade. Victoria was glad she had brought only a dollar in a front pocket as she noticed pickpockets working the crowd, homeless boys probably. With so many men jostling each other, most of them drunk, distracted by the speeches and the excitement of the crowd, pickpockets would do well. She saw her reporter friend from the Sun, Charlie, but he did not recognize her dressed as a man. They were no longer lovers. Occasionally she would drop in on him at the newspaper, causing a stir when she walked past the desks. It was well that they came to know her, for one day she would need the help of newspapermen to become famous.
When they got home, she took out the notebook that stood beside her bed to make copious notes while she could still recall the various speakers. Women were not supposed to speak in public, but that taboo had been broken by women preachers, abolitionists and spiritualists. That was one of the things that had drawn her to spiritualism, although Roxanne had always had visions and premonitions and seen things other people thought were not there. Victoria had been brought up to expect the supernatural in daily life, and the spirits had not failed to manifest themselves when she was still a girl. It was the spirits that had first brought her in front of a crowd and banished fear, so that she enjoyed the attention instead of being immobilized by it.
There was a soft knock on the door. James’s knock. “Come in.” If she had not been alone, she would have gone to the door and opened it a crack to speak with him. That was their way. He had taught her the theory of free love, but she had put it into practice.
He was wearing a navy silk dressing gown, his bearing erect and foursquare as always, almost military. He looked quite handsome. His beard when she met him had been rather overgrown and scraggly, but now it was neatly trimmed—because she regularly trimmed it to save the cost of a barber. She felt a current between them this night. She smiled at him.
“How was the rally?”
“Exciting at first. Then boring. But I am trying to study rhetoric. The art of making speeches that actually move people.”
“Would you like me to get you a book or two on the subject?”
James would know exactly what she should read. “I’d love that.”
He looked toward the bed and then back toward her in silent question. She rose from her vanity and came toward him, letting her dressing gown fall to the floor in a slither of silk. She reached for the little box beside the bed with sponges soaked in boracic acid and inserted one. She spoke in a low, almost purring voice that she had observed worked well on James. “Put another log in the fireplace. Then put yourself next to me.”
He did. She was always gentle with him, because of his war wounds. She had learned the places that pained him and the places he liked to be caressed. The skin around his mouth was sensitive to her tongue and so were his eyelids. If she reached under his balls, there was a spot between his balls and anus where pressure caused his prick to harden at once, magically. He would kiss and caress her breasts
, but he got most excited when he squeezed her buttocks. He had told her she had a firm ass, something Woodhull had complained of, saying she had a behind like a boy’s. They reached the point where she no longer had to be so careful not to bump against his six wounds, when his passion began to excite him beyond noticing. She closed her eyes then, giving over to the pressure of his hands and then his prick against her. He rubbed it back and forth against her seat of pleasure, as she had taught him, before thrusting in. He could keep at it for a goodly time once he was excited enough, more than enough time for her to push and push and push up the slope of sensation until her pleasure burst in her. He always knew that moment, and he began to thrust harder toward his own pleasure. In a minute he came and then subsided next to her. She held him for a time, making sure he felt loved, then rose to douche. She did not take chances with pregnancy. She could tell from James’s breathing he had dozed off. She did not sleep well with him because of his thrashing nightmares, but once in a while after sex they spent the night in her bed. Carefully she slid in beside him, turning onto her side to study his face in the dying light of the fire. Love warmed her as she gazed. Her partner.
PREVIOUSLY
THIRTEEN
1862
SIX MONTHS EARLIER, Freydeh and Moishe had arrived in the clamor and confusion of Castle Garden. Now they were sleeping on the floor of a third-story flat on Essex with a German Jewish family, the Kuppersmiths. Mr. Kuppersmith was a butcher who hoped someday to have his own shop, but for now worked in a market. Mrs. Kuppersmith sold baskets in a shop run by her brother-in-law. The oldest boy curried horses in a stable. The daughter tried selling matches, but when the Kuppersmiths learned how many matchgirls were prostitutes, they sent her to make felt in a factory.
Freydeh and Moishe crossed to Brooklyn on the earliest ferry to buy bread half a cent cheaper. They would bring the bread back on the ferry in huge bundles on their backs and then set up curbside on Orchard Street. After three months, they bought an old cart from a retiring peddler. Then they could manage more bread. Most of their business was conducted in German, but they had a handful of Yiddish-speaking customers who sought them out to hear the mamme loshen. They were mostly Russian Jews, tailors by trade. Moishe tried to talk them into hiring him in some capacity, but they had families to supply them with all the workers they needed. They were a close-knit group for they had been alone without other Jews from Eastern Europe.
