Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

Silenced by Steadman’s talk, the cab driver began to frown, as though he were being mocked.

“Stop here. We’ll walk.”

“You said Quincy Market.”

“But you’re not moving. The Union Oyster House is on a one-way street. It’s quicker to walk.”

Then he was out of the car and Ava was paying the fare. The driver was nodding at the side mirror and saying, “Where’s the fire?” Steadman had hurried ahead, and when Ava caught up with him he was striding, slashing his cane at the sidewalk.

“Why are you doing this?”

He didn’t answer, he walked ahead of her, whipping his cane, scattering the other strollers, who, noticing that he was blind, seemed to regard him with a mixture of fear and awe. Farther on, he reached toward the bow window of the Union Oyster House and felt along the single panes, the thick cracked paint, and tapped his way into the entrance.

A man and woman leaving the restaurant stepped back at the sight of this tall blind man — dark glasses, one arm outstretched, the other swishing a white cane, digging its ferrule into the threshold. A young waiter swept by him and bowed, almost genuflected, and said, “Right this way, sir.” Steadman followed the ingratiating voice to a side booth. A dangerous-looking man was always “sir.”

Ava was sliding into the seat as Steadman said, “Too near the bar.”

“The bar is empty, sir.”

“I don’t want all those stools and bottles in my face.”

The waiter was probably thinking, But you’re blind!

“What about there?” Steadman’s white cane swung like a compass needle to indicate an empty table.

“Reserved, I’m afraid.”

Steadman peered at him and said, “Has it escaped your notice that I’m blind?”

“I think we can accommodate you, sir,” the young man said, clearing two of the four place settings from the table in a clatter of silverware. “I’m Kevin. I’ll be your waiter today. May I offer you a cocktail?”

Ava was tense, silent, fearful of what Steadman might say next, for he had an unsettling habit of joshing waiters, being amiable and ironic and overfriendly, which was worse than being stern, for it threw them off and sometimes insulted them. But he tapped the menu without looking at it.

“No cocktails,” he said. “I’ll have a dozen oysters and a bowl of chowder.”

“The lobster chowder is my personal favorite.”

“Then why don’t you order it, Kevin? I’m having the clam chowder.”

Ava said, “Lobster salad and a glass of iced tea,” and when the waiter had gone, “Slade, I wish you would calm down.”

“I’m blind. I’m in another world from you. Maybe you shouldn’t have come.”

She considered this. It was true that he had noticed things she had missed, but he seemed not to notice much that was obvious. He was especially sensitive to textures, odors, and voices.

“I hate it when people talk on cell phones in restaurants.”

After scanning the room, Ava finally located a man holding a cell phone to his ear at a far table; but she could not hear him.

“And those people in that booth are whispering about me.”

As soon as the oysters on the half shell were served, Steadman ran his fingers around the plate, counting the shells, and without hesitating selected the bottle of Tabasco sauce from the cluster of condiments and sauces at the side of the table. He shook drops on each oyster and then, squeezing a lemon wedge, passed it over the plate in a circular motion. His hands, held high, fussing a little, exaggerated the act, calling attention — and it was true, those women in the nearby booth (how did he know they were in a booth?) were whispering and commenting on Steadman’s precise gestures.

“You’re showing off,” Ava said.

“I’m in Boston.”

“I like you better at home.”

“Do you really?”

He could tell she was trying to humor him. She ate quickly and nervously, feeling observed, apprehensive because of Steadman’s impulsive behavior. His blindness made him an extrovert, excited him, gave him a look of stealth and adroitness. He glided like an animal with night vision, even sniffed and held his head like a hypersensitive animal. Blindness sharpened his senses, but it also seemed to change his manner of walking and moving. He had a clear recollection of seeing a Secoya man emerge from the jungle on the banks of the Aguarico and thinking: I have never seen a man walk like that. Then, he had not been able to say what made the man’s walk so unusual, but now he knew it was a gait of total alertness.

Hurrying from the cab to the restaurant, Steadman had had a similar skating walk, though his posture was straighter — his blind gestures were less tentative, more assertive and fluid, his gaze steadier and more intense, his head angled to hear better, for his eyes were empty. He seemed to see with his face, his lips, the surface of his skin, his fingertips, receiving pulses from the air.

“I’ve never been to Boston as a blind man.”

He hated Ava’s taunt—“showing off”—as though he needed to perform! He could see her so clearly now with his tongue, with his teeth, with his forehead, with his nose.

“The city’s the same,” she said.

“It’s different for me. I see more, so I’m responding differently. Why are you making me say this? I hate to explain things. It smells of building in progress — the stink of destruction, diesel oil and pulverized cement. All that and the discontent of tourists, the way they prowl, so uncertain. Most of them are lost. This restaurant, filled with strangers. It’s disconcerting. Because I’m not lost.”

“We should have taken a later plane. Your appointment isn’t until two.”

“I like having the spare time. You’re in a different city from me at the moment,” he said. “You’re sleepwalking.”

“See what I mean? Bullshit.”

“I am fully awake.”

“You’re wired.”

“Because of all the talk. I hear too much. Blindness bothers bystanders. They want to help, they don’t know how, they’re worried I’ll fall on my face. I heard someone say, ‘Look at that blind man, how fast he’s walking.’”

“I think you were doing it on purpose.”

That was partly true, he knew, but he objected to the onlookers because they gaped without any comprehension; did not know enough, didn’t see how clever he was. He wanted to be noticed, perhaps feared, or at least be seen as someone powerful. He felt deserving of praise, not pity; he saw more than any of them.

Ava said, “I think you’re secretly enjoying yourself.”

“I went to school in this city,” he said. “Scollay Square and the Old Howard used to be right up the street. Burlesque, strip shows, Irish saloons. Two streets away from here at the market I remember horses and pushcarts and vegetable sellers. My father used to take me, not for local color but to buy fresh fish.” He moved his plate away. “Fresher than this.”

“You’ve got two oysters left.”

“Bad ones.”

“They look all right.”

“That’s the trouble. But they’re poison.” He turned aside, for the waiter had appeared with the dessert menu and he knew the man had heard his last words. He pointed to the plate and said, “They’re dead. Give them a decent burial.”

After lunch, with an hour more to kill and Steadman still restless, inquisitive, needing to move, they crossed City Hall Plaza to Cambridge Street—“It’s heartless. It’s a cheat. It’s a stage set”—and walked all the way to Charles. They passed the turnoff to the Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary, threading their way among the taxis and ambulances and waiting people — some of the people looking damaged and newly mended, with bright white bandages taped over their eyes. Steadman hurried ahead of her.