Paul Theroux - Blinding Light

“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.”