Blinding Light (46 page)

“They think I'm a cripple,” he told Axelrod.

But seeing an advantage in creating buzz—his editor's expression—Axelrod advocated early publicity for the book. The
New York Times Magazine
had put in a request.

“They're not promising you the cover—they never do that—but there's an excellent possibility of it. Think of the sales.”

The thought
No one knows me
—his sense of being a wraith, a phantom, an anonymous presence—had always driven his writing and made him content. But now Steadman laughed, because his book was done and his life and work, once so hidden, so widely speculated on, would soon belong to the world. There would be nothing else to tell.

“I'm differently abled,” he told Axelrod. “If only they knew how differently abled I am.”

All that was known of him was his blindness and his new book. He liked that, because the truth of his blindness—its gifts—was so startling. To the imploring journalists and askers after his appearance, he was a casualty, an object lesson, a freak, a moral parable, tabloid fodder; not a writer but a survivor. They wanted to hear about his pain. And he smiled because there was no pain, only joy—a bigger story but an unexpected one, and perhaps of more limited appeal, for people wanted to share his suffering.

So the word was out that he had a book. He suspected he would be marketed as a miracle, a survivor who had managed to tell his tale, batting the air with one hand and whirling his white cane with the other. He was eyeless and enigmatic, but also valiant and pathetic, a licensed bore, someone who made you shut up and listen so that he could be sententious, always managing to succeed against the odds.

All lies. He had never been more clear-sighted than when, drugged, he had blinded himself and entered the mind and heart of the small hopeful thirteen-year-old he had once been. Nothing was more important than finding that child and rewarding him. In that simple wish the book was born.

“I am not a cripple,” he wanted to say to the prospective interviewers and TV people. “Blindness has been an asset. I could never have completed this book without it.”

He said this to Ava, told her how he had valued the trip to Ecuador, learning the uses of datura. Blindness had changed him, living with her had changed him, the book had meant everything.

She was smiling as he spoke. She controlled her voice, holding her emotion in her mouth, and said, “So much for you. But what do you think all this did to me?”

Steadman scowled at her. Because she so seldom talked about herself, this question seemed irrelevant.

“I don't want to make you feel guilty,” she said, “but can you imagine what your behavior did to my head?”

He still scowled and looked deaf. He was niggled by the word “behavior.”

“I have a past, too,” she said.

“That's for you to deal with,” he said in a tone of
Who wants to know?
He had become grim and uninterested. He wanted to turn away from her, for all this time, in her arms, lusting for her, he had seen her as every woman he had ever loved, and she had seen him as—who?—someone else, certainly.

“Your story,” she said, “is not to be confused with mine.”

Of course, another narrative had been unspooling in her mind, utterly different from his own, one he could not share.

“Be a doctor,” he said. “Help me. Heal me. Don't tell me about your medical history.”

Still, he was puzzled by the parallel life she must have led while collaborating on his book. Sexuality was so private, so fantasy driven, so dependent on the past. He knew what role she played for him in his blissful reveries of childhood, but what part did he play in her simultaneous recollections and rehearsals? Better not ask.

“What does it all lead to?” she said. “People will wonder.”

“Happiness,” he said. “Anyone reading my book will see that all they need to know is in their own head. That's my message. ‘You are the source of all wisdom. Of all pleasure.'”

So he told himself he was content. He took no notice of the invitations and requests, for he kept thinking of that morning of the phone call forewarning him—a “save the date” call for November. The invitation from the White House was sent by mail, the state dinner for the German chancellor. And a handwritten note on an enclosed card:
The president is looking forward to seeing you.

One night in the first week of November, Steadman was at the chessboard, waiting for Ava to come home from the hospital. She hated eating late, regarded it as unhealthy; she had stopped drinking alcohol, since she might be summoned to the emergency room; she was always too weary these days for sex. Even chess was a labor for her, a single game might take days, but at least they were able to converse over the board.

He sat lightly, studying the chess pieces in a posture of patience and concentration. He was like a diner about to finish a meal, some scraps still on his plate, a man who was rested and alert and not very hungry, perhaps saving some of his food for his friend, who was about to turn up.

Ava entered without speaking, and it was only when she sat down that she spoke. “Your move.”

“Let's play rapid transit,” he said. “I want to finish this tonight.”

As she made her move, she said, “You're going drugged?” resuming the conversation that had ended the previous day when they had stood up from the chessboard.

“I'm at my best when I'm blind.” He took his turn without hesitating.

“It's the White House. Everyone will see you. They'll know.”

“Your move.”

After her move he swiftly took her rook, swooping with his knight.

“I want everyone to know.”

She let out a howl of agony, a surrendering cry of despair, not recognizable words but a dark lament that filled Steadman with horror for its sound of suffering. It was as though a knife had been plunged into her body, but she was not a victim, she was a witness, being given a long, hideous look at certain death—his death. He was fading as she looked helplessly on, and her howl at what he said was how she would feel at the sight of him dying. He saw that for her, with his certainty about being blind, he
had
died in her eyes.

Just afterward her voice changed to a gasp as she spoke with a scorched throat. “How can you?”

“I have to.”

“It's a lie. It's a mask,” she said, her voice catching.

“Blind Slade wrote that book,” he said. “To go any other way would be deceitful.”

“What if they found out the truth?”

“That
is
the truth. Please move.”

She moved, she was bent backward, as though wishing for words. She said, “To pretend to be afflicted.”

“I'm not afflicted,” he said, and struck again with his knight. “That's the first thing people have to know.”

“It is such bullshit,” she said.

“Your move.”

She poked at a bishop, and in the next move lost him, and began to cry, the same lament but softer, more sorrowful, rubbing her eyes. With wet fingers she moved a pawn.

“I help sick people,” she said. “And you pretend to be sick. It makes a mockery of everything I do.”

“I became blind. I lost my sight. You know that.”

“People with brain tumors lose their sight. Diabetics lose their sight. People with detached retinas. Burn victims. Infected corneas. Serious head trauma. You should be ashamed.”

“I never said I was a victim. I never whined.”

“You're worse. You boasted.”

He folded his hands and waited for her to move.

But she said, mimicking his voice, “I can write in the dark!”

“I
can
write in the dark. I am blinder than Borges when he wrote his essay ‘On Blindness.' I wrote my book in the dark.” He had not looked up at her. He added, “If you don't want to play, just say so.”

Ava stared at the board for a long while, then made a move, another fatal one. As Steadman plucked at her chess piece, Ava said, “I'm not going to help you. I won't be part of it. Go to the White House blind if you like. What a mockery!”

He said, “It's the truth. It's who I am. Me at my best.”

Then he moved. She glanced down to see the trap. He said, “Checkmate,” and only then did he raise his eyes to her.

She recognized the bloodshot and glassy stare of his blindness as he sat triumphant over the chessboard. She put her hands in her lap and looked old and prim and distant.

He knew she would not howl again. No one could do that twice, with such a cry of horror. But she didn't have to. He still heard it within himself. The sorrowing sound had deranged something in him—no longer a sound, but a pain lodged deep inside him, something torn, an ache that had displaced all his desire.

E
VEN WITH THE
invitation propped on the mantelpiece and the decision to go settled, Steadman kept receiving phone calls and faxes to verify additional details: his and Ava's Social Security numbers, ages, birthplaces, home address, and—though Steadman had been explicit about his not needing help—a “Special Needs” form to be filled out and faxed back. Another form in the invitation package indicated that because rooms were unavailable, they were not being invited to stay the night in the White House. Attached to this was a list of hotels that offered special rates to White House dinner guests, with parking instructions, and “handicapped accessible” was mentioned here, too.

“‘Special needs' describes me perfectly.”

“Why do you insist on doing this?”

He had to think a moment before he realized she didn't mean the decision to accept the invitation but rather his insistence on attending the dinner blind. But he said nothing. His mind was made up.

Black tie had also been stressed—everything that was stated was stressed—and it was repeated that the chancellor of Germany was the guest of honor. Nothing was left to chance.

The morning of their departure, Steadman called Wolfbein to tell him the news and to ask for advice. Wolfbein was a friend of the president and a frequent overnighter at the White House.

“You putz,” he said, and he bantered, pretending to be hurt because he had not been invited. Then he urged Steadman always to remember to call him “Mr. President,” and not to bring a camera, and to observe protocol. “It's ground zero. It's the center of the world.” Wolfbein then became concerned. “How are you feeling?”

“Great. I can see through walls and around corners.”

When he put the phone down he was aware that Ava was behind him, leaning away, in a posture of disapproval.

She was silent on the way to Boston, silent on the plane to Washington, and it was only when they arrived at Reagan Airport that she spoke.

“I see the Jordans.”

Vernon and Ann Jordan approached and said hello. They had just arrived from New York, en route to the same dinner party.

“How're you doing?” Vernon demanded in his hearty direct manner, fixing Steadman with a smile.

“X-ray vision,” Steadman said, tapping his dark glasses.

That pleased Vernon, who laughed loudly, his muscular body radiating light and health and humor. He was a man who smiled easily and whose casual manner masked a shrewd intelligence and fastidious discretion. Yet he was genuinely friendly, and near him Steadman felt that he was in the presence of a man of power, a smiling sorcerer who remembered everything he saw or heard.

“You know my wife,” Vernon said, and turning to Ann, said playfully, with a little bow, “Hello, wife.”

“I know you from the hospital,” Ann said to Ava. “We are all so thankful to you for your wonderful work.”

“Can we offer you good people a lift?” Vernon asked.

They accepted the ride with gratitude, feeling rescued, for they had traveled in silence and had arrived in Washington bewildered. And now, having been swept into the limo, they were treated to Vernon's running commentary about the landmarks they were passing—the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial. He narrated tactfully, describing their beauty, using his enthusiasm for detail as a way of hiding the fact that he was doing this for a blind man.

“And here we are at the Willard. We'll see you folks later.”

The formalities at check-in were brief and efficient, questions asked and ignored by Steadman, who brushed at his watch face with his fingertips and said, “We have to get a move on.”

He had taken a dose of the drug in the morning. He took another one in the hotel room after he changed into his tuxedo. Ava sat apart from him in the cab to the White House; she was remote, she disapproved, she was sorry she had come. A shadow of unease lay across her features, while Steadman's were bathed in light.

After they were dropped at the side entrance, following the instructions on the map, they showed their IDs and were escorted (“This is the East Room”) to where there was a receiving line and drinks being served. Steadman was aware of a glazed and shimmering room filled with excited strangers.

“I'm right beside you,” Ava said.

“I know,” Steadman said. And then, “Do you believe this?”

The smells of fresh flowers and floor wax and new paint gave the place a hum of something venerable, the glory of an old hotel restored to luxury. All this with the contrasting odors of perfume and aftershave lotion and polished leather. But more conspicuous than anything was the insinuation of decay beneath the sweaty faces and the glitter, the corruption and the untruth, like the decrepitude that stank under the White House timbers—Steadman could smell it all.

The discomfort, the awkwardness, was palpable, too—bumped shoulders, loud greetings, the hyperalertness of strangers. But though no one seemed at home there—the whole gleaming structure was like a stage set—they were all energized by simply being in the place. With an intensity that was like a fever of madness, the guests seemed to Steadman like heavy animals in unnatural postures, tottering on their hind legs. They were clumsy, they were eager, they chattered and bantered in a way that made them seem skittish and tickled. Their attention was brief but vibrant, glittering for an instant and then flashing elsewhere, as they roved—the men especially—swinging their arms, shouldering forward, glancing sideways. Steadman was reminded first of ungainly athletes and then of greedy goodhearted apes.