Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [94]
“Over the luncheon break, I would ask you to think further, if there is any way you can shed any further light on that question, because I think it is an important one.” Of course the best way to shed light on the question would have been to call the staffers to testify as to who spoke to me. Specter never suggested that. Perhaps this would have been too invasive of the purview of the Senate. Perhaps Specter knew that no senator would have tolerated having a staff member questioned in the manner that he questioned me.
Specter’s short-lived pretense of objectivity soon turned into an inquisitional performance that seemed to be directed as much to the television cameras as to me. When I allowed myself to think of it, the presence of the press was at once intrusive and reassuring. I did not relish saying the things I had to say on national television. Yet I hoped that the senators might temper their accusations and condemnations under the watchful eye of the media. I found no sympathy for my situation among the media. They were there for the story. Moreover, the hot glare of the lights and cameras and their sheer numbers left me cold inside.
Over the course of the morning as the questioning intensified, the room, SD-325, became unbearably warm from the lights as much as from the subject matter of the questions. I reached up to wipe oil from my nose. A hundred cameras flashed in response to that simple act—an act that was so natural to me that I had to think to realize what had prompted the photographers’ sudden interest. No doubt they anticipated some drama—something momentous that might turn the entire proceeding. They wanted to capture the moment on film as it occurred but this was not such a moment. I was simply responding to a lifelong problem—skin which oiled up in the slightest bit of heat.
“Don’t move,” I told myself, freezing almost in midmotion. I resolved to become as motionless as possible. I had to be impervious to the lights and to the heat as well as the natural reactions of my body. Though I felt each one of the senators’ attempts to humiliate me, I vowed not to so much as twitch. I ignored the numbness in my legs and even the pain from the tumors in my abdomen. From that moment on, I did not even take a drink of water in front of the camera. I ignored my dry throat. I sat throughout the “conversations” with the Republicans and Democrats with my hands in front of me and only occasionally would I even lean forward. Oddly enough, this exercise in self-control enabled me to focus on the questioning. Or perhaps it was some sort of divine intervention, some force from outside myself that took over when I needed it. And, of course, years of being impervious to and immobile in the face of hurt.
My family and friends gave me the only comfort of that day, though I grew more and more ambivalent about their presence in the room as the questioning became more invasive and the veiled accusations more apparent. I thought how hard this must be on them. They had to sit in silence throughout it. Behind me my father was seething with anger and frustration at his helplessness to do anything about what was happening to me—to his family. But I could not think of them any more than I could of my own personal discomfort.
It was 1:10 P.M. I had been testifying for two hours. When we broke for the first time, I was able to talk to my family. Everyone put a good face on during the break. It is our way. In the Senate office room that had become our ad hoc headquarters, we talked briefly about nothing in particular, all of us remarkably calm. Or perhaps we were just numb. There was no time to analyze what we felt before. Reverend William Harris, a pastor from the church that Emma Coleman Jordan attended, came and prayed with us while my legal advisers dashed about trying to get copies of the statements Specter was using in his questioning. All except for Warner Gardner, who, over a tuna sandwich, engaged me in a pleasant conversation, relating to the hearing only minimally. If he was attempting to divert my attention