Naming the Moon
Tags: Motherhood, Rape, Essays, Sexual Assault, Survivor

I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you this story before…

I sit on the couch with my mother, acutely aware of the way my thighs stick to the leather, glued down by the humid summer air. My eleventh birthday is coming soon. My mother’s breath sticks as she begins to speak, her leg touching mine on the couch. Sometimes silence fills space more gracefully than people.

Thirty-four years ago from yesterday…

I am not looking my mother in the eyes. I have a hard time looking people in the eyes when I am ashamed. If I look at her I will interrupt her; I will say anything to make her stop talking.

I thought I was going to die…

I am stuck to the spot. I know where this conversation is going, knew even before my mother started to speak. I am staring at my thighs, the soft blonde hairs that have begun to sprout there. They remind me of the downy fuzz that covers the peaches my mother and I pick together every summer and eat in the cemetery next to the orchard. For years I have been dreading the story my mother is about to tell. I have been hearing it in the way she talks about her work, the way she talks about her body, the way she talks about being a woman. My mother’s story has permeated explanations of why she takes our old clothes in plastic tubs to battered women’s shelters, why our living room is often full of radical feminists. I have never asked my mother to tell me this story. I am terrified that if I hear this story, it will become my story too.

People often use the word “disclose” to describe a survivor’s decision to share their story. This language suggests both that there is a secret to be uncovered and also that this secret has a body to be contained, limited to a finite space. This is the language of opening and unbinding that body, the dragging of something dark and unspoken out into the light. My experiences of “disclosure” have and have not felt this way. The first time my mother sat me down to tell me she had been raped, she began with the words, “I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you this story before…” I think that maybe she started this way because her rape has never been completely closed off nor completely open to me — it has silently raised me alongside my mother.

I know that my mother is a rape survivor. I cannot remember a time before I knew this; it has been as obvious a part of her identity to me as her love of persimmons, kayaking, and turquoise jewelry. But I hardly know anything about what actually happened to her. I couldn’t tell you where it happened, or exactly how old she was. She was raped twice: once by a stranger with a knife, I think, and once by a friend. Worse than my uncertainty about these facts is that I know she has tried to tell me more, and I have not wanted to hear her. I have quietly listened to her stories, and refused to internalize them, to carry the weight of certainty.

I used to think that my mother told me about her rape because this was her habit — by the time I was born she had already spent years doing rape advocacy work. She helped start the first battered women and children’s shelter in the city of Chicago; she fought to redefine Illinois’ legal definition of rape and developed legislation to protect and advocate for survivors; she is still known widely as a leader in the activist and survivor community. I wonder now, though, if my mother told me her story out of a hope that it would keep me safe. We want to believe that telling our darkest stories, that naming our fears, will protect us from them. I wonder now if perhaps my mother, too, carried a secret around like a dead weight for years.

I am sitting on the couch with my mother during the summer after my first year of college. She has asked to see some of the poems I have been writing recently, and I decide to show her one about fruit orchards and a man who cornered me in a bar in a city far away from home. I leave the room while she is reading, and when I return she asks about what happened in the bar almost a year ago.

I do not remember exactly what I told my mother in that first conversation about the night I was assaulted. I hadn’t mentioned anything upon returning home from the trip to Dublin with three friends during the summer after my senior year of high school, and the poem was vague. I do know, however, that at some point I said the words “it could have been much worse,” and at some point she said the words “I’m so glad you got away.” It has taken me more than two years to admit that I did not get away. Only in the past year have I begun to be able to use words like “assault” or “rape” to describe what happened to me. Each time I do, I feel pins and needles in my arms and legs, but I convince myself that I feel lighter after the trembling subsides. I still have not been able to say these words to my mother.

Some parts of that night remain vivid in my memory: I remember that the floor was lit from below, a bluish white glow that seemed to pulse with the bodies in the room. I remember that the room was too full, that there were so many people and none of them noticed me. Other parts have become hazy. For example, I do not remember what the man looked like, what his voice sounded like, what name he gave in the dark. I do not know what to call him when I write about him. There was a period after it happened, after I had returned home, when I became obsessed with finding information about him. He had told me he would be studying abroad at Stanford — the same school I was set to attend in a few months — for a tennis scholarship. I spent hours on the Internet searching through Stanford’s tennis rosters, looking at the pixelated images for a match. I am not sure why I did this. Perhaps because I was afraid of seeing him on campus, perhaps because I needed to convince myself that he had lied to make me trust him, perhaps because I simply wanted a face for the specter. I never found him.

As a young child I was obsessed with Greek mythology. It started in first grade, when a teacher gave me a copy of D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. The cover was a spectacular yellow, Apollo radiating light from his winged chariot. I probably read the entire book cover to cover at least forty times. The writing was simple and accompanied by effortless illustrations — they seemed like the casual drawings a master artist would make for her daughter. D’Aulaires’ began with the story of Gaea and Uranus, her birthing the Titans and their epic battle against their father. It continued with Cronus, swallowing each of his children whole so that they would not repeat his sins. Next were the twelve gods and goddesses of Olympus, Zeus and his family. Some of these names were familiar — Aphrodite with her devastating beauty; Athena and her owl-sharpness; Zeus, of course, with ultimate power, wielder of lightning, commander of the universe. Almost all the stories were tragic tales of mortals ruined by fatal flaws and often-vengeful gods. Yet the uncomplicated prose and images washed in color softened them, made me feel safe as I read. I sensed that Icarus was most beautiful in the moments just before the sun melted his wings and sent him hurtling back toward the earth; I rejoiced that Leto’s suffering eventually birthed the twins Apollo and Artemis, sibling gods of sun and moon, each a heavenly body.

“Sometimes Zeus looks like Zeus, and sometimes he looks like something else, everything else.”

Some of the stories were completely new to me. I had never heard of Io before I read D’Aulaires’. Her story was short, but I was drawn to the image that accompanied the text. The illustration was not in color like many in the book. Instead, in black and white, I saw a girl trapped inside the body of a cow. Her eyes wide, bugged out, her mouth becoming one with the cow’s open maw. Horns sprouted from her delicate head. Its — her? — hind legs were kicked out desperately, as she was chased by an enormous gadfly.

I read that Io was a mortal priestess of Zeus’ goddess-wife Hera, and that Zeus took notice of Io’s beauty and lusted after the young priestess. Zeus — always a ruler and yet ruled by his own desires — took Io as a mistress. Hera — always the jealous and wrathful wife — threatened to kill Io. To save her, Zeus turned Io into a cow. Hera, not to be fooled, sent her servants to kill cow-Io and, when this failed, Hera had a gadfly chase her to the distant land of Egypt.

Several pages later, I came across another image reminiscent of Io’s transformation. This illustration, however, was much more beautiful. In it, a young woman in a bright red dress rode through the sea atop a white bull, her head raised to the sky, gazing heavenward. Colorful faces emerging from her mount indicate that the bull was in fact the god Zeus in disguise. Sometimes Zeus looks like Zeus, and sometimes he looks like something else, everything else.

The text told me that this beautiful woman was Europa, descendant of Io, both of whom have moons named in their honor. According to myth, when Zeus chose Europa to be queen of Crete, he changed himself into a white bull to approach the young woman. At first she was afraid, but seeing the bull’s large, soft eyes, she lost her fear. The bull knelt at her feet and she trustingly climbed onto its back. She rode giddily toward the beach, astonished at the marvelous animal she had found. Suddenly the bull began to run. He ran past the beach, ran through the sea, ran far away from the land Europa called home. Zeus then revealed himself, and took Europa to Crete where she would live the rest of her days.

The version of the story in D’Aulaires’ said that Europa lived in Crete in glory and delight for the rest of her days. As a child, I wondered how Europa never missed her home, how she could be content to live her life as the queen of a god who tricked and kidnapped her. I also couldn’t help but notice how similar Europa’s story was to Io’s — both women had no power to determine their fate. They were clay to be transformed, pawns to be translocated. I wondered why this mother and daughter shared such similar stories: was their fate somehow transferred through their blood? It was not until many years later that I learned that in most versions of these myths, Zeus rapes Io and Europa.

Rape is never rape in Greek mythology. It is seduction; it is the inevitable ebbing of your will in the face of an immovable power. It is being turned into an animal at the will of a god. It is your hands replaced with hooves, punishment for a sin you did not commit. It is a description of your beauty being given as an explanation for his choosing you. It is sharing your name with a moon — it, too, is lonely and orbiting. It is living the rest of your life in an unfamiliar place, far away from the land and people you call home.

I am home for Thanksgiving during my second year of college, several months after a first failed attempt at disclosing to my mother. It is near the end of break, and I am watching a play with her. There is a confusion in my body, akin to touching water so hot it feels cold against your skin. I am not sure if my body is numb, or if every nerve ending is on fire.

On stage, a young sex worker, referred to only as “Baby Girl” throughout the course of the play, is chased by a man in a wolf costume. He wears a mask, the fake fur matted down in clumps. She runs in circles around a couch in the hotel room he has rented for their meeting; he knocks over a lamp and it makes a hollow sound as it hits the floor. The stage lights go off just as he catches up to her, forces his wolf body on her small frame.

Everyone in the audience knows that this darkness means rape. The metaphors in the play are heavy-handed and poorly executed. I am aware that they are mere caricatures, almost humorous in their absurdity, but I cannot breathe.

After the play has finished I force myself through the crowd chattering and filtering slowly out of the theater.

I stand (no — this is certainly not the word) outside, leaving all my weight against a cold cement pillar. My lungs feel like someone has poured plaster over them, encased them in some inflexible shell that makes each breath laborious. It is raining slightly. The water slicks on the ground are bright in the moonlight and I am back in Dublin, on that unfamiliar street at night. I am crying next to a streetlamp, hoping it will reach out and hold me up. Wishing it un-handless, un-inanimate. I do not know how long I waited there before my friends came out of the bar and found me. I do not know how long I wait before my mother comes outside and finds me. I am facing away from the door, out toward the parking lot, so that I hear her voice before I see her.

“Nora! There you are! I had no idea you were outside already!”

I do not say anything, and I realize only as my mother walks closer that I am crying. I turn and my mother sees me and her face caves in sympathetically; as always, there is no need for her to understand the wound to feel the ache. She hurries over and asks what’s wrong but I am crying too hard to speak. The rain is heavier now. She goes to get the car and tells me to wait right there; she’ll be right back; it will be all right. I am still leaning against the cement pillar.

In the car the windshield wipers are on the highest setting and thump out a steady tempo above which my mother’s voice continues to rise as she asks what is wrong over and over and over and I cannot give her an answer. By the time we reach the expressway my mother, too, is almost in tears. Her voice has the strange whine that I recognize immediately when she is angry with me. Finally I open my mouth.

“It was like I was back there.”

I give my mother no context — what would I say? — and she looks confused and worried.

“Back where?”

I want to explain to my mother that somehow watching the play was like finding myself back in the corner of the bar, that all I could do was close my eyes and wait for it to end. I cannot bring myself to tell my mother this, however, and instead she says that she understands it was probably upsetting to watch a girl that looked so much like me up on stage. She says she hated the play, too.

My mother often reminds me that I was born during a record-breaking heat wave in Chicago that took over six hundred lives. Almost immediately after we left the hospital, I’m told, my mother took me to Lake Michigan where we floated together in the cool water, me on a raft under an umbrella to shield my tissue-paper skin. My mother and I have spent a great deal of time together in Lake Michigan. We spent the majority of my childhood summers lying in the sand, making drip castles, and jumping in the waves after storms. Most people don’t know how big the waves in Lake Michigan get.

Whenever I think about the lake, I remember one summer afternoon in particular. I recall it so well, I feel almost as if I am there.

The waves are huge — bigger than I’ve seen them before. My mother is in the water a few feet away from me, and she keeps reaching toward me to grab my hand, to keep me close as the waves and the strong tide threaten to sweep me away. I stubbornly refuse to hold her hand. I want to jump the waves alone and will not allow her to hold onto me. It is only as I get older that my mother tells me both how terrified and proud it made her to watch me throw myself against those waves.

Between the waves I watch shipwrecked ladybugs float past me. Then a wasp that I wonder if I should rescue. I decide to let nature run its course, and I feel absolved of any responsibility. The water stings slightly as it forces its way up my nose. I swallow it in huge gulps. Some waves I can avoid by diving underneath, imaging myself as a graceful creature of the sea. My mother was the one who taught me to dive beneath the break when I could no longer stand up to the crash of the waves against my small frame. I love how I feel weightless underwater. When I am exhausted by the waves cresting against my chest I dive more often, a sleek secret beneath the tumbling foam. Eventually I miscalculate, emerging for air just as another wave crashes and the two of us meet head-on. I am swept up, sent somersaulting through the water, unable to tell which direction is up, confusing my own foot for an elbow. I am oriented only when I collide with the sand and feel it scrape against my water-pruned thighs, and then, distantly, hear my mother’s voice, that familiar whine of fear.

A moon’s story is a violent thing. It is formed from the debris of enormous celestial bodies colliding. It is breaking that births a moon.

Io and Europa are both moons of Jupiter, Zeus’ Roman name. When they were discovered in the 1600s by Galileo, they were the first objects found that orbited a body that was neither the Earth nor the Sun. Many believe that Jupiter captured its moons from solar orbits, drawing them closer until they became trapped in their new trajectory.

Io is the densest satellite in our solar system. Io is also the most geologically active object in the solar system, with over four hundred active volcanoes on its surface. Most satellites are composed mainly of ice, but Io is made up of silicate rock that surrounds a molten iron core. Europa is slightly smaller, and its orbit farther away from Jupiter. Europa has the smoothest surface of any known solid object in the Solar System. The apparent youth and smoothness of its surface have led some to hypothesize that an ocean exists beneath Europa’s surface.

We say that moons have two faces, one that reflects light and one that is perpetually dark, unseen. By this we mean that a moon is forever two things at once.

“A moon’s story is a violent thing. It is formed from the debris of enormous celestial bodies colliding.”

My mother often comments on the fact that I notice other people’s babies. Whenever I coo about a baby’s pudgy fingers or smile at their determined gurgling speech (both of which happen quite often), my mother reminds me that she never noticed children before she had her own. Then she tells me what a wonderful mother I’m going to be. It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized it was unusual how much my mother and I talked about my future children. She has always treated motherhood as something I was born for. There are certain parts of motherhood that always return in our conversation. Mostly it is the total dependence; the tender, squishy spot in a baby’s skull; the fact that you must hold a newborn’s head up for them, that you must always do this because they cannot. My mother tells me that you learn what each cry means, which one is for hunger, which for attention, which for exhaustion.

Sometimes I am terrified that I will have a daughter.

In the years after that night in Dublin, I write again and again about what happened. From the safety of second person: You pulled his hands out of you but you kept finding them there. I do not write that at a certain point I couldn’t keep pulling them out anymore. I do not write that I wonder now if this means I gave up my power rather than having it taken from me.

Each time I try to tell my mother about my assault, I get a little closer and a little further from telling her the real story. In my first conversation with my mother, I told her about the moment he cornered me in the bathroom — the way he stood in the whole doorway — and said that we’d have another beer together afterward. I also told her that another woman walked in just as the panic was becoming unbearable, and we left. In our most recent conversation, she mentioned that she fought for years to convince legislators to include penetration with a foreign object in the definition of rape. I wonder if something as familiar as hands can be called foreign, but I do not ask her.

I agreed to have a drink with the nameless man; I excitedly told my friends that we would attend the same school and that I thought he was cute; I followed him to the corner of that bar; I sat with him next to the windowsill. I put my body in proximity to his and there is a terrible weight in this knowledge, a fear of culpability. I do not resent that my mother’s story couldn’t prevent my assault. This may be too great a task even for the most powerful invocation. What gnaws at me is that years of admiring my mother and her honesty and strength and resilience did not prepare me to be completely honest with her. All the times my mother talked to me about the importance of believing survivors and all the discussions about how to be a supportive ally did nothing to help me give voice to this thing that was quickly becoming a secret. I know that agreeing to a drink, smiling at him, dancing with him, did not constitute an invitation. I know that when he first pushed my skirt up I asked him to stop. I like to believe that if a stranger told me my story, I would know how to name it. I ask myself questions that I would never ask someone else — why did you not scream? Why did you not hit him and run? Why did you drink so much at that bar? Why did you retreat into the shell of your body and just wait for it to end? Why did you give over your power to this nameless, faceless man? This is what rape attempts to do — it tries to strip away the parts of you that you think you know best, it rattles the parts that you believed unshakable.

This, us, my mother and I, we are a story about stories that cannot be told. Every time I talk to my mother about that night and fail to name what happened, I feel my story becoming a myth; in the space of what is not said, my story slips out of my grasp and becomes something outside of my control. I am not sure if I want to name my experience so that I can own it, or so that I can let it go. Sometimes I imagine the catharsis of telling my mother, finding a simple phrase that can connect us and help me see strength in our common experience. I want to believe that doing so could return to me power I lost that night in Dublin.

Nora Engel-Hall ’17 is from Chicago, IL, and majors in American Studies with a concentration in education. In 1983, her mother co-authored the Illinois sexual assault legislation and a decade later chaired Chicago’s task force on sexual harassment.

Photograph by Adam Schorin ‘17.