Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

Because Steadman had become the most conspicuous person in the room, the president hung on, began needing him — Steadman could sense that, for by being next to him, he was peculiarly visible. That vanity in the president was mingled in a paradox of conceit with sympathy and kindness.

The others’ shock was apparent: no one had expected Steadman to show up blind. People who had found him arrogant or distant or offhand now pitied him, and faced him more squarely, emboldened by the strength, a swagger of wellbeing, that onlookers feel in the company of someone frail. For in their judgment Steadman was powerless and lame as a blind man, needing to be steered around by his elbow, no longer a threat or a source of sarcasm; he was impotent, he was pitiable, a cripple, and without help he would trip over chairs and bump into walls.

Steadman smiled at the thought of this, for the truth these people did not know was that he was perhaps a greater threat to their privacy now. He could gain access to and probe any of their secrets, was nimbler and more acute and virile than ever. Nothing was hidden from him.

Holding on to his arm, as much a new pal as a helper, restraining him a little, the president seemed to understand Steadman’s insightfulness. He introduced him to a few people — men and women whom Steadman already knew — and in doing so, the president was claiming him as his own, possessing him for his aura, his power to command attention.

The blindness fascinated the president, like a peculiar gift, a unique asset, a signature trait. Which it is, Steadman thought, all of that and more.

Still holding on to him, more tightly now, the president moved him through the party. Steadman understood the president as blind in a simple and old-fashioned way, fearing exposure. The poor man could not see himself at all. He was desperate in clinging to his secrets — secrets that to Steadman were obvious in his whole demeanor. Never mind what the secrets were — they smoldered like half-smothered fires in the president’s soul and shone in his fragile and easily readable face.

The president wanted everything, but most of all he wanted to be needed. And so he took charge of Steadman, possessed him and seemed proud, as though he’d captured a country or successfully wooed a woman — he had what he wanted.

He kept touching Steadman with deft slender fingers, and when Wolfbein appeared and introduced people to the president—“Mr. President, I want you to meet an old friend”—the president deflected him, and with Steadman on his arm said, “This is Slade Steadman. I’m sure you know his work.”

Steadman had become his prop, his cause, and though the president had put himself in charge, and was big and busy on his behalf, Steadman could see how wounded he was. The man was next to him, holding him, kneading his shoulder. Steadman could feel the warmth, which was more than warmth — the scorching heat and life of his eagerness and something like shame. He was fully alive, but what had he done that had made him so hot with guilt?

His pulse, his touch, told Steadman how appearances mattered to him, how surfaces meant everything, though he was the most watchful human imaginable. Perhaps he recognized this trait he shared with Steadman. He seemed like someone who was forever stalking, with an insatiable appetite, his hunger beyond the hunger of anyone else.

Also, what looked like guilt or shame was neither of those — they did not cut deep enough; it was undiluted embarrassment. He was brave in his secrets, not sorry for them but only fearful of being found out. His need to be fully visible was at odds with his need to conceal, and made him an active and distracting presence for his furtive alertness, and had given his smiling and much too reliable face a profound pinkness.

So he latched on to Steadman, because it proved that he had sympathy and altruism and charity. He was here at a party, not carousing — he hardly seemed to drink anyway, had barely touched his glass — but propping up a blind man, though Steadman was aware that it was really the other way around.

Ava joined them, was embraced by the president—“You’re a lucky gal”—and she took Steadman aside to say that she had been talking to the first lady.

“She’s amazing — she’s lovely,” Ava said. “She looks straight at you and tells you exactly what she thinks.”

“I saw her when they came in.”

Whenever Steadman referred to his seeing something, Ava reacted, made a gesture, not quite doubting, but impatient.

“And what did you notice about her?”

“The snot in her nostril,” Steadman said.

As though he had spoken the truth, Ava became defensive. “She’s beautiful. She’s strong. She really knows him. It’s a real team.”

But another glance in the direction of the first lady told Steadman that there was almost nothing there except a chill between the husband and wife. She was much poorer at pretending than he was.

“She’s his prisoner,” Steadman said.

He walked outside, down the stone steps to the lawn. Many of the guests had gone out to enjoy the fragrance of the evening. They were drinking, laughing gently, reminding each other of what a lovely summer it was. “We’ve been on the island since July Fourth,” Wolfbein was saying. Through the slender scrub oaks the Sound was glowing in the last of the sunset.

In the luminous half-dark of dusk on the lawn, a little apart from the other guests, he felt euphoric, seeing everything clearly while unseen and unknown himself. He was reminded of how, in this euphoria, he resembled the celebrated novelist he wished to become, a narrator among his characters. He was convinced of the purposeful insight of his blindness, his apparent blindness, and that at last his novel would be the book he had longed to write.

Sensing someone behind him, Steadman tilted his head to listen. He was touched on the hand by soft, damp, imploring fingers, and his arm groped too, each touch an appeal, a plea, an invitation, the clutching of slender bones. The people who had touched him at the party believed they were unseen, unknown — and they were, except by Steadman, who saw each one, the big bold woman, the sidling blonde, the dark foxfaced woman with searching hands who had crept over and stroked him, announcing herself when he had arrived. She was small — smaller than Ava — and she had touched him without Ava’s knowing. And she was back, on the lawn, grazing him again with her hand, her heart beating like mad as she moved quickly away.

Sunset had come fast, a deepening shadow in the sky, a dampness of light dew gathering on the grass. Being touched, in his memory, was like being brushed by the low boughs of leaning trees, by the leaves of bushes next to the path, tumbled thickets and groves growing at the edge of the bluff, its sea grass and sand still holding the dry hum of the day’s heat.

And with the darkness, the smoke-stink of flares and torches was more apparent — orangy flames, flat and ragged, on head-high bamboo poles jammed into the ground.

“Down this way!” Wolfbein called out. Looking like a cop in traffic, one arm raised, he directed the guests toward the narrow stony path where, in the flapping light of the kerosene torches, handsome young men in white shirts, employees of the catering company, as orderly and solemn as soldiers, escorted people along the path to the lip of the bluff, where a flight of steps led down to the beach.

“I’m all right,” Steadman said when one of the young men reached for him.

Steadman tapped his stick on the wooden treads and looked down, deliberately holding up the other guests, who paused and watched the blind man’s slow descent, talking as he stepped slowly.

“Nobska lighthouse,” he said, waving his stick at the flickering light across the Sound. Then he looked down. “Checkered tablecloths. Lots of tables. Lanterns. Crimson lobsters stacked on seaweed. A washtub of steamed clams. Buckets of corn. A tureen of chowder. A basin of chopped salad greens. More torches. And the water lapping the table legs.”