Mercy

by Andrea Dworkin

  used to know; and some woman too who I liked. Then

  somehow this guy Paul got us all back to N ew York. He had

  been in the loft bed with Jill. It was the only real bed and it was

  private because it was up so high and behind a structural beam.

  They just kept fighting all night so he was aggravated and he

  was angry anybody else made love, he said the noise kept him

  up. So he wanted to leave and it was follow the leader. It was a

  nice Thanksgiving, a real one in a way, as if I lived here, on

  this earth, in ways that were congenial to me. The people had

  furniture and books and music and food and a big fire and they

  talked about all sorts o f things, books, music, everyday

  things, and the filmmaker showed her film. I got back to N ew

  Y ork, slept where I could, mostly on floors, it could get

  harrowing, I would get pretty tired, I wasn’t really understanding how to put an end to it, I felt just perpetually exhausted and stupid, I didn’t see how you get to be one o f

  these people who seemed plugged in— food, money, apartment, that stuff. I’d get warm in the bars with the painters. I’d

  go downtown and they’d be there and w e’d drink. Sometimes

  one o f the guys would hit on me but mostly I said no. I don’t

  like painters. They seem very cold to me, the men; and the

  women were all tormented like Jill, talked about men all the

  time, suffered, drank. I don’t know. I made love with some o f

  the women but they were just sort o f servants to the men;

  drunk, servile. I fucked some o f the men but they were so

  self-involved, so completely cold, in love with themselves, so

  used to being mean to whoever was with them. They put this

  shit on a canvas and they make it thick or thin and it’s blobs or

  something and then they’re known for doing that and they just

  do it over and over and then they’re very crass in bed, they’re

  just fucking-machines, I never knew men w ho just wanted to

  fuck and that’s it, I mean, you couldn’t even say it was a power

  trip because it was too cold and narrow for that, greedy and

  cold; they really should have just masturbated but they wanted

  to do it in a girl. Paul kept making social events and he and Jill

  invited me. Then N ew Y ear’s came and Paul had me to this

  big dinner; Jill too but it was at his loft, his building I guess, I

  couldn’t really grasp that part o f it. I was afraid to go but he

  said it would be fine and I didn’t have to do anything or say

  anything; I didn’t believe it because usually you had to cook or

  clean or something but it was true because this was some

  elegant sit-down dinner and there was people serving dinner

  and he hadn’t cooked it but someone, some real cook, had. It

  was N ew Y ear’s Eve. It made me feel special to be there, even

  though I was scared. I felt like someone, not someone famous

  or someone rich, ju st someone who could be somewhere

  inside with people and nice things, I felt warm and in the midst

  o f grace and abundance. It made me feel that there were people

  in the world who were vibrant, who talked, who laughed. It

  was not ju st some place to be— it was fine, a fine place. I was

  almost shaking to see it, the table, the candles, the china, the

  silverware, vigorous, jubilant people, warm and ruddy and

  with this physical vitality that almost bounced o ff the walls. I

  was so lonely that winter. I came back in N ovem ber 1972, all

  broke down. It was a bitter cold winter. I went to Paul’s loft on

  N ew Y e ar’s Eve for dinner; a formal dinner; except no one

  was dressed formal or acted formal. It was shimmering. It was

  dazzling. There was plates and beautiful glasses and there was

  food after food, all cooked, all served, first one thing, then

  another, then another, it went on and on, it was like a hundred

  meals all at once, and no one seemed to find it surprising like I

  did; I was like a little child, I guess; I couldn’t believe it was

  real. There were candles and music but not just candles, the

  candleholders were so beautiful, silver, crafted, antique, old,

  so old, I thought they must have come right from Jerusalem.

  There were about twenty people altogether. The men were

  mostly painters, mostly famous, pretty old. They talked and

  told jokes. The girls were painters too but they didn’t say

  much except for one or two who talked sometimes and they

  were real young, mostly. There was a man and a girl and a

  man and a girl all around the table. There was all these wines

  and all these famous men asking you if you wanted more. Y ou

  had the feeling you could ask for anything and these great

  men, one o f them or all o f them, would turn heaven and earth

  to get it for you. I was shy, I didn’t know what to say; I

  certainly wasn’t no great artist yet and I wanted to keep my

  dreams private in my heart. I said I was writing stories. I said I

  was against the War. The men said, one by one, that you

  couldn’t be political and an artist at the same time but they

  didn’t argue or get mad at me; it was more like how you would

  correct a child who had made an embarrassing mistake. One

  o f them took me aside and asked me if I remembered him. He

  looked so familiar, as if I should reach out and touch his face. I

  said hadn’t we seen a movie together once. He said we had

  made love and I was on mescaline and hadn’t I liked it and

  didn’t I remember him. He was real nice about it and I said oh

  yes, o f course, and it was nice, and there were a lot o f colors.

  He didn’t seem to get mad. I smiled all night, because I was

  nearly awed. The men had this vitality, they were sort o f

  glowing. I never knew such a thing could happen. Y ou

  listened to them, because they might say something about art.

  One talked to me about death. He was a real famous painter.

  He said that both him and me were artists. He said artists were

  the only people who faced death without lying. He said that

  was the reason to make love— because you had looked death in

  the face and then you defied it. He said the others didn’t

  understand that but he did and I did and so would I come with

  him. And I laughed. I didn’t go with him but I laughed, he

  made me happy, I laughed, I felt it was such beautiful bullshit

  and I laughed. I thought it was a real nice thing for him to say.

  It was a new year. I was drinking champagne. I w asn’t alone. I

  wasn’t outside. I was safe. It was so much— beauty and life and

  gracious ease; it was so surprising, so completely wonderful

  and new; it was glittering and sparkling, it was small and

  warm, it was new and scary and exciting and real fine. I started

  having this dream over and over. It was N ew Y ork, streets I

  knew, usually down in the Village, around Washington

  Square, sometimes on Fifth Avenue above the Square. It was

  very dark. The dark was almost a person, a character in the

  dream. The dark had a kind o f depth, almost a smell, and it

  was scary and dense and it was over everything, you almost

  couldn’t see anything thr
ough it. The dream was somewhere

  in the Village, sometimes near those big impersonal buildings

  on Fifth Avenue, but even i f it’s deeper in the Village the

  buildings are stone, big, impersonal, not the town houses or

  brownstones o f the Village, but the impersonal Fifth Avenue

  buildings, a cold rich city made o f cold stone. Som ehow I go

  into one and it opens into this huge feast, this giant party in this

  giant ballroom, physically it’s almost underground as if you

  are going down inside the ground but there is this grand

  ballroom and the women have gow ns and jew els and the men

  are shiny and pretty in black suits and ruffled silk shirts but no

  one makes me leave, at first I’m afraid but no one makes me

  leave, there’s lots o f noise and there’s music and there’s food,

  all sorts o f weird kinds o f food, cocktail food and real food and

  drinks and it’s warm and friendly and in the dream I say yes,

  I’ve been here before, it’s waiting, it’s always here, it’s just part

  o f N ew Y ork , you don’t have to ever be afraid, hidden aw ay

  there’s always something like this, you ju st have to find it, and

  it fades, the dream fades, and I wake up feeling flushed and

  tired and happy and I think it’s out there if only I can

  remember where it is and it’s not until I’m out on the streets

  that I understand I just dreamed it, I wasn’t really there, not

  just last night but ever, but still I think N ew Y ork is full o f

  such places, only I don’t know where they are. But after N ew

  Year it just was colder and harder; there’s not a lot o f magic in

  the world, no beautiful fairy godmother to wave her wand so

  you can stop sifting through ashes and go to the ball. I slept

  outside the kitchen in m y old friend’s apartment; I wrote

  stories, slow, real slow, over and over, a sentence again and

  again, I did peace stuff against the War, I got food from bars

  mostly. Y ou go during happy hour and you only need one

  drink. Y ou can get a man to get it for you or if you have the

  change you can do it and then there’s warm food and you can

  eat; they make it real fatty usually but it’s good, heavy and

  warm and they bring out more and more until happy hour’s

  over. I met the actor and his wife and she took me everywhere,

  all around. Sometime I moved into the loony’s room with the

  carnivorous plants and I wrote stories, slow, real slow, word

  by word, then starting over. I had nothing and I was nothing

  and I couldn’t tell no one how I was hurt from being married.

  And I kept drinking with the painters. I liked the noisy bars

  and the people all excited with drinking and art and all the love

  affairs going on all around, with all the torment, because it

  wasn’t m y torment, it didn’t come near m y torment. It was

  distracting, a kind o f static that interrupted the pain I was

  carrying. I got the peace group to give me seventy-five dollars

  a week and I worked every morning for them, making phone

  calls, writing leaflets, mimeographing, typing, doing shit. I

  said I was a writer i f someone asked. I worked on m y stories,

  slow; I stayed alive as best I could; I waited through long

  nights, I waited. N o w it’s bitter cold; a bitter cold night;

  unusual in N ew Y ork; with the temperature under zero; with

  the wind blowing about fifteen miles an hour, trying to kill

  you, cutting you in half and then in half again, you can’t

  withstand it, there’s nothing can keep it from running through

  you like a knife. I’m in m y little room, the loon y’s room; I’m

  staying calm; I don’t like being alone, it’s hard, but I’ m

  thinking I’m okay, I’m inside, I’m okay; I’m thinking I will

  take out m y notebook and w ork, sit with the words, make

  sentences, cross words out, you hear a kind o f music in your

  head and you transpose it into words but the words sit there,

  block letters, just words, they don’t sing back, so you have to

  keep making them better until they do, until they sing back to

  you, you look at it and it moves like a song. Y ou hear it

  m oving, there’s a buzz on it and the buzz is music, not noise; it

  can be percussive but it’s still lyrical, it sings. It’s a delicate

  thing, knowing when it’s right. At the same time it’s like

  being in first grade where you had to write the words down

  careful in block letters and you had to make them perfect;

  because you keep trying like some six-year-old to make the

  words perfect so they look back at you and they are right, as if

  there’s this one right w ay and it sits there, pure and clear, when

  yo u ’re smart enough, finally, to put it on the page in front o f

  you. I always want to run away from it: putting the words

  down, because they’re always w rong at first and for a long

  time they stay wrong, but now the cold night keeps me in, the

  wind, the killer wind, I sit on the cot, I m ove m y papers to the

  tiny table, I get out a pencil and I find some em pty paper, and I

  start again, I begin again, I have started again over and over

  and tonight I start again, and I hear the words in m y heart. I

  came back with two laundry bags, like canvas shopping bags.

  I carried them on the plane. T hey were m y laundry bags from

  when I was a housewife. One has manuscripts and a couple o f

  books. The other has a sweater and some underwear and a pair

  o f pants. I don’t have anything else, except a fairly ragged skirt

  that I’m wearing, I made it m yself with some cheap cloth, it

  has clumps and bulges and I’ve got a couple o f T-shirts. I think

  the manuscripts are precious. I think you can do anything if

  you must. I think I can write some stories and I think it doesn’t

  matter how hard it is. I’m usually pretty tired by night but the

  nights are long and if you can write the time isn’t the same kind

  o f burden; the words, like oxen, pull the dark faster through

  time. I think it is good to write; I think perhaps someday I

  might write something beautiful like Death in Venice, something just that lovely and perfect, and I think it would be worth a person’s whole life to write one such thing. I have an

  invitation to go to Jill’s art opening, her first show ever. It is a

  big event for her. Girls don’t get to have shows very easy, and

  some people say it is because o f Paul; she’s resentful o f him; I

  tell her it doesn’t matter one w ay or the other, the point is to do

  it, just do it. I feel I should go but I don’t have clothes warm

  enough for this particular night. I walk everywhere because I

  don’t have money for subways, I walk long distances, I took

  m y husband’s warm coat when I left— it’s the least you can

  give me, I said, he was surprised enough when I grabbed it that

  he didn’t take it away— it’s a sheepskin coat from Afghanistan

  but it doesn’t have any buttons so you can’t stay warm in bad

  wind— it’s heavy and stiff and it doesn’t close right and if

  there’s bad wind it rips through the opening; I was running

  away and I wanted the warm coat,
I knew it would last longer

  than money, I was thinking about the streets, I was remembering. And he gave me some money too, took some change

  out o f his pocket, some bills he was carrying, handed it to me,

  said yeah, take this too. It was maybe what you’d spend on a

  cheap dinner. I wanted his coat. I was leaving and there was

  m y coat and I thought about having to get through one

  fucking night in m y coat, a ladies’ coat, m y wife coat, tailored,

  pretty, gray, with style and a little phony fur collar, a waist, it

  had a waist, it showed o ff that you had breasts, and I thought,

  shit, I w on ’t live through one night in that piece o f shit, I

  thought, I’d better have a real coat, I thought, the bastard has a

  real coat and yes I will risk m y life to get it so I grabbed it and at

  first he didn’t want me to have it but I said shit boy it’s a real

  cheap w ay to end a marriage and he could’ve smashed me but

  he didn’t because he wanted me out and he looked at me and

  said yeah take it and you don’t wait a second, you grab it and

  you get out. I never was sorry I took it. I slept on it, I slept

  under it, I wrapped it around me like it was m y real skin, m y

  shelter, m y house, m y home, I didn’t need to buy other stuff

  for staying warm , I wore a cheap T-shirt under it, nothing

  else, I didn’t have to w o rry about clothes or nothing like that;

  but tonight’s too cold for it, there’s nights like that, wind too

  bad, too strong, no respite; tonight’s too cold. I think I’m

  going to sit still, sit quiet and calm, inside, in a room, in this

  quiet room, w ork on m y story, cross out, put new words

  down, try to make it sing for me, for me now, here and now,

  in m y head now. T hey say Mann was a bourgeois writer. I

  never saw it myself. I think he was outside them and I

  wondered how he knew when it was beautiful enough and

  when it was right. It seemed you had to have this calm. Y ou

  had to be still. I think it’s this funny thing inside that I’m just

  getting close to, this w ay o f listening, you can sort o f vaguely

  hear something, you have to concentrate and get real still but