Terrible Virtue (15 page)

“That's the problem.”

“That he gives you pleasure?” Now I was completely lost.

“That I forget myself when he does. I move around. My husband says I . . . thrash . . . and . . .” Her voice trailed off again.

“Yes?”

“I make noises. I can't help myself. I try not to, but I can't help myself.”

“Your response is perfectly natural.”

“That's not what he says. He says he never heard of a nice girl behaving like that.”

“He's wrong.”

She shook her head. “Dr. Guernsey says the same thing. You just admitted it. You said only fallen women like that part of
marriage. Nice girls just put up with it because it's their duty. And they want babies.”

“I wasn't serious about what you call fallen women. I was trying to show you how illogical Dr. Guernsey and his ilk are. Women do enjoy the sexual act. They don't just put up with it as a wifely duty.”

“But I don't want to enjoy it. Not if it makes my husband angry.”

“Angry?”

“He says he always thought I was a nice girl. That's why he married me. To ennoble him. To keep him from giving in to his bestial nature. But now he finds out I'm a thousand times worse than he is.”

“What you are is a fortunate woman. You should rejoice in your responses. So should he.”

“He can't.”

“You mean he won't because of his bourgeois prejudices.” I hadn't meant to say that. This was a medical clinic, not a socialist rally.

“I mean he can't.” She dropped her eyes again. “He finds me so disgusting that . . . that he can't go on.”

“You mean he loses his erection?”

She nodded.

“There's a book I could recommend for him. Havelock Ellis—”

“Oh, no! He'd be furious if he knew I told anyone.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“Give me something to make me stop liking it.”

In all the years I had been nursing, I'd never wanted to shake a patient.

“Mrs. McAllister, there is nothing I can give you. And if there were, I wouldn't.”

“He'll leave me.” Now she was crying openly.

I took a pen and a piece of paper, wrote Havelock's name and the titles of several of his books on it, and handed it to her. That evening when we were closing, I found the list on the waiting room floor.

THE WOMAN WAS
wearing one of those fox neckpieces with the mouth of one dead animal chewing on the tail of another.

“Tell her to go to a private doctor,” Ethel muttered as she and I passed on our way to and from the alcoves.

The card Fania handed me said Mrs. Alfred Whitehurst was twenty-nine, had been married for five years, and had four children.

“Maybe this is terrible, Mrs. Sanger, but I don't want any more. I thought you'd be able to understand, only having two yourself.”

I turned from the model of the reproductive organs and stared at her.

“I saw a photo of you and your two boys in the newspaper,” she explained.

I let it go. Neither the photograph nor the message it sent was her fault.

We were closing the clinic that night when Fania showed me a two-dollar bill.

“Remember Mrs. Whitehurst?” she asked.

“The one in the dead foxes?” Ethel said.

Fania nodded. “It's from her. I told her registration cost ten cents and the pamphlet she bought was another twenty-five, but when I started to hand over her change, she said she wanted to make a contribution to Mrs. Sanger's clinic.”

Fania lifted the lid of the metal cashbox, but I took the bill from her before she could put it in, then picked up an index card from her desk, wrote on it, and carried it and the bill to the bulletin board. Ethel, Fania, and Elizabeth stood reading over my shoulder as I pinned up the money and the card.

“Received from Mrs. Arthur Whitehurst of the New York Police Department.”

ELIZABETH WASN'T AT
the clinic that morning, but Ethel, Fania, and I had been at work for several hours when they arrived. I'd expected to be arrested, but I hadn't anticipated a raid by the vice squad. I was just emerging from the alcove behind a patient when I saw Mrs. Whitehurst coming through the door. She was in plainclothes, but she wasn't wearing the fur piece. The three men who pushed their way in after her weren't in uniform either, but I had been roughed up on enough picket lines to know they were police. Their faces were hard as granite, their eyes dead from all they'd seen.

One of them leaned over a woman sitting with a baby in her lap and demanded her name. Another pulled a woman out of a chair and pushed her up against the wall. The police were shouting, and women were screaming, and children and babies were crying. I tried to pry the man off the woman he was holding against the wall. He pushed me away with one hand while he went on holding her with the other.

I whirled around to face Mrs. Whitehurst. “Tell your men to behave themselves. This is a clinic, not a bordello.”

“Just as bad,” Mrs. Whitehurst shouted back. “You're under arrest, Mrs. Sanger.”

Behind me, I saw one of the plainclothesmen yank open a
drawer of a filing cabinet and begin pulling out the folders and dumping them into a cardboard box. Fania tugged at his shoulder. He threw her off. She went sprawling. As he turned back to the files, he noticed one of the wooden models of the female reproductive organs. He picked it up in his big hands and stood turning it one way and another. Ethel tried to grab it out of his hands. He lifted it above his head to keep it out of her reach, like an adult tormenting a child.

Mrs. Whitehurst grabbed my arm and began pulling me toward the door. “Just come quietly, Mrs. Sanger.”

I shook her off. “Keep your hands off me. I'll go of my own volition.”

“Volition. Pretty fancy talk for a criminal.”

Outside the clinic, a mob of curiosity seekers mingled with the line of waiting women. I recognized a reporter from the
Brooklyn
Eagle
.

“Did you bring a photographer?” I shouted, as Mrs. Whitehurst tried to push me toward the paddy wagon.

“He's on the way,” the reporter shouted back.

Another policeman was shoving Ethel into the wagon. I came up behind him and began pulling him away from her.

“We'll go,” I shouted above the noise, “but on our own. We'll walk to the stationhouse,” I shouted in the direction of the reporter from the
Eagle
.

“This ain't no Fourth of July parade, sister,” the policeman said.

“Let her walk.” Mrs. Whitehurst laughed. “She'll be cooped up soon enough.”

I reached up to pull Fania down from the wagon, then linked one arm through hers and the other through Ethel's. We started down Pitkin Avenue.

The crowd began to fall into line behind us.

“Shame!” a woman shouted at the police.

“Shonda!”
others took up the cry.

“Vergogna!”

Suddenly a woman came darting through the mob. Beneath the battered hat she held to her head as she ran, her hair flew wild.

“Mrs. Sanger,” she cried as she panted after me. “Mrs. Sanger. Stop. Please stop. I need help.”

I didn't stop. The photographer from the
Brooklyn
Eagle
had arrived. A picture of Margaret Sanger, the birth control advocate, being dragged down the street by the police couldn't hold a candle to a photograph of Margaret Sanger being pursued by a distraught woman with outstretched arms, wild eyes, and a mouth open in a wail of desperation.

E
THEL WENT ON
trial first. When she was found guilty and sentenced to thirty days on Blackwell's Island, she announced that she would go on a hunger strike.

I tried to dissuade her. So did Kitty Marion, the British actress-turned-suffragist who sold copies of my new magazine,
Birth
Control
Review
, in front of Macy's, in the Grand Central Station, out at Coney Island, and other places where she was heckled and roughed up. Kitty had been imprisoned in England for suffragist demonstrations, gone on hunger strikes, and been force-fed repeatedly. She said the procedure was agony and her body had never entirely recovered. But Ethel refused to listen. A hunger strike, she said, would call attention to the cause.

I agreed that it would and never added that it would also call attention to her. She had been our mother's favorite, but our mother was gone, and now it couldn't be easy for her having a famous older sister.

ETHEL BYRNE

MAYBE I DID WANT TO UPSTAGE YOU, MARG. NO ONE EVER SAID SISTERLY LOVE WAS UNCOMPLICATED. MARY WAS OUR ROCK, NAN OUR COMPASS, BUT YOU AND I WERE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN, INESCAPABLY BOUND, HELLISHLY COMPETITIVE. WE WERE SO CLOSE THAT A FEW YEARS LATER YOU MANAGED TO FORGET WHICH OF US WENT ON THE HUNGER STRIKE AND WAS FORCE-FED
.

AT FIRST I THOUGHT YOUR LETTER WAS A JOKE. I'D HEARD ABOUT THE PLAN TO MAKE A MOVIE OF YOUR LIFE. ACCORDING TO HEDDA HOPPER—I NEVER THOUGHT I'D BE READING HOLLYWOOD GOSSIP COLUMNS TO FIND OUT WHAT WAS GOING ON IN MY GLAMOROUS SISTER'S LIFE, BUT WE WERE SEEING LESS OF EACH OTHER BY THEN—IT WAS TO BE CALLED
FIRST LADY OF THE CENTURY
AND STAR IDA LUPINO. AT LEAST THEY'D CHOSEN AN INTELLIGENT FEMINIST ACTRESS AND DIRECTOR FOR THE PART
.

THE IDEA OF THE MOVIE DIDN'T SURPRISE ME, BUT YOUR ASKING ME TO SIGN AWAY PART OF MY LIFE DID. I UNDERSTOOD THAT FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE TO GO ON A HUNGER STRIKE. NEVER MIND THE DAILY HEADLINES IN ALL THE PAPERS REPORTING MY CONDITION. NEVER MIND YOUR PUBLIC TRIBUTE TO THE HISTORIC IMPORTANCE OF MY SACRIFICE. AS YOU POINTED OUT, THE PUBLIC'S MEMORY IS SHORT
.

I WAS SORRY THE MOVIE NEVER CAME OFF. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A NICE TRIBUTE TO YOU. AND THEY COULD HAVE HIRED ME AS WHAT I BELIEVE IS CALLED A TECHNICAL ADVISER, BECAUSE IF THERE'S ONE AREA WHERE I HAVE EXPERTISE, IT'S THE MISERY OF A HUNGER STRIKE AND THE PAIN AND HELPLESS HORROR OF BEING FORCE-FED. YOU HAVE A VIVID IMAGINATION, MARG, BUT EVEN YOU AREN'T UP TO THAT
.

THE MATRON HAD IT IN FOR ME FROM THE MOMENT I ARRIVED
.
SHE WAS ALWAYS COMING BY MY CELL WITH TAUNTS AND TEMPTATIONS
.

“IF YOU HADN'T BEEN FOOLISH, YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE,” SHE SAID
.

“WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A LITTLE SOUP. I WON'T TELL ANYONE,” SHE WHISPERED
.

“AT LEAST TAKE SOME WATER.” SHE HELD A GLASS OUT TO ME. THE LIQUID GLITTERED LIKE CRYSTAL IN THE LIGHT FROM THE BARE BULB. I TURNED AWAY FROM THE SIGHT
.

BUT SHE WOULDN'T GIVE UP. AT NIGHT, WHEN SHE WENT UP AND DOWN THE CELLBLOCK CALLING OUT OFFERS OF A LAST GLASS OF WATER, SHE LINGERED IN FRONT OF MY CELL
.

“JUST A GLASS, MRS. BYRNE. JUST A SWALLOW.”

THROUGH THE HIGH NARROW WINDOW OF MY CUBICLE, I HEARD THE EAST RIVER RUSHING BY AND IMAGINED THE SENSATION OF COOL WATER RUNNING DOWN MY SANDPAPER THROAT
.

BUT SHE WASN'T HEARTLESS. SHE SNEAKED ME A NEWSPAPER. OR PERHAPS SHE WAS HEARTLESS. AN ARTICLE ON THE FRONT PAGE SAID THAT THE NEXT DAY I WOULD BE FORCE-FED. ACCORDING TO THE PIECE, I HAD GONE WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER FOR ONE HUNDRED AND THREE HOURS. I HAD TO TAKE THE POLICE COMMISSIONER'S WORD FOR IT. I'D LOST COUNT. THE REST OF THE ARTICLE DESCRIBED WHAT WAS IN STORE FOR ME. I'VE OFTEN WONDERED WHY THOSE MEN, WHO PRIDED THEMSELVES ON THEIR NOSES FOR NEWS, WOULDN'T WASTE A PARAGRAPH ON WOMEN DYING IN CHILDBIRTH OR THE ATTEMPTS TO AVOID IT BUT COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF ONE WOMAN TRYING TO STARVE HERSELF. MAYBE THE IDEA THAT WOMEN COULD TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR OWN BODIES SCARED THEM
.

“IT'S A SIMPLE PAINLESS PROCESS,” THE COMMISSIONER TOLD THE REPORTERS. “WE ROLL THE INMATE IN A SHEET TO KEEP HER FROM STRUGGLING, RUN A TUBE DOWN HER THROAT, AND PUT IN A MIXTURE OF MILK, EGGS, AND BRANDY. IF WE CAN'T GET THE TUBE DOWN HER THROAT, IF
SHE TRIES TO BITE IT OR RESISTS IN ANY WAY, WE INSERT TWO SMALLER TUBES INTO HER NOSTRILS.”

UNTIL THEN, I HADN'T THOUGHT OF BITING
.

THE NEXT MORNING I LAY ON MY COT DRIFTING IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. I'D BEEN DOING THAT A LOT LATELY. SOMETIMES WHEN I FLOATED OFF, I DREAMED OF FOOD. GRADUALLY I NOTICED THE MURMUR OF THE MATRON'S VOICE MINGLING WITH A MAN'S, OR MEN'S—HOW MANY DID THEY NEED?—COMING DOWN THE CORRIDOR TOWARD ME. A KEY SCRAPED IN A LOCK. I TRIED TO SIT UP, BUT BEFORE I COULD, HANDS WERE LIFTING ME
.

“BE GENTLE WITH HER, BOYS,” THE MATRON SAID, BUT SHE LAUGHED AS SHE SAID IT
.

THEY DROPPED ME INTO A WHEELCHAIR, PUSHED ME THROUGH A STEEL DOOR, AND STARTED DOWN A LONG CORRIDOR. NARROW OPENINGS HIGH UP IN THE WALL ON ONE SIDE LET IN A TRICKLE OF THIN WINTER LIGHT. THE ONLY VIEW WAS OF A FROZEN WHITE SKY. I COULD STILL HEAR THE RIVER. THE SOUND MADE MY MOUTH PUCKER
.

WE REACHED ANOTHER METAL DOOR AT THE END OF THE HALL. ONE GUARD OPENED IT, AND THE OTHER WHEELED ME INTO A SMALL ROOM. FOUR MEN IN WHITE COATS STOOD AROUND AN EXAMINING TABLE. A LOT OF MANPOWER WAS BEING EXPENDED TO FEED ONE DIMINUTIVE WOMAN. THE MEN WERE STRANGERS TO ME, BUT I RECOGNIZED THE EXPRESSIONS ON THE FACES OF TWO OF THEM. THEY WORE THE SMUG SUPERIORITY OF THE DOCTORS I WAS SUPPOSED TO BOW AND SCRAPE AND CURTSEY TO AT THE HOSPITAL. THE OTHER TWO—ORDERLIES, I GUESSED—LOOKED MORE NERVOUS
.

A SMALLER TABLE STOOD BESIDE THE LARGE EXAMINING ONE. AMONG VARIOUS INSTRUMENTS AND VIALS AND CONTAINERS, A RUBBER TUBE LAY COILED. IT WAS AN ORDINARY PIECE OF EQUIPMENT. I HAD USED IT ON PATIENTS MYSELF. BUT NOW, IN THIS BARE CHILLY ROOM, IT LOOKED LETHAL AS A POISONOUS SNAKE
.

THE TWO ORDERLIES LIFTED ME ONTO THE TABLE AS EASILY AS IF THEY WERE PICKING UP A CHILD. THEY STARTED ARRANGING MY ARMS AT MY SIDE. I FLAILED. THE GUARD WHO'D WHEELED ME IN PINNED ME TO THE TABLE WHILE ONE OF THE ORDERLIES HELD MY LEGS AND THE OTHER BEGAN WRAPPING A SHEET AROUND ME. I TRIED TO THRASH, BUT I WAS NO MATCH FOR SIX BURLY ARMS. THEY WENT ON WINDING THE SHEET. ALL I COULD THINK OF WAS THE SHROUD MARY AND NAN HAD WRAPPED AROUND MOTHER. WHEN THEY FINISHED, THEY STEPPED BACK WITH A LOOK OF PRIDE AT A JOB PROPERLY DONE. THEY HAD RENDERED ME LIMBLESS, INEFFECTUAL, INHUMAN
.

ONE OF THE DOCTORS STEPPED FORWARD AND LOOKED ME OVER. HE TUGGED THE SHEET TO MAKE SURE IT WAS TIGHT ENOUGH. “WELL DONE, LADS,” HE SAID
.

HE NODDED TO THE TWO ORDERLIES, AND THEY MOVED IN AGAIN. ONE HELD MY FEET; THE OTHER LEANED OVER ME TO GRIP MY SHOULDERS. AGAIN I TRIED TO STRUGGLE, BUT IT WAS HOPELESS. PANIC WAS RISING IN ME LIKE A TIDE
.

I SENSED THE SECOND DOCTOR STANDING BEHIND MY HEAD. HE SLID A CAP OVER MY HAIR, THEN SPLAYED HIS FINGERS ON EITHER SIDE OF MY JAW AND PRIED IT OPEN. I TRIED TO TWIST MY HEAD TO BITE HIM, BUT HIS HANDS WERE LIKE A VISE ON MY FACE
.

THE OTHER DOCTOR STEPPED FORWARD, PULLED THE OVERHEAD LIGHT DOWN, AND BEGAN TO EXAMINE MY THROAT. I FELT HIM PRODDING AND PALPATING
.

HE DISAPPEARED FROM MY VIEW, THEN RETURNED HOLDING AN ATOMIZER OVER ME AND BEGAN TO PUMP IT. I KNEW FROM KITTY THAT IT WAS A MIXTURE OF COCAINE AND DISINFECTANT. IT WENT UP MY NOSE AND DOWN MY THROAT LIKE A SWARM OF STINGING BEES
.

HE DISAPPEARED FROM MY LINE OF VISION AGAIN. THIS TIME HIS HANDS RETURNED HOLDING THE RUBBER TUBING. I TRIED TO
THRASH. THE ORDERLIES TIGHTENED THEIR GRIP. I TRIED TO TWIST MY HEAD TO BITE THE DOCTOR AGAIN. HE SLAPPED MY FACE WITH HIS FREE HAND. “IT WILL BE EASIER IF YOU COOPERATE.” HIS VOICE WAS STRANGELY KIND AFTER THAT SLAP
.

HE BEGAN WORKING THE TUBING DOWN MY THROAT. IT FELT SHARP AS A RAZOR CUTTING ITS WAY THROUGH MY BODY. THE PAIN BEGAN TO RADIATE, THROUGH MY NOSE, OUT TO MY EARS, ACROSS MY CHEST, DOWN MY SPINE. IT CAME IN WAVES AND WENT ON AND ON AND ON. MY BODY BEGAN TO SPASM. I PRAYED I'D LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS. THE LIGHT OVERHEAD GREW HAZY. THE DOCTOR'S FACE LOOMING ABOVE ME WAS FUZZY. BUT I COULD STILL FEEL THE PAIN
.

I COULDN'T BE SURE, BECAUSE THE WORLD HAD BECOME A BLUR, BUT I THOUGHT THE DOCTOR'S HANDS WERE ABOVE ME AGAIN, A FUNNEL IN ONE, A PITCHER IN THE OTHER. THE PAIR OF HANDS HOLDING MY JAW CLAMPED TIGHTER. I SENSED MOVEMENT. THEY WERE INSERTING THE FUNNEL INTO THE RUBBER TUBING. THE PITCHER PASSED OVER MY FACE AGAIN. A STREAM OF ICE RUSHED THROUGH MY BODY. THE LIQUID WAS GOING IN. I WAS SHIVERING AND SWEATING AND CONVULSING. THE ICE KEPT RUNNING IN AND THE HOT PAIN KEPT RADIATING OUT. IT WENT ON FOR WHAT FELT LIKE ETERNITY. I SAW THE BLUR OF WHITE THAT I THOUGHT WAS THE PITCHER DISAPPEAR FROM ABOVE MY FACE AND FELT THE TUBE BEING PULLED OUT. THIS MUST BE WHAT EVISCERATION WAS LIKE
.

THEN SUDDENLY IT WAS OVER. THE DOCTOR LET GO OF MY JAW. THE TWO ORDERLIES STEPPED BACK. MY VISION BEGAN TO CLEAR. THE FOUR MEN TURNED AWAY FROM ME, BUT BEFORE THEY DID, I CAUGHT THE LOOKS ON THEIR FACES. AGAIN, THEY WORE THE SATISFIED EXPRESSIONS OF A JOB WELL DONE. NO, MORE THAN THAT. THEY WORE A LOOK OF POSTCOITAL PRIDE
.

THAT, MARG, WAS THE FORCE-FEEDING I NEVER ENDURED AND YOU DID
.

THEY FORCE-FED ETHEL
twice more that first day, once in the afternoon and again in the evening. They wouldn't let me see her, but the commissioner continued to release medical bulletins. Her blood pressure, heart, and respiration were all normal, he said. Her pulse rate was only slightly accelerated. She had not regurgitated.

“Force-feeding is not so terrible,” he added with a politician's public-courting grin. “We do it to drunks and dope fiends all the time.”

The analogy infuriated me. The statements about her health didn't fool me. I knew he was lying even before J.J. arranged for a woman who worked in the jail and was grateful to him for taking her son under his wing to smuggle out reports.

The force-feeding continued three times a day. Ethel grew steadily worse. Her vision was blurred. Her heartbeat was irregular. She lapsed in and out of consciousness.

While she was fading, a battle was raging in newspapers and other public forums. The police commissioner, the mayor, and the men who ran the city continued to issue their lies about her condition. The Committee of One Hundred, dozens of women, J.J., and I fired off statements to the press and demands to officials.

When they wouldn't let J.J. in to see her, though she was his client, he threatened to get her out of prison on a writ of habeas corpus.

“Just try,” the commissioner said.

The Committee of One Hundred sent a letter to the mayor. “We maintain that it is no more indecent to discuss sexual anatomy, physiology, and hygiene in a scientific spirit than it is to discuss the functions of the stomach, the heart, and the liver.”

When that had no effect, they turned their guns on the governor and demanded he commute Ethel's sentence.

The protests came to a boil at a mass meeting at Carnegie Hall.
A throng of three thousand, most but not all of them women, crowded into the red plush interior, grandmothers fighting for their daughters and granddaughters, high school students battling for their future, poor women who paid twenty-five cents to sit in the balcony, club women who ponied up seventy-five cents for a seat in the orchestra, and elegantly dressed society matrons who subscribed to whole boxes. Ushers moved through the audience selling the
Birth Control Review
for fifteen cents a copy.

Behind me on the stage, I had placed two dozen Brownsville mothers. “These are the women we're fighting for,” I told the newspaper photographers before the program started, and their flashbulbs went off like Fourth of July fireworks.

Dr. Mary Hunt, a radical who wasn't afraid of the medical profession's censure, stepped to the podium and launched into an attack on Fifth Avenue doctors who practiced birth control in their own families, and helped their rich patients to do the same, but opposed the dissemination of the information among the women who could least afford another mouth to feed.

She turned and bowed to the Brownville mothers on the stage behind her, and the crowd roared its approval. When she introduced me as the woman who was building a bridge over which womankind could pass to freedom, the cheering grew louder. I stepped forward into the applause and raised my hands for silence.

“I come to you tonight not from the stake at Salem, where women were burned for blasphemy, but from its modern-day equivalent, Blackwell's Island, where women are tortured for what men in power call obscenity. Where my sister Ethel Byrne is risking her life to protest an unjust law.”

Again the crowd clapped and shouted its support.

“Theodore Roosevelt goes about the country telling people to have large families, and he is cheered.”

Now there were boos.

“But my sister Ethel Byrne and I try to give women information about their own bodies, and we are arrested and molested.”

There were cheers for me, and boos for the police, and the word “shame” whirled through the audience like a tornado.

“We must repeal an unjust law.”

I hadn't thought the cheering could grow any louder, but it did.

“No woman can call herself free until she can choose when and how often she will become a mother.”

The crowd was on its feet now, chanting my name. I held up my hands again and waited for the applause to die.

“Ethel Byrne,” I said. “My sister Ethel Byrne is the one you should be cheering.”