A Season in Hell Read Free Page A

in my esophagus was malignant. He wanted to operate, to get rid of it as soon as possible; how about Monday? The idea that he could rid me of this cancer that easily and quickly very much appealed to me, and I agreed. But I also called Edie Langner, who said that was rushing things. Wait, she advised. Consult other doctors. I’ll get some names for you.
    On Friday, the next day, I was supposed to fly to Stratford, Ontario, to give a talk at the Shakespeare Theatre Festival, but the biopsy had left my throat too sore for speech. I realized this on Thursday afternoon, a little late to find a replacement. I felt terrible at letting the Stratford people down, especially at the last minute, and searched my mind. Then it came to me: Gloria! It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a Shakespeare scholar; everyone would love meeting the most famous feminist in the world, who is also a graceful, intelligent speaker and a lovely person. If she was free, if she was willing, she could give the speech I’d written—if she wanted to use it. She might even enjoy it: I had analyzed Measure for Measure with special attention to its several endings, in which two wronged women clamor for justice. Both have been harmed by Antonio, the surrogate for the true ruler, the Duke, who has been away. The women charge Antonio with what we would call sexual harassment and rape. But what is astonishing is that the arguments Antonio and the Duke (acting as male authority) use to silence and dismiss the women are exactly the same as those used by the men of the Senate committee against Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings.
    I called Gloria, who said she was pleased to do this, especially since I had never before asked her for anything. Not a word about her rare free weekend sacrificed, or the fact that she would have to leave for Canada the very next day. She went and was, of course, a sensation; the Stratford audience and officials were delighted. On top of that, she donated the entire honorarium to a cause she supports. This is one example of why so many people consider her a saint.
    The biopsy showed I had squamous cell cancer, a slow-growing type that grows in organ linings. I later discovered that the mass the ENT man found was not the primary cancer but a metastasis . Edie had saved me from a terrible error. If the ENT specialist had operated on the tumor he found, he would not have removed the entire cancer and might have damaged my voice box, since the cancer was touching the nerve leading to the vocal cord. I never returned to that doctor.
    The soreness in my throat faded in two days, and on Monday I went ahead with my plans to fly to Amsterdam for the 1992 Feminist Book Fair, where I was to speak. I enjoyed the week at the fair as much as I could enjoy anything in that time. I met Marleen Gorris (who in 1996 would win an Academy Award for Antonia’s Line but who had already made the deeply impressive A Question of Silence , which many people believe to be the greatest feminist film ever made). I went through the motions of debating Fay Weldon (a dear woman with whom I have no significant differences). With my friends Annaville Petterson and Nettie Blanken, I walked out to Marken lighthouse, a beautiful spot on Lake Ysselmeer, the former Zuyder Zee. It was too long a walk for me, and I was grateful when we stopped for beer and sandwiches on the way back.
    I was moving about in a kind of stupor, wondering if this was the last time I would see this friend or that, the last time I would visit this lovely city, the last time I would be an apparently healthy person in public. And indeed, that was the case.

1992
JULY
    T HE DAY AFTER MY return from Amsterdam, I had another CT scan and began visiting oncologists. Edie recommended a lung specialist at Sloan-Kettering, an oncologist at Columbia Presbyterian, and a female oncologist in private practice. My children accompanied me, to help me decide among them. The Sloan-Kettering doctor told me the