The Radical Element by Jessica Spotswood
INTRODUCTION
1838: SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
Daughter of the Book – Dahlia Adler
1844: NAUVOO, ILLINOIS
You’re a Stranger Here – Mackenzi Lee
1858: COLORADO RIVER, NEW MEXICO TERRITORY
The Magician – Erin Bowman
1863: CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
Lady Firebrand – Megan Shepherd
1905: TULSA, INDIAN TERRITORY
Step Right Up – Jessica Spotswood
1923: LOS ANGELES AND THE CENTRAL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
Glamour – Anna-Marie McLemore
1927: WASHINGTON, D.C.
Better for All the World – Marieke Nijkamp
1943: OAK BLUFFS, MASSACHUSETTS
When the Moonlight Isn’t Enough – Dhonielle Clayton
1952: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
The Belle of the Ball – Sarvenaz Tash
1955: OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
Land of the Sweet, Home of the Brave – Stacey Lee
1972: QUEENS, NEW YORK
The Birth of Susi Go-Go – Meg Medina
1984: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Take Me with U – Sara Farizan
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IN 2015, when I finished editing A Tyranny of Petticoats: 15 Stories of Belles, Bank Robbers & Other Badass Girls, I knew I wanted to edit another feminist historical fiction anthology. Tyranny was — and continues to be — the best, most joyful, and most satisfying collaborative experience of my career. So I cast about, searching for a theme, and hit upon the idea of girls who were outsiders in their communities. Searching for a potential title, I found a quote by President Rutherford B. Hayes: “Universal suffrage is sound in principle. The radical element is right.”
And so The Radical Element was born, shifting the focus slightly — and I think empoweringly — from girls who were outsiders to girls who were radical in their communities, whether by virtue of their race, religion, sexuality, disability, gender, or the profession they were pursuing.
Merriam-Webster’s definitions of radical include “very different from the usual or traditional” and “excellent, cool.” I like to think our heroines are both. Our radical girls are first- and second-generation immigrants. They are Mormon and Jewish, queer and questioning, wheelchair users and neurodivergent, Iranian-American and Latina and Black and biracial. They are funny and awkward and jealous and brave. They are spies and scholars and sitcom writers, printers’ apprentices and poker players, rockers and high-wire walkers. They are mundane and they are magical. They yearn for an education in Savannah in 1838, struggle with Hollywood racism in 1923, and immigrate to Boston in 1984.
There is power — a quiet badassery — in girls taking charge of their own destinies. Our heroines follow their dreams, whether those dreams are a safe place to practice their faith or an elusive pair of white leather go-go boots. These girls will not allow society to define them. Instead, they define themselves, claiming their identities even though it was often not historically safe — and, disappointingly, is not always currently safe — to do so. They learn to love themselves in all their perfectly imperfect beauty — which, as some of our heroines learn, might be the most radical act of all.
At the Texas Book Festival, a teenage girl in the audience of my panel said she was, with the encouragement of her teacher, trying to read about history from many points of view, not just that of the cisgendered heterosexual white men who have traditionally written it. We panelists applauded. We need empathy now more than ever. We need to read stories about, and especially by, voices that have been traditionally silenced and erased from history. We need curious, open-minded, open-hearted teenagers (and adults!) like you.
I hope you will see yourself reflected in at least one of these stories. I hope they will make you question what traditional history lessons miss and inspire you to seek out more radical girls. Most of all, I hope this collection will provide an impetus for you to be the radical element in your own community, dreaming big, loving yourself fiercely, and writing the next chapter of history.
Thank you for reading.
JESSICA SPOTSWOOD
Rebekah threaded in.
Rebekah tugged the needle out.
Rebekah had never been so bored in her entire seventeen years.
At least not since yesterday.
“Beautiful, Miriam.” Mrs. Samuels flitted around the one-room schoolhouse like a butterfly. Or, in her muted tones, perhaps a moth was a more appropriate comparison. Like Rebekah, she wore a simple cotton gown she’d stitched herself that covered every inch of skin from collarbone to wrist to ankle, but as a married woman, she also wore a shawl that covered her hair. Rebekah wondered if the shawl somehow kept Mrs. Samuels cooler, because she didn’t seem to be perspiring through every stitch the way Rebekah was beneath her long chestnut curls. It made her feel like a poor imitation of a Georgian that she could barely tolerate the Savannah sun in these brutal summer months. But then, she was Jewish first, American second, as her mama and papa never tired of telling her. “Look at Miriam’s stitchwork in those clouds. It’s so nice against that beautiful blue. Like tekhelet.”
Rebekah smiled to herself at the mention of the holy turquoise shade, sported in the fringes of her father’s tzitzit. It was a beautiful color, but just a few weeks ago, Caleb had taught her that true tekhelet dye came from an honest-to-goodness snail. “It’s called a chilazon,” he’d told her in that tone he always took when he was educating — the one that let everyone know he would be a wonderful rabbi someday. Her father would never have shared such knowledge with her, but Caleb Laniado continued right on, imparting what he’d learned from studying the Talmud with some of the other men from Mickve Israel.
Rebekah knew this scholarship wasn’t meant for her ears, that the Talmud was for men alone, and she wished more than anything that she found it dull. That she could echo Caleb’s sister, Naomi, or her own best friend, Deborah, when they teased him for babbling on about the legendary arguments between the rabbis Hillel and Shammai or why they couldn’t blend wool and linen to make their garments as the gentiles did.
But she wanted that knowledge, thirsted for it, drank it down like the last dregs of kiddush wine. She didn’t know if Caleb noticed, and she’d be mortified if Deborah or Naomi did, but she loved when he shared his lessons — and not just because of the way passion lit up his brown eyes and sent his strong hands flying into gestures. There would be a time for truly noticing that someday, and someday soon, she knew. Someday the challah cover she was stitching would be on her own Shabbat table, and it would be her husband commenting on the needlework.
Someday, but not yet.
She had so much to learn first.
The sun was high in the sky when Rebekah finally found a few moments to escape the kitchen that afternoon. She didn’t even have to think about a destination; ever since she’d figured out that Mama was too distracted by baby Abigail to pay her much mind once the lunch dishes were rinsed, she’d let her feet drag her to the same place. She’d been barely six years old when a fire had burned down the old wooden synagogue, but people still loved to talk of the miracle of the Torahs and the Aron Kodesh that had somehow been spared. Her little brother, Jacob, had had his bris at the old synagogue, and they had thought they’d see him read from the Sefer Torah for his bar mitzvah there. But this new brick building they were erecting in its place would be the site of his coming-of-age ceremony instead.
Better than Caleb had. Jacob would have a proper ceremony, including a celebratory feast for the entire community, but Caleb’s bar mitzvah had been in his home, which did not fit even the forty or so men of Mickve Israel, let alone the rest of the congregants.
It was as if thinking about him had made his long, lean figure appear out of thin air. “Caleb Laniado. What have I told you about calling me ‘Miss’?”
His slight grin and the crinkle of his long-lashed eyes made him look boyish despite the shadow of a dark beard that could never stay away for long. “My mama would have my hide if I didn’t, and you know it.”
She knew it was immodest, but it was impossible not to smile back. Besides, Caleb was as holy a boy as she knew. He wasn’t being improper with her; he was absolutely serious that Mrs. Laniado would be mad as a cottonmouth if he were more familiar. “Amazing how the new building is coming along, isn’t it?”
“It is. The committee’s been working nonstop. Dr. Sheftall wants it complete by next year and says they have all the funds to do it without needing to ask for more from anybody.”
That was good to hear. She knew that if money was scarce in her household, it would be her own meager education that would be the first to go. Mrs. Samuels’s instructions came at a fee, and though she taught little more than basic sums and sewing, losing them would be cutting one more tie to the community. It was hard enough to see how many congregants were already breaking away — marrying outside the faith, abandoning their traditions, adopting gentile business practices, and even buying slaves in an effort to blend in with their neighbors. But Rebekah’s family did not blend in more than absolutely necessary, and she knew the Laniados did not — would not — either. Besides, other than Mama’s lessons on keeping a kosher kitchen and properly observing the Sabbath, Mrs. Samuels’s classes were the only education she received. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing at all.
“It’ll be nice to have, when it’s finished.” She fanned her cheeks with her hand and cursed herself for leaving her parasol at home. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to have a new place to study.” Her words were simple enough, but they burned hot with jealousy. Caleb’s cheder classes had ended at fourteen, but he and some of the other boys still received private personal instruction, and it did not involve needlepoint. “What did you learn today?”
“The Shulchan Aruch,” he said, and it made her heart ache a little. The answers used to be things she knew from prayers and holiday services and Mrs. Samuels’s rudimentary parsha classes — stories of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs and the twelve tribes of Israel. The Shulchan Aruch was a book she knew by name only, as something her father studied.
“Can you tell me the story of Ruth again?” It was her favorite, after the story of Esther, which was too long for right now; Mama would no doubt be calling her any minute, if she wasn’t already.
“We should get home.” Caleb took one last look at the synagogue before turning back to the tree-lined cobblestone street. “Anyway, you’ve heard me tell it a hundred times.”
“You could tell me for the hundred and first time on the way.”
He sighed, and she knew he’d do it. He couldn’t resist the opportunity to teach a willing student, and he was the only one she still trusted to ask. Unlike her father, he never rebuked her for doing so; his reserves of patience seemed truly endless.
“It was in the time of the Judges, when there was a man named Elimelech and a woman named Naomi, and —”
“Which judge?” Rebekah interrupted.
“Pardon me?”
Yes, he’d told her the story one hundred times, and she heard it read aloud in synagogue every spring during the Shavuot holiday, but new questions always seemed to spring up like dandelions. “You said the story’s in the time of the Judges, right? So who was the judge during this time?”
A smile slipped over his face, quick as a shadow. “That’s a good question, Miss Rebekah. I don’t know the answer.”
“But you have a thought, surely.”
He gave a cautious nod, just a dip of his chin, the kind he gave when the answer lay beyond the Torah. She used to try her hardest to wheedle it out of him, but now she just waited patiently, fixing her attention on the way the light breeze swayed the Spanish moss dangling from the oak tree branches and swished her blue cotton skirt around her ankles.
“In the Talmud, it is stated that Ibzan was Boaz, and Rashi explains that this refers to the judge Ibzan. As such, many believe he was the judge at the time.”
Ibzan. She tucked the name away in her treasury of those that appeared only once or twice and which no girl would likely ever hear. “Ah. All right, then. Go on.”
“Elimelech and Naomi had two sons, named —”
“Makhlon and Kilion,” Rebekah finished before she could stop herself.
Another shadow smile. “Right. And Makhlon and Kilion were married to . . .” This time he left a space for her to fill in Ruth’s and Orpah’s names, as if he were in fact a teacher and she a student. They continued like that until they arrived at her porch, where her little sister Sarah was standing with her fists on her hips and a suspicious glare.
“You’re in trouble, Rebekah Judith!” she called. “Mama’s fixin’ to send you to bed without supper!”
Rebekah sighed. “Thank you for the lesson, Caleb. I had better get inside. But . . . perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow?”
He tipped his hat. “Perhaps you will. Have a good evening, Miss Rebekah.”
“Where on earth have you been?” Mama asked the moment Rebekah walked through the door into a warm kitchen smelling of peppery fish and buttery corn bread. “Have you forgotten your chores? Sarah had to shuck the corn for you. Say thank you to your sister.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” she mumbled.
“You promised you were only calling upon Deborah for an hour,” Mama continued as she pointed toward the shelf of cornflower-blue dairy dinner dishes. Rebekah took five of the earthenware plates from the stack — baby Abigail was still just feeding off Mama — and spread them around the wooden table, knowing exactly what was coming next. “Your papa will be home soon and what a fine thing for him to work a hard day and come back to an unprepared supper!”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she said, louder than a mumble because she knew she’d simply have to repeat it otherwise. But she wasn’t really sorry; she wouldn’t take back her lesson with Caleb for anything.
“You’ll do all the washing tonight,” Mama said in a voice that brooked no argument.
“Yes, Mama.”
Rebekah had hoped to leave it at that and continue setting the table in peace, but of course Sarah had to pipe up. “She was with that strange Laniado boy,” she crowed.
“Sarah! What a thing to say. Caleb is a nice young man.” Mama turned to Rebekah. “Or perhaps not, if he’s spending time alone with you, with no talk of marriage. You are not children any longer, Rebekah.”
“It was a chance meeting, outside in full daylight.” Rebekah laid out the dairy forks, sparing a glare for Sarah. “Don’t spread lashon hara, Sarah. It’s a sin, and it’s unbecoming, besides.”
Sarah stuck out her tongue.
“Don’t do that, either,” Mama said. “What have I told you about respecting your elders? Both of you?” she added pointedly.
“But I —”
“I don’t want to hear it, Rebekah, and I do not want to hear tales of you being improper with a boy, either, do you hear me? Especially not with the Laniado boy.”
Rebekah wondered what exactly Mama’s objection was to “the Laniado boy” — that he’d be particularly repulsed by impropriety, given his piousness? Or did Mama fear him as a prospect, knowing he dreamed of being a rabbi and teacher someday and would never bring in the money that the men dealing in dry goods or trading cotton did? Or perhaps it was that he was Sephardic — the Laniados had come from Portugal a generation ago — and Mama secretly hoped her eldest daughter would marry a boy with German blood like theirs and raise a family with their Ashkenazi customs.
In any case, Rebekah knew better than to ask. “Honor thy father and thy mother” may have been the fifth commandment in the Torah, but it was the first in the Wolf h
“What of the school once the synagogue is built, Papa?” she asked, ladling out fish stew.
He regarded his eldest daughter over the rims of his spectacles. “Cheder will return to the synagogue building, of course. I’m sure your brother will be delighted to have his studies in a proper Beit Midrash.”
Jacob nodded, but Rebekah knew he didn’t give a fig where he had his studies — not his religious studies, anyway. All Jacob ever talked about was how he was going to be a merchant like Papa, dealing with visitors who traveled from all over Georgia and South Carolina to purchase his textiles and making the long trip up to New York once a year to replenish at good credit rates. Jacob cared for sums far more than he would ever care for David and Goliath or the Exodus. More than once, she’d lingered outside while he studied with Papa, watching him yawn or clean dirt from his fingernails while envy burned in her like the candlelight that flickered over their texts.
“But . . . do you think . . . might there be room for girls to study in a proper Beit Midrash, too? Separate from the boys, of course,” she added hastily, as if such a thing even needed to be stated.
“For what purpose?” Creases formed between Papa’s light-blue eyes. “Does Mrs. Samuels not teach you that which you need to know? Does your mama not show you how to keep a kosher home?”
Rebekah swallowed hard, suddenly not at all hungry, although she continued to dish out the stew. Mama taught her the most important things — the blessing over the candles to welcome Shabbat just before sunset every Friday, how to boil eggs for the Pesach Seder and braid golden challah bread for Shabbat and holidays, that dishes like roast ham and oysters were for their gentile neighbors, but no pig or shellfish would ever grace a kosher table.
But she didn’t teach the story of Esther, or of Ruth, or of Deborah. Her mother didn’t teach her how Rebekah — her biblical namesake — saw that Jacob was the son chosen by God, and not his twin, Esau, who was preferred by Isaac. Those bits and pieces had all been gleaned from nagging Caleb or eavesdropping on Jacob’s lessons.