Of course, Sadie was in a sense responsible for the broadsides, although not for the reasons she believed. But she was oblivious to the level of rage and disappointment George was experiencing, and that it had provided the original impetus for these publications.
Sadie did not miss George at all. The rest of the world disappeared when she was with Marie. She enjoyed spending time with Marie so much, it made each day so full and seem to last a year. Each day was like a birthday party, a day at the beach, a visit to a world’s fair. It sometimes crossed her mind that she ought to send a note to George, just to say hello and that the novel was coming along. But then there were always a hundred other more pressing and enjoyable things to do. In any case, she didn’t see that George should have anything to complain about. She had spent the last years with her. She knew she was the most fanciful thing that had ever happened to George.
“They were never this way with my father, and he went around having sexual affairs with everyone,” Marie said. “They can’t stand having to listen to a woman. They imagine horrific sexual things happening to me. They think they can humiliate me with their wretched imaginations. Let them come. Let them get outraged. It’s the price of doing business. If I didn’t have any enemies, I could only consider my time on Earth an abject failure.”
“Read me another one,” Sadie said.
“?‘Marie Antoine imprisoned a young footman for a period of two weeks, during which time she fed him only cherries with her toes. He later went mad, wandering around demanding to be fed cherries.’?”
Sadie laughed out loud. “My God, that’s brilliant! I wonder who wrote that one.”
Marie realized Sadie did not regard inhabitants of the Squalid Mile as threatening. Marie did wonder if Sadie’s attitude would change because their friendship, as it became known, was bound to provoke the antagonism of the lower classes toward her. Then Sadie would realize what dangerous, libelous, violent monsters they were. But in any case, she had no intention of giving it too much thought that night.
“Let’s go smoke some opium, shall we? Cleanse our brains of that nonsense.”
They climbed out of the bath. When they were gone, the sheets of broadsides floated on top of the water. As they became soaked, the ink words turned into black goldfish, and swam off the page.
CHAPTER 41
When Martyrs Go for Tea
George decided to start her own press. George began to write pamphlets about the conditions of women in the factories. How they were underpaid, overworked, sexually vulnerable. George began publishing broadsides about contraception that she passed out at suffragist meetings and women’s knitting circles and to women sitting together on stoops. This to her was the most important thing young women should know. To her surprise, George did not miss her collaboration with Sadie. The more time she spent away from Sadie, the more she felt the limitation of what they had worked on together. Her own passions rose to the surface.
She believed that the only way women could feel desires and allow them to be productive would be if they understood their bodies. She wanted them to know about withdrawal and contraception. If women could not control their reproductive organs, they could not be free. There was no use fighting for any other rights if these were not secured. They were prisoners to their own children. They simply could not take up any space in culture. They could not be scientists. They could not be politicians. They could not be artists.
She published a broadside about the need for safe and accessible abortions. It explained homemade recipes for abortions. She was terrified about the publication of this one, as she could be imprisoned for it, and she did not have a benefactor like Marie to get her out. Jeanne-Pauline offered to distribute it to women at her pharmacy. She rather liked the risk. In fact, she seemed to be most interested in doing whichever revolutionary actions took the most risks.
Jeanne-Pauline wrote a book herself, to be published by George’s press. Because of the role Jeanne-Pauline had played in her life, George would have felt obliged to publish the book whether or not it was good. It turned out to be a very small book. It was a political pamphlet called How to Kill Your Husband. She described methods whereby women could murder their abusive husbands without drawing the attention of the authorities. One method included leaving a roller skate at the top of a flight of stairs.
Jeanne-Pauline situated spousal abuse as the most heinous of all crimes. If a woman was abused in her own home, then she must immediately consider the domestic sphere a war zone, wherein all domestic instruments were seen as weapons. A woman had a right to bludgeon her husband to death with a rolling pin. She had a right to slit his throat with a steak knife. Jeanne-Pauline did not see these actions as self-defense but as terrorist acts that created fear in men throughout the city. And caused other women to feel more free in their houses.
George considered whether it was ethical to release such a book in the city. She watched a woman at the drugstore counter open up the book with the small tips of her fingers. She seemed so physically delicate that anything might shock her. Instead she burst out laughing.
It turned out that most women came to regard Jeanne-Pauline’s book as a work of satire. It became popular to read How to Kill Your Husband at dinner parties in upper-class circles.
Everyone laughed hysterically. It was the sort of morbid humor that was all the rage.
Jeanne-Pauline did not seem to care that her book was the object of ridicule. She had a satisfied look about her when she admired her published book. Her gray hair was in a twirled bun, like a brioche on top of her head. Perhaps she knew it came with the territory, that anytime a woman tried to be taken seriously, she would be met with derision. But she knew, nonetheless, she had planted a seed for murder in each of their minds.
* * *
George arrived at Jeanne-Pauline’s apartment one afternoon and was startled to say the least. Marie was sitting at the table in Jeanne-Pauline’s living room. There was a plate full of macarons in front of her.
George thought Marie must have come to confront her about the broadsides.
“This is Mary Robespierre,” Jeanne-Pauline said. “She is a very powerful speaker. She has an unusual, subversive manner of speaking. She’s going to give a speech here next week. I thought you two might get along.”
“It’s fine to disseminate knowledge,” Mary said, watching George. “But action is also necessary. We cannot have people understand that violence against the lower class is a crime until we witness someone being punished for it. Only then will people know the seriousness of their own crimes. Only then will they feel regret. Only then will they feel fear.”
Even though George had accepted this wasn’t Marie, her body continued to be alarmed as she stared at the girl.