Yet Mrs. Thayer invited Freddie inside her sitting room, and shut the door; they would report the incident to university security, for such incidents, however vulgar and demeaning, were required to be reported. I was summarily dismissed and crept away with a tinge of regret, I hadn't been the one to rush to Mrs. Thayer in distress, I hadn't been the one invited inside, and the door shut quietly behind me.
Here was a surprise, I belatedly learned: for all her authority over the Kappa residence, Agnes Thayer was not a Kappa. She would have been forbidden to attend meetings of the sorority, should she have wished to attend; she would have been banned from the ritual meeting room, should she have wished to step inside it. She knew nothing of the "sacred sisterhood"-the letters Kappa Gamma Pi held no secret, luminous meaning for her. Mrs. Thayer's responsibility had solely to do with the social behavior of the girls in the residence; she was accountable to the university's Dean of Women and to the local Kappa Gamma Pi association that paid her salary. When I revealed my surprise at this fact, saying naively, "Mrs. Thayer isn't one of us?" my Kappa sisters laughed at me saying, "God, who'd want that ugly old Brit-bitch snooping on us any more than she does? Use your head."
I hereby consecrate myself heart, soul, and intellect to the ideals of Kappa Gamma Pi and the promise of sacred sisterhood. United in our bond, so long as I shall live. None of the aforesaid secrets will I reveal. This bond I shall never forsake. I pledge my heart.
In the basement of the imposing old house at 91 University Place was a consecrated space: the ritual meeting room.
Each sorority and fraternity surely had its consecrated space, probably in the basement of their houses, but it was the ritual meeting room of the Kappa Gamma Pi house that seemed to me so very special.
In 1938, this room had been sanctified for Kappa ritual by national Kappa officers, and meetings of the sorority involving "ritual" could take place only here, according to the bylaws "under strictly confidential and private circumstances."A locked door, absolute secrecy, and no outsiders anywhere near.
Even for Kappas it was forbidden to enter the ritual meeting room except at such times as the room was officially opened by the doorkeeper. Only this elected officer and the president and vice-president of the chapter had keys to the room which was kept locked at all times; Mrs. Thayer, of course, had no key. This is a room, a space, no ordinary individuals can enter. It was strikingly decorated in Kappa ebony-and-gold wallpaper; its low, soundproofed ceiling was a somber slate blue. At the front of the rectangular room was an altar on a raised platform; the altar was draped in cream-colored silk embossed with
in gold. Many-pronged silver candelabra were placed on the altar. At the tops of three of the walls were small square windows covered in opaque gauze (to prevent anyone from looking in) like bandages over empty eye sockets. The ritual meeting room spanned the length of the cavernous living room overhead, but not all of the space was used. Folding chairs were set in rows at the front; the rear of the space was used for storage. And it didn't seem very clean or tidy at the rear. The aura of romance ended at about the halfway point. During ritual ceremonies (pledging, initiation) which were sacred events in the Kappa calendar, the meeting room was softly lit by thirty-six candles; at other times, for business meetings, it was lit by practical overhead lights that cast shadows beneath our eyes and chins, and made the most glamorous Kappas look haggard.
You did not simply walk into the meeting room: you had to be, following the bylaws, "granted entrance." This meant lining up in silence on the basement stairs outside the room, seniors first, then juniors, and underclasswomen; at the shut door you gave the ritual Kappa knock (rap, pause, two quick raps and a pause, a final rap); when the doorkeeper opened the door you gave her the ritual handshake (crossed hands, twined fingers squeezed in a code replicating the knock) which I would invariably fumble out of nervousness and embarrassment at such intimacy with a girl I scarcely knew; you then whispered in the doorkeeper's ear the password (a Greek phrase of which I was never certain and always murmured softly: it sounded like Hie-ros minosa or minoosa); the doorkeeper then granted you entrance, quietly you slipped into the room and took your place amid the rows of seated girls.
My initiation ceremony passed in a haze of anxiety and light-headedness tinged with nausea. Like most of the pledges I hadn't been allowed to sleep for forty-eight hours; I'd had to fast, and follow Hell Week instructions scrupulously. Though I was the most obedient and craven of pledges, dreading a last-minute dismissal, the initiates seemed to see in my very complicity the seeds of rebellion, even treason; they were hard on me, and I acquiesced in every particular. Physical hazing in fraternities and sororities was supposed to have been banned from campus since deaths and disfigurements and serious injuries had occurred not many years before; my Kappa sisters did not lay hands on us, except to steady us, and "walk" us blindfolded along mysterious corridors and up and down flights of stairs. Inside the meeting room, however, our blindfolds were removed. Why am I here? What is this place? These strangers? Who are they to me, who am I to them? I blinked like a nocturnal animal blinded by light. I tasted panic, nausea. I was frightened of becoming hysterical. Bursting into laughter, rushing to the door, slapping and kicking at anyone who tried to stop me. I knew myself in the presence of individuals capricious and arbitrary in their cruelty as the ancient Greek gods. I'd meant to make my family proud of me, initiated into a national sorority. But my mother and father were dead. I began to cry softly, helplessly. No no no this is a mistake. This is a he this ridiculous ritual you yourself are a he. The president and another officer were solemnly intoning Greek words at the altar and burning parchment paper on which had been written secret words "too sacred to be uttered aloud except at this time and in this place" in a silver bowl, amid rose petals; someone tugged at my arm, I glanced up partly blinded and allowed myself to be led on trembling legs to the altar to make my "final vow."
I was both fully conscious of my surroundings, yet unconscious as an infant. I seemed to be floating against the acoustic-tile ceiling. I saw that my face was streaked with tears and my forehead and nose greasy. I understood that my mother who was Ida was one of the gowned officers, a beautiful senior at whose glowing face I scarcely dared to look; I was aware of sanity slipping from me like ice melting beneath my feet; my father too was grinning at me gap-toothed, with an air of angry satisfaction Don't let no fuckers out there sell you short and I vowed I would not, my hand pressed against my pounding heart as I vowed my life as the ceremony concluded and I stood with my dazed sister pledges weeping like newborn infants in the realization I am a Kappa Gamma Pi for life.
And then I fainted. Softly limp as a bundle of laundry, onto the chilly and not-very-clean concrete floor.
2
In the mind there is no absolute or free will, but the mind is determined to this or that volition by a cause, which is also determined by another cause, and this again by another, and so on ad inflnitum.
Spinoza, Ethics
How happy I am here, I love my Kappa sisters and my new life as a sorority girl, I am breathless so busy every minute almost! so I wrote to girlfriends from high school who'd gone to other colleges or to a few selected girl cousins This is certainly a change from my old life, I'm a KAPPA GAMMA PI sometimes I have to pinch myself or give myself a little stab with my pin.