Sappho's Overhead Projector

by Bonnie J. Morris

  Time to break out the academic robes, one last time.

  Chapter Nine

  Exhibit XX

  The sense of literary purpose Hannah had felt all year now reached its end, with the Grand Reshelving a certain and completed miracle. She floated smugly through the remaining workdays of her Washington year, smiling at coworkers, occasionally bursting into nervous laughter when she passed the security guard in the halls. They never spoke. The pay phone remained quiet.

  She used each lunch hour to explore Washington cafes and parks at their utter prettiest, in springtime. Her birthday came and went, with Isabel flying in as a surprise. They took a romantic Potomac River dinner cruise, saw a show at the Kennedy Center, and lost themselves in three nights of lovemaking amid the packing boxes of Hannah’s rented apartment— now nearly bare again as she prepared to leave.

  But what was she going back to? The near-year of sleuthing, the pay phone, the apparent assignment from the Overhead Herself had effectively suppressed all of Hannah’s initial dismay and bitterness over losing her professorship.

  Yet if that sacred task in Washington was now fulfilled, Hannah faced the reality of returning to a community where she had a lover and friends and a bar community— but no job.

  Late May was a blur of farewell toasts at the Library of Congress, a spending spree on souvenir paperweights from its gift ship, a bottle of brandy left at the security guard’s locker, and fifteen boxes loaded into the U-Haul van that would take her back to Sappho’s Bar and Grill. She no longer had her longtime apartment overlooking the university town. She moved in with Isabel for the time being, aware that “time being” was a broad and flexible concept in Isabel’s reach, and laughing at having ticked one more item off the great lesbian list: arriving at her lover’s door with a U-Haul.

  Over the last weekend in May, the long Memorial Day weekend before the hearing on the 30th, Hannah studied old brochures and publicity from every women’s history program in the world in order to arm herself well with rhetoric defending her own field.

  The usual Memorial Day weekend campout, with all the regulars of Sappho’s Bar and Grill tipsy in tents in the backwoods of one couple’s cabin home, went on around her as she sat on a log, sober and focused. Letty accidentally hit a volleyball through policewoman Angie’s car windshield; Moira sat down in a deep pile of skunk scat and had to borrow Trale’s pants for the weekend; Carol argued with Yvette about public funding for the arts; Dog ate mushrooms and wandered around muttering. Hannah never moved from her place by the campfire.

  Just once, as the embers crackled in a peculiar way, did she look up intently, thinking that she saw something in that fire. There was some historical fact she was supposed to recognize, something she had missed, in preparing for her meeting with the Dean. Something to do with fire.

  • • •

  She woke up on the day of the hearing in Isabel’s arms. “My scholar,” Isabel murmured into her hair. The apartment— Isabel’s apartment, their apartment now— smelled magnificently of buttered crumpets, Irish soda bread, rye bagels and naan. Not to mention sex.

  Hannah yawned. “But why so much bread? Not that I don’t appreciate it.” She looked hungrily at the steaming breakfast tray Isabel had prepared.

  Isabel played with Hannah’s ears as she quoted Judy Grahn. “Because, darling— ‘the common woman is as common as a common loaf of bread/And will rise.’”

  “Ah, quoting Judy Grahn? Guess I’d better get up then and do this,” sighed Hannah, and reached for a crumpet. But Isabel said, “No, let’s eat first,” and pushed away the tray; then Hannah saw what she had in mind, and fell back into bed.

  Hannah’s board hearing was scheduled for a peculiarly specific time— 1:15 p.m., putting her in mind of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: “She seeks to intimidate me by use of quarter hours.”

  Isabel, who had not been invited to the hearing, had promised a party in Hannah’s honor to be held at Sappho’s later that afternoon, optimally welcoming Hannah back to her old job if the hearing went (as they all hoped) in that direction. At noon, Isabel departed for the bar to begin the decorations and cooking prep while Hannah, feeling very alone, drove up to the university where she had so recently been a professor of women’s history.

  She wore her academic robes, and there was something real, important, even magical about wearing that regalia now. A fierceness of earned respect, a link to the other scholarly women of the past denied a platform. She adjusted her doctoral beret ever more jauntily on her head, then briskly rubbed her hands together to be certain no traces of Isabel lingered between her fingers.

  The hearing was in the Faculty Council room, an imposing space that would make even a Nobel-winning research professor feel cowed and delinquent. Severe folding chairs were set on a slight riser for the deans, and Hannah saw that past women’s history faculty and some of her own recent graduate students filled rows of seats arranged at a distance from the front of the room.

  The gender division was starkly apparent. All but one of the deans were male and all but one of the women’s history advocates were female, but mingling in the audience were prominent alumni and donors of both sexes.

  The Dean of Deans cleared his throat. “Thank you for being so prompt and responsive,” he rumbled. “We recognize that the prospect of eliminating Women’s History as a major has raised concerns in the larger community . . .”

  “Concerns! How about righteous rage and offense?” shouted Dez, Hannah’s star PhD candidate, who had shown up for the hearing dressed in a severe dark suit as if attending a funeral service.

  “Order.” The lone female dean stared at Dez. “These proceedings are intended to reassure, not to provoke, but you must let us proceed.” Dez sat back down, cowlick spiking defiantly.

  The Dean of Deans pulled a sheet of notes from a leather-topped folder. “As I’m sure you’re all aware, the university has been forced to make budget cuts in order to keep with the pace of these difficult times in academia, and the humanities certainly took their share. We can all agree that Professor Stern, for instance, left a bold legacy here that her students continue to appreciate, and thanks to the convenience of distance learning via Internet, she has been able to evaluate the doctoral exams of her remaining candidates. This alone demonstrates that our brick-and-mortar programs are less and less necessary, when so much learning can be shifted to online curricula.”

  An older woman Hannah recognized from the Board of Trustees raised her hand— a hand without any wedding band, Hannah noted. “Dean, of course we all recognize the benefits and necessary innovations of the digital age. But isn’t there something to be said for traditional classroom instruction? For instance, aren’t many female students actually drawn to the women’s history program because of, well, that ambience of sisterhood that may well be lacking in other required on-campus classes?”

  Another dean shook his head. “We can no longer in good faith be partial to one gender in our outreach. Too many concerned students and alumni have questioned the legality of offering women’s studies when we don’t offer men’s studies as well . . .”

  A collective groan went up. “Really, how clueless is this administration?” complained Hannah’s old colleague from the Art department. “Women’s history became an option precisely because every other humanities class preaches men’s history. I still get blowback for introducing three female artists amid the tiresome canon of famous men. Are you advocating a White Studies curriculum to balance out the Black Studies major we finally, finally instituted?”

  “Of course not,” thundered the Dean. “But we found that a satellite faculty of just three tenured professors could teach all accredited courses in History that touch on women of the past, thus eliminating the need for courses in a separately funded women’s history concentrate.”

  Hannah looked with horror at these three select faculty from the university who would now be covering anything to do with women. One was a devout Baptist who believed women belonge
d in the home, another was a contemporary gender theorist who taught that there was no such thing as a woman, and the third was notorious for being drunk during his office hours and fondling his graduate assistants.

  Hannah raised her hand to speak, and the Dean of Deans shook his head. “Please wait. We also know that for many of our students women’s studies and women’s history are no longer relevant categories in scholarship that takes a nonbinary perspective. Thus we are also giving our past graduates the opportunity to redact their diplomas and change their women’s history degrees to History of Gender, on request.”

  He looked around in expectation of approval for this recent innovation. But a palpable current of dissent flickered through the room as both conservative alumni and radical feminist grad students took in this official banishment of the category Woman.

  Disappearance.

  Erasure.

  Hannah stood up, flicking her robes away from the sad faces of her graduate students.

  “Look, as an historian, I wish to offer some historical perspective here,” she began, feeling her heart rate increase with every word. “We not only had— have— one of the best women’s history programs in the state, we have majors in women’s studies too, and an international women’s leadership institute, and a women’s issues-themed house dorm! In every one of these you have dynamic students doing research on women. Are you going to eradicate all of these as outmoded, too costly, unnecessary? Are you intending to remove the word woman from every program simultaneously? What message does that send to the female students? They make up over 55 percent of the student body.”

  One whiskered gentleman rose from the back of the room, nodded at Hannah, and raised his palm to speak. “As one of this university’s more generous donors, I must say I’m appalled by what I’ve just heard,” he began. “This young lady is a prime example of how this university wastes its resources. It’s eye-opening to be here today.”

  Then he added, “Truly? Am I hearing this right? We’ve been offering a women’s studies undergraduate program and a women’s history MA and some sort of feminist dorm? What an excess of ridiculousness. We can do without all of that. Our students come here to learn.”

  Hannah’s face fell.

  And it went downhill from there. She mustered every statistic and data spread she had prepared, proving the importance of women’s history to women who had gone K-12 with no mention of their foremothers. She offered ways the university might save money without eliminating the program.

  Finally, Hannah pointed out that “A well-used quote attributed to Sojourner Truth is ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ She didn’t say ‘Ain’t I a fluid nonbinary category?’ On that basis alone, I’d argue for keeping the original name of our research program.”

  But the Dean remained adamant. Women’s history was, now, history.

  Then Dez and the four other PhD candidates present, all in their mid-twenties and today all dressed alike in dark suits, suddenly stood up. In one quick motion they pulled the long tablecloth away from an extra side table located behind their row of folding chairs. Reaching below the table, they brought out— could it be? A girl-sized pine-box casket, draped in the tricolors of the women’s suffrage movement and partly open to reveal (thankfully) not a body, but dozens of award-winning women’s history textbooks. Resting on top was Hannah’s last book.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to bury the women’s history program at this university,” Dez recited from notes sketched on her sweaty palm as the four pallbearers lifted the box to shoulder height and began a death march around the perimeter of the room. “We mark the end of an era with the rending of our coats.” Each woman ripped the lapel of her own blazer. “And we will fast for those sisters in struggle who still hunger for this knowledge.”

  She pulled a slip of paper from her torn blazer. “Here are all the university women’s studies and women’s history programs in America that have dropped the word woman from their title and now are Gender Studies. Here are all the Gender Studies programs that this past year offered no courses on women, no courses on lesbians, no L. Here are all the students in America who will never learn how women like us survived.” As she began to read aloud, necks craned, jaws dropped, the female dean called for order, and Hannah’s previous Chair ran from the room, eyes downcast, head shaking.

  Dez paused in front of Hannah. “We will bury this body of work underneath lecture hall B-12, your old classroom,” she spoke firmly. “And then we will complete our doctorates, the last women’s history doctorates from this school, on schedule but very long distance. We choose to retain WOMAN on our diplomas. And Dr. Stern will have her tenure in our hearts.”

  Hannah gasped, recognizing the phrase she thought she herself had invented. Very long distance. Across time? Where were they all going?

  Other heads turned as one of the two alumni board representatives walked toward the exit, calling over his shoulder, “The best news I heard here today is that we don’t offer tenure to any of these radical feminists.” The door slammed behind him, sending a thin burst of dust into the air.

  Those dust motes seemed to dance before her eyes. Hannah blinked as they landed cruelly on her lashes, in her brows. The dust was thick, then flat, quickly taking the shape of swirling ashes. She was standing on a crossed pyre of badly sawed and broken boughs and castoff planking, and the walls of the university boardroom had opened into a public square filled with curious, pitying faces.

  At her feet were leather-bound and hand-illuminated volumes of women’s history; she saw that her feet were tied to a pole that pushed upward against her back, meeting the splintered crosspiece to which her hands were bound. Bewigged men approached her with torches, questioning her in Latin, a language she barely recognized as it spread between their parted, decayed teeth.

  The upward swirling ashes were the writings of her ancestors, her foremothers, her teachers; their hot ink made the air smell bitter. The ash-dust filled her eyes; her tears rolled down, but not enough in number to put out the spreading flames. She vaguely glimpsed the man who had slammed out the door, delighted to be rid of women’s history. He pointed to her smoky burning legs and said, she’ll lose that leg hair now. And even as her own erasure started, she thought at once of Oscar Wilde on trial, sentenced to hard labor. And a woman, yes, a woman had sneered at the gay man and declared, he’ll have his hair cut reg’lar now!

  Suddenly an ember danced before her eyes, the ember that had seemed to speak to her from the fire at the Memorial Day campout (wasn’t that just two days ago?) This was what she had failed to recognize, failed, yes, as a historian, to remember. It was the 30th of May. She was on trial with women’s history on the anniversary of Joan of Arc’s burning.

  And now Hannah was burning. She was burning along with all the canceled lectures on women’s history, lesbian culture, feminism. She was Hirschfeld’s library, she was Joan of Arc, she was a witch possessed by women’s history. How could she think they would let her live, let alone continue with her very dangerous work?

  But where was the Overhead? Wouldn’t she intervene now and rescue Hannah? But then why had she not intervened and rescued Joan? Or (don’t go there, don’t go there) if there was in fact any such powerful Goddess, why had any of history’s tragedies occurred? The witch burnings. Famine and plague. Slavery. Genocide. Woman-hating, homophobia, racism, poverty. The Holocaust . . .

  And when the flames dared to reach her writing hand, she wrenched forth the desperate last thought: This is why they call it being “fired.”

  With her last energy Hannah turned her head to the left and saw, standing at the edge of the jeering crowd, Isabel in a nun’s habit, hands clasped under her robe.

  Isabel. Maybe this is just one of her time travel schemes! Not funny. Not sexy. It hurts! Isabel! Did you cast a spell and make me Joan of Arc?

  And Isabel shook her head and seemed to speak without moving her lips. What she told Hannah now was You were always Joan of Arc. The spell of ages tu
rned you into Dr. Hannah Stern. You were truly Joan, and Hypatia, and Anne Hutchinson and all those burned for their daring. Out of their ashes I brewed you into Hannah for our time.

  • • •

  “Ow!” Hannah snapped back to the council room and saw that she had inadvertently put her outstretched hand onto the hot coffee urn, its blazing fire ring still turned high. Her palm was already beginning to blister. “Let’s get you out of here,” whispered Cassandra, her favorite faculty colleague through their many teaching years, and Hannah half-walked, half-trotted out the door with a lemonade-soaked napkin wrapped around her right hand, leaving a phalanx of funeral-dressed grad students in loud argument with the Dean.

  Later, at Sappho’s Bar and Grill, they raised sad glasses to the ruined afternoon. Without a women’s history program at the university, not just Hannah but all the other women faculty in affiliated positions were about to lose their jobs and move away, taking with them the students, graduate students, librarians, and all the annually returning and regenerating bodies that had been the bar community for decades, ever since the women’s history program had started in the late 1970s.

  What is the price of a feminist community? How do you reckon its loss, its downgrading to dispensable? No beer could numb that pain— though Isabel, as ever, was busily mixing herbs to bring them through.

  “You were right to take that Library of Congress gig,” Letty told Hannah, one calloused hand slapping her on the backside. “Not much left for you up on that campus. Maybe we all ought to get down to the business of preserving our books ’n’ papers. You’re practically the only one I can trust with my high school diary; and what about Trale over there? She’s got years up on me. Trale, you are dyke history. Where you gonna leave your papers? Get Hannah to put ’em in order, and fast. We can’t even count on women’s studies to keep our stories passed along the line!”