by Nell Gavin
He leaned toward me, and swiftly struck me across the face. I lifted my head slowly, and stared straight into his eyes with an expression so enraged and so defiant he was taken aback. His eyes flickered, much as they did when his mother shouted. Then, remembering I was his wife, his anger grew twofold. He struck me again. Rather than face him with my head lowered as I always did, I stared back at him, unblinking, and raised myself to my full height. He lifted his fist again to frighten me. I still stared without flinching, without noticing the fist or the pain from his blows.
He nervously turned his eyes away from mine before I had yet to blink. He hesitantly lowered his arm.
“It is a girl,” I said calmly, studying him with more wild threat in my eyes than I knew. “She will not marry well, of course, but I will need her to help me with the chores. If you wish, she will be mine alone.” I would sort out the task of caring for her as an outcast of the family at a later time.
“Leave her,” my husband ordered.
I caught his eye and stared. “And next time, I will have a son for you,” I continued as if he had not spoken.
“Did you hear me, wife? I said leave her!” He was outraged and a little frightened. I had never challenged him before.
“I would now like to show you your little daughter, Husband.”
He turned away. “I do not want to see it.”
“She would like to see you. She has your mouth, and your esteemed mother’s eyes.” I did not coax or placate. I spoke the words pleasantly, without expression, staring intently at him with eyes of fire that burned a hole into his thoughts, and disturbed his assuredness.
He stood and did not move.
I pulled the baby out of the sling and held her out to my husband who looked at her grudgingly then looked away again.
“She has your honored mother’s eyes,” I repeated, bowing my head. “See?”
“I will not see.”
“See?” I insisted. “Your honored mother’s eyes.” I pushed the baby in front of his face, close enough for him to smell her. His nose twitched. “I could not leave a baby with the eyes of my esteemed mother-in-law.”
My husband peered down reluctantly, studied her and shook his head. “Her eyes are my eyes,” he said. “And my nose as well.” He looked at her with more interest and a little triumph. “I see nothing of you, in her. She is the image of me.”
“I could not leave an infant who was the image of you, my honored husband,” I said humbly, bowing my head.
We arrived at the house together, and I knelt before my mother-in-law to present the infant. I was quaking inside. I did not know what to expect from her fury. She could cast me out, or burden me with tasks that would kill me, or simply speak to me with more derision than she already did. Perhaps it would be the last . . . perhaps she would feel mercy toward the child if she saw it.
The rest of the family stood around us, watching. Some viewed me with amusement; all viewed me with contempt.
“I beg you humbly for forgiveness,” I said with my forehead touching the floor. “It is a daughter.”
The woman stared, and said nothing.
I waited.
“Take the child away,” she said finally. There was no mercy in her voice, or in her eyes.
“It will be no trouble, my esteemed mother,” my husband said. “It will be trained to do the chores.” He hung his head, then knelt beside me on the floor.
“Why is the child not dead?” My mother-in-law snapped. “You have a duty to obey me. You will take it out and leave it for the wolves.”
It did not occur to anyone to be appalled at the suggestion. They looked at me sternly, in agreement, more inured to the killing of female infants than they were to a woman’s flagrant disrespect toward her mother-in-law. Vacillating and weak, my husband swiftly moved into their camp where it was safer, and looked over at me with an expression that mirrored their disapproval, even as he knelt in supposed supplication for the same reason as I.
I was alone in this fight.
“I will leave as well,” I said softly to myself. There were gasps from those close enough to hear, then laughter, and my words were repeated more loudly so my mother-in-law could share in the joke.
“You cannot,” she chortled. “Where would you go, an ugly, useless, clumsy, big-footed field girl? Who would have you? You could not even sell yourself, except to blind fishermen, and even they can do better than you.”
I said nothing.
“Take the child away.”
I stood and bent over in a deep bow and took my daughter out, presumably to leave her to die. However, I kept walking. I was shocked and frightened by the intensity of my determination. It was unlike me to question my elders, or to be defiant in the face of their commands. I did not know where the willfulness came from, or what would become of me as a result of it. I was ashamed of myself, but could do nothing except walk away from all of them, carrying an infant with no life to look forward to anyway.
I made a walking stick of a fallen branch, and leaned on it heavily. It was not easy walking, having given birth only hours before. Had I been more respected, or perhaps more loved, another might have volunteered to spare me the pain of this chore and do it for me. However, the killing of my child was my task alone. I thought it a fortunate burden, as I walked toward the sparing of her life.
It was not hard for my husband to catch up to me. When an hour had passed and I still did not return, he went looking for me. He took a false turn or two, allowing me to press on farther than I otherwise might have, but he easily covered the distance when he spotted me on the road. He said nothing, when he reached me.
I looked at him, and continued to walk.
“Stop!” He shouted, finally.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“We must,” he said.
“I cannot,” I answered.
“We must obey.”
“I will not,” I said.
“You are my wife!” he screamed. Spittle shot from his mouth, and onto my face.
“Not as of this instant,” I whispered, staring down. I glanced up at him for just long enough to catch his eye and give him a look that was both dangerous, and oddly, inappropriately, commanding and powerful. Then I hung my head again.
He stared at me with disbelief and flew into a rage.
“This is what I get for taking pity on you! No one else would marry you, and this is why! This! This is why a Horse woman cannot—and should not—be chosen as a mate. You are too headstrong for a woman.” He muttered, “Horses always are. And this girl would be even worse. This girl would be uncontrollable.” This was the very first indication that I might be headstrong. This was the very first incident that even suggested so. I was meek and dutiful, always. From birth, any tendency toward independent thought or disrespect had been carefully, methodically and purposely eradicated from my nature.
“Then you are well-rid of us,” I snapped. “You are now free to find yourself a better wife and to father a better child,” My tone of voice threw my husband into a state of frightened confusion, and he blanched.
I did not mention that he had tried for a better pairing, before settling for me. As the youngest son of a large peasant family, he had no expectation of inheritance or fortune, nor could any wife of his expect more than I received. There were no women queued up to replace me. There had been none queued up before my parents offered me. I was the best that he could do.
“I command you.” His words trembled unsteadily.
“She is mine.”
“You are mine—and you will do as I say!”
“I bid you good-bye,” I responded, and continued to walk.
He grabbed my walking stick and struck me with it until I fell, bleeding. He kicked me. The infant howled on the ground, for she had torn loose from her sling and was hurt, how badly I did not know, but the cries seemed to indicate that it was serious. My husband aimed his foot at her, then hesitated, and kicked me again, full force in the stomach. I crawled
to my knees and vomited from the impact, heard the baby cry, and wept myself. Anger surged through me, and my determination to help her grew to a panic.
I felt a rush of blood between my legs. Had he broken something within me?
I tried to move toward the infant, but I was too weak, and the kick to the stomach had taken away my breath. I attempted it again, forcing myself. I would do this. I would fight him. She was just out of reach, and her cries sounded odd. What could it mean, that they sounded this way? I had to hold her and see. I stretched my arm toward her with no thought but to make it longer.
My husband placed his foot upon my arm to stop me. He pushed his weight down hard enough so that I cried out in protest.
A sense of resignation suddenly overcame me, and I collapsed.
Was it worth all this? Was it worth it? In one instant, I threw away my resolve, and decided it was not. I was exhausted, in pain, and the effort was proving to be futile. It was easier to obey. I could not force my husband. I had no power to win against his mother. I had no strength left to fight. Furthermore, the infant was damaged–I could tell as much from her cries. She might not even live. Did it really matter that she live? The fleeting thought “It is only a female” passed through my mind, and decided me. The defiance that had overtaken me earlier retreated behind a veil of obedience, and I shut my eyes with shame for having challenged my husband and defied his mother: I was not being dutiful.
“Take her,” I whispered. A string of vomit hung from my lip. I broke it with my hand and wiped my mouth. “Take her away.”
I lay there in the dust, staring at the sky, while my husband roughly picked up the infant and walked some distance away from the road, where he left her on the ground. He did not even take the time to smother her. She screamed in shrill wails, and each one of them tore at my heart. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands until they bled, but I did not feel any pain.
My husband returned to me, and pulled me to my feet. He held me up, for I was weak and wobbling, and waved to a lone ox cart that was passing at that moment to ask the driver for a ride.
We bumped along the road toward home. I stared at the countryside, crossed my legs to stop the blood, and pressed my arms against my breasts, which were suddenly hard and full and dripping milk. I was numb, feeling no pain in my loins at all, but could still hear the cries though they were far behind me now and, in truth, had stopped.
New York, 1814-1867
•~۞~•
I wanted no more of husbands and marriage. The thought of it made panic rise within me, and any threat of it made me churn with nausea. I chose a body that would not appeal to men, and as a further safeguard, selected one that would ensure my preference would be other women instead, although within the constraints of that society, I would neither act upon that preference, nor understand or acknowledge it. I would not be enticed by urges that had brought me such grief in the past, and would not be tempted by any man. I hid safely behind a wall no man could scale.
I was born the middle child of a family of nine in a place called New York. My father was a renowned composer and violinist, and each of us was trained on a different instrument from our earliest days. I was assigned the piano at the age of three, propped up on books with my feet dangling, and I took to it as I had never taken to another instrument before. It had such a glorious sound! I grew to have a love for it that transcended that of any instrument I’d ever played, and delighted my parents with a talent they had never seen before in any child, except my elder brother who exceeded even me on the violin.
We had nightly concerts in the parlor, playing compositions by my father and many of our own, and as I grew, my ability was recognized as exceptional. Still, I had a brother even more gifted, and this piqued me to try harder than I might have otherwise, even motivated as I was to learn every single thing I could about music. My father exploited my talent and that of my brother by having us play for audiences, but neither of us minded. It was what we loved to do. There were nights when my brother’s performance was a little weak and my own was spectacular, and it was these nights that I lived for, and thought of long afterward.
I adored my family. They were among the intellectuals of the time, led by a brilliant man, my father, and a mother who could charm the winter into spring with her warmth and kind heart. We were raised to think and to question, to appreciate art in all of its forms, and to respect ideas. Our library was filled with books we were all encouraged to read and discuss, and because of my father’s fame, I met an endless variety of people who would argue into the night about religion and philosophy and politics. Even as small children, we were allowed to sit on the floor and listen and participate, and through the years I absorbed it all, chewing on ideas and expounding upon them internally, thinking at length about conversations that were forbidden to most women of that age.
They came from all over the world, it seemed, to visit my father, and my exposure to these people opened my eyes to viewpoints I would never have known of otherwise. These experiences colored my opinions until my thoughts began leaning toward the eccentric, although I would only have behaved and spoken in a way that was precisely as expected. I grew to have respect for philosophies others in my time considered laughable or threatening, and had an unquenchable thirst for more of them.
I developed an insatiable appetite for mental stimulation, and craved association with people who were different from me because I felt I had less to learn from people too like myself. I yearned for conversations with immigrants, and slaves, prostitutes and beggars–anyone at all who might have an interesting or poignant story that would introduce to me another kind of world. I wished I were a man so that I might travel and have adventures. However, I was afraid to reveal my inclinations for fear that I might be scorned for my curiosity, or thought of as odd. Instead, I read everything I could find, and escaped with my mind.
On the face of it, I was just exactly what a woman of my era was expected to be. Underneath, I supported causes only the courageous could fight, but I did not have the courage to join in. I might have done some good but for that, backing causes that ranged from allowing married women to teach in the school, to taking part, as I had heard the Quakers did, in assisting runaway slaves on their journey to Canada. I daydreamed myself into heroic roles, but did nothing.
In particular, I had a hatred for injustice. Most of what I saw of brutality and pain was from the windows of my enclosed carriage, and I could have easily ignored it and dismissed it from my thoughts had I chosen, instead of craning my neck to see more. I saw immigrants living in terrible slums, working for pennies. I saw the poor taken away in chains because they could not pay their debts. I saw children whose bones were brittle and bent from poor diet and no sunlight, working in factories, carrying crates too large for a man.
On one occasion, I saw several freed Southern Negroes lynched for rapes an undercurrent of rumor suggested a gang of white thugs had committed. Concerned, I questioned the wife of the police commissioner who told me the police knew who had actually committed the crimes, but wanted to rid the streets of “darkies”. The world, it seemed, preferred rapists to black men. She assumed I was in concurrence with this hideous, unspeakable crime against the innocent, and smiled a little as she told me. I said nothing to suggest I was not. I had never felt such self-loathing as I did on that day.
I went to this public lynching to offer my silent prayers and support for the men, since it appeared there was nothing at all to be done to save them. I knew that very few people cared whether the men lived or died, and that some did not ever consider, nor were they burdened by the thought, that these “creatures” were actually men with feelings and souls.
As for myself, I had an inexplicable compulsive need to make certain those men saw one face that showed grief, when their eyes scanned the crowd. I had to lie to my family in order to cover up my plans, and had to go alone, but I was adamant about being there no matter how silly my whim, or macabre that whim was. And so, I w
as there, gripping my smelling salts to be certain I remained conscious through to the end, pushing as close to the front of the crowd as I was able.
The haunted look in my red-rimmed, saucer-round eyes caught the eyes of one man, a particularly proud-looking Negro, as someone slipped the noose around his neck. He nodded to me without lowering his eyes, which under other circumstances would have earned him a lashing. Had his hands not been tied behind him, and had he been wearing one, he would have tipped his hat.
I touched my gloved hands to my mouth to cover a gasp as the platform was kicked from beneath him, and he hung.
For years that scene reappeared in dreams to trouble me. Most troubling were the nightmares that placed me on the scaffold, where it was I who wore the noose. Those Negro men always stood in judgment against me for my silence.
I seethed inwardly over that incident and many others, grieving over all injustice, over all cruelty. However, I could not move a finger against any of it. I was afraid to not be liked. It was so comfortable, to be as loved and accepted as I was. I would do nothing to jeopardize that.
There were many who would have appreciated my support. There were many people who stood alone and fought for things I too believed in, while I averted my eyes and stayed silent. I betrayed these people, and myself, by publicly taking popular stances that diverged from my convictions, just to incur approval from those who listened when I spoke.
I envied courage more than any other virtue, and wondered how one gained possession of it, for I was certain there was no courage at all within me.
۞
As a respectable woman, born to a high social strata, I led a very sheltered life. I could not travel any distances without the company of a brother, and spent most of my time studying or visiting friends, or performing charitable works throughout the town.
There was no mischief in me, or disrespect, or dishonesty. I was a good daughter, a good sister, a good neighbor, a good friend and a good aunt. I took great pains to do nothing to disappoint anyone. I could not force my own wishes onto others, was thoughtlessly ordered about by my siblings, and felt guilty if I did not volunteer for every chore or do twice the work of any of the others. There were many who took advantage of me, but I accepted this, for mostly they treated me with kindness.