Métis Beach

by Claudine Bourbonnais

  “Everything I wrote in The Next War is in here!”

  “No!” Ethel said. “You approach the topic completely differently.”

  “Differently? Are you kidding me? Her approach is far better than mine! A thousand times better!”

  “Oh, Dana. Please!”

  Dana grabbed the book, opened it, whipped through the pages. “Have you seen this? It reads like a novel! Nobody will be interested in The Next War after this!”

  “Calm down, will you? My God, it isn’t the end of the world. You know very well that you have a more personal approach. This one is more … methodical. More scientific.”

  “More rigorous, you mean!”

  “Of course not! All it means is that feminism is part of the conversation now. That’s what’s important. And you need a plurality of voices for progress. If there are a dozen women like Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir and you, Dana Feldman, on the case, so much the better! The revolution will only come quicker!”

  But Dana wasn’t listening. She was pacing, furious, her eyes blurred with tears.

  “Did you read her passage on Freud and his ridiculous theory of penis envy, how she eviscerates him? Genius! Relentless!” She grabbed her glasses, put them on. “Listen! Listen to this, ‘The fact is that to Freud, even more than to the magazine editor on Madison Avenue today, women were a strange, inferior, less-than-human species.” Do you follow me, Ethel? No, you don’t. Listen, listen, I’m telling you, ‘But when he dismissed women’s yearning for equality as “penis envy,” was he not merely stating his own view that women could never really be men’s equal, any more than she could wear his penis?’” She slammed the book shut, throwing it on the table. “Tell me how can I publish after this? Tell me, Ethel!”

  Dana was about to storm out of the room when she saw me in the doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Uh … I think I’m going to go.…”

  “Not a chance!” She turned to Ethel. “Give him the book!”

  Surprised, Ethel said, “To Romain?”

  “Yes, Romain, who else?”

  “Me, why me?”

  Hesitant, Ethel took the book, handed it to me.

  “Read it,” Dana ordered. “You’ll tell me what you think. Tell me whether you think it’s better than The Next War. That’s your mission for the next few days.”

  I was trapped. “Dana, you can’t ask me that.”

  “Go on, get to work. And it’ll also get you to stop spending time with Mr. Oh-look-how-poor-I-am.”

  I took the book, shooting her a dark look.

  In my quarters at Harperley Hall, lying on the large bed in my elegantly decorated room, with my soft rugs and a colour TV, I began reading The Feminine Mystique. To my amazement, I discovered a world of desperate, miserable women, fighting against a “problem that has no name,” women trapped, locked in the role of wife and mother like in a prison that you can never leave. Experts tried to explain away the problem through all sorts of daft theories that Friedan exposed — a problem that came from an excess of knowledge (some proposed to prevent women from attending university), or the shortage of skilled workmen (!) that women depended on to repair their appliances (why not train them to repair their appliances themselves?). Others blamed their monotonous or disappointing sexual lives, with experts encouraging them to spice things up. Betty Friedan didn’t agree. For her, the problem was something else, deeper, more fundamental — a visceral need for fulfillment doing something other than being at the service of a husband, children, or housework. A need to exist for who they were. I realized with alarm that this is what Gail had tried to tell me. She was trying to describe this prison for women that she so feared. You can hope for more out of life. I can’t.

  Did I miss Gail? It was hard to say. The powerful anaesthetic called New York had progressively muddled my memory. Sometimes, when I thought of her, I realized I couldn’t decide what I had really felt for her. A girl I seduced the way you win a trophy by default.

  I later learned through Dana that she hadn’t married Don Drysdale. The big wedding at the Ritz-Carlton had been cancelled, and she’d left to live in Calgary to take care of a sick aunt. (I hadn’t known that Gail had family in Alberta.) I did feel something when Dana told me, in the summer of 1963, of her union with the heir to Barron cookies (those butter biscuits with their tin boxes, popular among the English of Métis Beach but impossible to find in the Gaspé). He must have had millions of dollars, that young man. “A good catch,” Dana said, a half-smile on her face. I couldn’t help thinking of Gail’s parents, probably overjoyed at their daughter’s marriage.

  The tone of The Feminine Mystique was both measured and persuasive. The Next War was vitriolic, almost a pamphlet. Like Betty Friedan, Dana worried as she witnessed young American women deserting the universities, “Almost fifty percent of students were women in the twenties,” she wrote. “Today, they make up only thirty-five percent. What’s happening?” Later, on page 114, “They tell you that too much knowledge makes you suspect, ladies. Worse yet: undesirable. Think about it for a moment — why would they say this to you?” Or on page 258, “Your dreams are limited to a husband and a nice house filled with children and modern appliances. A lifestyle to fulfill you emotionally and materially. Must we see in America’s newfound wealth a trap for women? Are women victims of postwar triumphant capitalism?” (Angry critics would label her a “dangerous Communist” for having dared write those words.)

  If reading The Next War left me scratching my head, The Feminine Mystique devastated me — simply because Betty Friedan spoke of Gail.

  “So?”

  Two days later, an anxious Dana was staring at me from across the kitchen. I quickly stammered out an answer, “It’s wonderful, you complement one another.…”

  She stiffened. “That’s a coward’s answer! Come on, tell me — her book is better than mine, isn’t it?”

  She looked at me, her face tense, veins throbbing. What could I answer? I felt embarrassment redden my cheeks, and Dana noticed, “I knew it!”

  “No! It’s not what you think….” I wanted to flee, completely aware of the embarrassing inadequacy of my argument. “You’re more … biting. Dramatic.…”

  A timid smile on her face, like a first dawn. “Be honest, Romain, which do you prefer?”

  I bit my lip. “Yours. Of course I prefer yours.”

  Her face brightened. She came near to me, placed a wet kiss on my cheek, missing my mouth by a hair.

  Unsurprisingly, The Next War caused a scandal, but not immediately, only after a long newspaper strike came to an end. New York was bereft of papers for almost four months, something never before seen — it was as if you’d turned out the city’s lights. Dana had been cross with Burke for having precipitated the book’s launch. “It’s as if I didn’t exist, Burke! As if I did it all for nothing.” Reminding her that Betty Friedan was in the same situation didn’t change anything, she went on, complaining ceaselessly. The strike finally ended, and when Burke and I wanted to celebrate its end, Dana looked at us as if we’d gone crazy, “Celebrate? What will they say about me now?”

  As she feared, the papers didn’t spare her. AN H BOMB DROPPED ON MALE-FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS; AFTER THE COLD WAR THE BOLD WAR, the Daily Mirror and the Daily News titled their reviews. A few weeks later, there were rumours of incidents in Manhattan. A Madison Avenue ad agency was overrun by a pack of angry young women. They gathered at the foot of a building for a peaceful protest, placards in hand: GENTLEMEN, THE NEXT WAR HAS BEGUN! The situation soured when agency employees, young men, as young as the women themselves, came down to the street to harass them. The police intervened, and six young women were arrested for disturbing the peace. Another time, a group of female students jeered at a small delegation of gloved and be-hatted women distributing pamphlets on the ground floor of Gimbels on 34th Street; they were handi
ng out pins with the message: SHAME TO THE FEMINISTS THAT ARE BRINGING OUR NATION TO ITS KNEES. Voices were raised, insults were bandied, and in the kerfuffle, a student pulled on the store’s fire alarm, and the whole place flew into a panic. Eight people were arrested.

  But the highest-profile of all these protests was, without a doubt, a crusade led by a group that one New York Times columnist would call the Freudian Vandals. Every day, for weeks, the city woke in fear — or hope — of a new stunt. Vandalized billboards, sometimes at the four corners of Manhattan, all at the same time, clearly the work of an organized group. At first, the Vandals simply painted large moustaches, à la Groucho Marx, on faces “pink with pleasure” of young women immortalized in advertisements. Quickly enough, however, the Vandals began painting obscene, immense masculine attributes. To avoid shocking the public, television cameras filmed only the crowds reacting to these “acts of vandalism” on Times Square or Herald Square. Close-ups of stupefied and outraged faces, nervous laughter from the few who were amused. Dana and I followed it on television — Mayor Wagner’s perplexed declarations, the threatening press conference of New York’s Chief of Police. After five weeks, the Freudian Vandals unmasked themselves by exposing the pictures they’d taken of their exploits in a West Village gallery. Huge before and after pictures over which they’d written:

  ART ISN’T THE OBJECT BUT THE PERCEPTION WE HAVE OF IT

  Soon after, the police raided the Bleecker Street gallery — there were so many cops it was ridiculous. Indignant, we watched the brutal arrest of the gallery staff, then of the four Freudian Vandals, three men in their early twenties and a slightly older woman, trotted out in front of the cameras and handcuffed. “The next war is only the beginning!” one of the men yelled, a thin guy with a ridiculous woman’s hat. Dana was disgusted, “They’ve understood nothing, those idiots. I write for women, not buffoons.”

  Soon enough, The Next War became an expression that feminists and radical youth used in their militant jargon, and that their detractors mocked. Dana was forced to defend her title on every radio and television show, and in every newspaper, No, it wasn’t a war against men; yes, it was a war against the stereotypes that men — ad men, writers, journalists, psychiatrists, doctors — maintained to ensure that women remained subservient. On television shows, she responded to ridicule with courage, suffering through interviewers’ sarcasm with dignity, “Why do you hate men so?” Or, “In what way is a man like me — clean and well-dressed — a threat to you?” She could have taken the public mockery personally — often the audience at these talk shows was made up mostly of women — but it seemed to leave her unaffected. In the end, all women would come to see the light, she told herself. They would see what they were missing out on.

  It wasn’t her book that Dana was selling on these talk shows; it was herself. She was a feminist rock star. Her presence at a signing ensured a packed house. “Ask yourself the following question, ladies,” she’d say between two autographs, “Are you happy in your marriage? No, no, don’t tell me you have a nice house, nice kids, that you travel twice a year. I’m talking about you. Are you happy? Do you feel that your life has meaning? Meaning, ladies.” You could see them thinking, heads lowered, almost ashamed. “Well, if you answered no to the question, I tell you, go back to school or get a divorce!” (Indignant Oh’s! and Ah’s! would always be heard here.) “Don’t be afraid! You’ll be surprised at how you’ll build a new life, and the next man you meet will know he’s marrying a free woman, not a slave.” Shocked, some women booed her, but most of the time their response was anxious silence. In these crowds of distraught women, sometimes Dana would be moved to tears.

  Her beauty fascinated. She was sexy, telegenic; she had a quick wit, was very funny, and the media loved her. She didn’t have a professorial air like Betty Friedan. She was rich and had, or so the rumours said, an eighteen-year-old lover — me.

  6

  “They’ll hear from my lawyers, those monsters! They don’t have the right!”

  Dana was shaking with anger, a copy of the Daily Mirror in her hands. “Who told them, Romain? Who?”

  I was as confused as she was. How had it reached the ears of the damn society columnist at the Mirror?

  A picture of Dana and me. Taken during a preview at the Leo Castelli gallery, on East 77th Street. Nothing incriminating. Standing next to each other with glasses in our hands. Dana looking straight at the camera, and I looking in the other direction. The caption read, “Dana Feldman and her young Canadian lover.” A comment, supposedly humorous, accompanied it, “The masculine version of Nabokov’s Lolita advances the cause of women.”

  “Answer me, Romain! Who?”

  I didn’t know. The same way I didn’t know how we had ended up where we were.

  Since The Next War’s publication, in addition to my classes with Darren and Ian Dart, I acted as Dana’s assistant (she hired me after we completed all the paperwork, sorting out my situation with the American authorities; according to her lawyers, nothing led them to believe Robert Egan had lodged a complaint against me in Métis Beach, so I was now the happy owner of a green card). I accompanied her to all her promotional events, looked after her agenda, answered interview requests, opened her letters, sorted them. I read the newspaper for her and prepared press reviews, setting aside hurtful criticism or comments. Twice a day, I made my way to the newspaper stand on Broadway, in front of the Lincoln Center, still under construction, and I bought the morning and afternoon editions. That’s how I had come across the Daily Mirror’s picture.

  I loved accompanying Dana to her events, as much as I loved being in her company when, both of us exhausted, we settled down in the living room, each lying on a couch, shoes off, reviewing the day’s events. A new prize, or a lecture, a television interview with one of the great names of television that impressed me so much — Johnny Carson, Ed Sullivan, and the very serious Walter Cronkite, whose tears led to our own a few short months later, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

  All of it felt like a dream.

  Moïse was put off because I wasn’t spending nearly as much time with him. He didn’t tell me, but I could feel it. “Don’t worry about it, man, I’m writing a lot right now, anyway. You know what? I’ve got a title. A New York Tale. What do you think?”

  “Perfect. Genius.”

  “So can we see each other tomorrow?”

  “Don’t think so, still got things to do with Dana. I have to be there, you know?”

  “The day after, then?”

  “I don’t know, Moïse, I’ll call you back.”

  And I hung up, feeling guilty. Moïse, my friend Moïse. It took a surprising problem for me to disregard my good friend’s needs. Yes, a real problem.

  You should have seen her, Dana, speaking in front of crowds in awe of her even before she opened her mouth. Crowds of young women and a very few young men, brought to tears, their eyes shining, impatient for a new world. You should have seen her talk to them with her eyes pulsing like embers, radiant in her small black dresses that showed off her shoulders, her long brown hair cascading down her back, and her flat shoes, ballet shoes in black silk that made her look like a student, even though she was forty-one. Women wanted to be her, men, like Darren, mooned over her. As did I. It was impossible not to succumb to her charm.

  “Hey! What are you looking at?”

  That morning, Dana would have slapped me if the kitchen table hadn’t been between us. Bent over the press reviews I’d prepared for her, glasses on her nose, her bathrobe was slightly open, showing the top of her breasts, naked and full, under her dark blue men’s bathrobe bought at Brooks Brothers. (Dana made fun of women’s bathrobes — “not warm enough and desperately overdone when it comes to seduction.”) She raised her eyes and caught my stare. Immediately, I blushed red.

  “Sorry … I was thinking of something else.…”

  She drew her bathrob
e tight around her. “Something bothering you? You’ve been strange recently. Problems with Moïse?”

  “No, just a little tired.”

  “Tired? My God! What will you be like at my age?”

  She stared at me for a few beats, as if she didn’t believe me.

  Another time, I can’t remember where we were exactly, but there were a lot of people — maybe a dinner organized by her publisher — her eyes intercepted mine, staring at her curves. She furrowed her brow before slapping me, right there in front of everyone. “Hey! Were you looking at my ass?” Embarrassed, I left, feeling all eyes on me, and returned alone to Harperley Hall, hating myself for being so obsessed. What’s wrong with you, man! She could be your mother!

  Things became tense between us. Dana avoided me. And when she couldn’t — I was her assistant, after all — she was in a terrible mood. At dinner parties, in taxis, she was distant, cold, carefully calculating her movements to avoid brushing up against me, always with that air of disdain, the same you’d have with a mangy dog: Don’t come near me! Don’t touch me!

  The happiness I had built for myself in New York was slipping away.

  7

  That memorable night at Columbia!

  Since Dana encouraged young women to enroll in college, they were particularly generous to her in return. Not a week would go by without Dana receiving honours — diplomas, prizes, decorations — or invitations to speak to enthusiastic crowds of young people. In 1964 and 1965, female enrollment increased, and she was proud of it. That night, in front of a feverish crowd of young women at Columbia University, Dana realized that the promise she’d made to herself as a little girl was coming true. All these young women listening to her with veneration, their eyes wide open, full of light. She inspired them! She could influence them, help them choose paths they might not have taken otherwise. Dana was accomplishing something great!