my role to hear everything and hold my tongue. Everyone was poised for flight. The uptown people sought to flee the strictures of their proper families, while the downtown people thought only of saving their pennies to reunite with their relatives. Everyone was discontented, but in opposite ways.
The anarchists in our circle presumed Levitsky and I were lovers, and I think this suited him just fine. He wanted me safe on a shelf—but he did not want to climb up there with me.
One night when we were alone, I asked him about this.
"Why do you let our world think we are lovers?"
Levitsky stroked his bushy beard. "Do I?"
"You know you do," I said. "It's enough to keep any man from courting me."
"You need to paint, not court," Levitsky said solemnly. "Any little hen can make chicks. Not everyone can paint as you do."
"But what about being a woman!" I raised my voice.
"Being a woman gets you married and buried," said Levitsky. "Why do you think men bless themselves for not being women? Painting will make your fortune."
"You're afraid of me," I said.
Levitsky gave me a hateful look. I knew then that I was right.
Not that we did not try. One day, he embraced me in the studio and I felt the unmistakable hardness in his trousers that told me he was not as indifferent to me as he claimed. Possessed by the dybbuk of dominance, I was mad to have him and dragged him to the model's dais. There I undid his buttons, flung my breasts into his mouth, and searched in his shirttails for his bauble—it was no bigger than a field mouse. It put its head up tentatively, seemed to pulse in search of pleasure, and then retreated. Neither tongue nor moist lips could give it courage, and had it buried itself in me for shelter, I would have felt less than nothing.
I wept bitter tears of frustration—for what can be worse than a woman eye-to-eye with that conqueror who should subdue her but instead is subdued? I was sick with disappointment. Here was a man close to my heart in every way but that which makes man and wife. I hid my head in his breeches buttons and wept.
That night Dovie came back. "A dream not interpreted is like a letter unread," Mama used to say. In my dream, Dovie was grown, and he approached me like a lover.
"You are my son," I warned, holding him off, but he seemed ready to transgress the moral code. Then suddenly he was an infant again—but with a man's penis. It was bigger than Lev Levitsky's and more insistent. I awoke with a sense of dread and foreboding. Something horrible was sure to happen.
It was a time of heroics. We had an anarchist friend whose dream was to assassinate John D. Rockefeller in the name of the workers of America. She was a small, pretty woman, and she bought a pearl-handled pistol that looked like a toy.
When she entered Rockefeller's office and informed his well-dressed male secretary that she was there in the name of labor, unionism, and the eight-hour day, the secretary gave Rockefeller a prearranged sign to leave by another door. Then he flung off his father-killer celluloid collar, his braces, spats, and shoes, and had his way with her right there on his massive rolltop desk. Thinking herself a heroine of the revolution, our disheveled friend rose from the rape, brandished her preposterous pistol, and declared: "Tell Mr. Rockefeller that if he doesn't stop starving the miners, I will empty the contents of this pistol into him."
"I'll give Mr. Rockefeller the message, miss," said the smug secretary, and he showed my friend to the ornate carved door.
She boasted of her exploits at my next anarchist evening and proudly showed us the bruises the fabled furniture had left on her back. Of the rape she was even proud since she fancied the secretary's lust would gain her admission to Mr. Rockefeller's sanctum sanctorum again. Next time she would kill him and save the world! Those were the days, my child!
The question under discussion that evening became whether sex could be useful to the
The anarchists in our circle presumed Levitsky and I were lovers, and I think this suited him just fine. He wanted me safe on a shelf—but he did not want to climb up there with me.
One night when we were alone, I asked him about this.
"Why do you let our world think we are lovers?"
Levitsky stroked his bushy beard. "Do I?"
"You know you do," I said. "It's enough to keep any man from courting me."
"You need to paint, not court," Levitsky said solemnly. "Any little hen can make chicks. Not everyone can paint as you do."
"But what about being a woman!" I raised my voice.
"Being a woman gets you married and buried," said Levitsky. "Why do you think men bless themselves for not being women? Painting will make your fortune."
"You're afraid of me," I said.
Levitsky gave me a hateful look. I knew then that I was right.
Not that we did not try. One day, he embraced me in the studio and I felt the unmistakable hardness in his trousers that told me he was not as indifferent to me as he claimed. Possessed by the dybbuk of dominance, I was mad to have him and dragged him to the model's dais. There I undid his buttons, flung my breasts into his mouth, and searched in his shirttails for his bauble—it was no bigger than a field mouse. It put its head up tentatively, seemed to pulse in search of pleasure, and then retreated. Neither tongue nor moist lips could give it courage, and had it buried itself in me for shelter, I would have felt less than nothing.
I wept bitter tears of frustration—for what can be worse than a woman eye-to-eye with that conqueror who should subdue her but instead is subdued? I was sick with disappointment. Here was a man close to my heart in every way but that which makes man and wife. I hid my head in his breeches buttons and wept.
That night Dovie came back. "A dream not interpreted is like a letter unread," Mama used to say. In my dream, Dovie was grown, and he approached me like a lover.
"You are my son," I warned, holding him off, but he seemed ready to transgress the moral code. Then suddenly he was an infant again—but with a man's penis. It was bigger than Lev Levitsky's and more insistent. I awoke with a sense of dread and foreboding. Something horrible was sure to happen.
It was a time of heroics. We had an anarchist friend whose dream was to assassinate John D. Rockefeller in the name of the workers of America. She was a small, pretty woman, and she bought a pearl-handled pistol that looked like a toy.
When she entered Rockefeller's office and informed his well-dressed male secretary that she was there in the name of labor, unionism, and the eight-hour day, the secretary gave Rockefeller a prearranged sign to leave by another door. Then he flung off his father-killer celluloid collar, his braces, spats, and shoes, and had his way with her right there on his massive rolltop desk. Thinking herself a heroine of the revolution, our disheveled friend rose from the rape, brandished her preposterous pistol, and declared: "Tell Mr. Rockefeller that if he doesn't stop starving the miners, I will empty the contents of this pistol into him."
"I'll give Mr. Rockefeller the message, miss," said the smug secretary, and he showed my friend to the ornate carved door.
She boasted of her exploits at my next anarchist evening and proudly showed us the bruises the fabled furniture had left on her back. Of the rape she was even proud since she fancied the secretary's lust would gain her admission to Mr. Rockefeller's sanctum sanctorum again. Next time she would kill him and save the world! Those were the days, my child!
The question under discussion that evening became whether sex could be useful to the
Similar Books
