An Imperfect Spy (17 page)

“On my insistence, they’ve removed the lock, I’m glad to say,” Blair told her. “Enough is enough. After you,” he added, holding the door for Kate with her briefcase.

It was fortunate that Kate and Blair had prepared themselves for the unexpected, because it soon became clear that the class had moved into a new phase and was ready to take on legal questions involving gender at full blast.

The class had read
Bradwell v. Illinois
for today;
it was the Supreme Court’s first case (1873) concerning a woman’s claim to full participation in society, as Herma Hill Kay had put it. Kate had been very taken with Herma Hill Kay, who had written the casebook on sex-based discrimination and who was now dean of Berkeley’s law school. Myra Bradwell had applied for a license to practice law, which the Illinois Supreme Court had denied her because she was female. Bradwell was a lawyer, and her husband, who supported her law career, wished her to join him in his law practice. In denying her this right, Justice Bradley explained, in a concurring opinion, that “the paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now on the Supreme Court, was a coauthor of the first edition of the caesbook. Ginsburg added a wry comment on
Bradwell
: “Although the method of communication between the Creator and the judge is never disclosed, ‘divine ordinance’ has been a dominant theme” in decisions justifying sex-based discrimination.

The class today was to discuss the role of religion in legal discrimination against women in
Bradwell
, several cases previously read, and
Jane Eyre
. As it turned out, Kate had spent longer on
Tess of the d’Ubervilles
with Betty Osborne than this class would spend on
Jane Eyre
. The class wanted to discuss the Schuyler Law School, and the rights of women and minority students therein.

“All right,” Blair said, pushing his books and papers aside. “If a class can’t discuss real life once in
a while, it’s not a class, it’s a habit,” he said. Kate wrote for a moment on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk toward him. It said:
There may be other tape recorders running
. Blair contemplated the note for a minute, scribbled on it, and passed it back while calling on the first student. “Let’s have a little order, however,” he said. “One at a time, at least at first.”

His note read:
I’ve got tenure and you’re out of here at the end of the semester, so.…

But order was hardly to be maintained. The students had selected a spokesperson, a young woman who had marshaled her thoughts and was ready; but it was, clear, from the palpable energy emanating from the group who could hardly sit still, let alone remain silent, that feeling was running high.

They did let her begin. “No woman has ever been chosen as
Law Review
editor,” she said. “You might not believe it, but we never noticed that until you came, Kate. They always said it was the guy with the highest grades, but last year there was a woman who was sure she had the highest grades; we thought she was just a pain in the ass, but now we wonder.”

Kate, like the rest of the class, looked questioningly at Blair. She knew from Reed that the editor of
Law Review
used always to be the student with the highest grades, but that not terribly intelligent (in Kate’s view) criterion had given way to someone with high grades and something else—energy, originality, daring, interesting origins. Schuyler Law, it
seemed, was not only following the old custom, but cheating at it.

Nor was that all. The women students had begun exchanging stories of faculty moves on them, each woman considering herself alone in this until they had begun to talk to one another. “Women talking to one another are dangerous,” Kate said when some comment was demanded of her. “That’s why men liked to isolate us in separate houses and make us identify with the men rather than with each other. Women comparing notes frighten men. Auden said that somewhere. That’s one of the reasons, though not the main one, women were supposed to be virgins at marriage: the men didn’t want any basis for comparison.”

“I also get the feeling,” another woman student said, “that the faculty feels that since they had to let women in, if only to have enough students, they might as well get good use out of them.” Blair grinned at Kate and pointed to her note. Kate shrugged her shoulders, returning the smile. Then everyone started speaking at once.

“Hold it,” Blair shouted, standing up with his arms straight out, “hold it. I think we better go around the room, starting with you.” He pointed to a young woman in the back and at the center of the table. “Then we’ll move around to the left. You each have one minute to speak, so collect your thoughts. A minute is longer than you might imagine. Abigail?”

Abigail was a self-contained young woman who had struck Kate as competent and likely to do whatever
would serve her own ends best. Not that Kate usually read character across a room, but it was a type she had known all her life. They went along with convention, and convention these days meant you could become a lawyer, but you would still be married in white, have a child in the first few years of marriage, and give it the husband’s name. Any questioning of these items would be damned as useless, silly struggles. Abigail was not a woman who dealt in symbols.

“I’m not a feminist,” she began, confirming Kate’s guess. “But since we women pay as much as the men here, I think we should be treated equally, and not as though they were doing us a favor letting us in. That is how we feel, because of the way we are treated in class, because we are never spoken to seriously by the faculty, because we are never elected to any committees or posts. Some of the men students might elect us—not many, but some—but the faculty discourage them from supporting women. We’ve established that.” Having said this, she stopped. She might not be inclined to stick her neck out, but she knew her rights and wanted them, as Kate had surmised.

Next to her was a young man who had been clearly unhappy in the class and, while not as outraged as Jake the door locker, was obviously fed up. He had so far contained himself, Blair later explained to Kate, because he, Blair, was his chief faculty adviser and able to help him in many ways. But by now he had clearly had enough of Kate.

“What makes you think you know any more
about literature than we do?” he asked her, pointedly and rudely. Blair started to object to the tone if not the question, but Kate stopped him.

“What makes you think you, or Blair, know more about law than I do?” Kate asked.

“We’ve studied law,” he said. “Anyone can read. As it happens, I’ve read a lot.”

“Have you read
Jane Eyre
for today?” Kate asked.

“Sure,” he said, although he knew, and he knew Kate knew, he had read it, if at all, sometime in the past.

“Why, then,” Kate asked, “do you think the book ends with the word
Jesus
?”

He shrugged. “They all believed in religion in those days. They paid it lip service.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Kate said. “But how then do you account for Jane’s answer to Mr. Brockle-hurst when he warns her that if she is bad she will go to hell when she dies?”

“I don’t account for it, I just listen to you blab on about it.”

“Exactly,” Kate said. “We both read, we both read and study texts. Yours are law texts, mine are literature. It’s possible to read literature attentively and intelligently without studying it, and as I understand it, people used to be able to become lawyers by reading law while practicing it in a lawyer’s office, no schooling needed. Isn’t it just that we can’t all do everything, so we learn from one another?”

“That’s shit,” he said, still sitting in place, looking,
Kate thought, as though he might quite literally go up in smoke.

“Please feel free to leave, Ted,” Blair said. “But just go; don’t stop to try to beat me up, and don’t try to lock the door behind you. Do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars.”

It was unclear whether Ted was going to follow these orders, or sit and stew. To everyone’s relief, however, he gathered up his books and stomped out.

“Next?” Blair sweetly said.

Somehow that outburst had helped the class to reveal what was on their minds; and, having spent their anger vicariously, they could talk calmly. Their complaints were all on the same theme, with variations. There ought to have been a woman faculty member appointed to replace Nellie Rosenbusch. Problems particular to women ought to be discussed. Rape and marital problems ought not to be the stuff of male humor in class. Faculty members should not flirt with women students, let alone come on to them.

Here there was an objection voiced. “Plenty of women law students have married their professors,” a young woman near Kate remarked. “My friends tell me there are examples in every law-school faculty, men, that is, whose wives were their students. I don’t think we ought to get too sweeping about this.” The students all looked to Kate for her answer.

“Relationships are one thing,” Kate said. “Sexual harassment is another. I can’t really believe any of you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But at
least in literature departments where I have been, there are graduate students who want to marry professors who are already married; sometimes, often, these professors leave their wives and marry the student. The student often learns soon enough, having become the wife, that some other graduate student will try to displace her. Perhaps that doesn’t happen anymore, however,” she added. “I’m sometimes not quite up to date about current mores.”

“Well,” the young woman said, “I think we make too many laws about everything.”

“I think so, too, sometimes,” Kate said. “But in attempting to make the laws against harming certain people, we do inform ourselves about the possibilities of such harm. So the debate serves its purpose, although I end up on your side.”

The young woman, to Kate’s pleasure, smiled her agreement. God, Kate thought, how much we want them to appreciate us, to admit, however silently, to having learned something.

Eventually, they got around to a young man who would be almost the last person to speak. Kate metaphorically held her breath; she liked him, and hoped he would not go the way of the other two outraged young men, though if he did so, he would go politely.

“I’m interested in the question you asked Ted,” he said. “About
Jane Eyre
. Why is the last word in the book the name of Jesus? Jane hated the hypocrisy of religion, and when she needed divine guidance, it was a woman god, the moon, who spoke to her. So why end with Jesus?”

“Do you have an explanation?” Kate asked.

“Well, I think it was a cop-out. She was scared she was writing too revolutionary a book, so she dragged Jesus in at the end. I don’t exactly blame her, considering it was 1847, but I’m sorry she did it.”

“You could well be right,” Kate said. “I haven’t an answer that I’m satisfied with for more than a week at a time. But that last paragraph does begin with a reference to St. John, whom Jane refused to join in a celibate marriage. She gave up religion for a relationship that allowed her her sexuality. But perhaps, having now got the sexuality, she was ready to reconsider religion?”

The young man laughed. “I still think it was a cop-out,” he said.

“Okay,” Kate said. “I still think you may be right.”

On her way upstairs to Blair’s office and her belongings—he had stayed behind to consult with a student—Kate was waylaid by Harriet. “How did it go at the prison?” she asked.

“Better than I might have hoped,” Kate said. “She was grateful for the cigarettes. She might even decide to open her case with Reed’s help. Why do you ask?”

“I’m interested in everything, like Walt Whitman,” Harriet said. “Actually, I stopped you to say that I think we ought to have a meeting.”

“We are having a meeting. Do you prefer to sit down, or retreat to the women’s room as usual?”

“No, you clown, a meeting of all of us—you, me, Reed, Blair, and Reed’s assistant at the clinic. Just to make sure we’re all together on this, that we all know what’s going on.”

Kate looked surprised, or perhaps dubious.

“What I really want is some more of that malt scotch,” Harriet said, “and this seemed like a good way to get it. Humor me. Ask us all for a drink today.”

“All right,” Kate said, “I’ll try. I’ll call Reed first and ask about him and Bobby, then I’ll ask Blair, and then, if all goes well, I’ll swoop you up and take you home and force single-malt scotch down your throat.”

“You are an admirable woman, I’ve always said so,” Harriet announced. “I await your swoop.”

Reed was, as it happened, agreeable to meet them at home for a drink, and he promised to bring Bobby. Blair was always ready for a social occasion—so Kate had discovered—and swooping up Harriet having already been arranged for, they all arrived at the apartment at about the same time. Kate went for the single-malt scotch, which everyone except Bobby, who didn’t drink, had agreed on—Kate actually, to her delight and surprise, managed to dig up a bottle of ginger ale for Bobby—and they all settled down to exchange stories.

“I take it Kate has told you about our fisticuffs and verbal onslaughts,” Blair said to Reed. “Any idea that Schuyler Law might be a dull place has been banished, largely thanks to Kate, I do believe.”

“It can’t be due to me,” Kate said. “I’ve lived a life amazingly devoid of physical exertion, if you don’t count walking. People don’t actually hit people in English departments, not at least in my presence. They take out their aggressions in squash games with their friends, and they simply ignore their enemies, or mouth sweet insincere nothings if they have to talk to them.”

“And which group are you in?” Harriet asked, with a certain edge to the query.

“Oh, me for the meaningless sweet nothings,” Kate said, unperturbed. “You’d be surprised all the same at how long it took me to figure out that promises meant nothing. But I was always allowed to do my own thing, so to speak. I mean, nobody intruded into the classroom or told me what I had to teach, or how I ought to teach it.”