Sex Wars

by Marge Piercy

  She had lost her faith years before—no, she did not like that phrasing, suggesting she had misplaced it absentmindedly like a glove. She had fought her way free. She had wrestled with it like Jacob with the angel, and she had scars to prove the battle. She was not done yet. At some point in her life, she would take on religion and its role in denigrating women and keeping them subservient and compliant. It was a great task she promised herself she would tackle in her elder years.

  Sunday arrived and Elizabeth was impatient to finally meet this Wood-hull, who had so enraptured Susan and Isabella. To prepare a proper lunch for the woman who had been asked to address a joint committee of Congress and invited to the White House and lauded as a successful stockbroker, she needed to put out a meal that was elegant. She joined Amelia and the maid Maureen in the kitchen to assist in the complicated preparations.

  At eleven-thirty, she put on one of her better dresses, a blue and green and gold taffeta walking dress. Susan was dressed in a gray walking suit with a fine garnet pendant one of her young admirers had pressed on her. Amelia wore Quaker gray and white as she set out vases of camellias from the conservatory.

  Just before twelve, they heard a knocking. Amelia opened the door and ushered in a young woman, taking her fur-lined cape. The woman was dressed in black, an unusually simple dress but finely tailored and of the best silk. She wore a single white rose at her throat. The startling thing about her, besides the simplicity of her dress, was her beauty. Elizabeth had been pretty in her day, certainly, and Isabella had been considered so, but Victoria Woodhull was simply and outstandingly beautiful. Her eyes were the most striking feature, being a singularly bright and piercing blue that seemed to gather light in their direct, forceful gaze.

  Woodhull greeted Susan warmly, hugging her. Then she approached Elizabeth where she sat, seizing her hand. Woodhull’s grasp was strong. “To meet you at last fulfills one of my ambitions,” she said. Her voice was also striking, low-pitched but quite carrying, a little huskiness never affecting its clarity. “I’ve admired you for years. You’re a unique and powerful voice of liberation. The breadth of your interests and your erudition are extraordinary. You stand head and shoulders above us all.”

  “You flatter me,” Elizabeth said, but did not really think so. She had been so embattled in the last couple of years that praise was like balm ladled over her sore ego. “You’re a very striking woman. Everyone in the press and in the movement has been talking about nothing but you.”

  “If it’s useful to the movement, good,” Woodhull said.

  They sat almost knee to knee, Woodhull having dragged an overstuffed chair almost effortlessly near the rocker. Susan brought a straight chair up to them and all three sat tête-à-tête. Amelia was unnecessarily fussing with the vases and papers scattered about. “Amelia, don’t stand there. Take a seat. I know you’re as curious about Mrs. Woodhull as I am,” Elizabeth said dryly.

  Amelia took a seat on a davenport, sitting dead center on the edge of the cushion lest she be thought to be taking liberties in the salon.

  “I am prepared to offer ten thousand to your association. Some of it can be in the form of printing. We have female typographers working for us at the Weekly.”

  “Ten thousand would be of great assistance to us,” Elizabeth said, a wide smile spreading across her face.

  Susan added, “I suppose it’s too late to get the Revolution back.”

  Woodhull smiled. “We already have a weekly paper. You would both be most welcome in its pages.”

  They thanked her, although in truth Elizabeth had no idea when she could write anything she had not already pledged to do. “You had a great success in Washington.”

  “I hope my ideas were persuasive. I was so happy when your association asked me to repeat my memorial to your convention.”

  “You were the star of the convention,” Susan said fervently.

  Woodhull waved that away. She had fine long-fingered pale hands. “We managed, all of us, to stir things up in Washington.”

  “Amelia, perhaps we could eat?” Amelia and Elizabeth stood. Amelia went off to serve, with the help of Maureen, and Elizabeth led the way into the dining room. She was pleased to see Amelia had placed lilies as a centerpiece. Having a conservatory was a luxury she passionately appreciated. It was small, not a place she could sit and read among the plants, but it sufficed to fill vases in the house.

  Amelia and the maid had prepared a rich and buttery terrapin soup. It was a lot of work, but Amelia had been willing to undertake it since this was an occasion. Elizabeth had left the disgusting part of the terrapin preparation to them, cooking beet and rice soubise and a pie from dried apples that would end the meal. Amelia and she had gutted squabs the night before and hung them. They were the main course.

  Woodhull was a dainty eater but put it away. She complimented Amelia, who answered, “Maureen and Elizabeth did part of the work. Elizabeth is a fine cook, thee should realize. ’Tis one of her many gifts. She has a touch with pastry that equals any woman’s.”

  Over the soup, Woodhull said, “You should be aware that the Boston women don’t trust me. I am not a lady in their eyes.”

  “We have too many ladies, and too few useful women,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not interested in gossip about your past or your lovers. I’m interested in your ideas and your abilities.” And your money, Elizabeth added with sour honesty to herself. It was dreadful to be so mercenary, but as she was always reminding Susan, movements ran on money and theirs had run out. “The Boston ladies find me a bit rank too. I write and lecture upon topics they consider unmentionable—divorce, childbirth, sexuality, contraception, abortion. They think it shocking to discuss such things in public. But I’m old enough to remember when it was shocking for a woman to lecture about anything. If the Grimke sisters had listened to their critics, we might have had slavery for another twenty years. They spoke powerfully and moved audiences.” Elizabeth frowned. “I have a question for you. What does it mean that you’ve announced that you’re running for president?”

  “Consider this. If a woman comes into a city and gives a speech on woman’s rights, perhaps the papers will cover it and perhaps not.” Victoria put down her spoon and leaned slightly forward. “But if a woman bold enough to run for president comes into that same city and gives a speech, it will be in every newspaper.”

  “Very shrewd,” Elizabeth said.

  There was a calm certainty in this woman that Elizabeth found attractive. Woodhull was much less fussy than Isabella. She focused attention on herself without seeming to try. Her beauty certainly helped, but Elizabeth had met beauties whom people admired when they entered a room and then ignored. They were lovely wallpaper. Woodhull was a presence. She did not play with her dress or her gloves or her necklace, she did not fidget with her hair or the folds of her gown. She sat quite still and radiated power and certainty.

  “I believe, and I know Isabella does also, that it’s our time at last.” Woodhull leaned forward again, staring into Elizabeth’s eyes. “We must strike at the core of resistance. Push onward in every way. The more publicity we arouse for our cause, the more chance we have to succeed.”

  “Is your sister—the Claflin part of Woodhull and Claflin—also interested in woman’s rights?”

  “She surely is. She too had a disastrous marriage and a difficult childhood. Our father took her on the road to tell fortunes and sell patent medicines—the scandalous past to which the Boston ladies refer. We were exploited as children. Our special powers were abused. But I forgive my parents—they were poor and needy. Tennie and I still support them. We’re not ashamed of coming from poverty. Stephen Pearl Andrews has met all my family and he can tell you exactly what stock we sprang from. They’re crude and uncultured, yes, but we refuse to disown them, as I find so many young people who come to New York do. Our parents were hardly saints, but they did their best to feed us.

  “I was only able to attend school spottily. I had to work. I’ve educated my
self. I read history, economics, literature, philosophy. I never stop trying to improve my grasp of the forces that have shaped and will shape society. If I’m no longer ignorant, I owe it to my own efforts and finding mentors who help me with choosing books to read and subjects to study.”

  Elizabeth suspected that Woodhull had heard the rumors that she did not write the articles signed with her name, that she had not written the memorial. She was answering that accusation obliquely. Elizabeth was sorry she had written to Pearlo with her query about Woodhull.

  “What do you consider the most important reforms for women?” Susan asked her. “In your own opinion.”

  Woodhull frowned, considering. “Of course the vote is extremely important. With the vote, we can tackle other problems facing women. We know from the case of Wyoming that we will vote in large numbers as soon as we’re able. But working women survive on miserable pittances. The current situation of marriage makes a woman a chattel. Child-rearing is absurd for girls who grow up ignorant of everything real and of their own bodies and desires.”

  “So you are for divorce reform?”

  “Of course. I’m a divorced woman. Someone must have told you that already.”

  Susan nodded. “The Boston ladies have been writing me missives.”

  Elizabeth waited until Amelia had cleared the course and was about to bring in the pie, fruit and cheese. “Mrs. Woodhull, what do you need from us?”

  Woodhull cocked her head to the side on her swanlike neck. “I need your advice and wisdom. I need to find a reliable biographer, not a scandalmonger, to write up a biography of me for my campaign. Perhaps it can replace all those wild rumors floating about.”

  Susan and Elizabeth conferred. Finally Elizabeth said, “I believe Theodore Tilton could do it. He writes vividly and swiftly. For years, he wrote Henry Ward Beecher’s essays and articles for the Independent. Beecher is famous for missing deadlines.”

  “If you approach him, it would be better not to mention my name,” Susan said. “He threw me out of his house recently, when I attempted to see his wife, Lib. I was worried about her.”

  “Threw you out of his house? What occasioned such violence?”

  Elizabeth told the story of their night in Brooklyn with Laura Bullard, Theo and Lib Tilton. Woodhull listened, fascinated. “That explains what rumors I heard about Beecher in Washington. But if his affairs are known, are they accepted by the members of his church?”

  “It is ‘known’ as a rumor,” Susan said primly, “but such a rumor that anyone who needs to dismiss it can. He’s the most popular preacher in the States. His sermons are printed in the papers. He mints money by lecturing. A whole publishing house depends on him. He’s the engine behind the God is Love movement in Protestant churches, the liberalizing of Calvinist dogma—”

  “He has no theology or philosophy,” Elizabeth said, “Only sentimentality. But he’s all the more popular for that. His congregation numbers three thousand and includes the most powerful and influential men in politics and commerce in Brooklyn and even in Manhattan.”

  “Perhaps we are all doomed to be gossiped about on this plane of existence. In any event, you both agree that Theodore Tilton would be the first author to speak to about my biography?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I no longer completely trust him, but he’s a fast and competent writer and won’t be shocked by whatever you tell him.”

  “Good,” Woodhull said. “I’ve heard about him. I’m eager to meet him. He sounds quite…interesting.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  FREYDEH FELT GUILTY keeping Sammy out of school, but if they did not follow up on their lead quickly, it would vanish as all the others had. She would make it up to Sammy, she would see he got back in school when they had found Shaineh and her little girl. She could not go on sacrificing Sammy to Shaineh.

  He was making his way from stable to stable, slowly. She had to keep buying him cigarettes all the lads were smoking so he could offer them to the stableboys to befriend them. Sometimes beer was necessary. She did not have to worry about Sammy getting drunk, as he despised drunkards—men who had often beaten him in his street urchin days. She worried more about his being tempted to join one of the gangs that preyed lucratively on neighborhoods. They offered a step up to boys from the streets and the blocks—a social network, an identity, a means of making money, a way of advancing. As they grew, they might move into firefighting and then into politics. Many of the Tweed men had started in local gangs. If she had not taken him in and he had survived those vulnerable years, he would probably have joined a gang and would now be a full member of the Sheeny mob or the Whyos or the River Pirates. His hero would be a bank robber, locally famous and much admired.

  “Do you envy those stableboys?” she asked him at supper, after a day he had spent in five different stables, hanging around the guys who worked there.

  “Being around horses and horse shit all day and all night? Nah. I don’t like horses…they’re too big. I don’t want to climb up on one, and I sure don’t want one of them stepping on me. They can cripple you for life.”

  Lacking Sammy’s help, she was up early and up late fulfilling orders. She pressed Kezia into service with the packing. At night she was almost too exhausted to sleep. There were a hundred stables to check out in their target area, more if it turned out that they were wrong about the probable location. Every family who could afford it kept a horse. Every time Sammy appeared at the end of a day of plying stableboys with cigarettes or beer, she greeted him with the same question, “Did you learn anything?” and every day she got the same answer as he stumbled in, worn out, reeking of tobacco and sometimes of beer.

  The sketch of Shaineh had grown worn and greasy and was tearing along its folds, so Kezia copied it and made new pictures for each of them to carry, with lighter hair. When she was working with Kezia, Freydeh taught her songs she had heard her own mother sing—Yiddish songs, songs from services in the shul, an occasional Russian or Polish ditty that had passed into shtetl culture. Kezia had a reedy voice but singing made her happy as they worked together by candlelight. How many years it had been since Freydeh sang as she worked. Her mother sang constantly. Frey-deh’s father teased her mother, saying she was half finch and he would get some seeds to feed her instead of human food.

  She told Kezia stories about her mother and father, her sisters and brothers, telling Kezia that they were her kin now. When she introduced a new name to Kezia, Kezia always asked the same thing, “Would they like me?” Always Freydeh assured the girl that they would indeed love her.

  She was sending money to Sara so that soon her sister and brother-in-law and their three children could come over. Sara’s husband Asher wanted to bring his father too, but she told him he would have to earn that money here and send it back. They had changed their minds about emigrating, for they wrote that things were getting worse. They were afraid. The money orders Freydeh sent when she could were their lifeline, Sara wrote. She had stopped berating Freydeh for having lost Shaineh and now mostly wrote how she wanted to come to the goldeneh medina. Freydeh replied it wasn’t so golden over here, believe her, but that if everyone in the family worked, they could get ahead. The letters took so long that often they crossed in the mails. She always read Sara’s letters to Sammy and to Kezia.

  “What do they do in the Pale?” Sammy asked.

  “Sara took over my mother’s vodka business. Her husband Asher works for a miller. Here they’ll have to do whatever they can.”

  “Is Sara strong like you or tiny like Shaineh?”

  “She’s a good-sized woman. She’s not as strong as me—I got Papa’s strength—but she’s no fragile flower. I scarcely know Asher or their children. The oldest was just four when Moishe and I left. She had a kid crawling around who died. The two others weren’t even in her belly yet.”

  Sunday afternoon she was working on the vulcanization and Kezia was sitting singing monotonously to herself a song she had learned in school about a farmer—a Yankee s
ong that Kezia did not understand. When Freydeh, always trying to improve her English, asked Kezia what a “dell” was, Kezia had no idea. She said it maybe was a cottage? Maybe where the family lived?

  When Sammy burst in, Freydeh turned from her molding. “Is something wrong?”

  “I think I found that toff.” Sammy threw himself down in a chair. He must have run for blocks. She brought him a glass of water from the pitcherful she had boiled. The water had been making people sick lately. A man from Hungary who had been a doctor told her to boil it before drinking it. She could not see what good that would do, but she obeyed, and none of them had gotten sick.

  “Where is he? Tell me everything! Had they ever seen Shaineh?”

  “They don’t know where the family lives, but it has to be nearby. The stables are behind a row of houses on Twenty-ninth Street, between Broadway and Sixth—not far from that toff restaurant Delmonico’s. There are at least three men who use the phaeton. Their last name is Kum-ble. The stableboys say they’re rolling in money.”

  “What does their money come from?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “At last we have a name. Alfred or Albert Kumble. But how can we find him?”

  “Easy. We go to Billyboy Hanrahan and look at a city directory. Just bring him a donation and he’ll let you look up Kumble.”

  She kissed Sammy on the brow. “You are a good, good boy. Now you go back to school.”

  “No! Once we have his address, I watch his house. None of them ever seen Shaineh, so I doubt he keeps her there. If we want to find her, we have to follow him. He must have her in a room in a boardinghouse or a brothel.”

  She set out with Sammy for the ward boss, who held open house Sunday afternoons when he wasn’t putting on a picnic or a dance. She had never met him, but of course she knew him on sight. The Twelfth Ward boss was an Irish fellow married to a German woman, thus combining the two biggest blocks of voters in the ward. Billyboy Hanrahan was a bald man with enormous hands and broad shoulders and a lopsided nose, a remnant of days when he had led turf battles in the streets. He was a shrewd, jovial man with a reputation for being a good family type, faithful to his wife and loving to his eight surviving children. His attitude in the ward was paternal but tough. He laid down the law and he expected to be obeyed, but he also discharged largesse in the form of putting pressure on landlords now and then to prevent evictions, getting some money to widows and their children, feeding the hungry in hard times, keeping the criminal element within accepted bounds. He expected the vote to be delivered unanimously for Tammany, and he paid for extra votes. Generally if people had not been on the wrong side of his temper, they liked him. When the city outlawed pigs, he helped distribute lumber so people could pen them in their privy yards instead of letting them run loose in the streets to eat offal and garbage, as had been the rule for decades. He knew people needed their pigs, so he helped them keep them under cover. The police weren’t about to chase pigs unless they were in the street, in which case there would be a big police barbeque, but the poor family would lose their pork.