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ICE AND FIRE

By the same author

Nonfiction

W om an H ating

O ur Blood: Prophecies and D iscourses on Sexual Politics

Pornography: M en Possessing W omen

Right-w ing W omen:

T he Politics o f Dom esticated Fem ales

Fiction

the new w om ans broken heart: short stories

ICE AND FIRE

A Novel

by

Andrea Dworkin

Seeker & W arb u rg

L on don

First published in England 1986 by

Martin Seeker & Warburg Limited

54 Poland Street, London WI V 3DF

Copyright ©

by Andrea Dworkin

Reprinted 1986

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Dworkin, Andrea

Ice and fire: a novel.

1. Title

823'. 91 4[F]

PR6054. W/

ISBN 0-436-13960-X

Pages 52-56 first appeared, translated into French, in La Vie

en Rose, No 18, July-August 1984.

Filmset in Great Britain in II on 12 pt Sabon

by Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed and bound in Great Britain

by Billings & Son Ltd,

Hylton Road, Worcester

For Elaine M arkson

Neither weep nor laugh but understand.

Spinoza

*

I have two first memories.

The sofa is green with huge flowers imprinted on it, pink

and beige and streaks of yellow or brown, like they were

painted with a wide brush to highlight the edges and borders

of the flowers. The sofa is deep and not too long, three cushions, the same green. The sofa is against a wall in the living room. It is our living room. Nothing in it is very big but we

are small and so the ceilings are high and the walls tower,

unscalable, and the sofa is immense, enough width and depth

to burrow in, to get lost in. My brother is maybe two. I am

two years older.

He is golden, a white boy with yellow hair

and blue eyes: and happy. He has a smile that lights up the

night. He is beautiful and delicate and divine. Nothing has set

in his face yet, not fear, not malice, not anger, not sorrow: he

knows no loss or pain: he is delicate and happy and intensely

beautiful, radiance and delight. We each get a corner of the

sofa. We crouch there until the referee, father always, counts

to three: then we meet in the middle and tickle and tickle until

one gives up or the referee says to go back to our corners

because a round is over. Sometimes we are on the fl oor, all

three of us, tickling and wrestling, and laughing past when I

hurt until dad says stop. I remember the great print flowers, I

remember crouching and waiting to hear three, I remember the

great golden smile of the little boy, his yellow curls cascading

as we roll and roll.

The hospital is all light brown outside, stone, lit up by electric

lights, it is already dark out, and my grandfather and I are

outside, waiting for my dad. He comes running. Inside I am

put in a small room. A cot is set up for him. My tonsils will