Terrible Virtue (20 page)
Authors: Ellen Feldman
E
VERYTHING IS SO
white. No, not white, blinding. Blinding and silent and floating. Is this what death is like? Or am I dreaming again? Why do I dream of dying so often? My journal is full of death dreams.
Oh, now I understand. I'm in Mabel Dodge's white apartment with everyone arguing and drinking, making trouble and making love. John Rompapas prowls the perimeter of the room, sending a shiver down my back, and Big Bill Haywood sleep-moans his socialist dream, and poor Emma Goldman twists in the cruel attentions of a roving-eyed Romeo.
The sound of a knob turning clicks through the silence. Rubber soles make sucking sounds across the linoleum. I turn my head on the pillow to see who it is, but all I can make out is a blur. The blur is getting closer. More white. Light glinting off glasses. But the face is a smudge.
A hand circles my wrist. It's gone. Fingers open my gown. Cold metal presses against my chest. The touch is gentle but impersonal.
The hands disappear. Shoes move across the floor again. The door clicks. Does this mean I'm alone? I close my lids against the eye-stinging whiteness.
I open my eyes. How long has it been? Is it morning, afternoon, almost nighttime? The room is still dazzlingly bright. Did I miss the darkness or hasn't it fallen yet?
The doorknob turns again. These shoes click smartly. High heels tap toward me. Almost dancing. Bill crashes through the circle of doctors surrounding me and reaches out, and I take his hand and step into his arms. I'm Bill Sanger, he says, and you're going to marry me.
“Grandmother?”
The word stops the music of our dance. Bill disappears.
“Grandmother, it's me. Margaret.”
I turn my head on the pillow. A figure comes into focus. The face takes shape. My daughter-in-law Barbara? No, not Barbara. Her daughter. Margaret.
“Margaret,” I whisper through cracked lips.
“I brought the baby to see you.”
She is holding something out to me. A package? The mattress shifts as she puts the bundle down next to me. I narrow my eyes to make it take shape. A little girl in a pink dress with a smocked top sits staring at me with the bright ruthless eyes of an infant.
“It's Peggy, Grandmother. Hasn't she gotten big?”
“Peggy?” My voice rasps.
“Margaret. The fourth generation of Margarets. But we call her Peggy.”
Now I remember. Peggy. I lift my head from the pillow to see better. Peggy. It's Peggy. I maneuver my hand out from under the cover. I must touch her. I must make sure this is not another trick shaken loose from my memory. Her curls are silky. Her skin is softer than down.
“Peggy. My own little Peggy. I knew you'd come back to me.” Tears run down my face. A sob racks my body. I hear the keening of grief, and this time I know it's coming from me.
The baby is gone. I did not see her go. I did not hear the click of high heels on the floor. A woman looms into my vision. Or is it two? There are too many hands for it to be only one. A voice is telling me everything is all right.
“I killed her,” I shout.
Shh
comes the sound.
I try to struggle up from the bed.
“I killed her.”
Hands press me down to the mattress.
“They were right. Stuart and Grant and Bill. I killed her. It's just as they said. I'm a monster. A sacred monster, they called me.”
The hands are still holding me down. Something sharp pricks my arm. The white world shimmers, then fades away.
PEGGY SANGER
CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING, MAMA?
OF COURSE, DARLING, ASK ME ANYTHING
.
IF YOU COULD DO IT AGAIN, WOULD YOU DO IT THE SAME?
. . .
I'M WAITING FOR AN ANSWER, MAMA
.
. . .
THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT
.
THE ROOM IS
back again. But Peggy is not here. I try to sit up to get a better view. I fall back against the pillows and close my eyes. Peggy. I am crying again. Peggy.
The door opens. I hear shoes moving across the floor, one pair, two, four, dozens, rubber soles and high heels and heavy
boots and rustling bare feet. Voices begin to whisper. I can't make out the words, but I hear the timbre. Women's voices, soprano, alto, contralto. Whispering, shouting, singing, laughing. A chorus of women speaking in a babble of tongues.
I open my eyes. The room is packed. The women who sat in court, rocking children on their laps, holding bags of food and diapers, shouting “shame” at the judge as he pronounced the verdict, rally around the bed. Clients from the clinic push in, their eyes wide with wonder, their smiles lighting up a world dark with ignorance. They jostle one another, pressing closer, reaching out for me, clamoring. Thank you, Mrs. Sanger. A saint, Mrs. Sanger. My life you saved, Mrs. Sanger.
I feel them swirling around me, high-kicking, unafraid, free. They toss their untamed hair in rowdy celebration and open their mouths wide to let out the laughter and the words.
We're your daughters too, they cry. And you saved us.
F
OR THEIR GENEROSITY
with materials and guidance, I am grateful to Esther Katz and Cathy Moran Hajo, director and editor of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project; Amy Hague, curator of manuscripts at the Sophia Smith Collection of Smith College; and Patrick Kerwin, manuscript reference librarian of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. Ellen Chesler's
Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America
proved invaluable in researching Sanger's life and the complexities and crosscurrents of the movement she helped found. The Margaret Sanger Papers Project online is a treasure trove of information about Sanger and her struggle to make birth control legal and accessible.
I am indebted to Alex Sanger, who was kind enough to share memories of his grandmother with me; and to Jay Barksdale, former director of the Allen Room of the New York Public Library, and Carolyn Waters and the entire extraordinary staff of the New York Society Library for help in research and for creating safe harbors for writers.
Many friends and colleagues were generous with information, inspiration, and support during the research and writing of this book. I am grateful to Andre Bernard, Jakki Fink, Edward Gallagher, JoAnn Kay, Meredith Kay, Judy Link, Sara Nelson, Mark Schwartz, Michael Schwartz, Ann Weisgarber, and Brenda Wineapple, and especially to Liza Bennett and Richard Snow for their time and generosity in listening to endless talk about Margaret Sanger and reading the manuscript so carefully and perceptively.
And finally, I am beholden to my superb agent and dear friend, Emma Sweeney, and to Jennifer Barth, whose vision, perseverance, and kindness make her the kind of editor every writer dreams of.
ELLEN FELDMAN,
a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow, is the author of five previous novels, including
Scottsboro,
which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and
Next to Love
. She lives in New York City.
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COVER PHOTOGRAPHS: © LISA SPINDLER PHOTOGRAPHY INC. / GETTY IMAGES (WOMAN); © MMELLO / GETTY IMAGES (PAPER); © PHOTODISC (FLOWER ILLUSTRATIONS)
TERRIBLE VIRTUE
. Copyright © 2016 by Ellen Feldman.All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Terrible Virtue
is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 978-0-06-240755-9
EPub Edition March 2016 ISBN 9780062407573
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