The Female Man

PART ONE

I

I was born on a farm on Whileaway. When I was five I was sent to a school on South Continent (like everybody else) and when I turned twelve I rejoined my family. My mother’s name was Eva, my other mother’s name Alicia; I am Janet Evason. When I was thirteen I stalked and killed a wolf, alone, on North Continent above the forty-eighth parallel, using only a rifle. I made a travois for the head and paws, then abandoned the head, and finally got home with one paw, proof enough (I thought). I’ve worked in the mines, on the radio network, on a milk farm, a vegetable farm, and for six weeks as a librarian after I broke my leg. At thirty I bore Yuriko Janetson; when she was taken away to a school five years later (and I never saw a child protest so much) I decided to take time off and see if I could find my family’s old home—for they had moved away after I had married and relocated near Mine City in South Continent. The place was unrecognizable, however; our rural areas are always changing. I could find nothing but the tripods of the computer beacons everywhere, some strange crops in the fields that I had never seen before, and a band of wandering children. They were heading North to visit the polar station and offered to lend me a sleeping bag for the night, but I declined and stayed with the resident family; in the morning I started home. Since then I have been Safety Officer for the county, that is S & P (Safety and Peace), a position I have held now for six years. My Stanford-Binet corrected score (in your terms) is 187, my wife’s 205 and my daughter’s 193. Yuki goes through the ceiling on the verbal test. I’ve supervised the digging of fire trails, delivered babies, fixed machinery, and milked more moo-cows than I wish I knew existed. But Yuki is crazy about ice-cream. I love my daughter. I love my family (there are nineteen of us). I love my wife (Vittoria). I’ve fought four duels. I’ve killed four times.

II

Jeannine Dadier (DADE-yer) worked as a librarian in New York City three days a week for the W.P.A. She worked at the Tompkins Square Branch in the Young Adult section. She wondered sometimes if it was so lucky that Herr Shicklgruber had died in 1936 (the library had books about this). On the third Monday in March of 1969 she saw the first headlines about Janet Evason but paid no attention to them; she spent the day stamping Out books for the Young Adults and checking the lines around her eyes in her pocket mirror (I’m only twenty-nine! ). Twice she had had to tuck her skirt above her knees and climb the ladder to the higher-up books; once she had to move the ladder over Mrs. Allison and the new gentleman assistant, who were standing below soberly discussing the possibility of war with Japan. There was an article in The Saturday Evening Post .

“I don’t believe it,” said Jeannine Nancy Dadier softly. Mrs. Allison was a Negro. It was an unusually warm, hazy day with a little green showing in the park: imaginary green, perhaps, as if the world had taken an odd turning and were bowling down Spring in a dim bye-street somewhere, clouds of imagination around the trees.

“I don’t believe it,” repeated Jeannine Dadier, not knowing what they were talking about. “You’d better believe it!” said Mrs. Allison sharply. Jeannine balanced on one foot. (Nice girls don’t do that.) She climbed down the ladder with her books and put them on the reserve table. Mrs. Allison didn’t like W.P.A. girls. Jeannine saw the headlines again, on Mrs. Allison’s newspaper.

WOMAN APPEARS FROM NOWHERE ON BROADWAY, POLICEMAN VANISHES

“I don’t—” (I have my cat, I have my room, I have my hot plate and my window and the ailanthus tree).

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cal outside in the street; he was walking bouncily and his hat was tipped forward; he was going to have some silly thing or other to say about being a reporter, little blond hatchet face and serious blue eyes; “I’ll make it some day, baby.” Jeannine slipped into the stacks, hiding behind Mrs. Allison’s P.M.-Post : Woman Appears from Nowhere on Broadway, Policeman Vanishes. She daydreamed about buying fruit at the free market, though her hands always sweat so when she bought things outside the government store and she couldn’t bargain. She would get cat food and feed Mr. Frosty the first thing she got to her room; he ate out of an old china saucer. Jeannine imagined Mr. Frosty rubbing against her legs, his tail waving. Mr. Frosty was marked black-and-white all over. With her eyes closed, Jeannine saw him jump up on the mantelpiece and walk among her things: her sea shells and miniatures. “No, no, no!” she said. The cat jumped off, knocking over one of her Japanese dolls. After dinner Jeannine took him out; then she washed the dishes and tried to mend some of her old clothing. She’d go over the ration books. When it got dark she’d turn on the radio for the evening program or she’d read, maybe call up from the drugstore and find out about the boarding house in New Jersey. She might call her brother. She would certainly plant the orange seeds and water them. She thought of Mr. Frosty stalking a bath-robe tail among the miniature orange trees; he’d look like a tiger. If she could get empty cans at the government store.

“Hey, baby?” It was a horrid shock. It was Cal.

“No,” said Jeannine hastily. “I haven’t got time.”

“Baby?” He was pulling her arm. Come for a cup of coffee. But she couldn’t. She had to learn Greek (the book was in the reserve desk). There was too much to do. He was frowning and pleading. She could feel the pillow under her back already, and Mr. Frosty stalking around them, looking at her with his strange blue eyes, walking widdershins around the lovers. He was part Siamese; Cal called him The Blotchy Skinny Cat. Cal always wanted to do experiments with him, dropping him from the back of a chair, putting things in his way, hiding from him. Mr. Frosty just spat at him now.

“Later,” said Jeannine desperately. Cal leaned over her and whispered into her ear; it made her want to cry. He rocked back and forth on his heels. Then he said, “I’ll wait.” He sat on Jeannine’s stack chair, picking up the newspaper, and added:

“The vanishing woman. That’s you.” She closed her eyes and daydreamed about Mr. Frosty curled up on the mantel, peacefully asleep, all felinity in one circle. Such a spoiled cat.

“Baby?” said Cal.

“Oh, all right,” said Jeannine hopelessly, “all right.”

I’ll watch the ailanthus tree.

III

Janet Evason appeared on Broadway at two o’clock in the afternoon in her underwear. She didn’t lose her head. Though the nerves try to keep going in the previous track, she went into evasive position the second after she arrived (good for her) with her fair, dirty hair flying and her khaki shorts and shirt stained with sweat. When a policeman tried to take her arm, she threatened him with le savate, but he vanished. She seemed to regard the crowds around her with a special horror. The policeman reappeared in the same spot an hour later with no memory of the interval, but Janet Evason had returned to her sleeping bag in the New Forest only a few moments after her arrival. A few words of Pan-Russian and she was gone. The last of them waked her bedmate in the New Forest.

“Go to sleep,” said the anonymous friend-for-the-night, a nose, a brow, and a coil of dark hair in the dappled moonlight.

“But who has been mucking about with my head!” said Janet Evason.