Hedda Nussbaum, today, age 61
PUBLIC LIVES
For a Notorious Victim, Some Things Never Heal
By COREY KILGANNON
Published: February 10, 2004
Posted on 02/10/2004 5:26:21 PM PST by summer
Hedda Nussbaum, today, age 61
PUBLIC LIVES
For a Notorious Victim, Some Things Never Heal
By COREY KILGANNON
Published: February 10, 2004
White Plains
HEDDA NUSSBAUM opened her office door and, slightly hunched and still limping from the nightmare she once lived through, led a visitor to a conference room at My Sisters' Place here, a center for battered women, where she now works as a paralegal.
"I'm still not happy with my nose - I had a really nice nose," she said at one point. "But I can't go through any more surgeries."
That would be the five cosmetic surgeries on her nose, and others on the rest of her face. They have helped restore much of her beauty. But from certain angles, she looks like that other Hedda Nussbaum, whose disfigured face became a worldwide symbol of domestic violence.
Her body is still covered with scars from the beatings, but inside, she said, she has healed.
"I'd call myself healed," she said. "I think I'm in better psychological condition than most people."
In November 1987, the man with whom Ms. Nussbaum was living, Joel B. Steinberg [a lawyer], beat the 6-year-old girl they were raising, Lisa, into a coma in their Greenwich Village apartment; the child died four days later. The police also found a 17-month-old, Mitchell, who also lived with the couple, tethered with twine to his crib.
After a televised trial in 1988 that included seven days of chilling testimony from Ms. Nussbaum [who had been beated to a pulp by Steinberg], Mr. Steinberg was convicted of manslaughter. Prosecutors dropped charges against her, after doctors said that years of his beatings had left her paralyzed by pain and terror, and too weak to intervene.
In December, Mr. Steinberg, now 62, was denied parole for the fifth straight time, but he is scheduled to be released in June. He has already been offered a job as a talk show host by a Manhattan cable access channel.
For Ms. Nussbaum, 61, the paid lectures she regularly gave across the country have mostly dried up, but she has just finished writing a book: "It's the story of my relationship with Joel since the day I met him."
She had hoped it would be published when Mr. Steinberg was released, but there have been no offers from publishers yet. She said that one publisher explained that "she couldn't handle the violence." She chronicles the years of vicious abuse by Mr. Steinberg.
During the trial, Ms. Nussbaum testified that as Lisa lay dying, "I loved Joel more than ever." In the same gravelly New York voice that riveted viewers during the trial, she explained that even for most of the 14 months she spent in a Westchester hospital after the trial she still considered him a healer with magical powers.
"I was still brainwashed and still felt for a long time that I was in love with him," she said. Then came an epiphany while drawing a picture of him.
"I call it 'the day my eyes opened,' " she said. "I began cursing him, which I never did. I called him an abuser and a horrible person who killed my daughter. I made a promise to Lisa. I said, 'I'm sorry, Lisa, that I didn't see, but maybe we can help save another child's life.' "
"I say 'we,' " she explained, "because I carry her around in my heart all the time."
She made a promise to Lisa to help other battered women and children. She volunteered, counseling women and running a support group, but for years could not find anyone who was willing to hire Hedda Nussbaum - for any position. That has changed, but she is still recognized constantly in public. Some people still blame her for allowing Lisa's death, like the man who recently stared into her car and mouthed the words "baby killer."
But that is rare, she said; most people thank her for exposing domestic violence.
"A lot of women still come up and say, 'Can I hug you?' " she said. "Most of them have been abused."
"I can spot an abusive man a mile away," she emphasized. "There's no way I'd get involved with an abusive man again."
THERE have been men in her life since Joel, she said, but not currently. She will not reveal where she lives, even vaguely. Mr. Steinberg is forbidden to have contact with her, but she has had fears that he might come looking for her. She said she'd be hesitant to visit New York City after his release. What would she do if she saw him on the street?
"I'd walk the other way," she said.
But she lights up when discussing the two children, speaking about them at times as if they were simply away at camp: the way Mitchell could athletically balance on his rocker; Lisa's artistic touch. Ms. Nussbaum still keeps pictures of them in her wallet and has tacked up in her cubicle a hauntingly beautiful watercolor painted by Lisa shortly before she died: splotches of moody colors bruised with brooding black tinges lurking on the edges.
Lisa would be 22 years old now. Mitchell is a teenager with another name, living with his birth mother on Long Island. But both are frozen youthful in Ms. Nussbaum's mind.
Ms. Nussbaum said she still makes regular visits to Lisa's grave at a cemetery in Hawthorne, N.Y., especially on Halloween, "her last holiday." Despite Mr. Steinberg's habitual ban on holiday celebrations, Ms. Nussbaum found a pumpkin on the street one Halloween and carved it for Lisa. So Ms. Nussbaum always leaves a lighted jack-o'-lantern on Halloween.
The last chapter of her book is titled "What I've Learned."
"I'm still hoping for a nice advance," she said. "I think any woman who's been abused would want to read it, which means just about any woman."
Is this actually in the NYTimes article?
"I think any woman who's been abused would want to read it, which means just about any woman."
Maybe I would feel the same way if I'd been through what she has, but I strongly disagree with the section that I put in bold text.
God bless her.
I don't think I'll ever really understand why some women stay with men who are so damn abusive, especially when children are involved. I'm more of a Lorena Bobbitt kind of dame. (Bide one's time and then get 'em while they're sleepin'.)
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