meaning, an intellectual elasticity that avoids the rigidity o f
ideology and still instructs in the meaning o f freedom. It
warns us not to be simple-minded. We were never as free as
under the German Occupation. Glorious. Really superb.
Restrained. Elegant. True in the highest sense. De Beauvoir
was my feminist ideal. An era died with her, an era o f civilized
coupling. She was a civilized woman with a civilized militance
that recognized the rightful constraints o f loyalty and, o f
course, love. I am tired o f the bellicose fools.
O N E
In August 1956
(Age 9)
M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe
only boys are named it but I live in America. Everyone says I
seem sad but I am not sad. I was born down the street from
Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street, in Cam den, in 1946,
broken brick houses, cardboard porches, garbage spread over
cement like fertilizer on stone fields, dark, a dark so thick you
could run your fingers through it like icing and lick it o ff your
fingers. I w asn’t raped until I was almost ten which is pretty
good it seems when I ask around because many have been
touched but are afraid to say. I w asn’t really raped, I guess, just
touched a lot by a strange, dark-haired man w ho I thought was
a space alien because I couldn’t tell how many hands he had
and people from earth only have two, and I didn’t know the
w ord rape, which is ju st some awful word, so it didn’t hurt me
because nothing happened. Y o u get asked if anything happened and you say well yes he put his hand here and he rubbed
me and he put his arm around m y shoulder and he scared me
and he followed me and he whispered something to me and
then someone says but did anything happen. And you say,
well, yes, he sat down next to me, it was in this m ovie theater
and I didn’t mean to do anything w rong and there w asn’t
anyone else around and it was dark and he put his arm around
me and he started talking to me and saying weird things in a
weird voice and then he put his hand in m y legs and he started
rubbing and he kept saying ju st let m e.. . . and someone says
did anything happen and you say well yes he scared me and he
followed me and he put his hand or hands there and you don’t
know how many hands he had, not really, and you don’t want
to tell them you don’t know because then they will think you
are crazy or stupid but maybe there are creatures from Mars
and they have more than two hands but you know this is
stupid to say and so you don’t know how to say what
happened and if you don’t know how many hands he had you
don’t know anything and no one needs to believe you about
